Let’s talk about Pokemon Friends!

If you’re unawaare, Pokemon Friends is a mobile game (also available for Nintendo Switch) that was announced and released during the recent Pokemon Presents in late July. Despite a lot of the complaints about it, I’ve actually really been enjoying it. I love puzzles and I love plushies, so this game just felt like a must-play for me. I know a lot of people feel the price is too much, but I feel like considering the general Nintendo License price, ~$35 for a full puzzle game didn’t seem too crazy to me, especially with the quests and additional decorating.

That said, the game does have a balancing issue and ironically, as you get to harder puzzles and get any of those expansion packs, those issues get all the more highlighted. While you could say that because the game generally is set for you to only really earn two types of yarn a day, there is supposed to be a slow burn, but that isn’t the problem– regardless of how many puzzles you do a day, you will still hit this issue eventually.

And regardless of if you get the ability to do as many puzzles a day as you want or not (You can also change the unlimited puzzles to a specific limit as well in settings), the quest system is still stuck on a daily loop so you will hit a pause point no matter how many puzzles you do.

If you have no idea how the game works, to give a quick summary, each set of puzzles contains three different puzzles with anywhere from 3-6 rounds in them that you need to complete. Finishing the set of puzzles gives you a random yarn (what possible types depends on if you have any expansion packs or not) or a “pretty nice” version of the yarn. You would then use this yarn in the giant Pokeball to get a random plushie of that theme/type (While some are more straightforward, other yarns combine multiple types in them). Getting the pretty nice version means you have double the chance for Legendaries and a 25% chance for an additional plush of the same type giving you two for the price of one, essentially.

If you don’t want to deal with RNG, after making a plushie once, you can make another of the same plushie for two of the yarn it came from. Exceptions are Legendaries which HAVE to be pulled. You cannot make them. If you’re wondering why you would even want multiple plushies, it’s because quests often want specific plushies (whether a specific Pokemon or specific type/category like one quest that wants one of each Cat Pokemon you can make a plushie of). Of course, you also have the option to put multiple of the same plush in a room. You’re limited to twenty plush per room though, which honestly makes me sad. The plush have physics to them so the idea of piling a bunch in a room would be really fun. I suppose you still could, but it wouldn’t be as fun when you can’t truly pack it to the brim.

This is essentially my room thus far:

I’m waiting until I unlock all the decor I really want for quests before really redoing it and narrowing down the 20 plush I’d want in the room. I do wish we could pick the floor/carpet separately from the wallpaper though.

Finally, I did want to bring up one other odd thing: The controls. Controls vary between touch screen-based, button-based (in the sense that you tap buttons on the screen), or full on gyroscopic. I’ll be talking a bit more about this below, but it kind of drives me nuts as most of the puzzles could work with any of these options and I wish you could pick which you prefer.

So, what exactly are the balancing issues I mentioned?

1. The more yarn types to pull from and more possible Pokemon available from each, the lower chance of getting a specific type you want.

To be blunt, this is a pretty obvious one. The reason I bring it up though is because some of the early quests you get are clearly aimed towards those smaller windows. Even though Grassy Yarn is one of the options from the start, it took me forever to get my first, let alone an extra for a quest. At this point, Grassy Yarn is still the least I’ve gotten with over 200+ rounds of puzzles done. It is the one I still need the most Pokemon from followed by Toothy Yarn.

2. The variety of Puzzle Levels.

In terms of different puzzles overall, there is a lot of variety. The problem comes in the specific rounds themselves, but only as you get to later difficulty levels. The game features nine different difficulty levels so while you’re going through and slowly leveling up, it’s rare you’ll get the same round twice. Once you get to a difficulty level you may be stuck on or hit the maximum though, you’ll start seeing repeats of those puzzles. Obviously, I don’t expect there to be infinite number of rounds per puzzle type, but an easy fix to this would be the option to allow puzzles of any level up to the one you unlocked to be picked from which would give bigger variety even if you have seen them before.

3. The timer sucks.

Okay, your mileage may vary a bit with this one, but I hate the timer so much. There have been many times where I figure out a solution and I’m just… not fast enough, whether due to touch screen troubles, my own wrist/hand issues, or how slow the characters move with the button controls (The Primeape Puzzle is so incredibly slow to the point where if you’re not booking it immediately, it’s so easy to run out of time on). It doesn’t matter how fast I solve the puzzle if I am not also fast enough to execute it and with a touchscreen-based game, it’s something I really feel like should be more forgiving than it is.

I wish the timer was optional so much. I wish I could spend as much time on a puzzle as I want and just skip/move on if I am really struggling. Or at least give some options to it.

The amount of time you get does not change at any point. It is always sixty seconds so even as the puzzles get harder, you do not get more time to work on them.

4. Puzzles get more difficult but ultimately feel less rewarding.

This is probably the biggest thing and the main reason I wanted to talk about the game in this post. I don’t mind hard puzzles. it is absolutely satisfying to finish them. But you know what isn’t? Seeing myself finish them all and maybe not have as much time left on them as the game liked and getting a single basic yarn.

Pretty Nice Yarn is a rarity as the puzzles get more difficult which makes me regret even getting to higher difficulties which shouldn’t be the case. You always only get one yarn no matter how well you do or how difficult the puzzles are. And even if you do amazing on 2/3, if you mess up on one, too bad, still basic yarn.

While it is nice that you still get some yarn no matter what, it’s still discouraging that even with more difficult puzzles, you don’t actually earn anything more from them. The fact that I could just leave the puzzles open for three minutes and let it auto-fail vs working really hard and the game not feeling I did good enough thus leading to the exact same reward really sucks.

And this is another reason I wish there was a mix of all the difficulties (maybe an optional choice) because while the puzzles are fun, the selling point of the app is earning those plushies and when you keep getting the same reward as ‘doing bad’, why even try to do well?

I still really do like the game and I am trying to earn all the plushies and finish all the quests, but I’d be lying if I said the balancing issues haven’t been fairly discouraging in the process. Where I initially did dozens of puzzles a day, I now am only doing 1-3 just because I do feel really discouraged at this point. I do hope they’ll consider making adjustments (also please add Mega plushies, I want Mega Audino so badly), but at least for the moment, it does feel like they didn’t really consider how nice the game would be to play at the later stages.

