Like most folks, I’ve played a lot of really hard games throughout my life that I might even call punishing or unfair, but none of them have challenged me anywhere near as much as Ring Fit Adventures does. While Ring Fit Adventures isn’t going to throw endless hordes of bloodthirsty enemies at me or require pixel perfect platforming and reaction times, it does do something more sinister than any other video game I’ve ever played before: it puts my in physical pain.
I’ve written about Ring Fit Adventures before and even went so far as to include it on my 2019 Game of the Year list for finding a fun way to keep me active. 2019 Ari was way more into what Ring Fit Adventures was dishing out because 2019 Ari was regularly going to the gym and, while not physically fit, was in way better shape than 2021 Ari. But here in the year of our lord, 2021, I decided to give the game a go once more and try to deal with my sedentary lifestyle by playing with this very expensive Pilates ring that came with a video game whose only goal is to hurt you.
My knees are shot. My back is sore. The other parts of my body aren’t doing great either, and it’s all thanks to this stupid fucking ring that I have squeeze and shake and lift around like I was leading the world’s worst parade. I was sweaty and stinky and miserable, which was very reminiscent of the days when I could safely utilize the gym, so that was kind of nice. The best part was that I didn’t have to deal with the guys in the locker room that would take nude selfies, so that’s a huge boon for Ring Fit Adventures.
I still enjoy Ring Fit Adventures in some capacity though, even if it has shed a stark light on how out of shape I currently am. While I hate what it’s done to me only after one session, I’m going to come back to it and try to maintain something of a routine. The past year has been super difficult for all of us, and I don’t blame anyone for falling out of shape and stress eating. I get it. But I need to get back into a groove and work on myself again in an attempt to pick up where 2019 Ari left off. It’s going to suck and I’m going to hate doing it, but that’s something I have to endure in order to fit back into some shirts that I really liked.
But let’s be real here: I’m doing this so I can eat those 3 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies that I so irresponsibly ordered without feeling a tremendous amount of guilt. They’ve got these s’more flavored ones that are pretty dang good, and I’m dying to crack into that box.
Crowdfunding can be a beautiful thing that allows people to directly support the ideas and products they believe in, giving folks the chance to truly vote with their wallets. Aside from the dystopian nightmare of people crowdfunding their medical and legal bills through services like GoFundMe, as well as the vaporware projects that either never make it to market or are just flat out scams, crowdfunding is a great concept. It’s also a really good way to get me to spend even more money on tabletop role-playing game systems and paraphernalia than I already do. So here are some of the money-pits that I’ve recently tossed my cash into that luckily for you and your wallet, are either finished or about to finish up their funding campaigns. You’re welcome.
DUNGEON ALCHEMIST
Let’s start with the project that started my descent into crowdfunding hell. Dungeon Alchemist is an AI powered 3D map making tool that sells itself on its ease of use and quick automation. The idea is that you draw the size of a room, select a theme, and the software auto-populates it with various flotsam and jetsam that make sense within said theme. Smartly, the software will absolutely allow you to get a bit more granular and select specific items too place as you please, as well as adjust its size and rotation, allowing for a fairly unique map. Or at least, that’s what the pitch is.
And the pitch is very good, especially when you see how much money this thing has raked in. The original goal was set at €45,000, or about $53,000, but by the campaign’s conclusion it had raised a total of €2,462,821 or about $2,886,020, easily blowing past all stretch goals including the final one set at €1,000,000. That’s an insane amount of money and pressure to suddenly have to grapple with, and I hope the team behind Dungeon Alchemist are able to live up to the expectations of their 57,000+ backers. Luckily, everyone is super understanding and compassionate on the internet.
LET’S ROLE
Despite owning a king’s bounty worth of materials on one of the most popular virtual tabletop (VTT) platforms out there, Roll20, I found myself wanting more than their hit-or-miss approach to basic functionality like a fucking pause button for music tracks and their servers that work only when they feel like it. There are other services I could utilize, but Let’s Rolehas a style to it that really caught my eye. From rolling dice to YouTube integration and even a customizable hot-bar to make it feel more like you’re playing a video game, Let’s Role has some cool functionality that I’m very into. Being in the alpha, I can say that it’s still very janky and needs some more features and bug fixes in order to be something I’d use instead of Roll20, but it’s still very much in active development with a long way to go before its official release.
