Tunic on the Nintendo Switch.

Explore a land filled with lost legends, ancient powers, and ferocious monsters in TUNIC, an isometric action game about a small fox on a big adventure. Stranded in a ruined land, and armed with only your own curiosity, you will confront colossal beasts, collect strange and powerful items, and unravel long-lost secrets.  

This game, wasn't even on my radar until someone mentioned it in a podcast back in March. I remember this because I was traversing my way through the dangerous city of Chicago. I was trying to get to the hotel where the convention I was attending was being held at. 

I added it to my PlayStation 5 wishlist, it wasn't even listed in the eShop, at the time. Fast forward to the end of the last month, the game is available on the eShop, and the switch being my preferred gaming console for these games, well, I got it on the system over the PS5. The game had been out I think six months prior on macOS, PC, and Xbox, but it wasn't until six months later that made it to the PlayStation and Switch.

Still, I had heard very little about this game. I heard it was a combination of a Zelda-like game and a Souls-like game. By this premise alone, I should have stayed away from this game, in theory. Why? Well, I suck at souls-like games, and yet I guess I'm a sucker for punishment because I buy them anyways, and I no longer have the patience for unguided exploring games like Zelda.

Tunic is an action-adventure game and right off the bat you can tell, it is very Zelda-like, especially the earlier ones. You are a fox and you wake up in this strange world with, gain, very little guidance on what you need to do. From what I have gathered so far, you battle your way through it, you must find and ring a number of bells and find some "gears" that should end up in a central place. Just like Souls games, there is very little or nonexistent back story presented, you must unravel the mystery as you go. Enemies can be a little unforgiving, or so I was told. If you die you respawn at your last save point, and you lose some currency and such, just as expected in a souls-like game.

You have stamina and mana, as well as your health. You can upgrade your stats, although that is not well explained in the game. There, is literally very, very little guidance and lots of explanation in this game, however, I can't stop playing it.

What is amazing about this game are the accessibility options, it has a No Fail Mode, No Stamina Restrictions, and Reduced Combat Difficultry. Well, guess what? I have all turned on! No shame, No ragrets! So to me, the combat isn't frustration, if any, it would be my own impatience. But it's fun to just turn on the Switch and just go to town exploring and see what things I can do, which paths I haven't explored, you know just fox around with my sword. And believe there are lots of secret paths and secrets in general in this game.

I have gotta say, even though I had no idea what is going on, no guidance whatsoever. I'm clueless about what I am supposed to do, and yet I am having a good time. The game is charming and beautiful, the music is great, and I even have the soundtrack on rotation because it is that nice.

To respect the identity and privacy of the subjects, I’m going to refer to them as child number 1 and child number 2 😉. Number 1 being the oldest.

Childs one and two are plying, as they do, there’s laughter, all of a sudden, no more laughter but crying. Child number 1 comes out of the bathroom crying and complaining, touching her stomach.

Turns out, child number 2 had, allegedly, jumped on her. After some serious scrutiny and interrogation, we got a somewhat picture of what happened. Child number 2 apologizes to child number 1, and all is good, ish.

Child number 1 still complains about serious pain, her tummy, and diaphragm area. I asked if it hurt enough to got to the doctor, child number 1 says, yes.

To the urgent care we go. After some waiting, lady doctor comes into the room. She asks child number 1 a few questions, and examines her. Luckily, there was no bruising, nothing felt loosened or improper. Lady doctor says there’s no concern for anything being broken, that child number 1 is just, tender, and sore. Rest and pain medicine should do the trick, but obviously be on the lookout if anything develops in the next day or so.

In conclusion, child number 1 and number 2, will be the end of me.

There’s a Porsche car show in town today, which they do every year. I was very excited about attending and snap a couple of photos. But, for whatever reason, I found myself uninspired. I guess when there’s too many of the same thing, it’s hard to see something unique. I did find a couple of cars that did catch my eye, but when it came to the photography part of it, I didn’t have the “eye”. I probably took like 8 pictures and most likely one will be cool enough, to me.

I’m a little bombed by that, I had been waiting all week for it and then, meh!

Oh well, it happens, I guess

Yesterday I was having a conversation about subscriptions, in a super-secret iMessage chat, that made me reconsider and look at every subscription I currently have. Mostly the ones through the Appstore with most of them being annual subs.

My current active subs are;

Apple One (monthly) 29.95

CARROT Weather, Family (Tier 4) (yearly) 29.99

Audible (monthly) 15.99

Cascable (quarterly) 4.99

Drafts (yearly) 19.99

Glass (monthly) 4.99

Overcast (yearly) 9.99

Parcel (yearly) 4.99

Ulysses (yearly) now, 39.99

Up Ahead (yearly) 9.99

These are what have got left after canceling many others last night. Of the few remaining, I feel like I can weed some out even further.

Apple One, well, that's gonna stay, most likely. 

CARROT, I am considering dropping it, Apple's stock weather app has gotten slightly better, or just good enough for my particular needs.

Audible, I feel like I can definitely get by without it, as there are other ways perhaps to listen to Audiobooks. I need to look more into that.

Cascable, both Annie and I use it, to wirelessly transfer RAW files from our cameras to our devices. I believe there is a lifetime option so that might be worth it. I did the same with Darkroom, I just went for the lifetime option.

Overcast, I have had that one for so long that I can't tell what I would be losing if I went for the free tier.

Parcel, it's a fine app, it works and it's only 5 USD a year

Up Ahead, I really like the app, it clocked with me right away so at this point is more to support and try to keep it around.

Ulysses and Drafts, are two apps that in many ways, can or do the same. Yes, Ulysses has revision mode and can handle images better than Drafts could. But one is half the cost of the other one. This one is a thought one for me, for sure.

We shall see what happens.

Don't know if you noticed but there are no Twitter apps listed 🤪

Moonscars on the Nintendo Switch

Ugh! Another one.

Last night, like almost every night, I am browsing the newest releases section of the Nintendo eShop, it's almost like an addiction at this point and immediately saw the image above. And I went, "uh, what's that?", and that's all it took. I went in and looked at the images, and I was already hooked, then it dawned on me, "uh-oh, this is probably a souls-like". I watched the trailers and yup, definitely a souls-like.

"But it's so prettyyyyyyy!" (in a morbid way)

I am such a sucker for indie-souls-like games! Blasphemous, Eldest Souls, Morbid: The Seven Acolytes, ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights (which I actually played quite extensively) are a  few examples. Where three of them I barely played due to their difficulty, I may revisit in the future, who knows.

Why these games? Is it the darkness? Are their stories as vague as they may be? Perhaps, and most likely. There is also the pixel art style, the sprites, and the music. I am very attracted to these games, but I suck at them. Even for "AAA" games of the same genre, like Elden Ring, which I have purchased and I am so scared to play!

Again, I am a sucker and I will probably end up getting this game, and eventually, its physical copy if ever available.

Also, I understand that the game is currently somewhat broken, I believe is towards the end of the game, but the developers have identified the issues and there is a patch coming. That is good to know going in for sure.