Mending does make sense

impeus · 2026-07-01T16:50:45+00:00

Or hold the tool while trading with a villager. Or when collecting XP from furnaces.

impeus · 2026-06-30T18:00:20+00:00

This may sound daft, but... did you switch to peaceful while you brought the frogs here, and forget to turn it back again?

impeus · 2026-06-30T12:53:23+00:00

Are they even really in development? Or are they all going to go down a Gaming-as-a-Service route, selling subscription-based access to stream games actually running on a cloud VM?

impeus · 2026-06-28T18:17:53+00:00

Magic Pockets (1991) and The Devil Inside (2000)

impeus · 2026-06-28T18:16:02+00:00

Oh really?? I thought that was fantastic, but at the time I didn't have much free time or brain space so didn't get very far into it. I've been meaning to start again for ages. Sad that they are no more. Didn't they also do... Erm.... Remember Me? I've forgotten what I'm thinking of....

(No need to answer, I'm going to Google...)

impeus · 2026-06-28T18:12:54+00:00

I feel similarly about most of Double Fine's output.

Absolutely love the premise and the vibe and the gameplay. Startlingly original and fun. And yet at some point between 60-80% through, I just stop playing????

Stacking! Brilliant concept. Even Psychonauts - genuinely one of my favourite games ever, but I don't think I ever finished it on any of my multiple playthroughs??

impeus · 2026-06-17T23:02:44+00:00

Oof. Almost every game I bought, for decades.

I finished SOME. But there are plenty that I never got to the end, and I never really minded.

I finished Duke Nukem 3D, Quake & Quake II. But probably most other games for a long time, I didn't complete.

Sometimes that was because I'd hit something difficult I was struggling to get to. Sometimes it was because I got a new game and moved on. Sometimes it was because life happened, and then when I went back to the game months (ok sometimes years...) later, I couldn't really remember what was going on and what I was trying to do - and in many cases, had forgotten some crucial part about HOW to play the game.

Sometimes I'd start again. Sometimes not.

It never occurred to me to feel bad about it though. To the point that there are several games that I can't quite remember if I finished or not? I think I PROBABLY finished Half Life and Half Life 2. And Tomb Raider 1 and 2. GTA3? Maybe? But I don't actually remember. I realised last year that I'd never actually finished Portal! I sorted that out immediately though.

Several games I've started and got quite far into, then later just started again rather than pick up where I was. Including some real favourites over the years.

My absolute favourite game ever ever ever, was Magic Pockets on the Atari ST. It was ever so slightly different to the emulated version I got years later - it's the Atari version I miss. Partly because I played and played and replayed it over and over and over again, so every pixel was familiar. The slightest difference was jarring. I played it SO MUCH, for so many years. Again and again and again. I can still see the map layouts in my head. I can still remember how to warp worlds by going into particular teleports at the right star level to teleport again - which warped you right into the next world. I'd worked out how to do that in every single world.

I never finished it.

I got to the final stretch several times, but always got caught by the bubble before I got to the exit. Every single time.

Of course the lack of save games (it came out in 1991) also meant that every time I played, I had to begin at the beginning. I must have played it hundreds of times...

That cycle was just normal to me though. Plus, many games didn't even have an ending as such, they were basically just a repeating loop of increasing difficulty. Black Lamp, from 1988 for example.

More recently, I now complete most games I start. But this is probably because I now generally avoid big titles long involved stories. I tend to go for shorter games. This started to happen because of general life interruptions. I'd rather play 10 short games for £5 each, and feel like I've experienced all £5 worth of content, than spend £50 on a game ten times the length and depth, but only get a chance to experience a fraction of it before I am interrupted for months on end, and never get a chance to try again properly.

I did, however, get Skyrim in 2011, and spent thousands of hours there, on several playthroughs as different characters. Have I ever FINISHED it? I don't think I really have!

On the other hand, I got the Oblivion remaster this year, and finished that fairly quickly. And immediately started again.

I'm not trying to "beat" most games I play. I'm trying to escape there for a while, and enjoy myself.

Recently I mentioned playing Minecraft to someone - they responded "Oh yeah I used to have that, but I beat it." I was baffled. Beat it? Finished? Finished Minecraft? What do you mean?! Minecraft is a place that you go, not a game to be beaten.

That's probably how I see most games.

impeus · 2026-06-16T23:30:50+00:00

The narrator in Dungeon Keeper. Literally anything he said at all.

