Skytrain Adventures

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I had one of those nights where I was bouncing around between games.  First off I spent some time working on RetroArch trying to get things configured as I wanted them.  I made some very minimal progress, but I do at least have MAME games launching from underneath it.  I still think I am going to have to go through the process of manually setting up playlists for the best possible experience.  In part why I like RetroArch/Libretro cores so much is the excellent controller support and the way whatever I happen to have plugged in seems to automagically work.  I also like the various shader effects which is another reason why the whole manual playlist idea is probably a good one.  From there I popped over into The Surge for a bit but ultimately bounced out of it pretty quickly.  I like the concept of this game…  but Dark Soulsian games so far really aren’t my jam.

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When I ultimately settled in to a game for a bit I wound up playing some Sunless Skies.  Fallen London is probably one of my favorite game settings and for a long time I made a daily practice of logging in and playing through my adventures.  After the success of the web based game a couple of standalone titles have been released, Sunless Seas a game about travelling out into the black abyss of the Unterzee a subterranean ocean the size of Europe that surrounds the city.  Sunless Skies however is a direct sequel set ten years after the events of the first game in which you pilot a sky train of sorts around the region known has the High Wilderness way above the world of both Fallen London and Sunless Seas.  The truth is I have never made it terribly far in Sunless Seas…  or at least nowhere near far enough to know anything about the events that play out in that game, I just decided I would rather pilot a locomotive than a boat last night.

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There is something deeply relaxing about puttering around and visiting the various islands and having locomotive battles.  The game more or less features a lot of the same elements in that you move around through the darkness looking for things to interact with.  When you do interact you have various quests to keep you engaged in the story line and various crew members to pick up and have dialog with.  I seem to always go down the path that involves being combat ready, but this game seems to favor the subtlety checks way more than was the case with the web based game.  It seems like every time I take down a marauder train…  boarding and looting it is a subtlety check which makes me want to start pushing that up a bit more than I have.

I guess it was the sort of game that my brain was needing last night, but it unfortunately did not lull me into a sense of peace as I spent most of the night tossing and turning and not quite getting restful sleep.  As a result this morning I am feeling groggy and assume I am going to have to push through with copious amounts of caffeine to make the day function.  I have a fairly packed day so here is hoping that I make it through unscathed.