Tales from the Sauna Settlement: Prologue

I found this draft from the year 2022. Wow. Apparently I've been attempting to bump it and complete it from time to time, then gotten sidetracked and forgotten again.  I have no idea what I'd intended to say between the pictures (probably the source of all that chronic holdup). There were only these two sentences for intro. 

Tell me if you've heard this before: "I put together a budget and set out for the countryside for X amount of time..." Some things are similar to the situation seven years ago. [Sidenote from the future: eleven years now.] 

I'm guessing I was gonna give a then-now comparison (or then-then looking back from now-now) - schedules, work, all that. The relevant bit here is that I now owned the place and was preparing to go local for real. 

This was vacation time and it looks like I've picked the shots that capture the feel of the place in late summer. (Some artsier shots frome the same timeframe were featured here.) At the time I was doing a day job at the city library which meant weekly commute, sometimes at dawn. This made my local time precious, vacation doubly so. 

I remember this was also a time of anxious preparation and waiting: the summer was ending, long daylight with it; I was moving out of the town house but I didn't yet have that much space to move into. 

The hero shot here depicts the prefab cabin-thingie that would later become known as the writing shack. At the time though, it pulled a double duty of storage space and shelter while the bigger plans would move along. 

So I have been playing ... (181). Gamma Gamma Gamma.

A few weeks ago I just went ahead and jumped into a new game of Anomaly Gamma (let's disregard all the installation troubleshooting and cockups here). 

 I start off with a short intro bit. 

Last time I even touched a Stalker game was way way back in 2021. What's more, this is my very first time to try anything Anomaly-related. In other words, the zone muscle memory that I've built over the years/games/mods, is either fading or proving unhelpful. 

Which brings me to the premise of this run: starting off clueless and gradually building up skills just by playing the game (i.e. my usual). I can see how this premise seems to confuse some viwers. Then again, some of the seemingly eager-to-help-even-if-a-bit-pushy comments that I initially took in good faith, turned out a prelude to some weird recurring needyspeak (plus, closer reading made the helpful parts look kinda algorythm-y so I can't really tell if that commenter even plays Anomaly).

2025 photo harvest

Over the last few years my creative habits have shifted somewhat. As I'm settling into country life more and more and build up my writing routines, snapping photos has become more of an afterthought. (Also, the oldschool pocket camera that I used for the more purposeful image foraging has been handed down to a three year old.) 

This means I no longer get a monthly artsy-ish buildup  that I could then edit down to five images. (Also, blogging-wise, as I'm now giving more attention to the Estonian site, I keep forgetting to post on this side.) Still, combing through the phone albums, I found a bunch of shots to nicely round up the year!  

So I have been playing ... (180). Subnautica!

I had liked the idea of playing it for several years, then it sat in my backlog for a few more. To be fair, everything was sitting in the backlog these last few years as I was gradually moving house, setting up the computer stuff at country home, then spent the best part of the year focused on my novel revisions. I did play some Into the Breach (which I didn't record & then lost the advanced game saves on my Linux laptop), also dipped into the comfort zones of Nox and XCOM2 (Long War Of The Chosen, check out full playlist here). I also recorded another Waking Mars playthrough (this time in Estonian!), and ... 

Oh, wait, I did record some more play that totally warrants its own post, at least a summary. Dangit. I'm gonna break the chronology of gaming here because if I don't complete this post here now, I know I'll end up with another ten-year draft or ghost-of-a-post, and who needs that. 

So - Subnautica. I had meant to buy it for a while, then meant to play it for a while more, then, once launched, I played it pretty much non-stop for a few weeks. 

When I had played a bit and was well immersed (ha!), then I got a capture going as well. Here's the first, still rather fumbly episode: 

This one includes a lot of IRL recap (later episodes less so). 

I only started watching other people play after my first game completion, so there's a ton of quite elementary stuff that I missed or didn't learn on my own (such as: the fact that you can carry along whole extra air tanks, not just the little bladder; that you can right-click-slice and cultivate not just the big life forms, but also the shrooms and gel sacks and such; that you can place the exterior grow beds under water also; that the cyclops shield zaps away the leeches; that the Seamoth zap-charge needs to be activated to work). 

Then there are other things that reflect my in-world choices - building only small bases & not rearranging the landscape too much (even if I had figured out the underwater grow beds, that is), relying on foraging instead, not harming the fauna too much (not even the deadly ones). Basically, not fighting against the local ecosystems but rather swimming alongside them. 

Here's another episode from the first session: 

And here is the whole playlist in its full glory 

I'm gonna hit 'post' and maybe add some bits & bobs later. Whenever it seems like I'm abandoning this blog, I'm probably busy on the Estonian side (see new link atop the right side panel). Or I could have caught the flow and be in full writing mode. Yeah, let's go with that! 

P.S. Bonus! Here's an alternate thumbnail thingie. 

September-October photo harvest

August photo harvest

The first four shots are taken at local exhibits, one of street-art and the other  intertwining tech, nature, and local folklore.
 

July photo harvest

So I have been playing ... (179). Finale with generators [LADC]

(This playthrough so obviously belongs in the pre-invasion world but I figured I'd carry on with this recap anyway. Lately I keep forgetting to check this side of Blogger.)

Last time, which I recapped in [checks notes] July? WTF? And now is ... [checks notes] November?? Double WTF?? (Basically, I've been focusing on my own writing a lot this last year and all other doings have kinda slipped down the "maybe I shall, just not now" slope; also my time-perception kinda runs its own logic, like all the time.)

Anyhoo. Last time I got the endgame processes started and traversed the Pripyat stadium to finally carry the prescribed storyline into NPP (and then of course do some sidetracking and creative procrastinating and Twilight-dilly-dally. 

I had even brought an ample fuel supply in the hopes of refueling the little BTR that we get to drive when storming Monolith positions! (Alas, the vehicle didn't seem to have a refuel function.) 

Finally I was done with the standard and not-so-standard NPP-Sarcophagus stuff and boldly stepped towards the Generators which a) inhabit a whole separate map in Lost Alpha, and b) I had never gotten to visit during the testing process!

So with this recap my Lost Alpha playthrough comes to an end. I won't write any extra stuff to each video, instead I'll post this before another November strikes because I looked away for two seconds.

Enjoy!