Crossover Chick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crossover_chick) wrote2020-12-27 10:59 pm
crossover_chick) wrote2020-12-27 10:59 pm
Low-Key Video-Gaming Birthday
And I have to admit -- that was very pleasant. I do enjoy going to Dave & Buster's usually, but as that was a no-go this year, it was pretty nice to just be able to do my own thing on my own computer at home. :) Let me give you the run-down:
-->Woke up around 10:04 this morning, let Mom talk me into having coffee cake for breakfast as she was making my regular cake at the time XD
-->Got a nice birthday card from my parents -- unfortunately, the one present I was supposed to get today (a requested second "Valice" T-shirt; the one I own and wore today is nice, but long-sleeved, meaning I can't wear it in summer, so I told Mom that, if she wanted to do something small for my birthday, she could make me a short-sleeve version) has been delayed to around Tuesday due to the fact that, for some reason, my mom could NOT find a short-sleeved white T-shirt. She's had to order one off Amazon. So yeah, I have a present coming (she showed me the transfer), but not today.
-->Opened up my card from my aunt, in which she had included a $50 check (she admitted she couldn't think of something to get me), then started opening up the attached package --
And then realized that said package was NOT a birthday present, but instead a family Christmas present from my cousin and his girlfriend. Mom didn't check the tag when she got it because, well, the birthday card was on it! It was a cool present, though -- a 3-D puzzle! Part of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter films, in fact. :D We're starting on it tomorrow.
-->After endorsing the check and getting myself put together for the day, I decided I wanted to buy myself a present. And I knew exactly what I wanted too --
It was a lovely day in the village, and I wanted to be a horrible goose.
Yes, after seeing various YouTubers play it, I decided I wanted to join in the fun of Untitled Goose Game. And better yet, it was on sale! 25% off. Plus I still had plenty of money left over from a previous gift card, so it was free on my end -- just knocked $16 off my balance. I gave it a quick test run before lunch, then spent most of my afternoon after lunch playing and trying to achieve all the tasks. Had to look up how to solve a couple of puzzles, but I managed to figure out most of them on my own (or recalled solutions from earlier videos). The goose does not drive particularly well, but I'm figuring it out! XD I'm up to the pub level, which is nice. Might play some more tomorrow, see if I can knock that one out.
-->Watched the latest Big Fat Quiz of the Year with lunch and dinner, which was fun -- a lot of our favorites were part of this year's run, including David Mitchell, James Acaster, Joe Lycett, and Richard Ayoade. XD While the chaos was a little less than usual this year (namely because of COVID restrictions), there was still plenty of silliness. Including James nearly accidentally knocking a plexiglass safety barrier onto another contestant with a pint of ice cream. ...It makes somewhat more sense in context. XD
-->Once I was done with the goose, I made backups, then rewatched Gamer Poets' video on doing a clean install of Fallout 4 -- and proceeded to do just that, wiping out the old, probably-going-wonky saves and starting anew. Once the game was reinstalled, I opened up Vortex to see how things were going over there --
And discovered that, not really surprisingly, all my mods had been disabled due to the reinstall. (Well, all of them that had plug-ins -- stuff like "Fallout 4 Script Extender" and "Mod Configuration Menu" was still functioning). I realized I had a bit of an opportunity here, and -- after taking a moment to install the one "mod" I have that has to go in manually, the achievement re-enabler -- did character creation and the whole prologue with only the F4SE mods and the Unofficial Patch enabled. The reason for this is now I have a couple of very early saves that don't have a lot of mods installed, so if something goes wrong now that I've reenabled everything else? I have something I can fall back on. Granted, if something goes wrong WAAAY down the line, I will lose a lot of work, but I have SOMETHING, and it makes me feel better. But yeah, I redid my Victor (and think I did him even better this time; at the very least, the eye spacing feels right this time!), did the SPECIAL (3S, 3P, 7E, 2C, 7I, 4A, 2L), and did all the "intro" stuff with getting into the Vault, getting frozen, and seeing poor Nora get shot. I left it right after Victor pried his wife's cryopod open and promised to get Shaun back. All the mods I have are now reactivated in my profile, so I expect to get a lot of pop-ups when I load back in tomorrow. So long as the game doesn't immediately crash, we should be golden!
