Contrails: Apr '26, Week 3

Rollin' hoooome~ Rollin' hoooome~

Rollin' hoooome across the sea~

Rollin' hoooome to dear Tortuga...

Rollin' hooooome, dear land, to thee~ ⛵🎵

I'm still riding off the high from singing along to Windrose sea shanties over the weekend. Had to resist the urge to sing them like church hymns, ending on tension notes instead of resolving the melodies. 🤣🤣🤣

🎮 Gaming 🎮

Goodbye -- this is my life now. 🤣

I have a few themes that I like. One of them happens to be sailing during the Age of Exploration/ Discovery. There's something romantic about living during a time when uncertainty is the norm, I think. Things we take for granted/ devalue today could feel like miracles -- or great tragedies. But life keeps going, and there's nothing to do but to pick up the pieces and try again. Makes for a great survival game and story, doesn't it? 💜🤔🥹 So when I found Windrose during Steam Next Fest., I felt the same kind of excitement I felt when I first learned of Nightingale.

My honest thoughts about the game after playing it for whole week are:

1. I wish that the game was more punishing, pushing for more realism. That said, understanding the current norms and demands of games labeled as "Survival Craft", and from what Nightingale went through when Inflexion tried to present their vision of what living in a Fae realm might be like, I think Windrose has found a comfortable balance. When I used to play Unchartered Waters Online, your ship sinking meant exactly what you'd expect: You get washed ashore at a nearby port, with nothing but your clothes (can't remember if you get to save anything, but it sure felt like the game was over every time). The game was kind to allow you to always have a sail boat (or was it a row boat?) so that you are never soft-locked into poverty. 🤣🤣🤣 But that made progress precious: That sail boat you had at the start, that allowed you to rock across the seas, slowly bringing a handful of goods from city A to sell at city B... that moment when you've saved up enough money to buy your first ketch... your first crew member... your first frigate... and that time you had to return to your good old ketch because you lost that expensive ship you'd spent all your savings on to pirates... It was a long, painful game, but I remember it fondly. So when I hear my friends comment about having more QoL improvements to Windrose, I look at Echo's back as he quietly waits to hit land, and think, "Life is good." 💖

2. Land combat is engaging and makes sense. There is weight to movement (unlike Enshrouded, imo), and the game is forgiving with the large parry (perfect block) window, reasonably accurate hit boxes, and separating stamina from blocking ability so that there is always a way out if you plan and practice. I still died many times because the combat is souls-like inspired, and I'm not one for over-leveling to trivialize fights (that said, your EXP gain is limited by objectives that cannot be repeated). So I felt challenged to practice and improve. "Oh man! Oh well," I thought many times. 🤣🤔

3. Multiplayer scaling is good. Arguably, I was playing with friends who were of vastly different game progression points, so the difficulty of the fight depended on who arrived/ opened fire first. My general play-style for all games is to observe and look for opportunities to strike (or to bail if I have no idea how to secure victory), so I was glad to learn that multi-target combat encounters like boarding (fighting on an enemy ship) could still be completed slowly if I took a step back and picked my targets rather than to charge into cluster f***s.

4. Atmospheric sounds really helped with immersion. Disclaimer: I play with BGM at ~10%. I liked how sunny mornings felt peaceful, and thunderstorms were REALLY oppressive. I knew the devs. did a good job when I found myself thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't have set sail in the middle of a thunderstorm." That said, weather doesn't add difficulty to the game, so I consider the level of immersion well balanced!

Would highly recommend this game! I think it's not everyone's cup of tea: For example, I think people who like feeling over-powered/ power-creep/ amassing power would probably find themselves rushing through objectives to level up and progress the game, and probably be left thinking, "That's it?" when they've picked up all there is to gain. But I think this game has a good variety of experiences, and the visual quality to match, so anyone who tries it would be in for a unique experience!

I'm a sucker for a beautiful sky, even on days mist and scattering turns it into a blur. 💜

Besides Windrose, I also dabbled a little in other games!

1. Like Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity: Original Sin was there to keep me company when I needed it, but has now been shoved into the depths of my game library. 🤣🤣🤣

2. Helped friends with FFXIV Endwalker EX trial mount farming! We're done for now. because I'm not sure if I'd join for farming Dawntrail mounts. 🤔 Maybe if they secure a full party?

3. Played the Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds festival... for the crossover with Angry Birds. =3= I did it for the Donpa tickets because the special rewards were so ugly.💔

I wonder how much gaming I will get to do this week. 🥺💜

🎞️ Projects 🎞️

Managed to finish editing my vocals for my last cover in a long time, and submitted it for mixing! ⭐️

Somehow, I feel liberated. Maybe the expectations I had for myself with regards to "content creation" weighed down on me a lot more than I expected.

~💜~

Hopes for this week

♪ Work on a commission

♪ Try to find time to work on a transcription (Highly unlikely though)

☆ Play Windrose! ⛵

☆ Run some errands

☆ Have fun in PENANG 🇲🇾🖤🤍💜❤️

Thank you for reading! 🌙🐰