Website is fully back up!

You may have already guessed, but everything is back up and working now. The odd embed issue is also fixed so there should be no weird previews anymore. Thank you so much for your patience and support while we figured everything out :)

Website Downtime (Edit: Mostly back?)

Hello everyone! As a head’s up, the website will be down for the next few days while we do some important server upgrades. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Edit: We’re back sooner than expected! Things are still being worked on so some stuff may not be working 100% yet, but thank you for your patience during all this.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Part 2 of Storybook Vale and the Treasure Hunt Event

I had hoped to get this post up sooner, but I haven’t been doing too great and also expected the teased Treasure Hunt Event to happen a lot earlier than it actually did which I had been waiting for and well… At this point, it was best to just wait even with how late it took to get here. Despite the delay of this post, I did actually play the update right away.

So, July 9th, we finally got the second part of the Storybook Vale and I’m still not entirely sure if I liked it or not. The story itself was fun, and I liked the puzzles– I think the overall pacing just felt weird to me, but I feel like I had a similar issue with the first expansion as well.

The second part kicked off with the three expansion-specific Villagers still around starting to “fade out” like Maleficent… Except Maleficent didn’t start fading out– she just kind of poofed away and disappeared. To fix this, we needed to find pillars of story pages that had a major missing part of that character’s story. There isn’t any explanation about why this was missing (and if you finished their friendship quests, some of these feel especially odd to suddenly be doing so), but it becomes even stranger when you follow through to the Unwritten Realms where a faded Maleficent is stuck waiting as she is apparently scheduled to be erased which is why these important memories were taken.

But why did nobody else go here? Why did they just start fading outside? I’m probably thinking too much into this, but I feel like this is a large part of why it felt a bit rushed to me. Especially considering the Culprit of Maleficent’s situation is who outright invited us to fix the issue with everyone else:

Anyway, we had to deal with some Magic Quills and extremely tiring paperwork rules that lead to us finding ways to get around the system to save Maleficent, despite the Lorekeeper’s concerns.

With that done, it was time to figure out how to rescue Aurora. Heading through a portal, we were given trials by Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. The trials were actually pretty neat, though, I don’t think the instructions were always explained the best. I also kind of hated the outfit we needed to wear. I really wish we could be given a few different options.

With the trials done, it’s time to finally rescue Aurora… Alas, the Lorekeeper used us to get to her and we have a few more puzzles before the day is finally truly saved. The Lorekeeper is very much not a fan of crossovers, AUs, or anything non-canon.


Like the last expansion, this ended with a preview of what’s to come (I’m guessing yet another expansion) with Maximus, the horse from Tangled because why not put yet ANOTHER Tangled character in an expansion exclusive environment and just let the only free character be Mother Gothel :| Tangled is one of my favorite Disney movies and it’s just… so disappointing to see this. I really don’t like characters being exclusively tied to specific expansions. I feel like it cheapens things a lot. Adding more interactions, the biomes, and new quests and things is plenty, and I say this as someone who’d buy those expansions regardless, but I genuinely don’t think having characters exclusive to expansions is a good choice.

I’m guessing Pascal will either also be through that expansion or be another character pet regulated to the Premium Shop to further eliminate the chance of quests and other neat interactions (or maybe they will do what they did with Flynn where he had a bonus quest to reunite with Rapunzel if you had both).

Regardless, with that done and now all of my favorite Disney Princesses in the Valley, it was time for friendship quests! I started with Aurora’s, because, well, she’s one of my favorite characters. The first friendship quest involved us helping celebrate everything essentially being okay now while the second was making up a story to cheer up the Lorekeeper.

The third was a “Princess Tour” where Aurora gathered up nearly all the princesses to see how everything was going. Unfortunately, and this is part of why I do not like characters being exclusive to expansions, Rapunzel doesn’t get to be a part of this. I wish there could have at least been an optional thing if you happened to have both expansions.


Alas, Aurora’s final friendship quest was locked as we needed to get further in Maleficent’s questline first. Her first quest was simple enough– setting things up for her Raven and even getting to keep it as a new companion.

Unfortunately, the rest of her quests were regulated back to hers and Hades’ feud between them fighting up until they decided to work together to try and take over the Valley. And I just… I thought this was essentially solved in the first part? It felt like such a bit of redundancy to go back to all that.

Thanks to the Power of friendship and a magical typewriter that was about to run out of ink and we didn’t just… get more ink for it and/or bring it with us, the day was saved and Maleficent and Hades finally get along and go about their business peacefully like all the other Villains usually are.

Aurora’s final friendship quest was essentially tied into all of that, and I don’t know, it just wasn’t particularly fun and everything just felt kind of rushed.

I’m also bummed because I LOVE the dress we get from Aurora’s final quest, but the cape ruins it for me. I wish the cape/cloak was its own separate piece.

Going past the Storybook Vale stuff, let’s talk about some of the non-expansion stuff. Firstly, Nana was added to the Premium Shop. Even though the whole Existing Companion Characters being added to the Premium Shop thing doesn’t surprise me anymore, it still disappoints me every time.

We also got a nice thank you letter from our Shadow self:

And as July came to an end, the Treasure Hunt event finally happened and if I had to discuss it in one sentence: Fun idea, terrible execution.

I’ve mentioned before how I really wish we had a designated event area or just an area for when a spawnable thing happens. It could be a place in the Castle (like how we have the Expansion hub), a Floating Island, a new special event biome… There are many possibilities, it could even be decorated to some extent, so it won’t feel weird when all the Villagers are talking about how nicely things are decorated for an event and most importantly: it won’t ruin your decorating.

In general, with events where there are spawns, I’ve had the issue of trying to find things with my Valley pretty packed. Like the Cheshire Cat event, this is another “find the special crack” type thing, though, these definitely have a larger glow. Frustratingly though, there are a few very annoying issues with how this all works:
1. In general, any kind of spawn-related event always has issues and can even bug for people who have their Valley pretty decorated.
2. You can only find one a day.
3. If you don’t find the crack and solve the “riddle” by 9AM the next day, you will miss out as it will disappear to be replaced with the next day’s crack and riddle.

