Let’s talk about Fashion Dreamer!

I’ve been asked many times now about if I heard about the game or what I think of it and while I’m more or less expressed my excitement in my ‘Game Presentation News’ posts, I haven’t really spoken about it as is. For those unaware of the game, it’s a new upcoming title by Syn Sophia being produced by Marvelous (and XSEED here in the USA) which if you’re unfamiliar with them, they make the Story of Seasons (Bokujō Monogatari) series among others.

If you recognize the name Syn Sophia, but maybe can’t place it, they are the ones behind the Style Savvy/Style Boutique/Girls Mode series which is one of my all-time favorite games. As someone who enjoys dressing up but isn’t necessarily a fan of most fashion-esque gameplay in other games, this has always been the perfect fit for me with the store system and general gameplay mechanics in comparison to other games.

While the game shares a similar style, Fashion Dreamer is its own thing entirely. The game will have its own story, but also has an online mode and gives you a large variety of ways to customize clothing that as someone who constantly ran into an issue in Style Savvy of ‘I really like this outfit but hate the color or nothing matches’, that is honestly really exciting.

For example, this is one of the pre-order bonuses in Japan:

And this is an example of it being recolored through the game:


Courtesy of the official Japan Instagram for the game

I think that’s part of what makes it so hard with the preorder bonuses too. Japan has a whole slew of preorder bonuses and besides the one I showed above, there’s also these I really like:

And knowing I can just… Adjust the colors as I’d like is really exciting. Obviously, you need to earn stuff in-game so it may take a bit, but just having the option is really exciting. If you’re worried about exclusive items though, I’m not entirely sure if the items themselves are exclusive or more so an early access thing. At least here in the USA, there is the physical version which I’m not sure if it comes with this or not, but at least the Digital Version supposedly comes with a “Chic Outfit” Pattern Set DLC which unlocks four rare patterns early: Sailor-Collar Blouse with Mimosa Embroidery, Retro Rose-Print Shorts, 2-Color Mid-Heel Lace-up Shoes, and Vintage Pearl Earrings according to the Press Release.

Personally, I’m pretty excited for the Blouse and Earrings myself, but even if you are maybe a little impatient to get these items yourself (or the ones in Japan do end up exclusive), with the ‘Like’ system in place, simply liking someone’s outfit wearing those items you may be interested in will grant you them which is really nice. In general, it seems there’s no reason not to try and give everyone some likes both as it helps them earn stuff and you, but I think it’ll be a nice motivation bonus for anyone who enjoys doing designs as well.

They show a lot more options if you’d like to see more of the color system. I’d also highly recommend watching the Gameplay Trailer that went up in English last month if you haven’t already:

In general, it almost feels hard to fully encapsulate why I’m so excited for the game. I feel like I was sold immediately when the trailer hit and that feeling only became larger every second more of the trailer. I mean, look at this place!:

If the game gets any physical merch, I want that Teddy Bear in real life. Though, probably in a smaller size. I don’t have that much room.

That area is one of the four different Coccoons that make up Eve, the world the game takes place in. There’s HOPE which is more of a Pop City-like appearance, ACT which has a more Modern City Street-feel (think NYC), Cocoon FUN which is where the image above is from and where I feel I will be spending most of my time whenever I have a choice and is more fantasy-themed, and Cocoon LOVE which is a giant Mall.

Like all of those areas look so fun to explore and I could easily see how DLC could maybe even add more things. I know I loved the trips you could take in some of the Style Savvy games for example.

Moving passed the fashion for a bit, let’s talk about the character creator!

You can have up to 4 Muses (your playable character). You can make them all more Feminine (Type A) or more Masculine (Type B) or do a mix. I’m really happy to see more masculine options as I know so many guys who have wanted to be able to make a masculine character in other games and it’s nice to see them have that option in this kind of game.

From there, you have Body Shape/Height options and pose options in addition to being able to pick your hair style/color and eyes as well. I’m especially happy to see a longer more wavy/curly ponytail. I do hope there may be other bang versions for it though like some of the other styles:

And it’s just, again, like every single thing. I’m excited to make my character and fill out her personality and explore the areas and hopefully hug a teddy bear.

You even get to make your own Brand Logo for your designs and decorate a show room which looks really pretty:

There’s over 1,400 items in the game and with all the ways to customize things, I’m really looking forward to seeing how people put their own spins on things.

The game releases November 3rd in the USA and November 2nd in Japan. I know I’m super excited for it and hope I see you in Eve too! :) I’ll be making posts in addition to Videos as soon as I start playing so please look forward to it! ^-^

Disney Dreamlight Valley – The DreamSnaps Update!

Before we get into my own journey with the update, I want to talk about the most advertised part of it: The DreamSnaps. When first announced, I was honestly pretty concerned– These types of things can so easily become a popularity contest and with the Touch of Magic tool, those who may struggle with it may be at a disadvantage.

They then announced that you could earn Moonstones just from participating and then I felt a little better about it because even if maybe you wouldn’t earn as much as if you won, at least it was an option that could work out for most people.

Except then it was announced that there would be exclusive furniture/items tied to it and that really sucks. It’s one thing if it’s another participation thing (like Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer where you could earn the special item no matter what), but it sounds like it’s a prize for winning, not participating.

I am glad that the Touch of Magic stuff won’t count even if that puts me in a bit of a bind because I literally only wear a Touch of Magic outfit. I guess I’ll have to use some of my other clothing for once. I would say the main concern now though is just with Scrooge’s shop inventory. It’s supposed to get a rebalance update, but I do think more people may be encouraged to time travel just for more items to use.

Anyway, I guess the short version is I wish the Dreamsnaps were just a “everyone who joins in gets something” and not “also there’s these exclusive prizes”.

With that aside, let’s go into the actual gameplay stuff. I haven’t really played much at all beyond checking Scrooge’s shop and maybe removing some night thorns if they’re in the way. Finding the Moonstone chests, even though I desperately need the Moonstones, is honestly just not very fun and so I’ve mostly given up on it.

I think in general, the Premium Shop has me pretty discouraged with the incredibly unbalanced prices and the increased price for Critters as well. I know a new Crocodile was shown during the trailer and I’m genuinely scared for how much that will be when it shows up.

Literally the only actual kind of new thing I’ve done is I started placing some of a border path:

I don’t know if I’ll do this everywhere yet (maybe just the Plaza)– I’m kind of torn. My favorite path’s border doesn’t look particularly nice, I hate that you have to remake all the paths as they require tons of materials (I was really hoping it’d just be a toggle per path), and path placement takes a long time without having to remove a bunch in the first place.

The border paths can also be super finnicky and you really need to do it all in one go to prevent them getting all messed up. The main boon for them is that they make corners look a lot nicer and that’s really the only reason I’m considering using them.

Anyway, the first thing I wanted to try and do with the update (after checking Scrooge’s shop) was to find and befriend Vanellope. I’m still not super confident on where I want to put her house. The beach is one option, obviously, because of the Volcano and stuff, but I feel like my Dazzle Beach is already pretty crowded.

The other option would be the forest where I could make some kind of little candy-themed area, but I don’t know if it really feels like it fits. When it comes down to it though, I just don’t think we have a good area for it, though, it’s not the first house I’ve felt that way about. It’s probably the one that I’ve felt most frustrated about though. I think most of the other ones I at least found somewhere that I settled on enough for it to feel like it worked, but nothing I can think of feels even somewhat acceptable here.

And I suppose Vanellope agrees with that assessment considering her very first friendship quest requires decorating around her house to make it look like a ‘candy biome’.

But before we get into that, let’s go back a little more to right before that. Vanellope’s introduction questline starts with Scrooge and essentially introduces the new DreamSnap update. I’m already really wishing I had so many different furniture items.

I honestly do kind of like it, but I probably won’t be keeping the room as is. I think there’s enough variety to make 2-3 Wreck-it Ralph rooms and I kind of want to wait until I unlock all the furniture to do so. I’m just not particularly great at working ‘in parts’ so not having everything available yet makes it a little hard to want to work on things.

Anyway, I did end up putting her house in the Forest after all simply because it’s kind of the most desolate. The beach really is a bit too busy and I do kind of like the candy theme in the forest– very Candy Land-esque.

Part of me wants to carve out more of an area to really make a Candy-esque part now or something, but I think I’ll still work on unlocking more things first. I had fun with the kart parts too (If you’re having trouble with them, I have the recipes here), though, was surprised you don’t really see the finished kart then. I guess the level 10 one is kind of close.

