November is Rapidly Approaching!

And I am nowhere near ready. I just had a look at what goals I’d set myself for the month and hoo-boy. I guess I can say right now though that the finish Control goal simply isn’t happening. Not without my 3080. I had specifically set aside the DLC for playing through with all the RTX bells and whistles, so I’ll give myself a pass on that one.

The other goal I’d set though was to get the next part of Anddul, the blogger city, played and posted. And I don’t really have too much of an excuse for not doing that one yet. Sure, we’ve had some injury-drama but that hasn’t annihilated all gaming or posting time. And frankly, from a PC perspective — the CPU and RAM upgrade of the new machine has far more to say about the performance of Cities: Skylines than the video card does.

I can still meet this goal though, I think. Worst case, I have until Saturday this week to get it done. I already know what the major theme of the post will be too.

Traffic.

I am going to rip-out some of the National roads and replace them with proper highways which allow you better control over the flow of traffic. The National road leading into the original sections of the city can possibly remain, but otherwise- ripping it out!

That starter roundabout you can see in the screenshot above needs to go for sure. You can see there the traffic build-up occurring.

Likely ripping out the existing infrastructure and replacing it will take most of the post, but we’ll see how it goes. :)

Otherwise though, also November brings with it the Five Game Challenge.

I both am and am not looking forward to taking on the challenge again. A sense of excited trepidation, as it were.

I’ve had any number of instances of feeling I should have changed one of my current picks for something else. But I think most if not all of those thoughts have been about this particular November-long run, rather than picks I should’ve done when attempting to select for an entire year.

The main one I’ve been more on the fence about is Cities: Skylines. I acknowledged that would be a hard thing to drop during this year’s post but then consciously made the decision not to drop anything out for it.

As I went into more detail on with last years post — when we’re talking only five games over a period like a year, it’s important to me that a range of genres and game types get covered. Not every genre and style can be covered in just five games so the goal is to get as broad a spectrum as possible.

And therein lies some of the problem. RimWorld and Cities: Skylines don’t perfectly replicate the same style of play. But they’re close enough that it would be difficult to warrant moving anything else out if I really want to fit Cities in.

So the only question is — while thinking about this in the context of a year-long endeavour (not just the month I’ll actually be doing) — did I make the right choice?

Frustratingly, I don’t know! So I’ll keep with it for now and come back and revisit this feeling after November is done.

If you’d like to have this sort of worry for yourself — it’s not too late to consider joining in the fun! ;) I put more details here, but the short of it is… Pick five games as if you were going to be forced to play those and only those for an entire year. Talk us through your thinking and considerations for making the picks.

Then in November, play those games only and (optionally) post each day. :)