While I’m very hopeful for Let’s Role to become an actual competitor in the space, the big question for me revolves around external integration. I need a VTT that is simple too use and has the books and modules I use to be fully integrated, and they’ve mentioned that there will be some of that, but to what extent I can’t quite say. If they can provide me with the books and modules that I frequently use in a more accessible and serviceable way than Roll20 offers, then I think it could become my new home for my group’s game nights. Here’s hoping.
DUNGEON MASTER’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK
I’m a big fan of having tactile, physical references when I play any TTRPG. Even throughout the pandemic where playing online was a necessity and not just a preference, I still have my books and notebooks all within arms reach, usually opting to use those instead of online resources if I can. What I like about Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book is how straightforward and useful it appears to be. It is just a handy guide filled with various tables for me to utilize whenever I need to throw something interesting at my players, which is something I could definitely make great use out of. It also helped that the physical books were priced very reasonably, making supporting the project a no-brainer.
STONETOP
Stonetopis a game system that’s been built off of the excellent Powered by the Apocalypse system set in what they call, “an Iron Age that never was.” I really like the PbtA system and have actually had some successful games using a variant of it called Monster of the Week, so I knew what to expect when reading up on Stonetop. If you’re looking for a new game system that isn’t very rules heavy and relies more heavily on role-playing and collaborative storytelling than anything else, I recommend it. But Stonetop posies itself as a bit more of a grounded experience that doesn’t assume that all the players are playing as adventurers, rather, the conceit is that all of the players are from the same village and are protecting it from external threats. Meanwhile, the players will have manage the village itself through fortifying, expanding, collecting resources for it and more. It seems to be solving the classic D&D problem of having just a bunch of homeless, wandering murderers for hire, with no connection to any particular place from the outset.
I’ve always enjoyed the idea of a campaign that was less about adventurers seeking another adventure, and more about normal people stepping up or being thrust into the action. That’s kind of how my current D&D campaign is structured and it’s been a great time for everyone involved, so having a system and setting embracing that from the start is very enticing to me. I like what Stonetop is pitching to me and I like the fact that I already have some familiarity with the system itself, hopefully making it an easy transition for my players and I once we wrap up our seemingly never ending campaign.
So yeah, that’s nearly half of the projects I’ve recently thrown money at because I have no self control whatsoever. But I actually like the things that I’m supporting and really hope they turn out well, but if they don’t, I know what I signed up for. And for those who are curious, yes, all of the other products I didn’t mention here that I’ve supported were also TTRPG related. They were mostly just source books and modules for me to utilize, or in reality, just more books for me to admire the spines of as they collect dust on my shelves.
Over the past month or two, I’ve purchased a handful of video games that I’ve been dying to play for one reason or another. Often these are games that I just never had the time to get around to when they released but decided with this lull in the release calendar (at least in my eyes), I could finally see what all the fuss was about. The problem is, despite how much I enjoyed any single game that I purchased, I eventually bounced off of each of them and returned to doing nothing instead.
It started with me buying the “limited run” of Nintendo’s Super Mario 3D All Stars, a collection of classic 3D Mario games that has two really good 3D Mario games, and Super Mario Sunshine, a bad game included within. I started playing through Super Mario 64 and was having a blast. Aside from the camera control being shitty and some of the movement stuff not being as tight as I remember, Super Mario 64 is still one hell of a game.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Nintendo
Then I fell away from it when my copy of Luigi’s Mansion 3 showed up. Sorry “classic” 3D Mario games, but now it’s Luigi’s turn to shine… for a couple of levels before I dropped off of it. I don’t know why I bounced off of it so soon considering I was really enjoying the game itself. There’s way more dialogue and stuff that stops you from actually playing the game in Luigi’s Mansion 3 that I could’ve done without, but I still really had a good time with it and would like to see it through to its conclusion.