After getting the house set up, it was time for hobby sharing so after finishing the valley chores usual things like mining, farming, and fishing, you got to play hide and seek with Vanellope. She’s in the mine which I really should’ve just checked first, but I checked all the smaller areas first… Plus optional dialogue is fun.

Vanellope’s next quest involved finding a Sword to go have some “boss battles” which uh, not my favorite quest– I feel bad bothering characters and they are trying to be good… sort of. I did appreciate the color scheme though.

I kind of wish we could’ve done the battle of wits with Scar though. I like riddles.

That said, it was then time for Vanellope’s final friendship quest and honestly, probably my favorite one. You went around on a quest to gather keys to unlock the chest in her house. I didn’t expect Buzz Lightyear to be the Princess though.


With that done, I went and entered the first official DreamSnaps challenge. Once again, there’s a lot more I’d have liked to do, but oh well… I do wish I had a pink version of this dress with actual sleeves though…

Voting starts next week. I’m expecting to be last, honestly. Regardless, my playthrough will be up on Youtube soon, if not already if you want to see me play through the update and decorate as well!

In which I talk about Our Life: Beginnings & Always

On May 19th, the final DLC (and main content update– there is one last Patreon moment coming in August) for the first Our Life game, Our Life: Beginnings & Always, released essentially finishing up the game. As much as I enjoy Visual Novels, as I enjoy reading in general, I have always been more in the mystery genre for them. That doesn’t mean I’ve never played romance ones, and if you’ve seen my Youtube channel or literal guides for My Candy Love, it’s clearly not true, but most do not click for me.

This is generally a combination of:
-They move too fast for me to be invested in the relationship.
-I don’t really have interest in any content beyond kissing.
-I have a very specific type and 99% of LIs in these games do not get very close to that type.

And the reason Our Life, and the first season of MCL to a specific point, ended up actually jiving with me were because they had a slow build up where you actually befriended the love interests. Something especially interesting though with Our Life: Beginnings & Always is that the game lets you customize a lot from the look, name, what they like to wear, and pronouns of your own MC (main character) to your relationship with some of the characters.

Even your general tone can be customized to cater to if you’re more shy or direct. Coming from someone who is definitely more on the shy side, having choices I can actually relate to and wanted to pick was crazy. And you don’t even need to necessarily end up with anyone– you have the option to play the game completely as friends or in the case of 2/3 love interests, acquaintances at best. It’s not treated as a bad ending or any kind of ‘bad’ choice– it’s just treated as your own decisions. Relationships also won’t really be pushed on you– you can select an initiative level (so if you don’t like being kissed or maybe even more directly touched, you can pick low initiative vs high) and characters generally will feel the same way you do (IE: 2/3 love interests will not have a crush on your character unless you also chose to have a crush on them).

Choices you make during the game will also help develop MC more such as describing your character’s heights, certain things they like, dietary preferences, and even sexual orientation (including options for the asexuality spectrum as well). You even get to customize your room to an extent in Step 3 (along with describing what your plans are after high school) and your living situation and job, if any, in Step 4.

The way the game works is each ‘Step’ takes place in the Summer in-between 5 year intervals with the first starting when your character is ~8. Step 2 has your character at 13, Step 3 at 18, and Step 4 at 23. The game starts off in 2006 with Step 2 in 2011, Step 3 in 2016, and Step 4 in 2021. The Wedding DLC is more or less up to you on how far after Step 4 it is. While the game takes place in reality to an extent (and in the USA– the fictional town of Sunset Bird is located in South California), it does have some of its own divergences to keep the more positive vibes and things like green hair, purple eyes, and wavy eyebrows are completely natural.

Our Life: Beginnings & Always is free to play with additional DLC for more content and the ability to date two more love interests. Buying all the DLC is roughly about $25 which I feel like is cheaper than a lot of visual novels anyway. And if you’re only interested in the default LI, then it’s $15– each Step DLC is $4, the wedding DLC is $3, and the DLC for the other two love interests are $5 which add 5 additional moments to their introduction step and a new version of Step 4. Keep it mind that even if you don’t have the DLC for the other two love interests, you will still meet them in-game so if you’re undecided, that could be a good way to know if you’d want to know them as more than friends. All three LIs are pan (Cove is panromantic, Baxter and Derek are pansexual) so they’ll love your character no matter what.

The default love interest is Cove Holden who is also only love interest to be customizable in some way and has the wedding DLC. Both Patreon moments (which are 18+– one for Step 3 and one for post-wedding DLC. You CAN play them without going into the 18+ content though) are for Cove as well. Cove’s appearance and personality can’t be adjusted in Step 1, but in Steps 2-4, you can change various things about him such as:

  • Hairstyle – You have 2 options in Step 2, 3 in Step 3, and 4 in Step 4.
  • If he’s still wearing his glasses or has contacts (Steps 2 and 3 only)
  • Accessories. Bracelets and Necklaces– which he has if any.
  • You also have choices of various clothing. (Shirts, Pants, Pajamas, Jackets, Formal shirt, Bathing suit, etc. Not all are available at each Step though)
  • In Step 4, you can also pick Cove’s body type– if he’s more Lean or Muscular along with if he has any tattoos.

In addition to his appearance, you can pick if Cove is more warm or cold and more sporty or studious. Or, you can choose to not choose any of these (or just his personality OR appearance) and let the game pick which he is solely based off your character’s interactions with him in the game itself.

These things will affect his dialogue and also certain other aspects of his life (such as what he ends up doing after college or where his part time job is).

Your main character is the youngest child of a family of four that features your two moms, Noelani and Pamela and your adopted older sister, Elizabeth (who goes by Lizzie in Step 1, Elizabeth in Step 2, and Liz in Step 3 and 4). Your MC is also adopted.

Cove is introduced right in the introduction of Step 1 as your newest neighbor who has just moved in across the street. Depending on how you want to play, you could be disinterested in him, fond of him, or have a crush on him right away. You can change these at any step, but they can only go up– not down (So you could be disinterested for Step 1 and 2 and then be at Crush in Step 3 or you can be Fond and then Crush but you couldn’t be Fond and then Disinterested). How you feel can only be set at the start of a step so if you want to change it, you either need to replay or wait until the next Step.


Moments like these are when it really feels like the game gets me sometimes.

Each Step has an introduction, 5 free moments (where you can do all or none of them– it’s totally up to you), and an ending. Moments that you do CAN be brought up in future Steps and by the characters. Because of this, it can be fun to experiment with moment order too and honestly, I’d recommend doing all of them. One example is one of the very first moments in the list in Step 1 can be brought up in multiple ways even all the way in Step 3. If you’d like to see some specifics, I highly recommend checking out this document which mentions a lot of the references that can come up.

The Step DLCs add 5 more moments to their respective step. Derek’s DLC adds 5 new moments plus an extended opening/ending, and an alternate version of an existing moment to Step 2 (for a total of 15 moments if you have the respective Step DLC in addition to his) and 1 new option for Step 4 while Baxter’s DLC adds 5 new moments to Step 3 plus an extended opening/ending, and alternate version of an existing moment (which again, makes a total of 15 moments if you have the respective Step DLC in addition to his) and another new option for Step 4.

When you finish a Step, you can change:
-Your character’s appearance. Hair color, hair style, pronouns, name, whatever you want. Characters will be very supportive!
-Your relation to a Love interest.
-Your character’s comfort level (determines how shy or blunt they are)
-The initiative level of a love interest.
-Cove’s appearance and/or personality.

Step 2 introduces Derek Saurez, the first of two additional love interests. His alternate moment is Soiree which can also introduce the third love interest a bit early depending on the choices you make during that moment. Derek is the same age as the MC and Cove. His father is business partners with Cove’s dad. He also has two younger brothers. While you won’t really meet his family if you don’t have his DLC, you still will get to hang out with him quite a few times.

Unlike the other two love interests where you can choose to be completely disinterested in them, you will always have to be at least friends with Derek. He also has a crush on the MC right away, but beyond a mention at the end of Step 2 and certain lines in his DLC, you won’t have to worry much about it if you’re not personally interested in Derek. Of the three, he’s the most well-mannered.

Derek does not appear at all in Step 3 physically (you can have a phone call with him at the end if you kept in touch though), but does appear in both his and Cove’s Step 4. He can also be called in Baxter’s (our final love interest) Step 4 if certain conditions are met (His phone call is actually my favorite of the ones you can have, but sadly I don’t usually hit those requirements because of the Soiree changes required to do so).

Step 3 introduces Baxter Ward, who you can possibly meet at or even dance with at the Soiree depending on the choices you make. If you do meet or dance with him there, certain dialogue will be adjusted to represent that including choices in relation to it.

