Time to Loot Journal: May 2022

I’m a little late on this one. But! I did get a little gaming done. Or perhaps a lot? Really, it depends on how you measure it. The number of hours played? Very little. Less than last month even. The number of games played? Quite a bit! Well… Maybe still less than ‘normal’ but it was pretty nice getting that variety in and taste-testing a few different things in amongst the drama of life.

Of which, there has certainly been no shortage.

Mum is home from the hospital and definitely doing better than before her stay. I remain unconvinced that she should be at home alone during the day but I must say, she has done a heck of a lot better than I thought would be the case. So we’ll see how that goes over the next little while. In the meantime, my siblings and I are back to where things started for the most part, taking one night in three helping Mum in the evenings. At the very least though, the fact the pain is a bit better managed and there is some mobility equipment in the house has made a difference.

Then… THEN! Work decided it was time for a restructure with a headcount reduction attached within our chapter. So there has been a lot of time spent settling the nerves of my team as much as is possible when it is made clear and certain some of them will shortly no longer be employed.

So certainly another one of those months where gaming is a most welcome escape when I have the energy to do it!

Looking Back

One Year Ago

• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition became the first AAA title to require an RTX-capable graphics card. But more significantly, it also became the first to prove in any significant fashion that RTX rendering could be done in a performant manner while still looking absolutely breathtaking along the way.

Two Years Ago

• Discord is without a doubt my preferred social tool. But it isn’t without issues, namely; it can easily become overwhelming and feel like it’s more trouble than it’s worth to engage with. So! I wrote a guide to managing that. Advice I still follow myself to this day.
• I kicked off the ‘Too the Moon’ Play-Along — the kick-off taking the form of two posts. One here, the other over here. I loved playing this game with everyone and the discussions that resulted. I had at one stage planned on following this up with a play-along of the sequel (Finding Paradise) but ended up letting it slide. Perhaps one day I’ll dust off the idea. :)

Gaming Goals

Nope!

I didn’t set myself any last month, nor do I intend to this month.

Games Played May 2022

This month’s selection was quite the mix! Some I bought quite a while ago, some from recent Humble Choice bundles, others still I bought specifically to scratch that itch for something new.

There were other things — such as the release of Hardspace: Shipbreaker out of early access. It’s one I’ve pottered around in the past during early access and always wanted to come back when it was further along.

Then, next month¹, we get the expansion for Outriders! Any other time of my life, I’d almost assuredly spend a great portion of time in this one. … … That probably won’t be the case now, but I’m still going to get it and see what I can do. :)

20.1 hours of gaming this month. Lowest. Ever. Ever. Or at least ‘ever’ for the past three years since I’ve started tracking these stats.

Look, here’s a more full version! Been a while since I pulled this one up.

Books Read May 2022

The Girl and the Moon (Book of the Ice #3) deserves more of a review than I’m going to give it. The series as a whole does too, really. Mark Lawrence has, after in my opinion a rather shaky start with his first series, clambered rapidly up my list of favourite fantasy authors. In fact, simply classifying his works as ‘fantasy’ is likely to do him a fairly severe disservice. Although to say more? Possibly something of a spoiler!

I don’t know what Lawrence’s next series will be or where it will be set — but I’m there for it. The ending of this series and the way it entwined with the other series set in the same world was beyond belief in how good it was. For better or worse a whole new bar has been set in my mind for how a series should be finished.

Since finishing The Girl and the Moon, I’ve jumped back into Salvation (Salvation Sequence #1) by Peter F. Hamilton; one I’d put aside after not quite getting on with it initially. I’m perhaps 50% of the way through now and it has certainly picked up. That said — assuming it continues at about this level of engagement — I’ll still probably jump ship toward another series after I’m done with this book… Probably. I don’t really like abandoning series before I’m done with them. Buuuut… I do also have the recommendation from Hannah of Malice (The Faithful and the Fallen #1) by John Gwynne to check out.

The Blog

I mean… The blog is still here. It is maintaining a rather slow heartbeat at the moment with another 2 posts published over the course of the month. I feel like this is probably the new normal for the foreseeable future. It would be nice to think I might still be able to do Blaugust if that goes ahead again this year — but I’m not certain that’ll be the case yet.

Most Viewed Posts

1. Transport Fever: Things I Wish I Knew When I Started
2. The Variable Difficulty of Lost Ark Abyss Dungeons
3. Book Review: King of Ashes by Raymond E. Feist
4. Deep Rock Galactic: The Solo Experience
5. Time to Loot Journal: April 2022

I was initially surprised by King of Ashes popping up as one of the top viewed this month, until I realised that we weren’t very far off Master of Furies, the third book in the series, releasing. We get it July 5th! So if by then, I’m still grinding my way through Salvation, I might jump ship to this.

1. Well… This month now.