-->Had meatball subs (my personal request) for supper -- and Mom even made her own sub rolls! Which were very nice -- I love a good meatball sub, so this was a great dinner for me. And it was followed up by some truly excellent chocolate cake and ice cream and a Taskmaster clip compilation of festive tasks, so that was fun. :)
-->Took my shower, then watched my usual Sunday delight: Jon's Fallout 4 YOLO run! :D And I got a good one tonight. Started off with Jon and Finalley trying to sleep away the three days until Ronnie shows up at the Castle to do the "Old Guns" mission -- but when it became apparent that Ronnie would not appear until Finalley left, Jon decided to swing by University Point to see if he could pick up a few supplies, namely crystal for a Recruitment Beacon.
Instead, he found synths -- and ones at a higher level that he wanted to deal with, even with power armor. So he retreated from there -- and then remembered Jamaica Plains was nearby. Figuring it was worth a look, since one of the dead scavenger team there has decent combat armor, he shot up a bunch of the ghouls, activated some Protectron friends, got freaked out by one ghoul behind a door, and looted some decent gear off the corpse and the one Legendary.
And then he went downstairs to the basement and realized that the laser tripwires in the hallway of doom before the time capsule were an AMAZING source of crystal. So he carefully deactivated all of those, got to the end, got nervous over the protectrons and retreated back to laser hallway, pressing the button to lock the door in case of danger --
And discovered that reactivated the traps. And made it so you could disarm them again. FOR EVEN MORE CRYSTAL. Basically Jon has discovered a permanent source of crystal and it is amazing. :D At any rate, he got the time capsule room open without fuss, ended up taking out the last of the ghouls to get the stuff he needed to make a Recruitment Beacon to bring people in (he wisely just wants the place as a "meeting area" -- the build area is SO TINY it's barely worth it), was surprised by some settlers just automatically showing up, and then sent them back to the Castle, following along in their wake.
Back at the Castle, Ronnie had finally showed up, so it was time to do "Old Guns!" Jon was extremely nervous the whole time, picking up all the frag grenades so Ronnie couldn't accidentally blow them up and worrying about how he was going to take out SARGE, the malfunctioning Sentry Bot that serves as a boss. He decided he was going to fling two bottlecap mines into SARGE's path to help slow him down, retreat to a safer area, and try to take potshots at him afterwards.
...Turns out SARGE is weak to mines too, and the double explosion took him out entirely. XD Jon was confused but relieved. XD He looted things from the armory, built himself some artillery, tested it out while singing its praises, then headed home to give Finalley some much-needed R&R!
...And then raiders with missile launchers showed up at the front door, forcing a "Defend Hangman's Alley" mini-quest. Jon was not happy. XD Fortunately the attack was repelled by the settlers, Jon was able to turn in "Old Guns" to a wandering Preston for a level-up, and all was right with the world. Good stuff!
-->And got a nice message from my tumblr friend Newt when I checked messages -- he's making me a drawing that's been put off by hand pain (poor guy has chronic issues with that), so instead he shared a playlist he made on Spotify of songs that remind him of Valice. A couple I know; most I don't. I'm planning on giving them a listen over the coming week!
So yeah -- chill birthday that involved a lot of gaming. I very rarely indulge myself when it comes to gaming like that, so that was really nice. And I've actually just had a thought as to where I can put that $50 my aunt gave me -- I'll have to check that tomorrow. Right now, though, I do have ONE ask that needs to be queued up on "The Valice Multiverse" and one comment to answer in my inbox, so I should get to those. Let's set up another proper to-do list for tomorrow:
1. Catch up on the regular Call Me Kevin and Gray Still Plays episodes in my Subscriptions
2. Get back to writing on "In A World Of His Own"
3. Play Untitled Goose Game and/or Fallout 4 (maybe do the pub level in the former, and get myself back to Sanctuary in the latter?)
4. Listen to some of the songs in the "Valice" playlist on Spotify
5. Try to watch the two OXBox/OXtra videos I have in my Watch Later
This seems reasonable, right? Yes, I still have Call Me Kevin's "Rewind" to watch, but again, that's an hour-and-a-half. . .kinda tempted to leave it to New Year's Eve, simply because of the nature of the beast. We'll see! Anyway, off to answer those couple of things -- night all!