But how could I keep playing Luigi’s Mansion 3 when Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury just got released? Not only do I feel like I have to prioritize it because it came out this calendar year and it might be relevant to write something about it, but it also has one of my favorite 3D Mario games of all time inside of it along with this new open-world Mario game too. Sorry Luigi, but your brother won again. And to be fair, I annihilated the Bowser’s Fury portion of the package. Meanwhile, my partner and I are slowly working our way through 3D World itself, but I was also playing through 3D World on my own. But alas, that save file is just going to build up a thick film of digital dust from now on because I’ve finally decided to pull the trigger on a game I’ve desperately wanted to try for a while now.
New Pokemon Snap – Nintendo
That’s right, fuck off Mario, because Link is here in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake, and boy does it look pretty. Also, and this is something I’ll probably have to go into at some other point in time, but I’ve never really played many Zelda games, especially a vast majority of the top-down ones. It’s a big hole in my gaming portfolio, something that I looked to fix with trying this adorable looking remake. And hot damn is it good. Well, minus the poor performance on the Switch. But outside of that, I’m having a really good time with it and… it’s been 3 weeks since I’ve touched it.
Well I need to figure something out soon because New Pokemon Snap, yes, it’s really called that, comes out at the end of April and I am very much interested in playing it. But there is a fear that comes along with desire, something you might have picked up on while reading this blog. I don’t know if it’s something about playing on a handheld that just doesn’t provide me with a lot of motivation to play through the entirety of a game or if there’s something else going on, but the idea of dropping another 60 bucks on something I’ll play 4 hours of doesn’t seem like the best choice for me. I think I have to make myself earn the right to buy a new game by forcing myself to play through something I already own. That definitely isn’t going to lead to me just hating video games altogether or anything, so I won’t even worry about it.
Well it’s Saint Patrick’s Day already, which means it’s time to go out to the pub with the lads and knock back a couple of brews and eat your body weight in bar nachos. Oh wait, it’s a pandemic still, don’t do that. I can’t say I’ve ever really celebrated St. Patrick’s day in any real capacity at any point in my life, and this year doesn’t seem like the best time to start. So instead I’ll just sit here and talk about an upcoming game that has nothing to do with Ireland or even the color green at all. We’re talking about the upcoming cooperative action game, Dungeons & Dragons:Dark Alliance.
If you haven’t heard about it yet, Dungeons & Dragons:Dark Alliance looks to be a 4 player cooperative action game in the vein of something like Vermintide2. The way that Vermintide 2 was structured had you and your friends in this hub world where you could craft new items, level up your character, and check on your challenge progress, before you all embarked on a mission to kill a bunch of rat-folks with knives and gather the precious XP inside their bodies. Mind you, this is all me speculating, but it sure seems like Dungeons & Dragons:Dark Alliance is going to handle things in a very similar way.
I’m going off of Polygon.com’s hands on experience with Dungeons & Dragons:Dark Alliance, and they specifically call out how the game itself is geared towards co-op play, with difficulties scaling based on how many players are involved. The article mentions the core loop of the game appears to be about replaying levels on harder difficulties, gathering loot, and leveling up each character class according to whichever skill tree you choose to follow. How much variance there will actually be between different skill trees remains to be seen.
Personally, I would’ve liked the ability to just create a character instead of choosing existing ones, because that’s kind of the whole draw of a Dungeon’s & Dragons product in my eyes. To me that just seems kind of antithetical to what the biggest TTRPG is all about, but even if I can’t create my own character I’m sure it’ll be fine. It also makes sense when you consider that the PS2 era Dark Alliance games also only let you play as pre-made characters, so there is some precedent there.
The only real hangup I have with this early showing of Dungeons & Dragons:Dark Alliance, is that I never really got that into Vermintide 2 or games like it, but I really do enjoy Dungeons & Dragons, so that might be enough to keep me interested. Either way, Dungeons & Dragons:Dark Alliance is coming out for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC and the next generation consoles as well on June 22nd for the extremely attractive price of $40.
Almost three years ago to the day I launched this silly little blog, unaware that it would go on for as long as it has. When I launched the blog itself, it was mostly a way to just get some consistent content up on the main page to supplement the glut of videos we made. Oh how hard the pendulum has swung in the other direction however, with several different features and articles existing in stark contrast to the zero amount of videos we make. While having to write something every week for the past 3 years might sound like a burden, it’s actually been exactly what I needed to keep me going creatively.