And the biggest issue at all:

4. The “riddle” spawns a bunch of a breakable item in a specific biome to the point of even destroying paths. As it is, it’s random which one will have the special chest for your memory, so you’ll have to break everything and it means I even had to break some I had purposely wanted to keep around because there was nothing to help differentiate which were force spawned for this event, and which weren’t.

It’s destructive, frustrating, and honestly, not particularly satisfying. There is nothing fun with these riddles. The way they are walled off sucks, and as someone who REALLY loves Scavenger Hunts and riddles, I was beyond disappointed.

Getting two gets you a new motif while getting all four finishes the special memory to let you find the dig spot in the area you probably guessed it was in immediately to get a Pirate Mast furniture item:

Anyway, that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to. Next update seems to be Inside Out themed which I haven’t seen so I don’t feel any particular way about it, but I always enjoy new realms and quests. Just… really hope they rethink how they do events in the future.

To finish this off, my Dreamsnap entries lately:


I hope my next post will be a lot sooner…

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Mysteries of Skull Rock

So, as usual, I am starting this off a bit early to talk a bit about the patch notes! The update arrives tomorrow (though, it’ll be out when you see this post).

For the most part, I feel like I covered certain things in my last DDLV post, so I won’t really retread on most of that, but I figured I’d at least talk about anything that stood out to me from the full patch notes.

Valiant treasure seekers, your time has come! Find special treasure maps around your Valley, solve riddles, and earn amazing rewards with the new Troves of Treasure Event.

I love riddles and puzzles so I am kind of excited for this, but I am slightly worried about how the “special treasure maps around your Valley will work”– I hope it’s just set spots and not complete RNG (there are still some Memories in Storybook Vale I haven’t found yet due to the RNG), but either way, I get worried about anything spawning in the valley nowadays :/

I’m not surprised about the Summer Event returning. I just hope it won’t feature anything as frustrating as the last couple events have been.

New optional items are coming to the Premium Shop for a limited time, including a unique River Kit bundle that allows you to create your own waterway. But there is more! A new Companion Bundle arrives, introducing Max from Disney’s The Little Mermaid as an Animal Companion. This adorable canine will not only follow you on your adventures but also help dig holes nearby thanks to his exclusive ability. The Max Bundle also includes a variety of nautical furniture and wardrobe items for you to enjoy!

Still really don’t think either of these should be Premium Shop-exclusive, especially seeing more information on the River Kit. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how much that will bug even more spawns in places.

The Seasonal Moonstone Packs are also continuing which, while I’m not surprised, I’m also still pretty disappointed by :/

We also received more information on the new Critter/Companion Friendship system and well…

Gather your furry, scaly, and feathered pals – friendship levels are here! Spend time and interact with your companions to level them up and get rewards. Bring companions along to collect bonus resources – each kind of companion will pick-up a specific type of resource:

Squirrels will help with Fruits
Rabbits will help with Vegetables
Turtles will help with Seafood
Sunbirds will help with Flowers
Foxes and Crocodiles will help with Fish
Raccoons and Whimsical Creatures will help with Gems
Ravens will help with Soils
Capybaras, Snakes, and Monkeys will help with Timebending Parts
Owls, Baby Dragons, and Pegasuses will help with Snippets
Dogs will help with sticks
Some companions, especially notable named Disney companions, may not fit conventional categories and may bring special reward once you reach max friendship.

But that’s not all! Depending on their level of friendship, companions can help expand your player inventory and provide extra resources when equipped to your Avatar. As a cherry on top, you can now give a unique nickname to any regular critter that doesn’t already have a preset name, making them truly your own. Additionally, all companions will now appear in a dedicated section of the Collections Menu – perfect for keeping track of your loyal sidekicks!

I wasn’t really enthused about the idea from the start and the more I hear about it, the worse I feel about it. I think what bothers me most is there are even more benefits for premium exclusive ones now when Premium Shop stuff should have always been cosmetic only. And I say this as someone who owns every single companion in the game.

Despite my concerns with these so far, I am excited for some of the following notes:

Path Improvements: Unleash your creativity with an update to Paths, allowing you to place tiles diagonally! Seamlessly switch between Straight & Diagonal Modes for even more design flexibility and unique builds.

Grid Update: Explore new decorating possibilities with an expanded grid! More tiles will give you greater flexibility to place furniture items and customize your Valley in Decoration Mode.

Player House Style Improvements: Your favorite House, everywhere you go! A unique House Styles can now also be placed outside of your Valley, once in each Expansion area – and even on one of your Floating Islands!

I had been sad I couldn’t really set a proper Player House on a Floating Island so I’m hoping that will help motivate me to work on the Floating Island stuff more, especially as it feels like the Valley is becoming a trash heap of event materials.

I’ve also hoping the new decorating additions will make it easier to put some of my ideas into action as well.

My favorite new addition though?

Memory Improvements: Complete memories faster! Updates to the shards balancing ensure you now receive a new Memory Shard every time you get a memory orb when participating in activities around your Valley – unless you’ve already completed all memories related to that activity. Plus, there are now more chances to obtain memory orbs when watering dried flowers!

FINALLY. I can’t believe it took this long to finally happen, but at least it finally did. I’m looking forward to finishing up the memories I have left.

And with that… It’s time to wait for the update.

Mysteries of Skull Rock is finally here! I’m so excited to finally get this story done. Despite doing this right away, this post is actually a bit late as I’ve been feeling pretty under the weather this week :(

I was a little confused at first as the last few times, something had popped up pretty quickly. I also figured maybe the items we’ve been getting from the last couple of updates would maybe tie into this but… No, not really.

Before I went and investigated though, I spent some time checking out some of the new things, grabbing some stuff from the Premium Shop, and looking into the new Companion leveling. Critters definitely level up much faster and with the new guaranteed memories situation, it’s definitely something I’ll probably just let get worked on while I grind for memories, but I did end up prioritizing the “special” options due to them unlocking exclusive things (while everything else just gives you a chest with a random item in it).

Max even has two photo poses.


And as always, my usual first Star Path purchase: The new Critter/Companion.