Baxter Ward will also be in their next Our Life game, Our Life Now & Forever (though, as a supporting character– not a love interest) which takes place in his hometown, Golden Grove– a fictional town in Oregon.

Baxter is a year older than the MC and Cove. Our Life: Now & Forever will follow a similar system (Steps 1-4), but with 4 year intervals inbetween instead of 5. The Love interests and your MC in OLNAF are 10 in Step 1, 14 in Step 2, 18 in Step 3, and 22 in Step 4 and take place in Fall during the years 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022. The OLBAA MC is two years older than the MC and Love Interests in OLNAF. Baxter is three years older. His alternate moment is Hang. Honestly, I kind of wish you could do both moments of Hang, though, I can understand why you can’t.

I won’t be talking more about OLNAF right now as this is mainly about the first game, but the Kickstarter for it will be going up this Fall— as someone who pledged for the first game, I am absolutely planning to for the second as well (and maybe actually go for some of the physical merch so I don’t have regrets like I do now for not realizing how attached I’d get.. Oh cute little charms… I would’ve liked at least one…).

As mentioned, the game is essentially about going through 15 years of your own MC’s life, whether you just want a friendly slice of life journey or something more akin to a rom-com, it’s just… really nice, honestly? You have the options to choose if you’re super into someone right away or pick more slow-burn options (though, if you go Baxter’s route, it is absolutely a slow burn as it is an angsty route and will be a bit of a gut punch at the end of Step 3. It gets better though!). I generally prefer the slow-burn myself because, as I said, I like actually getting to know characters before it gets to that point. And then if I maybe feel like playing a more romantic route after, I can.

For example, my very first playthrough had Cove as fond in Step 1 and 2 and then crush in Step 3 (which is when they confess), but I ended up having more fun doing Step 1 at Fond, Step 2 at Crush, and Step 3 at Love. Cove is essentially your standard childhood friends to lovers (or childhood barely interested we’re just here because of our parents ugh oh wait I may love you now to lovers depending on how you decide to feel about Cove at each step).

If you had asked me which LI was my favorite before the wedding DLC, I probably would’ve said Cove. And that might sound strange considering the DLC for Cove’s wedding is what made me interested in Baxter, but uh, oops.

Baxter is a very eccentric character in Step 3 and at least when I heard some of his excuses reasoning in Cove’s wedding DLC, I just desperately needed to give him a hug. Even if he’s kind of a jerk (affectionate) sometimes. It is an angsty mess and I stayed up all night the first time I played it because I was hooked and needed to see how it ended and now desperately need some kind of crossover DLC where he meets up with everyone in Golden Grove and they make up and maybe both casts hang out together or something but that probably will not happen.


As someone who generally doesn’t care for the proper guy in suits, it surprised me too. But I suppose, as Baxter says, he’s “always been improper. I’m merely formal about it.”.

I know a lot of people who also really adore Derek. I generally don’t like the super athletic LIs, but he’s honestly such a great character. I really want to check out his romance route at some point– I’ve only played the friendly version thus far. I would say some of my favorite moments with him are playing Mario Kart, camping in his living room, and the Father’s Day debacle.

I would say the hardest part for me with Derek though is that his character arc situation hits very close to home for me and is something I struggle with in a way I’m not quite ready to deal with just yet.

Baxter’s hits certain things too, but in a sense of a lot of people go through this. Even Cove I relate to quite a bit with how he handles certain things.

Derek’s hits a very fundamental part of my core that makes things a lot harder to decide how to deal with, even when playing a game like this.

But more than anything, the game is generally just really heartwarming. It feels like getting a warm hug and is such an enjoyable thing to just play for some positivity and fun times. Being sick often and having family with multiple medical issues, my childhood was very complicated and in some ways, this filled a bit of the void with that.

I really love every character, even the not as nice ones (which are generally cameos from another GB Patch game– XOXO Droplets which I really need to play at some point), and it was really fun getting to know all of them.

Even for those who aren’t super into visual novels, I feel like you could get something out of this game, even if it’s just helping you think and develop a new OC.
Overall though, I think it’s one of a very small selection of otome games that make me feel warm and fuzzy. Like I said, it’s just genuinely really nice, not just to play through and enjoy the moments, but also to actually feel like your choices matter throughout and more often than not, have options I actually want to pick and feel like my character would do.

Our Life: Now & Forever is pretty much improving on every concept that Our Life: Beginnings & Always introduced (along with having two main love interests this time– Tamarack Baumann, a girl, and Qiu Lin, who is genderfluid) and having played the Demo, I’m so excited for another level of coziness.

Anyway, I’ll end this here before I keep rambling, but I really can’t recommend the game enough and it is free to play so if you’re interested, be sure to check it out on Steam or Itch.io. Or if you’d rather see more of it first, I have over 30 videos of it over on Youtube because I have played over 200 hours of the game. And one thing you will absolutely notice is there is a lot of content to enjoy both with the free content alone, but also what gets added with the DLC.

But yes, tl;dr: Very fun game, highly recommend even if you just want to play it as a Slice of Life friendship adventure.

In which I talk about the Header Redesign

I initially wanted to wait until I had the video portion of this ready to go up at the same time which is why this is so much later than when I actually updated things around here, but I’m honestly not sure if I’ll still share that or not just yet, so I figured with my birthday in just a few days, why not post this now? If you’re curious in the sense of a content standpoint, the short version is that this post solely focuses on the design side of the situation and not anything about the Vtuber part (Which was completely unplanned is the short version and just came out of lucky circumstances– if the video does happen, it’ll be explained there). For the most part though, nothing you enjoy will change due to this addition.

There isn’t necessarily some big explanation of why things were changed– when it comes down to it, I had been wanting to for a long time as I wanted a more unique character that I felt better encompassed not just me, but everything I do. As much as I loved the original character design I used, it was also relatively generic (to the point where it even got picked up by some clip art sites -_-) at no fault of the artist. It was very simple with an outfit based off an existing outfit and a quick hairstyle– lots of things were not really made clear (the hair was a bit light and the body type wasn’t discussed at all), it was just something to be done fast for me to use.

But it never felt like a design I could relate to and as I wanted to further connect my website, Twitch, Youtube, and everything else, I really wanted to have a character that kind of combined those aesthetics together in addition to, as I said before, encompassing me as a person. That just matched my aesthetics and everything so well, that those who know me would look at the character and think “Yeah, that’s so you!”.

This has been something that has been planned for a very long time– around the same time I was looking into having a proper logo made. Part of it is I wanted to have so many things redesigned– updated stream graphics, new starting/be right back/ending scenes, new animations, all of this depended on having a new character design to tie everything together.

I also can’t thank Nagifry enough who was kind enough to help me out with the character design, as you can see to the left, and help me untangle the mess in my head when all she really had to work with was my personality and random aesthetic things I threw at her :P I’ve always really liked this hairstyle for characters, partially because it’s similar to my own, but it’s one I don’t tend to see very often actually done the same way. The closest is often a half down, half up style (or just pulled back but still down for the majority of it), but here, it’s just entirely a full ponytail. For those who are used to mostly straight hair, as that’s also the kind of hair most often portrayed in ponytail’s in media, this is how it goes when you have really thick wavy/curly hair. It’s just nice to have some parts of me, the very few I don’t hate, integrated in a way.

I also want to give a huge thank you to my friend, Duck who did all the header art variations after a whole slew of other complicated circumstances. It was super kind of them and I really can’t say enough how much it means to me.

There’s no real deep explanation or anything, the short version is I just wanted something more me and like I said, to help tie everything together. I’m hoping to continue to save up to have everything adjusted properly for the new character design (and a thank you to those who have donated towards this– I wouldn’t have been able to afford a lot of the art otherwise. Just a couple of pieces left and we’re set with all the big things). Thank you for your patience.

The rest of the days of the June Showcases!

Update for July 1st (our last update!): Here are the last couple of showcases to finish things off :)

Annapurna Interactive Showcase

  • Lushfoil Photography Sim – I don’t know if I’d actually be any good (I feel like I’d just get lost), but it looks really pretty.
  • ??? – Whatever the project is, it does look interesting, but hard to say anything without seeing more from it.
  • To a T – This seems very odd, but I also very cute. It looks like a fun slice-of-life-esque game at least. Kind of concerned about his arms though.
  • Flock – This just looks really cute and I always prefer more relaxing collection-esque games.
  • Ghost Bike – I’m curious how more of the game mechanics work, but I’m already pretty intrigued.
  • Storyteller – Excited to see it getting updates! I still really need to pick the game up.

