There are three games that I’ve been played more this past week during the quarantine which i’d like to talk about:

Mario Odyssey

Nintendo Switch

I recently give more Switch time for my son since we’re self quarantine-ing ourself. Among my very limited Switch game catalog, Mario Odyssey happens to be his most preferable game. Whenever he stuck at a quest, he looked for me and ask for my assistance, hence the amount of time increased in (re) playing this game.

Seeing him playing Mario Odyssey made me notices couple of things:

• I played to have some fun but couldn’t help the urge to complete the game, or at least the main quest, as quick as possible. I tossed a coin to the witcher significant amount of money to buy the game and I want to get the most of it. My son simply play to have some fun: looked around, poke things up, and really just have some fun. This lead to one revelation: he discovered so many side quests that i didn’t even realize. Kids are born curious after all.
• The brilliance of Mario Odyssey. I know that the game is packed with brilliant mechanic, gorgeous world-building design, and really really well polished. However i didn’t still feel satisfied playing it because platformer isn’t really my kind of game. That being said, seeing my son playing Mario Odyssey opened my eye on how good the game design is: my kid now got a chance to (virtually) go to NYC-like cities, mexican dessert, riding t-rex, jumping on the moon, etc. Imagine being a kid and has a chance to visualize those experience.

Nintendo brought so much joy to this world indeed.

Animal Crossing: New Horizon

Nintendo Switch

Animal Crossing is the kind of game i didn’t see myself playing it. I knew it for months and this these past weeks on its release day for whatever reason many people on my feeds play it. The whole premise is you’re moving in to this deserted island then you develop the island to your liking. There’s no enemy to beat, there’s no record to break, it’s just you grooming the island, payback the (virtual) loan, then occasionally hang out with your both virtual and actual friends.

That’s really the kind of game i don’t see playing but i end up playing it for various reasons:

• The game’s UI looks really cute and fun to use. The cute part isn’t really my forte but the fun to use thing got me really curious.
• It’s the kind of game that which experience of playing it connects and help you relate to other people.
• It has custom clothing editor. I wanna see my character wears Divi t-shirt on this game. (I guess it’s just i’ve been craving for retreat and traveling in general but the chance of it this year seems slim due to the coronavirus outbreak. We were given Divi t-shirt on every retreat so it’s been my subsconscious cue for retreat)

So that’s that. I’ve been playing it for couple of days. I’ve paid my moving fee and now grooming my house. Still tried to set the shop for the island. The game is fun and the activity is really mundane but for some reason doing so is really addicting. I guess the chance to mold your surrounding to your liking has been a very strong dopamine feedback loop.

Kerbal Space Program

PC / Steam

My son loves rocket. I also happen to be bored being asked playing Mario Odyssey in repeat so I bought KSP couple of days ago. So far:

• We loaded sandbox mode and attempted to make our own rocket.
• Failed to launch our rocket on the launchpad
• Go back to the hangar trying to figure things out
• Suddenly realize why don’t we just load pre-defined rocket before try to assemble our half bake rocket
• Loaded pre-defined rocket
• Managed to launch the rocket and realize how thurstling and staging works. Shift for increasing thrust, ctr for decreasing thrust, spacebar to initiate staging phase, w/s/d/q/e for direction, and arrows for camera control.
• We managed to make our own rocket and send it to the outer orbit.. although its flawed design ends up making the rocket explode on re-entry 🤣

It’s been a fun experience. Even more fun for my son due to how much he like rocketship:

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