GENERAL UPDATE, HOBBIES, SERIES, GAMES

An October miscellanea update

Having lost the blogging “touch” many years ago (lookin’ at you: xanga, livejournal, posterous, tumblr, and more) I find it hard sometimes to write blog posts that are more general and not about specific topics! But here we go~

🌱 Life Updates

The big news is that earlier this month, I left my post at Obsidian Entertainment, and at the end of this month, I will join Phoenix Labs as a UX designer working on Dauntless :) I’ll miss my Obsidian crew, but I’m so excited about this next chapter! Games as a live service is a new and interesting space for me, and on top of that I’ll be getting a chance to work with one of my amazing former teammates from Riot and a team of deeply rad people.

📺 Watching

Earlier in September, my wife and I finished watching Empresses in the Palace (The Legend of Zhen Huan), a 76-episode Chinese drama from 2011 about a girl who enters as a concubine into the Forbidden City during the Qing Dynasty. Same old palace drama plot, you say? Let me tell you – this show, which is not even completely translated in English as of yet, was a straight up beast. It had us on the edges of our seats up to the very last episode, and it may be the best thing I’ve watched on TV. Ever. GOOD NIGHT! 🛌

This week we also finished watching a miniseries from Julian Fellowes called Belgravia. A bit formulaic at times, containing a simplified treatment of colonialism and questionably one-sided depictions of the working class… but (lol)! Enjoyable and excellent acting all around. I loved that the main character was a middle-aged woman who is staid and tired and full of regret – that was cool.

🎵 Listening

I’ve rediscovered Enya, y’all. My wife and I reminisced recently about the soothing magical energy ~* of Enya from our childhoods and I’ve since found it again. Started re-listening to her early albums and every track is such a bop. Damn. Time to listen to her rarities and b-sides too haha.

Thanks to my friend S, I’ve discovered a Korean indie band called Dabda. They have a super chill mathrocky vibe with girl vox. Eminently listenable and lots to love.

Hum released their first new album, Inlet, in 20+ years. What?! WHAT!!! Very fuzzy, spacey, sludgy, and bright. Very good. ✨

🎲 Playing

Lately I’ve been pretty busy and mostly wanting to just chill out with more passive activities lolsob. However, I have made time for a few games!

  • My wife and I are revisiting Legacy of Dragonholt a tabletop-RPG-in-a-box that we started a couple of years ago but never finished! We’ve rolled new characters and are enjoying this low upkeep gm-less narrative adventure game on the weekends :)
  • Crusader Kings 3 has occupied a lot of my mental space, despite me only sitting down to play it a handful of times (for hours admittedly ha). I’m a huge fan of CK2 and to see how the devs have expanded on its systems and improved its UI is impressive. It’s also just as wacky as I love it to be <3
  • A couple of games from Mihoyo: Honkai Impact 3rd, a mobile game which has blown me away with its polish and accessible gameplay. And Genshin Impact of course! Unfortunately Genshin Impact suffers from a truly cursed gamepad layout (i.e. Japanese-style button layout with East button confirm and South button cancel… 🙃) that makes it nigh unplayable for me. Hopefully a patch comes along soon~
  • Dauntless of course has finally crossed my radar :) I’ve only just gotten my feet wet in the game and I’m exploring the basics as any bb slayer might and taking lots of notes haha.
  • Also I’ve been thinking a lot about the Mega Man Battle Network series and considering doing a revisit, since I only played the first 2 games. Years later, its combat system is still to die for.

And that’s about it! I’ll have more to report at the end of the month (who knows, maybe another RSI update haha).