With nothing really popping up, I decided to head over to Skull Rock. I’m not sure if being there mattered or if the Forgotten just got close enough to trigger something, but I finally had a quest to talk to them and essentially give them a new name. I ended up picking one of the pre-sets: Onyx. Maybe I’ll change it at some point (I had been considering ‘Shadow’ if we had to write something in), but I’m fine with it for the moment. Now if I could just give them a different hairstyle… and maybe something to help with the glowing eyes situation. With a new name, we finally get to invite the Forgotten into the Valley. They still don’t really have their own house though.

This essentially started up the next quest to finally investigate Skull Rock as it was now open (which uh, was kind of anticlimactic, but at least we’re finally getting to it).

Going through Skull Rock essentially required a few puzzles, trapping Peter Pan’s shadow, and gathering up Pixie Dust which even had us running through the Valley as well.

I was just relieved I was able to find things despite how my Valley was set up, though, I had to repair some paths after…

Once we got the music playing (and Peter Pan’s shadow stopped messing with it), he finally showed up.



Despite the puzzles being interesting and it not necessarily being super quick or anything, I did kind of expect more from Skull Rock? I think it’s partially because it kept being pushed back and built up to, but even from just how it finally opened, it felt kind of like a let-down that didn’t need to be held off for as long as it was.

Regardless, it was time to befriend Peter Pan. I put his house in the Forest for now, though, I don’t know if it’ll be permanent or not. I am envious of the teddy bears in his house.

Peter Pan’s first quest had us trapping his Shadow once more in order for him to finally get it attached.

His second quest was helping make the Treehouse feel more like home by cleaning it up and finding his old treasures. He even got a swing set up outside.

The third was unfortunately helping him throw pies at various Villagers and then cleaning it up, but then helping him get some new Lost Boys in the Village to hang out with.

While I absolutely expected Vanellope and Olaf to be here, WALL-E was a surprise.

Finally, with the Lost Boys by Peter Pan’s side, it was time for a game against the “Valley Pirates”. We managed to win.

Some of the lights we had to avoid were super finnicky though…

Anyway, in between all of this, I was also trying my best to level the various Critter Companions. I was excited by how cute Figaro’s item looked, but like with the Aquarium, there isn’t actually any fish in it so it just… looks kind of sad. Where is Cleo, DDLV? T~T

The inventory additions also aren’t really permanent upgrades so much as if you thought of your Critter as a bonus backpack. They give you some extra inventory slots (up to a full row when at a higher level), but if you switch to a different companion, those slots are gone unless you have the same amount on another companion. I haven’t really used these yet because I’m trying to level all of them up and I don’t know if the items will disappear or move or something when I switch, but it just feels… really annoying of a system. I kind of wish it was just the first companion you get high enough, you permanently have an extra row and leave it at that.

It’s at least not pay to win, but I feel too paranoid to use them with how it currently works.

That said, I kind of hate the flower pick-up skill. They will literally pick up anything close enough to them which essentially ruined a lot of the flower set-ups I had, filled my inventory, and I still haven’t found all the places I had flowers put down to begin with. All the others are fine so I kind of wish I could just turn off the flower pick-up instead of everything, but that’s not currently possible…

As for the Player House, I was really hoping I could have a proper house on a floating island, but what it meant was just that you can have the same house style in each place which I mean, that’s still great, but I really wish I could have a permanent home on the floating island and not just another cabin to decorate…

While I may be getting this post a bit later than planned, it does at least mean I could include the new Pride items which are pretty nice, though, I was surprised to see just one color scheme this year. If you didn’t see the code, it’s: DDVPRIDE25

Anyway, to finish this off as usual, my latest Dreamsnaps:

It’s time to excavate! (Pokemon Fossil Excavation Kit)

If you follow me on Blue Sky, you may have already seen me talking about this, but either way, I’ll be talking a lot more about the process and stuff here while going over everything so there will be something new for everyone :)

Pokemon announced in May a brand new “Cave Dwellers” Campaign that featured, well, Pokemon who usually can be found in caves. One of the items, however, is an actual Fossil Excavation Kit based off the minigame in Gen 4’s Underground.

I love rocks and find these really fun so I leaped on that immediately and knew that I needed it. Even outside of my love of rocks, some of my favorite merchandise for any series are things that are actually like… actual items from those series so getting a kit that allows you to find fossils among other things (I’m especially excited for the Heart Scale– here is hoping I get one as while I’d love to get one of each type, the heart shard is the one I want most of all) is so incredibly exciting to me.

Each kit contains four out of six items– at least two fossils and at least one of the “miscellaneous” items which contain the heart scale and three spheres (one blue, one red, and one green) together.

That said, while the kit suggests you are “gentle” as to not hurt the items (which uh, the poor Dome fossil got a bit hit), the kit is very hard and it’s not really possible to not put more pressure to it to make much leeway. It took us nearly two hours to get through it and clean everything off and it easily could have been longer as two of our items were found fairly close together.

As much as I’ve been looking forward to this, I’ve been fairly sick this week and so my own strength wasn’t really there which I didn’t fully anticipate so a huge shout-out to my husband who was ready and willing to help me out.

Our first find was about 30%-40% down on the bottom right side and ended up being our very first fossil. That said, it wasn’t entirely clear just what fossil it was yet. The only obvious part was that it wasn’t a helix fossil, but the other three all had smooth parts so it could still be any of the others at that point.

After quite a bit of chiseling away, it finally revealed itself as we slowly freed it: Our first fossil is a Skull Fossil!

It unfortunately took quite a long file to find our next item… Or should I say items? In the lower left corner, we ended up finding two more things– it seemed like a blue sphere and another fossil! (Which again, clearly not a Helix fossil, but still up in the air beyond that)

We decided to focus on the sphere due to it being closer to the top. More colors appeared as well to bring red and green spheres alongside the blue one. The three are essentially connected into one item.


It was then time to work on the other fossil we found which ended up being a Dome Fossil!

It was now time to find our last item. It took quite a bit with it being towards the upper right which was the last area we really checked (and after the middle of the block ended up cutting in half…). To my surprise, it was another fossil… Of course, that also meant no heart scale :(

I hadn’t realized you could get more than two fossils at the time so this was a surprise in multiple ways. That said, as I was pretty sure you can’t get doubles, this had to be the Armor Fossil…

…And I was correct!

Finally, here are the fossils all cleaned up (front and back). Unfortunately, the Dome Fossil really got the worst of it, but I don’t know how much of that was actually our fault so much as a possible issue when it was sealed in the kit.