The blog really has been this cathartic hobby of mine that I sometimes wish I didn’t have to do. You might say, “but you don’t have to do it,” to which I’d reply, “If I don’t do this I’ll die.” Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but at this point I really can’t imagine not writing a blog post every week. It’s become such a staple of my routine and such an important hobby of mine that even when I’m at my laziest and don’t feel like doing it, I know that I’d hate myself if I skipped a week.
I’ve gone through long stretches of time where my motivation to do anything creative was basically nonexistent, but having the self-imposed dead-line and sense of necessity with the blog has always kept me from just spiraling out of control. Especially during the pandemic it’s been incredibly easy to lose track of the days and time in general, but having that weekly goal where I have to write something has kept me from just losing weeks of my life to nothingness.
The blog is very special to me, but even I can see that I’ve kind of reduced its relevance thanks to other features I’ve introduced on this site. Talking about a game on a blog might seem like a wasted opportunity for a Gut Check, or talking about D&D should probably be confined to a The Master of Disaster feature. It’s become increasingly difficult to delineate what makes for a blog versus one of those features, but that just means the blog gets to be about wider topics that aren’t just about video games and TTRPGs or whatever.
The important thing to remember is that I love doing all of this, not just the blog but The Bonus World in general. The blog has been the most enduring creative thing I’ve ever done, easily outlasting any other written feature and probably and video thing in my past, and I don’t see it ending anytime soon. I truly appreciate your continued support and engagement with the blog and The Bonus World at large, and I hope you continue to enjoy it as time goes on. Thank you.
They say there’s a product for everything, right? If that’s the case, then where the hell is the asynchronous Dungeons & Dragons game that I’ve been imagining in my head for the past few years? Surely I can’t be expected to go out and develop a video game on my own, so I’ll do the only thing I know how to do decently and write an article complaining about it. So let’s talk about the D&D game that should exist by now, but miraculously doesn’t.
Without any real understanding as to how video games are made or what market trends look like, I feel like there’s a massive gap in the market for a video game to capitalize on the ever expanding tabletop role playing game market that’s desperately looking to be filled. I guess this all stems from my frustration with virtual tabletop (VTT) programs like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely thankful that these services exist, but some of them can be an absolute hassle to use reliably. Sometimes everything works without any issue, but other times you’re plagued with connectivity issues, or some compendium sharing option is acting weirdly because there are 4 ways to enable the same setting but you didn’t choose the right one. Hell, certain VTTs can’t even be bothered to put a fucking pause button on their music players. Add in the player frustration of having character sheets not updating properly, or certain spells just not working within the confines of the VTT itself, and you’ve got a situation where every session feels like a roll of the dice.
What if there was something else that actually worked consistently, was accessible, easily available and didn’t require too much heavy lifting from either GM or player? There are a lot of books, software and services that all claim to cut down on the prep time for a session or streamline the experience in some way, but they don’t necessarily scratch my particular itch. The two main angles of approach for this concept revolve around using phones and tablets for the players and GM respectively, or something involving a console and smartphones to achieve something similar.
I know there are ways to accomplish this right now, but in my mind I just picture my friends gathered around the TV while I flip through maps, distribute art handouts, and engage in combat with them from the comfort and privacy of my tablet without any additional software or hardware. The GM could have an app that streams to a Roku or Chromecast that only displays what the GM wants the players to see while simultaneously giving them a fully feature VTT to use on their tablet or phone. You could even accomplish a similar thing with a console and some smart phones too.
An existing alternative to this currently exists in the form of games that have campaign creator modes in them, but as a GM, I haven’t really found one that worked for me. Also, if a game like Baldur’s Gate III implements this kind of mode at some point in the future, it’s still a $60 buy in from all of my players which seems like a really hard sell especially when the VTT that we use is free for them. The way to combat that would be for a game like Divinity: Original Sin II to offer a free demo download that’s only used for playing custom campaigns that someone who owns the full product is running, but I guess the mentality is that if someone like D&D enough to play a custom campaign created inside of a video game, they probably want to buy the game anyway. That logic makes sense, but as someone who enjoys D&D way more than playing CRPGs, I can say that people like us do exist.
