This week has and continues to be surprisingly busy for me, which hasn’t left me a ton of time to play the games I’ve wanted to. Alongside that, I’ve been neck deep in preparing and running my D&D campaign, which requires an alarming amount of time and dedication. I genuinely don’t know how people could balance that workload along with leading a normal, pre-pandemic life. But anyway, let’s recap the week.

First and foremost, Baldur’s Gate III was released into early access which was both exciting and extremely disappointing. While the game shows incredible promise, but in its current state it just isn’t the solo D&D experience I’m looking for. It did make me excited about a CRPG for the first time in my life. I suspected at one point that Baldur’s Gate III might be the game to do that, but I’m glad to see that “prophecy” fulfilled. I have no doubt that with time many, if not all of my issues with the game will be addressed in some way, but right now I’m taking it easy and letting the game marinate.

Aside from that, I tried out some demos from the Steam Game Festival over the weekend, and while some of them were okay, nothing really blew me away. That is with the exception of a game called SuchArt!. SuchArt! puts you in the position of one of the only, if not the only remaining human artist alive, which I think is because the robots that rule this universe are incapable of making good art or something. Robots will send you requests for art pieces that you need to fulfill to the best of your abilities.

What I really enjoy about SuchArt! is how despite its goofy premise, the tools at your disposal to make the art are surprisingly robust. There are several types of brushes, canvases, stencils and other art adjacent tools that may or may not actually be used in art such as hair dryers and Nerf guns that fire paint. It’s extremely goofy, but also very therapeutic and calming to play.

Outside of those two, I’ve played some more NBA 2K21. I enjoy it. It’s fine.

And yeah, it’s just been a lot of D&D prep work on top of all of that. We’re running the latest adventure module, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, which is okay. I’m not a supremely experienced DM by any means, but there are some things in the book, and specifically more that’s missing from the book, that make the whole story feel disjointed and bolted together. There’s been a lot of tweaking I’ve had to do in order to make the story feel cohesive, which might just be a thing that DM’s have to do with these bigger campaigns, but I’m just uncovering that.

Oh, also, I voted. You should vote too. Oh, and wear a fucking mask.