Sonic Central

Honestly, there wasn’t too much to comment on here. Most things we heard of at this point, but I liked the Koco’s in their party hats for the birthday update. There was also so many references to Chao and SA2 and I still wish we could get a Chao Garden game…

Update for June 21st: And of course, we have another last second announcement from Nintendo! So, Nintendo Direct time.

Nintendo Direct

  • We kicked things off right away with stuff for the new Pokemon DLC. While I wouldn’t say this is my favorite game (And I still need a 3 segment Dudunsparce…), I am looking forward to more Story stuff. Still hate the uniforms though and am genuinely annoyed there’s no skirt option. I haven’t actually played the game in ages– just burnt out on Raids and everything :/
  • The customization in Palia looks interesting, but I just… I genuinely miss when not every simulation game had to have farming, crafting, and/or cooking. Ignoring that most cooking minigames aren’t that fun, I’ve never enjoyed the other two aspects in games and having them be a forced part of most simulation games now, to the point where even Animal Crossing added them, has been super discouraging for me. It’d be one thing if it was just another option to earn money similar to foraging, but it’s often such a requirement with many things locked just to those options. I miss when there were specific genres for these types of things.
  • DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 DETECTIVE PIKACHU 2 YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES DETECTIVE PIKACHU RETURNS!!!!
  • A NEW PRINCESS PEACH GAME!! We got barely any information, but it looks pretty awesome.
  • Silent Hope isn’t really my kind of game, but I like some of the character designs.
  • I feel like this trailer has made me less interested in Fae Farm… I still like the My Sims vibes, but the combat and having to decorate for your starts really rubs me the wrong way. I love interior decorating and having it stat based sucks– that kind of thing is what killed Mario Kart and other games for me. My preferred options rarely coincide with my playstyle.
  • Manic Mechanics looks pretty fun, but I would guess it’d have the same issues as other Overcooked-esque games if you don’t have people to play with.
  • Every time I see Pikmin, I just feel like I’d enjoy a relaxed version of the game. Where you don’t have to worry about being murdered and seeing all your Pikmin die.
  • Fashion Dreamer got a release date in Japan’s Nintendo Direct!! November 2nd. I hope it won’t be too late for North America… :( Switch is region-free, but I won’t be able to read it…
  • Most of my affection for Mario Kart kind of died between the unlock system in this version and the customization tied to stats problems (plus drifting being more of a thing– if you’re bad at drifting like me, you will struggle), but some of those new courses look fun. I wish the game was still fun for me to play because I’d genuinely like to play them :/
  • I love Wario Ware, but I feel like this requires so much more movement and I’ll be absolutely terrible.
  • And a new 2D Mario to go with that new 2D Sonic. It honestly looks pretty good, but part of me is still kind of burnt out on them and everything. THE FOUNTAINS ARE SO PRETTY THOUGH… And I can play as Peach so yay.

Sad no Fashion Dreamer trailer for the English Direct though. Doesn’t bode well for the releases to be super close, but it still says “2023” on our end and November is already pretty late in the year so maybe :/

There were a handful of things only shown in the Japanese Direct for some reason– some we have seen already recently, but I really hope we can see more things getting localized.

Everything else from the last week:

And so we continue with the rest of the showcases for June! As always, same things as my previous posts apply :D I will say one sad thing about mostly digital performances is you can’t really talk about silly stage stuff anymore…

Xbox Games Showcase

  • Sea of Thieves Secret of Monkey Island – I actually really enjoyed what I played of Sea of Thieves once I figured out what I was doing, but it’s a game I do think is most fun when you have friends to play with and I’ve just never really had tons of free time. This looks really neat though so if I do ever have the time, I’d like to check it out.
  • Overwatch 2 – I’m not sure if there’s many other examples where a lot of my interest got lower with each update/announcement which is a shame because I really like the characters. Doing the “play every week” change to events was what initially lessened my Overwatch 1 playing with only deciding to just wait until Overwatch 2 because of the addition of PvE Story Content which I really liked from some events, even if the difficulties felt frustrating at certain points. Unfortunately, that was cancelled (and I also just… do not like some of the character redesigns either) so I don’t know if I’ll ever bother again at this point. That said, considering the cancellation, I feel very confused on what that trailer even was about.
  • Jusant – I don’t think this will be my type of game at all, but I love the cute little blue pet so much. Would be a squishy plushie of it.
  • Starfield – Honestly, I think the Character customization has been the most interesting thing to me. The ship customization also seems pretty neat, as someone who usually likes ships that remind me of animals in the first place.

PC Gaming Show

  • Stampede: Racing Royale – In general, I don’t know if I’d necessarily play it as I feel like I’ve had less and less fun with a lot of Kart Racers, but it definitely looks interesting.
  • Critter Cove – Even though I am still not a fan of crafting, everything they showed looked really interesting and fun.
  • Hidden Door – It feels like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” that you can do with friends which sounds pretty cool, but not really fond of the AI usage. :/

I didn’t really have much of anything to say for Ubisoft Forward or the Capcom Showcase unfortunately.

I would say the only things I could really say for Capcom are:
-I had hoped the Capcom Town thing would’ve been similar to the Toyko Game Show Experience thing, but it’s just a webpage. Still really neat, but not as fun.
-Ghost Trick is such a good game and I highly recommend it to everyone. The Missle voice was top tier and Missile truly is the very best. I want a Missile Plushie so badly.

I know a lot of people want a sequel for the game, and I mean, maybe they CAN pull off a sequel in more of a spiritual spin-off with the same characters and stuff, but everyone had such good well-rounded endings and it just felt satisfying. I don’t want these characters getting hurt again. Like if I had a “sequel”, I’d want to just have more scenes extending past the end of the game of everyone happy together.

But I would be 10000% onboard for more games in the same style, but I am curious what reasoning will be given for it because so much of the game’s mechanics are fully tied to the plot. It’s hard for me to imagine how it could be separated.

Xbox Games Showcase Extended

  • Towerborne – Despite the combat maybe not really being my thing, it does look like it could be pretty fun, especially with a friend.
  • Little Kitty Big City – Still really interested in the game, but hope I don’t have to actually hurt anything for food…
  • Mineko’s Night Market – I just still can’t get over how close it is after waiting for so long.

Guerrilla Collective, Dames 4 Games, and Black Voices in Gaming

  • Wrestle Story – Something about the way you can customize your own story through the game is what really grabs me, even if I don’t think it’d really be my type of game normally. It looks fun though.
  • Everholm – Definitely intrigued by the story. I also really love the art style.
  • This Bed We Made – I do love mysteries. I just hope it doesn’t have a horror aspect built in…
  • RollerGirl – This genuinely looks like a lot of fun.

The UploadVR Showcase

Before starting, I’ll just say any game that is VR only, I really wish had another way to play. It’s to be expected with a VR showcase, but as someone who just… will not play VR, there’s still games I would love to just play with a mouse on PC.

  • Little Cities

I didn’t really have too much to say which is why I ended up grouping everything together ^^; I sadly had nothing to add at all for the Grasshopper Direct either…

I know there is one more direct later this month so I will edit this post with it over making a new one. And of course, we’re only halfway through June so maybe there are still a few more showcases that will show up.

We also have Steam Nextfest starting on the 19th and I’ll definitely be checking out a bunch of demos then– though, I don’t know if I’ll make a post on it or not ^^; We’ll have to see!

Days 3 and 4 of the June Showcases!

It’s time for the next two days of all the Game Showcases so this time, we have everything from June 9th and June 10th! I expect this to be quite a doozy, if only for the Wholesome Games Direct alone.

Everything I mentioned for the first post of everything still applies :) Thank you for being interested in my thoughts!

Access-Ability Summer Showcase

Before getting to some game thoughts, I just wanted to give credit to the how much effort they put into the showcase itself to have it as accessible as possible for people. You don’t really think of how rare it is until you see just how much effort they put in here.