-->Woke up around 10:04 this morning, let Mom talk me into having coffee cake for breakfast as she was making my regular cake at the time XD
-->Got a nice birthday card from my parents -- unfortunately, the one present I was supposed to get today (a requested second "Valice" T-shirt; the one I own and wore today is nice, but long-sleeved, meaning I can't wear it in summer, so I told Mom that, if she wanted to do something small for my birthday, she could make me a short-sleeve version) has been delayed to around Tuesday due to the fact that, for some reason, my mom could NOT find a short-sleeved white T-shirt. She's had to order one off Amazon. So yeah, I have a present coming (she showed me the transfer), but not today.
-->Opened up my card from my aunt, in which she had included a $50 check (she admitted she couldn't think of something to get me), then started opening up the attached package --
And then realized that said package was NOT a birthday present, but instead a family Christmas present from my cousin and his girlfriend. Mom didn't check the tag when she got it because, well, the birthday card was on it! It was a cool present, though -- a 3-D puzzle! Part of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter films, in fact. :D We're starting on it tomorrow.
-->After endorsing the check and getting myself put together for the day, I decided I wanted to buy myself a present. And I knew exactly what I wanted too --
It was a lovely day in the village, and I wanted to be a horrible goose.
Yes, after seeing various YouTubers play it, I decided I wanted to join in the fun of Untitled Goose Game. And better yet, it was on sale! 25% off. Plus I still had plenty of money left over from a previous gift card, so it was free on my end -- just knocked $16 off my balance. I gave it a quick test run before lunch, then spent most of my afternoon after lunch playing and trying to achieve all the tasks. Had to look up how to solve a couple of puzzles, but I managed to figure out most of them on my own (or recalled solutions from earlier videos). The goose does not drive particularly well, but I'm figuring it out! XD I'm up to the pub level, which is nice. Might play some more tomorrow, see if I can knock that one out.
-->Watched the latest Big Fat Quiz of the Year with lunch and dinner, which was fun -- a lot of our favorites were part of this year's run, including David Mitchell, James Acaster, Joe Lycett, and Richard Ayoade. XD While the chaos was a little less than usual this year (namely because of COVID restrictions), there was still plenty of silliness. Including James nearly accidentally knocking a plexiglass safety barrier onto another contestant with a pint of ice cream. ...It makes somewhat more sense in context. XD
-->Once I was done with the goose, I made backups, then rewatched Gamer Poets' video on doing a clean install of Fallout 4 -- and proceeded to do just that, wiping out the old, probably-going-wonky saves and starting anew. Once the game was reinstalled, I opened up Vortex to see how things were going over there --
And discovered that, not really surprisingly, all my mods had been disabled due to the reinstall. (Well, all of them that had plug-ins -- stuff like "Fallout 4 Script Extender" and "Mod Configuration Menu" was still functioning). I realized I had a bit of an opportunity here, and -- after taking a moment to install the one "mod" I have that has to go in manually, the achievement re-enabler -- did character creation and the whole prologue with only the F4SE mods and the Unofficial Patch enabled. The reason for this is now I have a couple of very early saves that don't have a lot of mods installed, so if something goes wrong now that I've reenabled everything else? I have something I can fall back on. Granted, if something goes wrong WAAAY down the line, I will lose a lot of work, but I have SOMETHING, and it makes me feel better. But yeah, I redid my Victor (and think I did him even better this time; at the very least, the eye spacing feels right this time!), did the SPECIAL (3S, 3P, 7E, 2C, 7I, 4A, 2L), and did all the "intro" stuff with getting into the Vault, getting frozen, and seeing poor Nora get shot. I left it right after Victor pried his wife's cryopod open and promised to get Shaun back. All the mods I have are now reactivated in my profile, so I expect to get a lot of pop-ups when I load back in tomorrow. So long as the game doesn't immediately crash, we should be golden!
