Dungeons and other games
Feb. 5th, 2026 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI finished books 1-7 of Dungeon Crawler Carl in two weeks, and more importantly I managed to drag both my gf and DD into it too - I think that's one of my strengths :) I had a great time.
Book 7 struggled a bit with its scale, like trying to keep Carl and Donut in the center of the action when there is so much going on at the same time, both inside and outside of the dungeon (and really they have no experience directing armies, and at some point the numbers stopped making sense.) But at least the author seems very aware of the problems of them personally becoming OP and there are plenty of ways to keep the stakes high. I love the disruptions to the system as a whole and can't wait to see where it leads (although outside of the dungeon the numbers make even less sense, the galaxy is so big...)
Slight downside, DD and I haven't started our Hades 2 1.0 playthroughs yet, since we planned to start at the same time and she just got to book 6 of DCC ^^ Hopefully soon though.
Instead I played a few runs of Vampire Survivors again. Good for occasional short play sessions that don't require much brainpower (though it is easy to forget to look at the time...) I don't unlock something every run but almost, which feels very cool and like I'm getting somewhere even though I have no idea what to do/where to go for actual game "progression." I might look it up at some point, idk.
(I also considered exploring the new Minecraft updates - I want to find a happy ghast! And ride a nautilus!, among other things - but I lost one set of good armor/tools in the End and another in the Nether a few months ago, and both are very possible to retrieve but I haven't found the motivation yet to either get one of them or make myself new gear. Possibly keepInventory would have been a good idea after all.)
Speaking of games, specifically board games: in early January with L and two of her friends we played Wingspan, which was a lot of fun, and then we tried out Earth, which we also enjoyed a lot. That one we tried first in single player, and then we decided to try the version where you play in teams but quickly switched back because it gets a lot more tactical quickly. The third long game the three of them played was Forest Shuffle - I detect a theme ^^
We also played a quick game of Pandemic. And this reminds me that L and I didn't get a chance to play Hanabi yet, hopefully soon.
It's also been ages since I gave an update on my group's TTRPG games and our current Stars Without Number campaign! We got to level six, which means I can now do "normal" teleports without Committing Effort and it feels fantastic. And I got some other cool abilities too, like imprinting on a party member to teleport back to their side even when they are out of sight.
After our mining ship successfully defended our home space station from pirates we got a mission to re-establish communication with other stations and planets to coordinate a defense against the pirate fleet. We freed one satellite and then arrived at a planet in turmoil, and we decided the best way to make sure it will defend itself against pirates instead of descending into civil war is to help one of the warlords supplant another.
So of course we had to get their attention, and we chose the fun option of winning a flying car race, the kind of race where eliminating competitors is rewarded. (Our DM came up with a very cool car race mechanic, he's very good at things like that.) My job was to teleport into the cockpits of the other cars and set off colorful smoke bombs - I almost got thrown out once, which would have been very painful, but it all worked out in the end and we got a dominant win.
That got their attention (and us a lot of money), and to get their trust we are currently exploring and clearing a Pre-Tech factory, which comes with the added bonus of shiny Pre-Tech loot.
I estimate it'll take us at least another 3 sessions to leave the planet, and there's so much more to explore. Since we only averaged about one session a month in the last year we'll almost certainly have only scratched the surface of what our DM had originally planned by the time our sixth group member returns from Japan, so at this point we'll have to decide if we continue this campaign for a bit longer or return to our cat campaign... It'll be a difficult choice, I love both of them.
Book 7 struggled a bit with its scale, like trying to keep Carl and Donut in the center of the action when there is so much going on at the same time, both inside and outside of the dungeon (and really they have no experience directing armies, and at some point the numbers stopped making sense.) But at least the author seems very aware of the problems of them personally becoming OP and there are plenty of ways to keep the stakes high. I love the disruptions to the system as a whole and can't wait to see where it leads (although outside of the dungeon the numbers make even less sense, the galaxy is so big...)
Slight downside, DD and I haven't started our Hades 2 1.0 playthroughs yet, since we planned to start at the same time and she just got to book 6 of DCC ^^ Hopefully soon though.
Instead I played a few runs of Vampire Survivors again. Good for occasional short play sessions that don't require much brainpower (though it is easy to forget to look at the time...) I don't unlock something every run but almost, which feels very cool and like I'm getting somewhere even though I have no idea what to do/where to go for actual game "progression." I might look it up at some point, idk.
(I also considered exploring the new Minecraft updates - I want to find a happy ghast! And ride a nautilus!, among other things - but I lost one set of good armor/tools in the End and another in the Nether a few months ago, and both are very possible to retrieve but I haven't found the motivation yet to either get one of them or make myself new gear. Possibly keepInventory would have been a good idea after all.)
Speaking of games, specifically board games: in early January with L and two of her friends we played Wingspan, which was a lot of fun, and then we tried out Earth, which we also enjoyed a lot. That one we tried first in single player, and then we decided to try the version where you play in teams but quickly switched back because it gets a lot more tactical quickly. The third long game the three of them played was Forest Shuffle - I detect a theme ^^
We also played a quick game of Pandemic. And this reminds me that L and I didn't get a chance to play Hanabi yet, hopefully soon.
It's also been ages since I gave an update on my group's TTRPG games and our current Stars Without Number campaign! We got to level six, which means I can now do "normal" teleports without Committing Effort and it feels fantastic. And I got some other cool abilities too, like imprinting on a party member to teleport back to their side even when they are out of sight.
After our mining ship successfully defended our home space station from pirates we got a mission to re-establish communication with other stations and planets to coordinate a defense against the pirate fleet. We freed one satellite and then arrived at a planet in turmoil, and we decided the best way to make sure it will defend itself against pirates instead of descending into civil war is to help one of the warlords supplant another.
So of course we had to get their attention, and we chose the fun option of winning a flying car race, the kind of race where eliminating competitors is rewarded. (Our DM came up with a very cool car race mechanic, he's very good at things like that.) My job was to teleport into the cockpits of the other cars and set off colorful smoke bombs - I almost got thrown out once, which would have been very painful, but it all worked out in the end and we got a dominant win.
That got their attention (and us a lot of money), and to get their trust we are currently exploring and clearing a Pre-Tech factory, which comes with the added bonus of shiny Pre-Tech loot.
I estimate it'll take us at least another 3 sessions to leave the planet, and there's so much more to explore. Since we only averaged about one session a month in the last year we'll almost certainly have only scratched the surface of what our DM had originally planned by the time our sixth group member returns from Japan, so at this point we'll have to decide if we continue this campaign for a bit longer or return to our cat campaign... It'll be a difficult choice, I love both of them.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-06 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-06 02:42 am (UTC)Oooh, I haven't heard of Forest Shuffle but the art looks SO pretty! Wingspan and Hanabi are great games.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-06 07:04 pm (UTC)That we only get a small glimpse of what's happening outside of the dungeon is part of the premise, but due to scope we inevitably also only got a small glimpse of the faction wars even though so much of it was directly important. From the preview of the next book at least the dungeon floor is on a smaller scale again - at least it starts that way, I have no doubt that they'll break it eventually ^^
I thought about reading the new chapters on Patreon as they come out, but rn I'm leaning toward reading/listening the new book together with others when it comes out. Just a few more months fortunately.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-06 07:05 pm (UTC)It is very pretty! I prefer art to photographs - "Earth" has very pretty pictures but that is not quite the same.