  • Mythwrecked – Breaking my rules a bit on the “not talking too much about games I know about”, but I’m still really excited for this one! I played the Demo earlier this year and really enjoyed it.
  • Skye Tales – I really need to pick this game up at some point.
  • A Knight in the Attic – This actually looks really interesting! If only it wasn’t VR only T~T
  • Upheaval – I don’t know if this is entirely my game (Or more accurately, I think I would do a very bad job), but I LOVE that there is an accessibility mode to get rid of the time limit essentially so you can just… do everything. There’s a lot of games I can think of where you’re limited to how much you can do at a time or in a day and while I get that is part of the experience sometimes, I definitely prefer the more relaxed take for it as that general anxiety and constantly worrying about if this is the right thing to do can be such a huge detriment to the point where I stop having fun altogether.
  • Botany Manor – I’ve been looking forward to this game since it was first shown and I’m glad it still looks like a super relaxing time. I just hope my lack of plant knowledge won’t be too much of a detriment…
  • Himig – This has been on my wishlist since I first heard about it. I honestly just really enjoy games where you can explore, though not necessarily to the extent of giant sandbox games, and experience everything without any real rush.
  • Pine Hearts – Another game I’ve been really looking forward to. It’s nice seeing the Simplified Controls as someone who can find it really painful to keep clicking/tapping after a while (or even holding)– having the option to do a single tap is super nice. I’m pretty sure the game is going to make me cry though [from the story].
  • BLINNK and the Vacuum of Space – I am once again wishing VR games could also be played on the PC with a mouse so I could play them T~T
  • Stories of Blossom – I played the Demo last year and had a lot of fun with it. It definitely has come a long way and is looking really great.

Tribeca Games Spotlight

  • A Highland Song – This game looks really pretty. I’m worried about getting too lost even if that’s part of the point, but it looks like it’ll be really fun to explore.
  • Goodbye Volcano High – Honestly, part of me genuinely wants to play the game, but considering the giant meteor, I don’t know how it can end and not break my heart into pieces too.

Future of Play Direct

  • Gourdlets – I genuinely love how cute this game looks. I loved playing the Demo of it too. They’re just so cute.
  • Sizzle Reel TIME… Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of Sizzle Reels. I get why they exist, but I find it rarely gives me time to fully process everything. I would say the ones that stood out to me were:
    • Videoverse
    • Escape from Mystwood Mansion
    • Shashino: Learn Japanese with Photography – This is one I am aware of and am still excited for though.
    • Communite: Build Together
    • Bugaboo Pocket

    I know some got demos so I will definitely be checking those out later.

Wholesome Direct

Honestly, there’s SO MANY games I’m excited for, but some I’ve known about for a while. I’ve tried to mainly keep to ones I’ve only heard of now or only just got a Demo, but I may still mention some of those previous ones too, especially if there’s something new shown. It’s also possible this just may be a list of games because I’m essentially just EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE about pretty much all of them so unless I have something to say beyond being excited and looking forward to them, it’ll likely just be the name! I also won’t re-mention any game I already mentioned previously in this post.

Similarly, as I was an official Co-Host of the Event, this will be based off the order over on Wholesome Games’ Website!

  • The Star Named Eos
  • A Little to the Left: Cupboards & Drawers – I’m genuinely so excited for this. It’ll be out in a little over 2 weeks now!
  • A tiny Sticker Tale – I just noticed the Kickstarter was actually up already!! It’s been such a crazy week. I backed it, but I feel bad I was a bit late. I am disappointed about there being Kickstarter exclusives though– both in a Digital Pack (which of course has to come with a lot of other stuff as well) and for those who backed both games (even though I am eligible for that).
  • Botany Manor
  • Button City Soccer Days – I’m terrible at Soccer, but I love Button City and its Characters and so I’ll probably want to get this anyway just to see more stories of them.
  • Campfire Cat Cafe – I would say the only issue with this game is that, like all of Hyperbeard’s game, they are painfully for mobile customers. Lots of ads, lots of microtransactions, and very slow unless you do at least one of those. I’d genuinely buy up nearly all of their games if I could play them without all of those things and just have a fun relaxing time.
  • Everdeep Aurora – I love the style of the game a lot. I’m not sure if I’d be particularly good at the game, but I am very intrigued by it.
  • Fields of Mistria
  • Flutter Away
  • Garden Witch Life
  • Garden Buddies – I played the Game Jam version and really loved it so I’m thrilled it’s getting a full release.
  • Go Go Town!
  • Henry Halfhead
  • Kamaeru A Frog Refuge
  • Karma Zoo
  • Lakeburg Legacies
  • Little Friends Puppy Island
  • Little Nemo Guardians of Slumberland
  • Loftia
  • Magical Delicacy
  • Mineko’s Night Market
  • Mirth Island
  • Pekoe
  • Smushi Come Home – Which got a surprise release TODAY!! I… would really like to get it… and play… but there’s so much to do… BUT SMUSHI…
  • Snufkin Melody of Moominvalley
  • Station to Station
  • Sticky Business – The demo ended up releasing this morning!! I really enjoyed it, though, I do wish Days lasted longer… or I had the option for unlimited time.
  • Story of Seasons A Wonderful Life – Honestly, Harvest Moon 64 is my favorite and I never really took to A Wonderful Life because I dislike that your Farmer dies at the end. I get the idea of going through as your kid, but I just… I don’t want my character to die. I turn off lifespans in the Sims for a reason. So I probably won’t be picking it up, but I do still like some of the characters and the customization updates look great.
  • Surmount
  • Sushi Ben – Alas, VR only… But it still looks neat.
  • The Palace on the Hill
  • Tiny Book Shop
  • Townseek
  • Tracks of Thought
  • Usagi Shima – You can finally pre-register!! I did so immediately.
  • Venba
  • Wood & Weather
  • Wylde Flowers
  • Ducky’s Delivery Service – Another game where I love the look and idea of it, but know I will be very very very bad at it.
  • Fishbowl
  • Garden Life
  • Petit Island
  • Sanya
  • Tall Trails
  • Townframe
  • Window Garden

There’s always just so many good games. Excited to try out demos and those that have released!

The Future Games Show

  • Head Bangers Rhythm Royale – I love the Character design, but my rhythm game skills are just too bad.
  • Life By You – I’m so intrigued by this, but I know I tend to get overwhelmed with too much creativity so I’m definitely curious if it’ll be something I can balance with the game or if I’ll just get overwhelmed immediately.
  • Paleo Pines – I really hope I can have a Brontosaurus
  • Puzzles for Clef – So happy it finally got a release date!! Can’t believe it’s so close.

OTK Games Expo

  • Stars in the Trash – I’m a bit nervous about some of the more aggressive parts, but I really like the aesthetic.
  • Ready, Steady, Ship! – I like the style and it looks interesting, but I always worry a bit with these types of games as they often put you at a huge disadvantage if you’re playing solo (or with less than the maximum amount of people).
  • Elements – I remember seeing it a while back and I’m still pretty intrigued by it. I just tend to get a little overwhelmed with open world stuff, especially if something can randomly kill me.

This was definitely a packed two days of presentations. Even if tons of stuff doesn’t jump out at me, I always have fun… And I mean, I still have a whole slew of Demos to play through now so be sure to keep an eye on my Youtube channel if you’d like to see!

Days 1 and 2 of the June Showcases!

While there was technically one on the 1st as well, this is the main week of everything and I don’t really have much to say about VR ^^; Posts will be broken up based off length, but like usual, I will be sharing my thoughts and things that stand out to me each showcase!

Something new I’ll also be talking about a bit is, if applicable, what I thought of the Demo if I’m new to checking it out and it was announced during this particular showcase. I will do my best to not double-up on games so if I mention one in a previous show, unless something new is shown, I likely will not bring it up again. Doesn’t mean I’m less excited for it– it’s just me saving myself from repeating :P

Guerrilla Collective Showcase

  • Europa – The island looks so pretty and the puzzles look neat.
  • A Tiny Sticker Tale – I played the Tech Demo of this on Itch.io and absolutely adored it, which I mean, I expected to anyway between my enjoyment of their prior game and the trailers alone. I wasn’t able to finish it due to a bug (not sure if it’s been fixed or not), but I’m still super excited for it. Definitely hoping to back the Kickstarter!
  • A Bonnie Odyssey – The world looks so pretty. I love the little Robot friend T~T Really interested in how the puzzles and story will unfold.
  • Sticky Business – I’ve been excited for this since I saw the initial trailer and every new one looks so good!! I can’t wait until it’s finally out. I know a Demo is supposed to be out sometime this month and I am so excited to check it out.
  • A Corgi’s Cozy Hike – This looks so cute! And I love Corgis so much. Definitely going to be following the Kickstarter.
  • Lake Season’s Greetings – I ADORED Lake and had such a fun time playing it. I’m so excited there is going to be some Holiday DLC!
  • Noun Town Language Learning – Even outside of my genuinely wanting to learn languages and struggle with it, this genuinely looks like such a cute game.
  • Olliefrog Toad Skater – I played the Demo of the game a while back and found it super cute. I still think it’s adorable, but I’m also just SO BAD at these games… But I loved the Frog I customized and absolutely adore the style of the game.
  • Critter Crops – I had a lot of fun with the original Demo of the game, but the Combat additions in the newer Demos ended up not really being my thing unfortunately. I still think it looks really cute, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to deal with the combat system.
  • March of the Shrooms – The Shrooms all look so cute. Not super into battle system, but considering it’s an Auto-Battler, if they can’t like… die or get hurt, it might be interesting to look into.
  • Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip is one of the ones that caught my eye more during the Steam Showcase page for the event. Definitely pretty intrigued!
  • Lil’ Guardmans looked pretty interesting, but I feel like my skills in those games vary because I can be too trusting— regardless, I downloaded the Demo to see how I would do! It went better than I expected, but considering this is early game, I feel like I’ll only keep doing worse.
  • I love the art style of Pizza Possum so I always enjoy seeing it, but my stealth skills are non-existent so I don’t think I’d manage to succeed in anything. I am sorry that I will fail you, you adorable Possum, you.
  • Sugar Shack – I’ve been intrigued by this game since I first heard of it, but I still don’t know if I’d necessarily be good at it. Something about it just makes me feel cozy though.
  • SANYA – I always get nervous a bit about games that stress nostalgia, childhood, and have a dog because I never know if they’ll gut punch me at the end and I don’t handle grief well, to put it mildly. This looked really cute though, so I wanted to try the demo out.