-->Had meatball subs (my personal request) for supper -- and Mom even made her own sub rolls! Which were very nice -- I love a good meatball sub, so this was a great dinner for me. And it was followed up by some truly excellent chocolate cake and ice cream and a Taskmaster clip compilation of festive tasks, so that was fun. :)
-->Took my shower, then watched my usual Sunday delight: Jon's Fallout 4 YOLO run! :D And I got a good one tonight. Started off with Jon and Finalley trying to sleep away the three days until Ronnie shows up at the Castle to do the "Old Guns" mission -- but when it became apparent that Ronnie would not appear until Finalley left, Jon decided to swing by University Point to see if he could pick up a few supplies, namely crystal for a Recruitment Beacon.
Instead, he found synths -- and ones at a higher level that he wanted to deal with, even with power armor. So he retreated from there -- and then remembered Jamaica Plains was nearby. Figuring it was worth a look, since one of the dead scavenger team there has decent combat armor, he shot up a bunch of the ghouls, activated some Protectron friends, got freaked out by one ghoul behind a door, and looted some decent gear off the corpse and the one Legendary.
And then he went downstairs to the basement and realized that the laser tripwires in the hallway of doom before the time capsule were an AMAZING source of crystal. So he carefully deactivated all of those, got to the end, got nervous over the protectrons and retreated back to laser hallway, pressing the button to lock the door in case of danger --
And discovered that reactivated the traps. And made it so you could disarm them again. FOR EVEN MORE CRYSTAL. Basically Jon has discovered a permanent source of crystal and it is amazing. :D At any rate, he got the time capsule room open without fuss, ended up taking out the last of the ghouls to get the stuff he needed to make a Recruitment Beacon to bring people in (he wisely just wants the place as a "meeting area" -- the build area is SO TINY it's barely worth it), was surprised by some settlers just automatically showing up, and then sent them back to the Castle, following along in their wake.
Back at the Castle, Ronnie had finally showed up, so it was time to do "Old Guns!" Jon was extremely nervous the whole time, picking up all the frag grenades so Ronnie couldn't accidentally blow them up and worrying about how he was going to take out SARGE, the malfunctioning Sentry Bot that serves as a boss. He decided he was going to fling two bottlecap mines into SARGE's path to help slow him down, retreat to a safer area, and try to take potshots at him afterwards.
...Turns out SARGE is weak to mines too, and the double explosion took him out entirely. XD Jon was confused but relieved. XD He looted things from the armory, built himself some artillery, tested it out while singing its praises, then headed home to give Finalley some much-needed R&R!
...And then raiders with missile launchers showed up at the front door, forcing a "Defend Hangman's Alley" mini-quest. Jon was not happy. XD Fortunately the attack was repelled by the settlers, Jon was able to turn in "Old Guns" to a wandering Preston for a level-up, and all was right with the world. Good stuff!
-->And got a nice message from my tumblr friend Newt when I checked messages -- he's making me a drawing that's been put off by hand pain (poor guy has chronic issues with that), so instead he shared a playlist he made on Spotify of songs that remind him of Valice. A couple I know; most I don't. I'm planning on giving them a listen over the coming week!
So yeah -- chill birthday that involved a lot of gaming. I very rarely indulge myself when it comes to gaming like that, so that was really nice. And I've actually just had a thought as to where I can put that $50 my aunt gave me -- I'll have to check that tomorrow. Right now, though, I do have ONE ask that needs to be queued up on "The Valice Multiverse" and one comment to answer in my inbox, so I should get to those. Let's set up another proper to-do list for tomorrow:
1. Catch up on the regular Call Me Kevin and Gray Still Plays episodes in my Subscriptions
2. Get back to writing on "In A World Of His Own"
3. Play Untitled Goose Game and/or Fallout 4 (maybe do the pub level in the former, and get myself back to Sanctuary in the latter?)
4. Listen to some of the songs in the "Valice" playlist on Spotify
5. Try to watch the two OXBox/OXtra videos I have in my Watch Later
This seems reasonable, right? Yes, I still have Call Me Kevin's "Rewind" to watch, but again, that's an hour-and-a-half. . .kinda tempted to leave it to New Year's Eve, simply because of the nature of the beast. We'll see! Anyway, off to answer those couple of things -- night all!