game blurbs

The Steam platform tells me that I've played only 20 hours of games for the last 2 weeks. That's a small amount, for me. Higher numbers are a better indicator of my mental health. During summer gardening season, it usually drops, but I've been indoors because of bad air this season. Anyway...

No Man's Sky released another expedition. I completed it in less than 10 hours, which makes this expedition one of the shorter versions they've done. It has a nice story to it, though. Your character helps to create a new artificial lifeform. The leader called Nada (itself an artificial life form), who runs the spaceship that players use for refuge, comments nicely on this event: "Our home is a lifeboat, Traveller-Entity. Nada will welcome one more." As I said on my Steam upload of this photo, "Life is good when you have infinite resources to share across infinite realities, led by a kind soul."

Oxygen Not Included has item "unlocks" in their new supply closet. You unlock 3 more items each week when you play the game. Unlocks usually are generated randomly. I don't know if it occurred because of Pride month, but I happened to unlock the Rainbow wallpaper pattern the first time I played in June. I can use this item to decorate the rooms in my bases. It's a nice, subtle addition, if it really was intended for Pride month.

Ships That Fight Underground (yes, STFU) will arrive sometime this year. I originally Kickstarted this game back in 2015. They had some legal trouble with the intended "Descent: Underground" game name and license. They posted about it a few months ago, and supposedly they are back on track now using their original temporary game name instead. This game's other claim to fame is that it grew from developers who left Star Citizen, another Kickstarter game that I funded back in 2012, and it still hasn't published yet either.

Baldur's Gate 3 is due in about 5 more weeks. I've played the beta occasionally for the last 3 (that long?) years. I've avoided it except when they asked for people to test new features, so I've put 100 testing hours into it over those 3 years. I'm looking forward to a proper playthrough.

Cities: Skylines 2 is due in October. I'm looking forward to it too. Now that I have income, I've already pre-ordered my standard edition copy.