Summer Games Fest

  • Street Fighter 1 – I actually played quite a lot of fighting games as a kid and I do have some fond memories of the original ones, but honestly, haven’t been as interested in it in newer iterations– part of it is not as much of a connection to a character, but I think the biggest thing is that with higher quality graphics, the gore is a bit too much for me. Like… I don’t want to see these types of things in anything close to realistic detail.
  • Sonic Superstars – I always have kind of bittersweet feelings with 2D Sonic because while it was also my start, it doesn’t hold the same nostalgia for me as it does for most people I know. While it started my interest in Sonic and I enjoyed them as a kid, it was 3D Sonic that really captured my heart with Adventure 1 and 2 and no 2D version has ever really lived up to that for me. That said, the idea of playing together and being able to play as Amy does feel somewhat appealing and I’m sure we’ll end up picking it up because even if I personally feel fixed, my husband is pretty thrilled.
  • Honkai Star Rail – I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, honestly, and the new characters look neat. I have no idea if I’ll try for either (still not sure if I’d replace anyone in my party with them), but we’ll see.
  • Palworld – I like… when there aren’t guns.
  • Faefarm – Despite my general disinterest with farming (or more specifically, gardening), I’m still so intrigued with this game. Maybe it’s because something about it reminds me of like… MySims crossed with maybe Fantasy Life or Animal Crossing. It just looks like a really fun game to play with friends. Excited it’ll be for PC as well! As much as I love the Switch, too many people I know tend to go for PC versions. Hopefully Co-op may be cross-play though and then I won’t have to worry about what system I decide to get it on.
  • Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – FFVII is one of the Final Fantasy games I have the most memories from, but I have so little interest in the remake still. Essentially, unless Aerith lives, which knowing the story and what happens, she can’t unless something changes, I just have no interest in an HD version of it.

Day of the Devs

  • Beastieball – I feel like I’ll be absolutely terrible at this game, but it looks so cute and I love the art style and Beastie designs. I think this one is my favorite:
  • Simple Times – This looks so cute and cozy. It looks really fun and I just love stuff like this.
  • Viewfinder – This game caught my eye as soon as I saw it and I really enjoyed the Demo too. It’s still looking great.
  • Henry Halfhead – This looks like such a strange puzzle game, but I am intrigued regardless.
  • Été – This looks so pretty and I love how it seems to be really relaxing. No situation of like… “oh you only have so much at a time”. I love the way the paintings work too as someone who’s art skills are… not great.
  • Summerhill – Another very pretty puzzle game! I will always welcome these, but I worry the game may make me cry.
  • Saltsea Chronicles – This looks pretty interesting, though, I am worried I could just… completely end up ruining everything for my poor crew, but maybe it’s more easygoing?
  • Tchia – I love the music and style of the game so much, but it’s a game I feel like I’d maybe get a bit too overwhelmed with as it seems like there’s SO MUCH to do and keep an eye on. But it’s so pretty.

Devolver Direct

  • KarmaZoo – Honestly, I love the art style of the game. I’m not sure if it’s fully my thing (I like helping people, I do not like killing my poor animals), it looks interesting.

And that finishes up the first two days! Our next post will also cover both Friday and Saturday which will be Access-Ability Summer Showcase, Tribeca Games Spotlight, Future of Play Direct, Wholesome Direct (which I will be co-streaming)

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Finishing up the Forgotten Lands Story

I still really don’t like when things are split up, but at least we should be able to do the rest today so before anything else, that was definitely my focus. In general, after the Star Path glitch I had, my motivation with it is even lower than usual X-x Having several tasks requiring an extra day now, when I already successfully did them, it just really disheartening.

I don’t really consider myself an impatient person, but I can be impatient when it feels impractical. I don’t time travel at all. I play things like Animal Crossing perfectly fine. I have no problem waiting for a new update to continue the story– it’s just when existing content is walled to just make you wait, especially when the story itself causes a sense of urgency, that it really ends up bugging me.

Like if the only reason this content is walled is clearly to drag things out, then maybe it shouldn’t be walled. One of my biggest issues with DDLV is that you’re often going off nothing. What I mean by that is you won’t see anything in the quest log, but you may see a “Keep Playing to unlock more missions” when talking to Characters and it’s like… Is there something that spawns for me to pick up? Is it just time-based? Is it part of an upcoming quest? (Is it a future event-related? I hate not knowing and I get some people enjoy the surprise, but I just feel anxious I missed something and I think that makes the waiting period even more frustrating because I don’t know. I don’t know if something will update at rollover or the next day– everything is inconsistent and yet offers the exact same message and it makes it so I don’t know if I am missing something or not.

Either way, after a full 24 hours, the next part popped (and most of those “Keep playing to unlock” ended up being objectives in this) and it was time to continue! And I was not prepared for the amount of emotions I’d have. Unsurprisingly, THIS IS VERY SPOILER HEAVY. If you do not want to be spoiled, do not continue! Beyond some decorating towards the very end, this will be very spoiler filled.

We started with Mickey’s house and found a very interesting book.

We then had to find the other Relics– a Shovel and Pail in the cave Ursula was originally in, a Blanket in the cave we found Olaf in, and a drawing of Scar in his cave.



With everything, we were able to open the Portal to make our way to the Forgotten’s Castle.


Of course, one of the most important things in the Castle for me was this little Stone Fox… Using the Rainbow Potion on it gets you a Rainbow Fox pet! While I don’t know if it is my #1 favorite or not, between the whole Potato mystery to even get it and the lovely pastel rainbowness, it’s certainly up there.

If you’re worried about where it is, you can’t have a Pet on in the Castle, but it will be in your Companion inventory as soon as you get back in the Valley!

It was then time to head through the Door and I do kind of wonder how the conversation would’ve went if I wore the actual Thorn Wings and Crown instead. I found the Paper ones cuter though, but did end up changing after incase maybe a similar situation came up again (it did not).

I genuinely REALLY enjoyed the Puzzles in the Castle. I would love more stuff like this.

Of course, it definitely seems like there’s still some other secrets in the Castle…

It was then time for the confrontation. And while there wasn’t an actual fight, I honestly thought there might be for a second.

We then had quite an emotional trip through our memories. I also hope the Teddy Bear on our bed becomes an actual item we can have.





And after that emotional heart to heart, we worked together to stop the spell.

And then it was time to return to the Valley… Together this time.

I adored the group photo at the end. I am curious if more or less characters could be there depending on who you unlocked as not everyone has main story relevance and there’s still so many characters to come.


With our reconciliation, the Forgotten gave us back the orb. But when checking back in the Castle in case of missing anything… Well…


It was then time to put the Orbs back, and while nothing special happened after returning the Orb of Remembrance, the Orb of Unity over by Skull Rock had a bit of a different reaction.

Glowing symbols appeared around it, matching the colors and look of the various different Orbs… which meant I had to move the Orbs I had so nicely placed previously.

I think what killed me the most though, besides moving the ones in front of my house, was that their sizes made it so some things had to be full on removed in order to fit them. I kind of wish the island was bigger. Putting everything together caused SOMETHING to happen in the Skull Cave… but we still can’t go in yet. Maybe in the second part of the Summer update?

While I moved my three favorite orbs back to their place in the Meadow, I did end up displaying the other 5 together on the island while putting back some of the stuff I had to move. I think it looks nice.

And the thorns around the Castle cleared up too.

