Category: Gaming

Unpacking – A Review

My husband actually brought this game to my attention, and even though the price was a little bit more than I initially wanted to pay ($22.79 CAD) I decided to splurge and pick it up – and I’m really glad I did. This little pixel game is about exactly what you think, you unpack objects and place them around some rooms. It also tells a story, you start off by decorating a child’s room (your room), then you’re decorating a college age house, and then a room with roommates, and then you seem to move in with your partner. Without spoiling the story, I will say it was unexpected and relaxing.

The higher ‘level’ you go the more ‘stuff’ you have to place. There’s little details like at first you can’t move objects that don’t belong to you, but eventually you can organize and move other non-boxed items around. Eventually you’ll find it difficult to find a space for your belongings, and the ‘goal’ is to place things where they ‘belong’ so to move on to the next phase you can’t just shove all the underwear under the bed, they will glow red until you put them where they should go (within some pretty large boundaries).

There’s something therapeutic about opening up these boxes, rummaging through the packing paper, taking out a precious object, and finding the exact place for said object to go. As someone who has moved more than 20 times (I’ve moved all of my life growing up as a military brat, and now that my husband is RCMP we continue to move) this game is an old comfort to me, though I can certainly see how it might not be for everyone.

I’m only a few hours in, and I’ve been taking my time placing these objects. I see that it has very positive reviews on steam, and I tend to agree – minus the price that (IMO) is a bit high. Still, there’s far more customization and options than I initially thought, and it is incredibly relaxing. The negative reviews on steam mention that it is the high cost of the game that coloured their opinions, and they mention that you’re paying $20 for about 3 hours of game play. Again, I agree, but I also know that I have no issue paying $20 to go to a 3 hour movie, so that value isn’t exactly abnormal especially in this age of high stress. Maybe it will go on sale from time to time in which case, I highly suggest giving it a look.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A New Horse (of course)!

Rumor has it a new horse event is going to be taking place after maintenance, and I could not be more excited! I love taming, training, breeding, and all the rest. Pictured above is my latest mount, a T6 male that I got from a T5 female and a T1 male. Males can breed twice before needing a re-set coupon, females once. I typically use up the breeding slot and then sell them to the imperial market as I’m working my way towards enough tokens to purchase a manos set of gear. I’m getting close!

Speaking of Functions..

15/50

It’s not often I find an amazing in-game function that deserves its own blog post – but I have to say, in Black Desert Online I have come across just such a function.

At first, it seems simple enough. It’s a notepad function, you can shortcut to it or you can find it in a few menus. Every game should have some sort of in-game notepad, where players can type out information they don’t want to forget, or want to have readily available. I adore games that have this function. BDO takes it even further.

You can log to a different character, and the note will stay up.

You can drag said note to a second monitor, OUT of the game window. It will continue to stay up.

You can change the colour

You can change the transparency.

More games need this function! The fact that it persists across relogging characters, and you can put it on a second monitor just absolutely blows my mind. A function that SEEMS simple, and yet it’s obviously not, because if it were more games would have included it (or so I like to think).

Have I mentioned yet how much I (still) love this game? Well, there’s one more reason added to the pile.

Quietly Farming

I’ve been trying to spend as many contribution points as I can these days, after all if they’re just sitting there then they are really doing me any favours. I picked up a few workers, and put five farms outside of Heidel in an effort to grow some crafting materials (carrots, now that the Oasis event is over, for starters). I find farming really annoying. In order for your crops to do well they have to be watered, you can shorten the time it takes for them to grow by using fertilizer, you have to pick pests off of them (I use workers for this) and they need other little picky maintenance objectives. Workers are great, but they use a LOT of stamina that needs to be replenished, so you end up feeding them a lot. Using workers also cuts down the experience you would earn in farming on your own character, so instead I’m thinking of just having a ‘farming day’ once or twice a week when I tend to the farms on my own. Then those workers I have can go do other things, or they can wait until I need them again.

I’ve joined all of the nodes I want all across the world, which is where the majority of my CP went – and then I took the remainder of those points and invested it in some storage in Calpheon which is where I’m now holding the majority of my ‘stuff’ with Duvencrune set up for horse training. I cook in Heidel, and I’ve got a comfortable rotation set up now when it comes to crafting. Now that the season is almost over I’m planning what I want to do next, and there’s a world boss event ongoing so I’ve been collecting bits from that. All in all? Things are going pretty well!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A High Seas Adventure

I had this great idea to unlock two fishing nodes over at Nada island, which is in the far North West of the world, close to Port Ratt. I am not personally a big fan of sailing in Black Desert Online, which is perfectly fine because there are tons of other options and even other methods of getting to these areas (which I didn’t learn about until after we traveled there by boat. Guess what, there’s a ferry).

We took Ogur’s fishing boat and set out to sea. After some time the map drops away just as it does in the desert, and if you’re without a compass you can’t find your way unless you navigate by the stars or familiarize yourself with landmarks.

Little did we know that fishing boats are quite slow, and they’re not made for travelling on the sea, so we were being chased by monsters and then later pirates who came VERY CLOSE to eating us. Ogur said it was a “butt clenching trip” the whole way (he was steering, and I decided to just fish and pretend all was well even though my health as well as the health of the ship was declining).

Eventually we came out the other side at Port Ratt, and I unlocked the nodes I needed. The port itself is awesome, a majestic landscape that grows up against a mountainside and looks as fantastic as it sounds. We spent the night there fishing off of a nearby island (Port Ratt itself offers very little in the way of profit) and then took the ferry home the next day, sending Ogur’s ship ahead of us to Lema, an island very close to Velia. All in all, it was a fun adventure, and reminded me just how incredibly vast this world is. We still haven’t been everywhere yet.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!