Games Since October

One of the free November games is called Burly Men At Sea, which features a branching story with 4 major choices that can be be completed in about 20 minutes per cycle. There isn't really much to do besides read how the story changes. I'm guessing it's based on Nordic folktales, but the presentation is minimal, unique and overall pleasant. Even the audio effects are some dude making sounds into the mic. 3-hour Platinum GET!

While we're outside my usual genres, I got my hands on an old favorite: Lumines Remastered. In this game you match tiles to the rhythm of a flow of levels. Each level has its own music and rhythm of the sweep that clears your blocks. It's visually and aurally amazing, and one of those games where the music will put you in a trance and muscle memory and quick reactions will keep your sessions longer than you might have planned.

Picture Mode was fun!

Next up was a rental of my second favorite Uncharted after the second game: The Lost Legacy. This episode features Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross, one treasure hunter and mercenary who kick ass and take names. The game has your signature Uncharted stuff: gorgeous scenery, lifelike characters, ridiculous climbing physics, and some anthropology and history along the way. You meet Chloe in the second Uncharted game, a good bad good thief who works her charms on Nathan Drake, and this game flushes her character out as a physically capable badass. You get to find out that she's mixed Indian and English, and that ends up playing into the storyline, as the antagonist makes a point about the prized artifact being for 'pure' bloods only. This of course blows up in his face cause racism sucks, but Chloe wasn't gonna let him get away with that shit anyway!

Nadine is from Uncharted 4, where she beats the snot out of Nate in a few fistfights before Sully buddies everyone up. The path to platinum is a little more than half as long as a usual Uncharted game, but I thought that was a good thing. As the 5th game in the series, I was ready for something short but sweet, since they're not about to drastically change the gameplay.

Also, shoutout to Naughty Dog (developer) for the accessibility options in this game. I'm a fan of turning button presses to hold for the quick-time events.

 Last but not least is a game that was gnawing at me for the last few weeks since I'd returned the rental: Dead Cells. The longing got the best of me and I ended up buying it. It's one of those games with procedurally-generated levels and progress is made by unlocking access to certain items spawning and certain permanent abilities unlocking each run. One life can last a few minutes, or if you git gud, one life can take you through to the end boss in about an hour. But you will die. So. Much. The gameplay is fast-paced, and you can strategize your approach: throughout the levels you find scrolls that upgrade 1 of 3 stats that affect: melee damage, ranged damage, or defense. The level of each stat makes that weapon do more damage, and you get a % of health with each scroll found, but the enemies also get more difficult. There are a few no-damage trophies as well as beating this game on the hardest difficulty, which would make this game probably a 9 or 10/10 for difficulty, but it's so fun to try.

Also, until Thanksgiving is a quietly huge sale on most of Square Enix's titles from the last 5 years on the Platstation Store. If you like RPGs, head over and get you some! The sale is for everyone, not just PS+ members.

Spend less green, BE more green!

If you're outside of Washington State, you might not know that we had a carbon fee initiative that failed to pass on Election Day 2018. Regardless of how you vote(d), I think being environmentally friendly is something most people can get behind. This is where some frugality practices can help you minimize your carbon footprint. I'm going to limit these suggestions to my own habits that I currently practice.

(By Kevin Schoenmakers) This lady figured it out!

Let's start with a seasonal favorite: hot beverages. They double as hand warmers! If you've been here before, you'll know what's coming. Make. That. Shit. Yourself! Hot beverages are super easy to make. They're tastier than cold beverages by default because they're not dulling your tongue! Milk, some kind of sweetener (honey, sugar, maple syrup), and a flavoring (cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, vanilla). I get the hand warmer part, but folks are going to that place with the green mermaid/Statue-of-Liberty-ripoff and spending $4 a pop! You can raid your pantry for the makings of a hot beverage. For $.50 a cup, you can drink some of the finest coffee available to the middle class if you make it yourself. I alternate between LaVazza (more like $0.20 a cup) and Kirkland Signature (which is Starbucks, minus the label. $0.11 per cup).

A trip to the cafe or McDonalds means you've commissioned TWO people to do the work of one, albeit amazingly efficiently. However that wad of napkins and fistful of sauce packets you throw away every spring is just plain irresponsible. Sit-down restaurant? The host, the waiter, the cook and the busser. I completely understand the convenience of having an expert prepare your food, but another way to shrink your carbon footprint is to cook for yourself. Or invest in some great pre-assembled entrees. Either way, you're going to create less waste, spend less green and likely eat healthier.

No recipe needed. Seriously.

In addition to cooking for yourself, eat oats and vegetables! Actually, for the last month, I've added 3 cans of different beans, some dry lentils and sausages into a crockpot. For about $4 of ingredients, I get lunch for 4 days. A friend of mine who has a high-paying job as a software engineer still lives frugally. Once a month he buys two big ass bags of rice and lentils that works out to something ridiculous like $0.10 per meal, except on those decadent days where he adds an egg, skyrocketing the cost to $0.40 per meal. Washington Post gives a chart on just how much of a reduction of greenhouse gases you make if you choose veggies over beef! Of course, frugal people like ourselves opt for chicken, pork and tofu anyway.

It hurts to dryyyyy...

I am one of those weirdos who uses his dishwasher as a drying rack and hand washes everything. Green. I also air-dry my laundry. In addition to living in Asia where that's till normal, a 25-year-old me once saw a friend's gorgeous blue dress that I thought was brand new. Turns out she'd had it for 10 years and just doesn't use a dryer. The only drawback of hang drying is crusty towels that don't get fluffed by the dryer. There are also weeks where it's just too damn cold and humid so I concede to the machine.

Public transportation. Use it. Be green. Airport run? Take the light rail. Read a borrowed book from the library or read this blog on your phone instead of being accident-fodder!

One of the stats is that skipping beef once a week is equivalent to switching 12 incandescent light bulbs to LED, which is the first thing I did when I moved in August. If you live in Washington State, LED bulbs are subsidized and you can get ~20 bright-as-day bulbs for $15 at your hardware stores (significantly cheaper than buying online, where the store likely can't pass along the discount.)

Recycling is pretty obvious, and buying secondhand accomplishes a few things: it generally avoids wasteful packaging, it proves the item itself is durable enough to survive the first owner, and you aren't economically supporting the manufacturer (if you have ethical issues with them.) Full disclosure: I struggle with this because as much as I love to save money, my favorite game developers miss out on my cash when I buy their games used.

Just because the law doesn't (yet) push you to be green doesn't mean you can't be green yourselves! All of these require more time than simply paying for the various services that most others use everyday. One thing that shocks me is how much time I spend washing dishes for just me and my wife. We clear the sink after every meal and still spend a good 20 minutes on weekend days cleaning dishes. Air drying laundry means your skivvies won't be ready for up to 2 days. Making your own coffee robs you of 2 precious minutes, but the way I see it, you can do these things yourself, or you could earn the income to pay someone else to do it: you're investing time and energy regardless.