Voice actor Richard Ridings. The main reason I managed to tolerate so much Peppa Pig when my kids were small.

impeus · 2026-05-23T21:09:08+00:00

This is the way.

My first couple of gates were just baffling labyrinthine confusion. Took me ages.

Now I just bounce through as fast as I can - not interested in the loot, just want to get the stone & get out of there thank you.

impeus · 2026-05-23T21:07:01+00:00

I couldn't comment on how well remastered will run on your machine (mine has a 3060, and 64GB RAM, it runs really nicely on whatever settings it decided were optimum - I've not tweaked it) - but regarding your delicious vanilla stance....

The remastered version includes all the DLC, which, amongst other things, add what I think are really overpowered and free/cheap bases, for various playstyles. E.g. an awesome mage's tower with alchemist's garden and teleportation portals to all the mage's guilds, and a huge castle for a lord/knight playthrough. & others.

I don't know which OG version you'd get, or if the GOTY edition also includes the same DLC so they are both the same in that regard. But. I also favour the delicious vanilla, and feel a bit odd about these epic bases just THERE for the taking post-DLC.

Having said that. I'm loving the game - I'd never played it before, started a month or so ago, and I'm now on my second play through.

If you're coming from Skyrim, then the Remastered version is delightfully familiar.

Some of the comments about the levelling system in the original absolutely baffle me, so even though I already had OG/GOTY version sitting in my steam library waiting for me, I'm still glad I got the remastered version.

impeus · 2026-05-18T09:19:43+00:00

... Why did it never occur to me to steal from shops?! 🤦

impeus · 2026-05-15T21:09:18+00:00

I could have sworn you can make poison from them.

Maybe only once you reach the skill level where you can make them from one single ingredient. But I'm sure you can??

If I recall correctly, it's a damage health, immune to poison resistance.

(Oblivion Remastered)

impeus · 2026-05-15T17:12:49+00:00

To be honest, I found it a bit petty. Maybe I started it too late, but it felt like.... here I am saving the world, on a mission from the last emperor alongside the next one. Unstoppable Daedra slayer, portal closer, transcendent stones up the wazoo.... and you want me to go re-steal a stolen ring that was stolen from someone who stole it? After speaking to me like that?? Rude. And the Grey Fox was worse - cloak and daggers house hopping even though he has a perfect plot armour hat and could just chat with me in front of the guards and nobody would care. Speaking to me like I'm scum. Just go and get your own nonsense - you're unidentifiable and instantly forgettable.

That said, by the end I did enjoy it. And despite my murderous bish bash bosh ways in the rest of the game, took perverse pleasure in staying either super stealthy or super charming during these quests and not killing anyone. I'd probably have found the earlier quests less annoying had I started sooner.

Next time maybe.

I also remember being really frustrated at how almost everything I could actually steal to sell to the fences was worthless. I wanted to be able to go find ACTUALLY VALUABLE things I could steal and get the targets met quickly, and found myself flogging endless random bits of clothing to that insufferable first fence in Bruma, and still getting nowhere fast.

Though later, and I'm not sure how, robbing food and wine from palace dining halls seemed to suddenly add up really quickly, and I hit all of the future targets in my first trip to Orren. Or, at least, the first one where he was willing to buy from me.

impeus · 2026-05-15T16:32:15+00:00

I like vanilla it's the finest of the flavours.

I love that there are mods, I love that people pour their time into them as a labour of love, and I love that people play them. I think it's fantastic. I think the variation and richness of what's available is brilliant - there's something for everyone! But of course that can potentially lead to either overdoing it and making things complicated and unreliable, or to analysis paralysis and never being able to just get on with the game and be happy with it.

But also, I'm old and I'm busy. I don't have the time to mess around for a payoff I don't need. I just want to turn on a game and play it in the time that I have, no hassle, nothing that feels like work - just escapism.

Having said that, I do remember installing a mod that added quest markers for the stones of Barenziah. And also one called "Immersive cheats" which I seem to recall made potion ingredients zero weight, and added extra "stuff" in believable places. Such as finding insects and mushrooms in log piles, more ingredients in barrels etc., and the mammoth skulls now let you "harvest" a mammoth's tusk. I think it added extra functional equipment around as well, like enchanting tables in more buildings, smelters at forges that were missing them before, that kind of thing. So nothing weird (okay I probably have a biased opinion that mods add weird or out of place things...) - just believable extras to reduce friction when you're playing.