I would love to see a game or piece of software to come out and genuinely offer the D&D experience, not just in terms of the rules but the communal aspect of it. We’ve seen the popularity of D&D and TTRPGs in general explode over the past few years, and I can’t believe that there isn’t a more accessible option for people to get a game going that doesn’t involve one person doing an endless amount of prep. I’m sure there are like 40 different projects on Kickstarter that are trying to make good on this vision in some fashion, so hopefully one of them gets funded and actually does the damn thing. I guess what I really want is an easy way to set up a D&D session without a lot of hassle for people who have a passing interest in TTRPGs in general. Sure I’d love for my dream application to also be the optimal platform for running a long term campaign, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.
Imagine if once we all get the chance to see people in person and interact with each other again, that I could just have a bunch of people come and sit in front of my TV where they can manage their characters on screen via their cellphone while I throw goblins at them on my iPad. That seems like a no-brainer of an idea to me, but once again, I don’t know what it takes to make a game. But I bet the Jackbox folks could totally make this thing and make it well and now it’s all that I can think about.
Sometimes you can just buy and thing, rip it out of the box, plug it in and just go without any problems, whereas other times you might buy a thing, turn it on once, later learning that it would be the last time it would ever turn on again. That plug and play appeal has been a big selling point for a lot of products like gaming consoles and at one point, Apple devices just to name a few. But no product is immune to defects, something we all have to learn at some point in our lives. For some of us, we learn this lesson every few months thanks to our superhuman-like powers of bad luck.
Let’s backup a bit though. A few weeks ago my partner and I agreed that I should have a workspace at their apartment so we could spend more time together, which also meant that I was going to be able to justify buying a new computer. I get the hobbyist appeal of building a computer from scratch, but I’ve done that song and dance before and I’ve had my fill of it, which is why I specifically decided to buy a pre-built computer to avoid all of that. Now how do you think that went?
Poorly, is the answer. My lovely little pre-built came with everything I needed including components that rivaled and surpassed my build at home and an obnoxious amount of LEDs on every inch of the case. Upon arrival, I set the thing up at my place, transferred some files and did some big downloads so I could hit the ground running at my partner’s place and not have to worry about configuring everything to my liking. It worked flawlessly and I loved it.
I moved it to my partner’s apartment without any issue, where I proceeded to set it up and give it a test boot to see if it was okay, which it was. Oh joyous day, now I had my workstation almost ready, only needing to buy a new chair to complete the ensemble. Well, yesterday I stopped in and planned to just hang out all day while acquainting myself with my new toy, except yesterday it decided that turning on was an unachievable goal. Yeah, for some reason the computer just decided to crap out on me.
All of the gaudy LEDs would turn on and the fans would spin, but nothing would actually work. The monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, they all knew they were connected, but didn’t function whatsoever. So after a lot of troubleshooting and a trip to the computer repair store, I discovered that the motherboard just up and croaked, which is apparently something that can just happen. So now I’ve got this cool lemon of a glowing monolith just taunting me.
Luckily I was under factory warranty and was able to request a replacement without issue, but the whole situation has just been deflating as all hell. Not only was I excited to play with my new toy, I was excited to be able to spend more time with my partner. Sure they’d be working all day, but I figure being around someone who is actually being productive would inspire me to do the same, but now that has to wait. I don’t know what will come of the replacement process, but I hope it all happens smoothly and quickly. If there is a silver lining, I guess it’s that now I have time to do some chair shopping.
Last week the incredible yet nearly forgotten Super Mario 3D World, formerly a Wii U exclusive, was re-released on the Nintendo Switch. That game alone is very good and you should certainly check it out if you’re one of the many people who missed it when it was initially released back in 2013. That’s all well and good, but what I really want to talk about is the bundled game that comes alongside this new port of Super Mario 3D World, a little game called Bowser’s Fury.