Either way, despite the difficulties (AND NO HEART SCALE… T__T), I really enjoyed this and would love to see Pokemon do more stuff like this. Maybe for Mega Stones? I may be a a little biased. Anyway, I’m off to hope maybe someone won’t want their Heart Scale and I can maybe get one secondhand… I’ll keep an eye out for a Helix Fossil too.

Games I’m looking forward to from 2025’s Not!E3/Summer Games Showcases

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to make a single post this time discussing everything. Though, I will be unsurprised if most of this ends up being from Wholesome Games’ Showcase. This list is solely in the order I saw them during showcases.

That said, I’m sure there are games I may have missed whether it be due to the speed of Sizzle Reels or just trying to keep up with everything. Either way, I’ll be checking out a lot of demos revealed.

New Games

  • The first game to have caught my eye is the upcoming A Planet Full of Cats— Devcats seems to keep wanting to outdo themselves and doing a hidden object game mixed with metroidvania is certainly something I can’t say I’ve really seen before. In all honesty, I’m not really a Metroidvania fan. It’s not really a game style I enjoy (partially as I struggle with navigation so I dislike the backtracking), but I will try it for the Cats. With most of their games, I’ve been playing alongside my husband so at least he’s good at Metroidvanias.
  • LEGO Voyagers – I love the LEGO games and being able to also play alongside my husband already makes this stand out to me. I hope we can pick our LEGO brick color though.
  • Scott Pilgrim EX – We had played the previous Scott Pilgrim game together and it was a lot of fun so excited to see more of this.
  • LEGO Party! – As mentioned, I already really enjoy LEGOs and essentially Mario Party but with LEGOs? Sign me up immediately.
  • Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School – To think, both of my favorite Escape Room series are getting a sequel! I can’t wait to play this with my husband. I hope we can customize our character this time, or at minimum, let us choose which of the two we want to play as instead of setting it by which player number you are.
  • Big Walk – While I’m a little worried considering my awful sense of direction combined with the fact that I usually end up playing these types of games solo, I still really like the idea of it and it looks cute.
  • Gourdlets Together – I adore Gourdlets so one where we can interact with friends is nice. I’m not sure how the fishing mechanic is (hopefully it’s not too bad) and I have mixed feelings on having to re-unlock stuff (I’m still struggling to unlock some things in the main game), but other than that, it looks fun.
  • Vending Dokan!: Kozy Kiosk – This looks so cute and– what do you mean it’s also out now?!
  • Adding to the games suddenly dropping immediately for release today is Fireside Feelings which looks adorable.
  • The Wholesome Games sizzle reel was just… jam-packed with so many things… And many are games I’ve been either looking forward to or are new games I am now very excited about so shout-outs to: Clawsome, On-Together, Shiba Sweet, Pawsta, and Townbox.
  • Block Block Block – This looked really cute.
  • Dono’s Tale – Also looking very cute.
  • Cats Around Us: Black Cat – These are always really cute. Nice to see another one too… I still need to get the previous ones though…
  • Coffee Talk Tokyo – So excited to see another Coffee Talk game coming out! I loved the previous two so excited for the new one as well.
  • Upin & Ipin Universe – This looks like a lot of fun.
  • Animalkind – These just looks really cute, honestly. I am definitely picking the Dog.
  • Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth – I loved the first Moomin game so I’m excited that another one will be made!
  • Go North – Honestly, it just sounds really fun. I also do like exploration-focused things, just when things feel more structured and not as open which I feel like this will be.

New Games through Steam’s Summer Games Page

AKA games I didn’t see in a showcase, but caught my eye in the Steam hub page for everything. This section will likely continue to be updated as I check out more demos so keep an eye on it until this extra statement is removed!

  • Cozy Organizer – This was so cute. It can use some adjustments with the item hit boxes (You can read more about it in my demo playthrough for the game, but I still had fun.
  • Unbox the Room – I really love seeing more types of games like this.
  • DIGI-DOLL – Genuinely really loved this. Just super cute and nostalgic. The bear is my favorite.
  • Cats in Cozy Rooms – While I love interior decorating in games, I most enjoy it when I have some kind of structure to build around and I love helping these cats get all moved in.

Additional Updates for Previously Announced Games

  • Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds – While not a new announcement, I’ve still been really looking forward to the game and it’s nice to know that it’ll be coming in September and we’ll be seeing other Sega characters in it as well.
  • TOEM 2 – I LOVED the first game so so SO much and was thrilled when they announced a sequel was coming out. Seeing more of it just makes me all the more excited and I can’t wait until it’s out and I can play it.
  • Instants is out! I’ve been really looking forward to this so hopefully I can pick it up soon.
  • Is This Seat Taken? has gotten a release date for August 2025! Another one I’ve been very excited for.
  • MakeRoom – Continuing the Release date announces is MakeRoom releasing August 7th! I love interior decorating and this is about the right level of depth for me to not feel too overwhelmed with it.
  • Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell – I love mysteries. I love wholesome vibes. Is it any surprise I’m excited for this? You can check out the Kickstarter here.
  • SQUEAKROSS RELEASED TODAY!!!! (As this will likely not be out “today”, June 7th is when this was announced during the Wholesome Games Showcase!)
  • Tales of the Shire is releasing July 29th! I am very excited about all the cute pink dresses.
  • Haunted Paws – The only horror game I may try playing. I don’t know if I want to sign up for the Alpha or not, but I am looking forward to playing this with my husband.
  • Out and About – Another game I’ve been super looking forward to. Still looks great.
  • The Wholesome Games sizzle reel was just… jam-packed with so many things… And many are games I’ve been either looking forward to or are new games I am now very excited about so shout-outs to: A Week in the Life of Asocial Giraffe, Danchi Days, Capy Castaway, and Letters To Arralla.
  • Woodo – I’ve been so excited for this game for years now. I want to play it so badly…
  • Not Monday Cafe – I absolutely adored the demo and am so excited for the game’s release.
  • Idle Waters – A demo I played a while back and am looking forward to.
  • Building Relationships – This just looks so silly and I had a lot of fun with the demo.
  • Undusted: Letters from the Past – Another game I’ve been super looking forward to and really enjoyed the demo for.
  • Lost and Found Co. – I’ve been looking forward to this game since the initial announcement so always excited to see more of it. I hope we get a release date soon!
  • RollerGirl – I remember playing a demo for it ages ago. It’s nice to see how far it’s come and still looks really fun.