Of course, it definitely seems there is very much more to come. Besides this interesting moment at the end of the Credits…


I have to say, considering we haven’t really seen anything Aladdin-themed, I was very surprised to see Jafar of all people.

Merlin also had A LOT of interesting things to say as we finished off the quests and even with a conversation with him after. It really feels like there is just tons to come and I’m excited for it (I just hope if any are paid DLC, they’ll be priced better than WALL-E’s Dream Bundle…).



And with that… We are done with the heavy spoilers part of this post!

I’ve been continuing my Star Path tasks, but I don’t know if I’m just doing an awful job or there’s A LOT more this time around. I noticed Fairy Godmother seemed to need a lot more to get to level 10 friendship so maybe it’s a similar change? I don’t really like how much longer it feels and have genuinely disliked a lot of the tasks. Of course, the progress reset didn’t help and I hit a wall where all of my tasks require waiting at least one more day.

While I couldn’t continue with that, I did end up doing some decorating. Still not entirely sure what I want to do in the other area, but this works for now.


I may still adjust some things as I’m not sure I’m 100% happy with it just yet, but I think it’s kind of nice.

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Update 5 is here! And there’s… a lot.

Before anything else, I want to start with my shock that WALL-E’s whole thing is not just an item bundle, but essentially a whole quest line DLC at roughly about $15 which… feels like a lot? When they mentioned DLC for Biomes, I expected those to be like $15 and nothing like this (which I would’ve likely expected closer to $5). Being so big on quests, I’m just… I guess disappointed is the best I can do right now.

Regardless, I’ll talk more about this later– let’s focus on all the new stuff the update has brought. I felt so incredibly scatter-brained working through the update and while my recording ends at about 5 and a half hours, I played for over 12 hours total. As per usual with the recordings, I try to cut out most of the more grindy parts– nobody needs to see me spend like an hour giving out flowers.

As a final note before we get started, there will be spoilers for the big story quest and Potato Mystery stuff. I will note the big story spoilers.

Anyway, the first thing I ended up doing after the initial cutscene upon loading up was check the mailbox as I saw the notification. To be honest, even though they said the Teapot would be given out when Update 5 releases, somehow it still surprised me.

I also tried making Dream Fizz again and I am VERY happy that it’s no longer bugged. There was also another new recipe– Peppermint Tea. I would’ve preferred any other kind of tea, but I’ll take it.

The next thing I checked was the Premium Shop. To my surprise, the Turning Red items were already there so I ended up picking up that package and quickly put some items to use.

This is also when I noticed the price of WALL-E’s Dream Bundle and just… like I said, I can’t get over the price. Especially when you consider it’s half the cost of the cheapest Founder’s Pack (which I think is also on sale right now too??) and it genuinely blows my mind. Thankfully, it seems they are listing to feedback and if they do lower the price, I’m sure people who bought it will be refunded. I DID end up getting it because the only thing I love nearly as much as pets is story content– side quests included.

The Bundle features three new quests which get you a total of 5 new clothing items, a new costume for WALL-E, and a new furniture item. The questline is cute and I do like the dress and the boot plant, but other than that… If it wasn’t for the price, I’d have no regrets, but it’s hard to justify that.

While I normally try to focus on the story stuff first, I couldn’t help but get caught up on the Potato Mystery situation pretty quickly when I stumbled upon some Purple Books…

Plus, a mysterious Bottle we could fish up and open for a small piece of a green gem.

The Purple Books ended up leading to the Purple Potato. Essentially, you answered the portal using the Words you’d find in the books and then you would be given the Purple Potato at the end.

The Purple Potion was just crafted at the Crafting Table. Nothing needed besides the Potato and a vial.

Meanwhile, while suffering trying to fish up bottles on Dazzle Beach, I ended up stumbling upon a book which ended up being a whole other WALL-E Questline.

The Quest had you reading the book to a plant, but pages were missing so you needed to find them which… I am not super fond of any quest objectives where it’s find *insert number above 1 here* of quest specific items because I always worry about some spawn issue whether it be not being able to spawn or literally spawning under something. The Bottles were a huge issue because I put waterlilies most places, so I essentially had to throw my fishing rod around blindly.

Finding things for WALL-E’s quests ended up being kind of stressful due to this because I had no idea if things may spawn under something I have placed and the Meadow especially has very limited room.

In the middle of everything with WALL-E, I ended up going to start the Forgotten Lands Questline. SPOILER WARNING AHEAD. I will mention when I’m done with the biggest spoilers.


Even though I kind of knew where the story was going from the “dark” Diary Entries (nothing like feeling everyone hates you and will betray you at any moment, that everyone is always lying to you, and the constant feeling of being left out), it still hit pretty close to home. That said, I hope some of those memories were more metaphorically than completely factual because while the Flowers were one thing (I personally didn’t find them that ugly), the literally ruining Goofy’s shrimp with rotten food felt so mean?? That could make him really sick. No matter how sad you feel, why would you do something that would very clearly directly harm someone?

They do try to say the Character is a Child in a sense when this happens (though, a very tall Child then), but I don’t know, I can’t think of my moral compass being that thrown into disarray no matter how sad I feel. The outright crushing flowers and growing something, you know is bad also felt too far. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but it made me just feel extra sad on top of everything else.

One thing I do find interesting is they state that the Forgotten is a “leftover piece of us” rather than like… actually us as a kid. Like some fragment of us continued to live in the valley even after we left and the loneliness corrupted them to some degree. I just figured we ended up shutting down and closing everyone out and those memories were the Forgotten, but instead it’s more like… a piece of our subconscious I guess.

Unfortunately, that was the end of the questline for today and it can not be continued until tomorrow which I… really just hate when that happens. In general, the cut-off here feels unnatural (there’s an emergency and creepy music close to certain locations now– it’s not the time for a break, guys), but considering the Potato Mystery also ends up getting tied to a little bonus in the next part, it just kind of stinks to be behind on that.

I’m very much in the camp of “Let people make their own schedule”– if someone wants to blow through a quest all in one day, it’s fine– there’s plenty of people who like to take it slow.

END OF BIG MAIN STORY SPOILERS HERE

Regardless, since I couldn’t continue with the story, I put my focus back into the Potatoes. I still had to finish the Green Potato stuff and after a lot of suffering for all 16 Emerald Slivers, I was finally able to craft a Jade Crystal. Meanwhile, in the hidden room from Simba’s quest in the mines, you could interact with the Crystal Ball to get some Green Seeds. Planting those seeds in the Forgotten Lands grew into the Green Potato. And then back at the Crafting station, you could combine the Jade Crystal and Green Potato to make the Green Potion.


And with all 6 Potions made, you can make the Rainbow Potion!!

As for what it’s used for… Well, apparently I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to experience it for myself :| But if you’re dying to know, everything is in our Potato Guide!

With all this done, it was time to work on the Fairy Godmother’s Friendship questline. Her items are genuinely really pretty.

I also noticed we actually were given a Parasol. While it’s not really my color, I’m glad we do have one and they aren’t truly Premium only… but I’m sure better designs will be.

Unfortunately, both Fairy Godmother’s and WALL-E’s questlines ended up with a Timelock at one point and I wouldn’t be able to continue either until late afternoon/evening. -_-

During this time, I started actually putting work into the Star Path which… let’s just say I’m pretty frustrated with. There’s been a lot more annoying tasks on it this time around, but I also ran into a glitch that reset several of my tasks that require an extra day to even complete and just… as someone who really does not care for Mission Pass systems and hates repeating quests, I’m genuinely so frustrated. As per usual though, I did get the new Pet first.

I ended up doing a bit more decorating with some of the new stuff. Though, unsurprisingly, I had no luck with Scrooge’s shop.

One thing I ended up noticing is you could now make Ariel’s Crafting Table! But… for some reason, it destroys the pathing??

So, remembering we could customize furniture, I was like… Maybe I can put a rug under it?? The good news is, that was absolutely a good idea. The bad news is, THE RUG IS HUGE.


I kind of wish I could at least have the whole area set then, but it’s too big to be able to put more of it… Maybe there will be a smaller version at some point.

But the ridiculous size did give me an idea– an answer for our lack of Wood Path through the use of a “Wooden Carpet”. I think they look pretty nice.

I also ended up customizing one of the Beach Blankets, but you can’t put any customization on the Umbrella and none of the patterns match the other ones so… That kind of stinks. I think it looks cute otherwise though.

Speaking of pathing though, the borders seem partially bugged right now? But honestly, I don’t have the patience to remake hundreds of a path in border form just to add them to my existing path. Placing the paths initially was exhausting enough.

