Time to Loot Journal: July 2020
July is over. August is here! Normally — it would be the time of Blaugust. And it still is, in a manner of speaking, but we also did classic Blaugust earlier in the year as Blapril. So rather than a repeat, Blaugust this year is a Promptapalooza! And Belghast has already kicked us off with the first post on what he would change within his fandom of choice — gaming.
If you’re looking for the classic Blaugust experience — you can still have that, with the added bonus of a prompt each and every day.
I am participating — but not every day. I just… don’t feel mentally up for it at the moment. My day is the 20th August — I might jump onto some of the other prompts as we role through the month too, but we’ll see how it goes!
Gaming Goals
July’s Goals
- Build a Blogger Community City in Cities: Skylines
Specifically, to count this goal ‘achieved’ I stated the need to have hit a milestone with ‘city’ in the title.
I didn’t quite get there despite a rally later in the month. About 500 population off the target of ‘Small City’. D’oh. Missing the target came down to largely the huge gap between Part 3 (July 8th) and Part 4 (July 25th). Part of that gap was of course going away on holiday. But I was back home by the 19th, so could’ve got another one in there.
Not to worry though. For all the issues I’ve had with motivation of late it doesn’t worry me as much as it once did. And I think it isn’t solely a motivation too. There is a portion of legitimate exhaustion to it too — just from the pressures of work and the loads being expected from there at the moment. Some fairly pivotal presentations to leadership coming up soon. Eep!
Anywho, for August?
August’s Goals
- Build a Blogger Community City in Cities: Skylines
Specifically, to count this goal ‘achieved’ I stated the need to have hit a milestone with ‘city’ in the title. - Play more Death Stranding!
Ok, not a terribly specific goal. But I think that’s OK for now. Maybe another two acts? (Although I don’t have any idea if they vary wildly in length, they might!) Hmm. Perhaps I’ll just aim to — at a minimum — double the length of time I currently have the game. That shouldn’t be hard as it’s only 4 hours or so!
Games Played in July
| Rank | Game | Hours | % Gaming Time |
| 1 | Cities: Skylines | 7.2 | 22.8% |
| 2 | Death Stranding | 4.0 | 12.8% |
| 3 | Bloons TD6 | 2.7 | 8.6% |
| 4 | No Man’s Sky | 2.3 | 7.3% |
| 5 | Lost Ark | 2.2 | 7.1% |
| 6 | UnderMine | 2.1 | 6.6% |
| 7 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 2.0 | 6.2% |
| 8 | Gunfire Reborn | 2.0 | 6.2% |
| 9 | Heroes of Hammerwatch | 1.8 | 5.8% |
| 10 | Civilisation VI | 1.7 | 5.4% |
| 11 | Kingdom Rush: Origins | 1.6 | 5.0% |
| 12 | Avorion | 1.1 | 3.6% |
| 13 | Last Epoch | 0.9 | 2.7% |
I’ve cut one game from this list — Soda Dungeon 2. I cut it because it’s an idle game usually running the background, but there have been a number of times where I’ve clearly forgotten to click it out of focus and ManicTime therefore dutifully continued counting up the hours on it overnight or whathaveyou.
Leaving it in would have added another 26 hours or so tracked when those hours were more accurately tracked as either sleeping or watching a show on Netflix. Hehe.
In any event — from the above? 31.5 hours of gaming the second lowest it has been since tracking. The lowest was back in May 2019 when there was the worry of job restructures and the like and needing to let some of the team go. Nothing quite like that this time around fortunately. Just the general tiredness and workload as mentioned earlier.
I think that fact is reflected not only in the lower overall time spent gaming (as opposed to more passive pursuits, such as reading or show watching) but also in the array of games played. The two ‘eclectic’ gaming posts which cover everything above asides from Cities: Skylines and Civilisation VI just go to show my focus was never able to rest on any one thing for too long or too intently, and even the excitement felt for finally getting my hands on Death Stranding was inadequate to push through that just yet.
The push upwards in overall Computer Time I think will be a mix of additional show watching, but also the odd overnight with Soda Dungeon 2 running.
The Blog
10 posts published in July — no change from June. Up at Six…ish ended up being the 300th published post here. I didn’t notice at the time, but yay! I think with the new, lower rate of posting and without participating in an every-day version of Blaugust I think 400 will be sometime in the New Year but I’m OK with that and just seeing how things go.
Perhaps when the pressures at work ease up, I’ll find my old rhythm again.
For now! 303 published posts in total (including this one).
Most Viewed Posts
- Deep Rock Galactic: The Solo Experience
- Humble Choice: July 2020
- Transport Fever: Things I Wish I Knew When I Started
- Succession Games / Long Live the Queen — Gilgamesh Had it Coming (Turns 241-250)
- Remnant vs. Dark Souls
Nothing too surprising here except the rise of the Remnant vs. Dark Souls post. Potentially related to the announcement of the new (and final!) expansion DLC coming later in August?
Not sure!
Although I will say on a tangental note that I am quite excited to see how this DLC turns out. I was a little disappointed by the last DLC outing, so here’s to hoping this one — with more of a campaign and story focus — can redeem things somewhat.