Additional Updates for Released Games

Honorable Mentions

AKA games that seem interesting, but I am unlikely to play or need more information first.

  • Mongil: Star Dive – I love the creature designs, but I think I’m just kind of overwhelmed enough with these types of games and just really do not have the time or energy to play more of them.
  • Please, Watch the Artwork – I’ve been slightly interested in the recent Spot the Different “anomaly observation” games, but I don’t like horror so seeing one that will be without jumpscares and everything, not to mention I’ve enjoyed the previous games, has me somewhat curious. Since it is being released around Halloween, I am still a bit cautious, but I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it.
  • UNBEATABLE – I’m absolutely awful at rhythm games which is literally the only reason I won’t get this, but the music is amazing, and I’ll be getting the soundtrack regardless.
  • Rollick N’ Roll – As someone with a lot of nostalgia for these type of games, I just love the look of it. Unfortunately, I just got so anxious with the more difficult levels in the demo T~T
  • There are No Ghosts at the Grand – Honestly, I was really excited… and then they showed dark rooms, monsters, and Cthulhu and I signed right back out. I liked the idea of just helping restore the hotel and town and finding our father :( But not all the spooky stuff.
  • Animo – While I’m semi-burnt-out on these types of action open-world games, I really love the creature designs so I’m at least somewhat intrigued.
  • FBC: Firebreak – Very much not my type of game, but wow is it nice to hear no battle passes and no daily streak things as I really hate both of those and am so tired of them in games.

And that’s it! I may end up updating this for any of the later in the month showcases, but we shall see! Let me know if you liked this format or prefer the one I’ve done previously :)

Blog-related things & DDLV Interlude: Frustrating Events

So, while this will mostly be a Disney Dreamlight Valley update to talk about recent stuff and discuss the new developer update, I did want to give a bit of a blog update! In general, posts have slowed down partially due to time issues, but also just due to some health things and stress as well. You may have noticed I haven’t made posts for not!E3/Gamer Christmas yet and I’m debating this year of doing one post with my favorite games/games I’m most intrigued by that are shown during all the showcases for the first two weeks of June (I may edit it with some honorable mentions for any later ones) rather than my usual just talking about the showcases a bit and naming some games.

I don’t know if I’ll necessarily have tons to say, but I’m hoping it will be a bit more organized and lessen the number of times I end up just repeating some games.

I’ve also been working on a Hello Kitty Island Adventure post to catch up for occasional future posts (the reason it hasn’t gotten any was due to losing a lot of screenshots so I’m slowly having to retake all of them which is just… rough), but as much as I hoped it’d be out by now, I’m not entirely sure when it will be done and the frustrating reality is the longer it takes, the more I have to add to it.

Regardless, thank you for your patience and support. We’ve also gotten a lot of donations recently which really helps so much with keeping the site running and helping me afford general day to day needs.

With all that said, let’s get onto the main point of this post: Disney Dreamlight Valley.

I’m going to start with the Patch Notes just because it’s a bit easier and I figure it’s kind of the more exciting part. It’s also nice to finally see the voting up for the community-chosen companion. I don’t personally have a preference for the Animal Base so I’m more interested in the other options (According to the polls, Aesthethic/Theme will be Vote 2, Neck/Attire will be Vote 3, Head/Accessory would be Vote 4, and Vote 5 will be an Emitter/Trail). That said, it would have been nice to see an option for the Night Thorn Ferret that was often mentioned in the early DDLV Discord days.

The next patch is coming June 18th, right after the Dreamlight Parks Fest event ends essentially, and will finally give us the rest of the Skull Rock quest. I’m excited to finally give the Forgotten a new name (if only I can also give them a new look…), though, I have no clue what to name them.

I figured we’d be seeing either Peter Pan or Captain Hook first with Skull Rock so not too surprised with Peter Pan’s arrival.

I’m actually pretty excited for the upcoming Star Path rewards as I love the seashell-inspired stuff.

That said, we need to talk about the Premium Shop… again. One of the things shown is a “Never Land River Kit” which I’ll admit I don’t have full details on so some of this in just conjecture, but if that is a premium pack required to let you essentially make your own decorative river paths, it is… really obnoxious to make that Premium Shop only. It looks very pretty and maybe it is just an item, but “River kit” sounds like more than that.

The worst part though? The new Companion Bundle featuring Max. Ignoring that it’s another actual companion from the Disney universe being forced into a pay only pack, Max also has the ability to dig up resources for you. Quality of Life/Accessibility-esque perks should not be pay to access. Not to mention as someone who likes to use a lot of different companions, having to essentially have Max out for that perk as well is also kind of frustrating. I’d much rather them add a new questline that can teach all companions to be able to do this (that you can toggle on and off) rather than doing this Premium Shop exclusivity with Max on multiple levels.

Of course, with the new friendship levels, maybe some other companions can also dig for you? It’s hard to say just yet. All I know is I have a lot of companions to level up now…

The final part of the Storybook Vale will release three weeks after our Skull Rock adventures and I’m very excited to have Aurora finally in the Valley. Now all my favorite Disney princesses are in. Just hoping for Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers, and The Great Mouse Detective still…

We received a new roadmap essentially going through the rest of the year. It seems something Inside Out-related for late Summer, a return to the Beauty and the Beast Realm for Lumiere and Cogsworth, and the update in Winter sounds like it may finally bring in Cinderella. I’m always excited for new quests and characters so those will always be my favorite parts in the game.

For those playing on Playstation, the upcoming update will finally give them crossplay as well so it’ll be nice being able to play with everyone.

Another Showcase is planned for later this year, but I’m just glad there is time to prepare for everything upcoming.

Alright! Let’s go to the next part of this post now where I talk about what I’ve been up to in Disney Dreamlight Valley and I just, I need to say this because wow did I not have enough issues with Wonderland as it is: I hate the Cheshire Cat. I think doing his friendship quests and the “Cheshire Chaos” event kind of fueled it all the more.