I was finally able to finish up Fairy Godmother’s Friendship Quests and in addition to actually getting the decorated version of the Gazebo, the pretty table, and her final Friendship Gift– the Pumpkin Coach!


Finishing up her questline also ended up with calling me out very badly… As I played while stressed all day.

For WALL-E’s quest, it eventually ended with having to set up a Dance Party. I don’t care for the hat, but I like the dress and I think the Dance area came out pretty cute, though, I don’t know if I’ll keep it up (or there if I do keep it up).

I did end up adding the mannequins to the Sewing Room as planned. I think they look nice.

The final things I ended up doing were a few additions to the Bedroom (with a customized couch).

And a little bit of pathing to the Forgotten Lands. With the fire gone, it’s definitely easier to work with, but I still don’t feel too inspired when it seems like nothing I do brightens it up any….

Anyway, as this has gotten pretty long, I’ll make a new post tomorrow with Day 2 of the Forgotten Lands quests, the use of the Rainbow Potion, and any other things that end up coming up. It seems like there’s still a lot of hidden quests so I’m curious how it’ll all unfold…

Disney Dreamlight Valley – The Interlude before Update 5!

So, as I usually do, I wanted to share some of the stuff I’ve been up to as Update 5 is apparently releasing tomorrow. If you caught some of the Twitch Drops streaming, you’ll already be familiar with some of this. I had planned to make an entry sooner, similar to how I did during the last time Drops were done, but it’s been a very rough month to say the least and the weekend did not go as planned. I’m glad I was still able to help people out, but I feel bad I wasn’t able to do as much this time around.

Regardless, starting from the top. I was really excited to FINALLY see this bed in Scrooge’s Shop.

Unfortunately, it’s slightly wider than the bed I was using previously, so I had to re-work several things.

I think it turned out okay, but I do wish the bed was the same size as the one I had been previously using.

Next up, during Twitch Drops, I actually had a few new things I wanted to try and do. Specifically, I was going to work on my second floor. First, I made what is essentially an Indoor Garden. I had initially envisioned maybe doing more with plants or flowers or something, but I honestly really like how it came out.

Next, with the news that we would be able to display outfits in Update 5, I wanted to make a cute sewing room. I may still do more with it, but I think it came out nice.

I then wanted to make a kind of Celestial Observatory. I had wanted to do a set room for the potions and books anyway. I initially envisioned a bit more for it, but space was tight.

The last room I turned into a Piano Room. I might try and do more with it as it feels rather simplistic right now, but I still think it’s pretty.

The biggest adjustments I made though were to the Plaza where I added a big sitting area and moved some stuff around. I also started playing a bit with an idea of a Bamboo Garden, but I may move it somewhere else in the Plaza. We’ll see.


And of course, Twitch Drops meant new items. It’s nice to see the RGB set continued, though, I don’t know if I’ll personally end up using any of the items from this round.

I also finally saw some really neat items in Scrooge’s Shop before. I love these stone tiles, though, it kills me that they can’t actually go under the Zen Garden. I feel like I can make something nice with it though– I just need more inspiration to hit. I also finally got the Popcorn machine as well which I was really happy about.

Going back to Update 5 news, I wanted to talk about one of the more recent announcements– House Skins being able to be placed separately. This honestly makes getting the castle a lot more tempting, along with maybe certain other buildings solely for aesthetic, if it wasn’t for the fact that:

  • Most of the House Skins are fairly big, taking up more place than the initial house and room is something people are already having issues with.
  • Item Limits. Even without the physical space issues, there is also the issue that it is very easy to quickly hit the limit when/if you start decorating in earnest.
  • House Skin prices still feel pretty expensive. I think it’s nice to give more use to them in a way, but I think this also makes the price more frustrating too.

I think the price and lack of space are the only reasons I won’t still be getting the Castle with this change, but it’s definitely going to taunt me a lot more now each time it shows :(

Similarly, Prince Eric’s ship would also look really nice on Dazzle Beach, but probably fairly far out so I couldn’t reach it anyway. Still, just more temptation for stuff that I can’t really justify the cost for X-x

Of course, information quickly came out fast with us even getting the Key Art for the update and it’s nice to see Fairy Godmother confirmed, as expected. I’m really excited to see how the story unfolds.

What we ended up getting next was an Updated version of the 2023 Roadmap. It was neat seeing a hidden code through the binary. For anyone who just wants to know, it reads “PIXL” which can get you some Wreck-it Ralph stuff. Having still been missing one of these, I was very happy with the reward even if there was nothing super unique about it.

I am surprised that the schedule seems slightly broken up here. Vanellope, who initially seemed to be part of this update, has been pushed back to “Summer” which I suppose could still be June, but I would guess is more likely July or August. I am slightly concerned about the “flex your creativity and win in-game prizes” thing though as I don’t really like exclusives tied to like… Popularity/high-score tables/just top selection of people. If it’s something anyone can get by entering, fine, but I don’t really want to see anything get locked to just a small fraction of people.

Going back to the update schedule, the bi-monthly updates are slightly adjusted as regardless of when Vanellope shows up, Belle will be part of the September update. Even if it’ll be a bit longer between updates, I’m just really happy she’s finally going to be added. Of the confirmed characters (IE: Ones that have showed up in trailers and official media already), she and Rapunzel have been the two I’ve wanted most so glad one of them will finally be here.

Of the stuff further along for 2023, I’m most curious about the new tool. If it’s an hourglass like what seems to be being teased, I wonder if it’s a way to change the time/speed-up stuff to some extent or something, but I guess we’ll have to see.

We also got a Star Path preview— I’m most excited for the Phoenix (unsurprisingly, I do love Pets) and the Aquarium. I still haven’t gotten the Little Mermaid Aquarium so I am thrilled for this one, though, I have no clue where I’m going to put it (or really, the other Aquarium even if Scrooge finally would sell it in my game). I’m thinking of maybe moving the Rock Collection out of the bedroom area or something, but I feel like I’d need a whole other non-themed floor then… Decisions are hard.

And then, out of nowhere, today we got the trailer and patch notes.
-I’m not sure if I’ll personally use the Bed one at all unless there’s different bed styles, but I could see myself using it for couches or other furniture. I still like some of the designs they showed.
-It seems Skins for our Tools is an upcoming thing which I’d be more excited about if the Premium Shop prices felt more balanced.
-As it is, they said “New Season” of Premium Shop stuff which I… do not really like the term of because it makes it feel like everything else is going away and just, I hate the rotating system so much. There is no reason for it. It literally just creates extra unneeded FOMO and isn’t okay. There is not a single good reason the shop needs to be like that, especially for items that are already kind of pricey. Similarly, in a simulation game, there should not be any permanently limited items– seasonal is one thing, limited is upsetting in a game where customization is such a core feature.
-Of the items they showed, I loved the Cherryblossom/Plum blossom ones and I can see myself needing all of those so I just hope they won’t be priced too badly :/ Not that I have the slightest clue where I’ll put them– maybe the indoor garden area.
-Honestly, really sad that we’re seeing items even be Premium Shop only with stuff like Umbrellas. At least none of the designs they showed are my cup of tea.
-WALL-E’s new skin is so cute!! Super excited for his quest. Unfortunately, it sounds like both it and the outfits the MC’s are wearing will be Premium Shop ones? Which… I might get the dress if it’s not too bad, but I can’t see myself paying for the other stuff :(

Moving onto the Patch Notes:
-I’m always excited for new quests so no complaints there.
-I know a lot of people have wanted Borders for Paths. I do like that it’s optional– I can see some where I’d use them. Personally, I just want to be able to have roads curve without looking awkward.
-Mixed feelings on new items at Scrooge’s. Until something is better with the Shop Selection, it’s hard to be excited for new things when there’s stuff from Day 1 I’ve really wanted and am still missing. I am VERY thankful that there is at least some kind of visual to know if we haven’t bought an item yet. Should save me from having to empty Scrooge’s shop out each day just to double check.
-Excited for the item limit increase considering I was getting close to hitting it.
-Unpopular opinion but I hate achievements and was honestly hoping they would never come so I’m disappointed to see them added. I wonder if they’ll retroactively activate or not. I would assume so, but I’ve seen them glitch before when added late.
-More Potatoes! I think we all saw this coming.
-DREAM FIZZ WILL FINALLY BE FIXED… I’m so happy. Also the Passion Lilies will be fixed as well which should be nice and make areas of my valley look better.

Anyway, as expected, there seems to be a lot upcoming so I’m just going to do my best. I’ll probably not stream it as I haven’t been doing well lately and I was already overwhelmed last update and this one is supposed to have even more, but I’ll still have a new website post up plus a video recorded as well as per usual.