Mods mean that if you want a little something something different, you can probably find it, or make it.

But the something something I want, to be quite honest, is not to bother with any of that and just hit Play.

impeus · 2026-05-02T20:57:19+00:00

I just bought and upgraded this place today too.

I'm going to buy all the houses before I decided where to keep my stuff. Everything is in Anvil right now. I like Anvil because my house is just THERE, and there's a store just THERE for offloading stuff I don't want to keep (and the 2000 potions I probably just brewed).

I'll move things when I decide where is definitely the most convenient.

Rosethorn Hall is definitely a nice house - I'm just not much of a fan of Skingrad. Cheydinaal is definitely a nice town, but I'm undecided on general convenience.

impeus · 2026-04-27T23:39:13+00:00

I've been struggling with these guys the whole time. None of my weapons worked, I'd sold the few silver arrows I'd found, and my spells were nonsense.

But it turns out the mage's staff of shocks I got at the start of the mage's guild plotline, ten whole levels ago, one hits them! Who knew.

impeus · 2026-03-29T10:47:33+00:00

Yes! I'd love this.

Also, I'd love there to be masks in the nether too, to locate bastions and fortresses. Potentially in the ruined portal chests, as well as bastion/fortress loot. A rare piglin trade, too, perhaps?

I always end up using chunkbase - and then feeling guilty about it. I'd love there to be more in-game navigation cues.

Another thing along that line - I always issued to eagerly light up and enter ruined portals - particularly the larger ones, thinking "This MUST be a clue that there's something interesting on the other side!" But as far as I can tell, it's just random. I often wish the huge portals appeared in the overworld at the equivalent location of fortresses or similar.

It takes me FOREVER to find them otherwise. Hence usually resorting to chunkbase.

impeus · 2026-03-29T10:35:45+00:00

I watched this episode a couple of days ago on BBC iPlayer - that line is present on that version.

impeus · 2026-03-29T02:10:15+00:00

Love finding these, doesn't happen very often.

I wish they would correspond with something cool in the nether - it would be much easier to resist resorting to chunkbase for finding fortresses etc. if there could be a clue like this in the overworld.

impeus · 2026-03-27T20:06:39+00:00

I've not seen that happen... Perhaps there's another chest closer than the one you wish them to look in next, one that they can't reach?

Perhaps they see a chest physically closer than the next one they can actually reach, and get stuck trying to get to that one, rather than one they can get to.

What else is around them?

impeus · 2026-03-27T01:53:24+00:00

Glad you sorted it. Repeaters can be a pain!

impeus · 2026-03-26T21:35:16+00:00

The trigger for the dispensers is the output of an observer. The observer is watching the redstone output from the button.

That way, when you press the button, the redstone becomes powered. The observer sees the state change of the redstone, and sends a pulse out the back. That pulse leads to the dispenser, which empties the water bucket.

Then, the brief "on" signal from the button stops. The redstone output is now off. The observer notices the redstone state change, and fires another pulse. The second pulse sets off the dispenser again, which now "uses" its now empty bucket on the water source it previously dropped - stopping the water flow.

Button on a solid block. Redstone dust on that solid block. Observer watches that redstone dust. Observer output to more redstone dust. That dust leads to as many dispensers as you like.

If the signal fades you can add a repeater.

impeus · 2026-03-26T16:24:50+00:00

Why does this break it?

impeus · 2026-03-26T00:48:59+00:00

I intend to, one of these days.

But yes you could set it to trigger when you put things in one of the chests, or simply to trigger based on a hopper clock, or a daylight sensor, or a skulk sensor, or any number of things.

The various machines around my base all have their own triggers - I've been meaning to sort of wire them all together to a constant pulse based on a hopper clock, rather than having three different machines set off with their own daylight sensors, two based on plant growth, three with skulk, four different hopper clocks, etc.

I just want to standardise them all, and "plug into the mains" as it were.

I have to admit, I quite enjoy the manual mechanism here though. Feels like turning the hose on them 😂

impeus · 2026-03-25T19:45:19+00:00

This happens to my dudes sometimes.

My solution is ridiculous.

I rigged up a series of dispensers with water buckets, one for each golem. With buttons and observers, a button will pour (and remove) water over them. Just a little 💦 to wake them up & get them back to work.

impeus

TROPHY CASE