I’ve mentioned previously how much I wish we could have a designated event area. With the addition of Floating Islands, I have felt this all the more strongly. Trying to find things in your valley if you decorated at all or even care to some extent can be exhausting to begin with but adding tons of restrictions on how much you can even find at any given time makes it all the worse.

Regardless, before we get to the event stuff, let’s talk about the Cheshire Cat’s arrival into Dreamlight Valley and his Friendship questlines. Continuing from my last post, the theme was continued Valley chaos and I just… hated it. Would have liked to keep one of these fish though.

I then got his tree up and did his quests. These quests honestly made me feel terrible. I just felt really bad or frustrated the entire time.


For anyone who missed the Cheshire Chaos event, the event itself involved finding “Cheshire Cracks” which were glowing pink dig spots in the Valley and finding pink pawprints in various realms (Toy Story’s, Lion King’s, and Aladdin’s respectively). I thought I had taken screenshots finding these, but I guess I was so frustrated I didn’t so I only have my recording.

The annoying issues, outside of trying to find cracks in a various packed valley (You’ll notice I ended up removing a lot of things during all this), are:
1. There can only be up to five cracks at a time and they only appear every 15 minutes. They’re a pain to find, limited to how many can show up, the Valley isn’t exactly small, and these are how you get memories which has the usual memory issue where you aren’t even guaranteed to get a new one.
2. Adding to annoying limits, Paw prints are also set to 5 being present at a time (per realm) with them spawning every 15 minutes. You needed to clean up 20 per realm. It’s just an annoying way to stretch it out.
3. While if you logged in on the 15th, you could do everything at once, just like with the Cheshire Cat himself, you had to wait 4 days to be able to do the next part of the event.

And these are the things that are just so frustrating about the events. The memory system is annoying enough with how you can get repeat memories even for permanent ones– doing it for a limited time event makes it really stressful. Having event-specific things spawn on your island makes it less encouraging to even bother decorating in the first place if you may need to end up clearing things out to help find them.
Add in all the unneeded walling and it quickly feels more like a tiring chore than any kind of thing to have fun with.

Which brings us to the Dreamlight Parks fest where we’re back finding buttons that litter our island, placing decorations we may not actually want to, and once again having questlines that require waiting a couple of days for the next one on top of Mirabel’s being very tightly bound (to the point where they added the reward to everyone’s crafting table after realizing) because of Critter schedules which could be fixed if taking pictures with Critters you’ve befriended counted and/or having it not require specific different ones. You need to take a photo of Mirabel with each Squirrel (which unless it is Sunday, will take 2-3 days), feed 3 different Rabbit colors a carrot (which since most days only have two, you’re likely waiting an extra day), and take a picture with each Sea Turtle (which again, will take two days to complete due to Critter schedules) and just… If it weren’t so many tight restrictions, this could absolutely have been something to take care of in a day.

Scrooge’s were at least not too bad to take care of since using the Mining Enhancement potion actually counted unlike how it usually goes with the Star Path, but it would’ve been nice to be able to do it all at once instead of four tasks being stretched over a week by making you wait a day inbetween each.

The new popcorn buckets are cute at least.

Moving on from events, Dinah was added to the Premium Shop as we continue the official critters in the premium shop trend… Less frustrating was the Tea Party Monkey, though, I still feel the prices for Critters in the Premium Shop are just too expensive.

Finally, as usual, we’ll end off with recent Dreamsnap entries.


Disney Dreamlight Valley – It’s time for Wonderland Whimsy!

Before we get fully into the update (as technically I’m writing this first part a couple of days early), I wanted to talk a bit about the patch notes for the update.

I feel like it’s been ages since we had a realm release back-to-back. I suppose it’s because the biome stories are done now.

Still really not fond of the “weeks to unlock a character” thing. I didn’t enjoy it with Stitch, HKIA has burned me out on it so badly (with the only boon that I don’t really need to seek something out each time– as long as I set up everything properly, it’s RNG after that and I can just hope and do their quest quickly), and it’s a concept I really hoped they would not do again. I think it’ll be all the more frustrating for me because I am not an Alice in Wonderland fan and I do not like the Cheshire Cat yet I’m going to have to go crazy to get him in.

I still haven’t gotten all the new items from past updates for Scrooge so at this point, I feel kind of numb when it comes to shop updates. I feel part of it is there have been so many bugs with the Furniture and Clothing logs (not to mention I swear sometimes Premium stuff still counts when it’s not supposed to??) and it’s such a pain to search through that my motivation is pretty dead with it. I feel like I’d be more excited if I could see all the new items added rather than just hoping something new shows up.

Pretty excited to fully use tables and I’m always happy for more Player House Expansions… Even though I have yet to finish adjusting to the latest one.

Launch day, we also got a blog post which thankfully gave exact dates for Cheshire Cat and once those days pass, it’ll be immediately locked from anyone who gets to it which is at least better than with Stitch, but I also just wish they could let us all do it at once anyway then…

I can’t say I’m looking forward to the May event though if it is more chaos-oriented…

With all that said, let’s get to Wonderland Whimsy!

As per usual, the first things I did was unlock the Premium Star Path and check the Premium Store. I always like to get the new companions ASAP.


I’m still… very disappointed about actual characters being sold in the Premium Store. I really think any non-original Critters/Companions should be able to be earned in-game. R2-D2 is especially such a big deal, and I feel like he should definitely be gotten through a Realm or something??
I do love the photo pose interaction though.

I think the biggest thing that kills me is them doing more of the seasonal bundles and then doing an additional one with a house style… They just feel so obnoxious :(

Moving passed Premium stuff, it was time to make our way to the Castle to unlock the new Alice in Wonderland Realm. I’m still not sure if the ponytail going like that is a bug or part of the “Wonderland experience”.

Alas, the door becomes too small to go through and then a White Rabbit comes out and you have to chase it out into the Valley. It essentially goes from the Plaza, to the Meadow, back to the Plaza, and then near the path up to the Forest is the Rabbit Hole… Unfortunately, I got stuck on something and lost track of it for a bit and then it got stuck on a night thorn so uh, after freeing it, things continued, and we were off to Wonderland.


It’s… essentially what you expect once you get there. Unlike most Disney fans, I’ve never really been much of a fan of Alice in Wonderland for various reasons so most of the stuff felt more frustrating for me than anything.

Regardless of my personal feelings, it was time to meet Alice. Unfortunately, she ends up disappearing and the Cheshire Cat is… what you’d expect I suppose.

Alas, to continue onwards, first we must find the Cheshire Cat along the forest. Then, collect various ingredients to make “More Time” along with finding some chests along the way– one which contains some furniture items, but also one that starts off a bit of a key puzzle. Once you eat “More Time”, you’re then instructed to find a portal through the forest either by randomly going through (there are essentially 9 maps– it’s roughly 3×3) or you can use the little guys that will make arrows showing you the way to go.


Once in the hedge maze, you’ll have various stealth moments to find your way through to where Alice is.


It was then time to get more things in the Forest in order to craft a perfume for Alice to return to her normal size.


It’s then our turn to shrink down to get the four key on the table for freeing the animals after placing some of the various game pieces from around the garden onto the table. I was actually kind of excited for this part, but they used a heavy blur for most of the table distance and it honestly gave me a headache. I really wish they just left it alone or just… blurred the background a bit but not the objects as ell.

After cleaning the garden up, it was time to leave. We just needed to use all the perfume on the door to fix its size first.


I will say Alice’s house is pretty cute. Though, maybe not so much the signs on the wall…

Before I went full in on Alice’s friendship quests, I went back to Wonderland to get the Cheshire Cat to sneak around the valley and then stopped by Scrooge’s to kick off the first Cheshire Cat quest.

It’ll be one week until the next part…

Alice’s first quest involved Vanellope causing words from Merlin’s book to fly out, so we had to gather them back up.



Honestly, I’m really surprised we didn’t get one of the special trail White Rabbits– whether the Card Suits or the Letters… Maybe we’ll get a special companion through the Cheshire Cat’s questlines… Though, honestly, I’m kind of scared of what to expect.

Alice’s next quest was essentially a treasure hunt to find an old treasure of hers. The first clue lead to a bottle on the beach near the entrance to the glade, the second lead down to the Mystic Cave where we had to fish a bottle up, and the last lead to a log with two glowing eyes in it where her Kaleidoscope ended up being hidden.

The next quest was essentially helping her come back together after the kaleidoscope split her into two essentially…

After checking our mail, it was time for Alice’s final friendship quest which was essentially to throw an Unbirthday party. It also restored the Kaleidoscope to be less… risky and thus, we had another memento to join our journal to be used at some point in the future.


After that, I made a few small adjustments in the large dining room where I put the new Tea Sandwiches item.

And finally, our latest dream snaps:

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Interlude before the Wonderland update

So, the Developer Update Video is out which talks about the upcoming Wonderland Whimsy update and confirms its release date for next Wednesday: April 23rd, 2025. Unlike most people who play the game, I’m actually not a fan of Alice in Wonderland so I can’t say this update really captures my attention. I’m looking forward to the new realm despite that though.

Before we get into what I’ve been up to since my last post, I wanted to talk about the Developer Update itself first.

The Realm looks fairly big, but I am very much not looking forward to more stealth segments. It also sounds like the Cheshire Cat will work similar to Stitch and the whole socks situation which I… really wish they wouldn’t do again. I wouldn’t mind it as a daily thing (though, still not really my preference), but doing it weekly is just… so frustrating, especially as I always worry about messing up a step and pushing it back further.

While I don’t know if I’ll use the Uncrafting station much, it is nice to see the option. I’m happy for the chest upgrades, though wish it could work on all storage items.

From the Star Path preview, the Flower Gazebo and Fountain are probably the main standouts for me, but I wouldn’t say I like anything more than things we already have. Victorian outfits excited me until I saw the colors, but maybe there will be some cute pink dress…

As always, I will get the Animal Companions immediately, but I still have mixed feelings on ones designed over an existing character.

We finally are seeing more Star Wars stuff and I am very much judging R2-D2 being a Premium Shop Companion/Item instead of something free or even an actual character. At this point, I’m genuinely convinced the Premium Shop is partially being used to gauge popularity– we got a bunch of Alice in Wonderland themed items and the Realm is now finally here, we recently got a bunch of Winnie the Pooh items so maybe we’ll finally see the Hundred Acre Woods, and maybe if this does well they’ll bring more Star Wars stuff.

I think in general most of my patience with the Premium Shop died when the game decided to stay pay to play. I’m actually okay with the latter point– I just don’t think it should still have a Premium shop then. Especially when we have to pay for Expansions anyway.

With that said, let’s move on to the few things I’ve done since my last post, which uh, to be honest isn’t much.

First, I did a couple more adjustments around the Valley like setting up a rainbow arch and putting in the new Oasis Well skin. I’m not too surprised to see ones for Wells now which honestly, I am kind of excited about and felt this looked best in the Plateau for now.

I’m still hoping to do some stuff on the floating islands, especially as they won’t be plagued by like… night thorns and stuff and I do have ideas— just haven’t fully felt up to executing it all. I kind of wish I could save certain layouts of items or easily just… move things up to the Floating Island over needing to essentially remove stuff, re-find it, and re-set it up and I think those are the things that have been holding me back from working on it right now as I haven’t been in the best of health lately so my energy levels just aren’t there right now.

Eggstravaganza also returned with a brand new egg color: Purple! These were found exclusively in Realms which uh, I like the idea but with how big realms are now, it wasn’t really fun finding them. They also seem slightly smaller than the other eggs, but I’m not entirely sure that’s intentional.


While the new items were cute (the balloons were probably my favorite), I think the highlight for me initially with this event were the special Bunnies you got from the Dreamlight Tasks and nothing new got added in that regard.

I’ve also really liked seeing a lot of new Winnie the Pooh themed items, even though it’s mostly been through the Premium Shop. I’m really hoping to set something up in either the Glade of Trust or the Floating Island version of it to be like a Hundred Acre Wood area…

Besides that, as usual, I participated in the Dreamsnaps. It’s been a bit harder to feel particularly creative right now, but I still try to do my best.

Anyway, I’ll likely edit this post on Wednesday with my Dreamsnap entry for the week and then we’ll be back next Wednesday to talk about the new update! Be sure to keep an eye on my Youtube as well for my playthrough of it.