For context, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (a bad title for a great package) is a full-priced game that contains the entirety of Super Mario 3D World, alongside an open-world 3D Mario game called Bowser’s Fury. While I’m sure I’ll end up writing a review or something for Bowser’s Fury later on, for today I want to highlight how cool of an idea this game is and why Nintendo won’t fully capitalize on it. Nintendo will certainly make a fully open-world 3D Mario game, that’s not in contention here. But Bowser’s Fury is a bite-sized example of what that might look like, and honestly, I’m way more into the idea of a smaller and more focused Mario experience than having to wait 5-7 years for a new Mario game.
Bowser’s Fury is only about 5-10 hours long depending on how thorough you want to get, which is honestly the perfect amount of game for me at the moment. But like I said, Nintendo won’t ever capitalize on this idea in a way that doesn’t come off as them “devaluing their IP.” Ideally, I would love to see a game in the vein of Bowser’s Fury release for like $20-$30 or something. Just like a nice aperitif of that Mario flavor we all enjoy so much, coming out once every two years or something to that effect.
It’s a shame too, because these little experiences could serve as table-setting for whatever big 3D Mario game is coming out. Imagine for a moment that Super Mario Odyssey 2 is coming out, that’s a good feeling isn’t it? Now in the run up to that game, people are gonna be asking the same questions about if any of the supporting Mario cast will make an appearance in the game. People could finally get the Waluigi game they some desperately have been asking for, but that won’t happen because he’s a terrible character. But you could give us a Luigi game that explains why he won’t be in this hypothetical sequel while also giving the player a soft introduction to the mechanics and flow of Super Mario Odyssey 2.
Bowser’s Fury proves that you can make a compelling and engaging platformer without releasing a full blown 3D Mario game, but I don’t think Nintendo will ever make good on that concept. Maybe you’ll see more of these kinds of experiences bundled into bigger products and re-releases, but I sincerely doubt we’ll ever see small standalone titles that are priced accordingly. But I guess at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter for Nintendo, because people are gonna buy a Mario game no matter the scope or price. But man, it would sure be cool if we got that Waluigi side story game where you watch him get hurled into a black hole.
Look, I’ll be honest, there isn’t really a ton to talk about this week. I’ve been struggling with what the hell I would actually write for this blog, and I’m just kind of flying by the seat of my pants here. I’ve been playing some stuff here and there, includingthe excellent Hitman III and the less excellent but still good Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection. It’s just been a pretty uneventful week honestly. So yeah, no blog today. Thanks for checking in though. There will be an article going up on Friday that I’m really excited for. Oh, and Super Mario 3D World+ Bowser’s Fury comes out on Friday as well, and that’s one of the best 3D Mario games out there, so that should be fun. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day, and we’ll be back with an actual blog next week.
Last week I spoke about my decision to invest my money into my computer rather than endlessly try and chase down a PlayStation 5, a decision that I’m ultimately glad I made. But I wanted to follow up on last week’s post and briefly go over the roller coaster of emotions that I experienced in a mere 7 days. See, I was sweating the overall installation of the components more than I really needed to. The real hassle, while brought on by replacing my hardware, actually turned out to be more of Windows fucking me over than anything else.
5 years ago I built my gaming computer from the ground up, which was a first for me considering up until then I had only replaced components rather than build an entire computer. It was a wonderful experience that fell a little flat because of some defective hardware, but that was sorted out pretty quickly. But considering I was very budgeted back then, my components, specifically the motherboard, was not able to accept any newer processors. It was a problem for “future Ari,” and boy did 2016 Ari really fuck 2021 Ari over.
So I get all of my new parts in and manage to get everything installed within an hour or so without any issues. When it came time to boot my machine however, Windows decided that I no longer had it installed (despite it totally being on my still connected C drive) and asked me to reinstall. Well, I had no idea where my Windows product key was, but luckily there was an option to proceed without one. Then the strangest thing happened that I’m sure smarter computer folks can explain, but when I tried to install Windows again, it told me that none of my hard drives were formatted correctly for Windows. I thought this was weird considering Windows had been and still was installed on the damn drive it was telling me wasn’t formatted correctly.
After an hour of getting virtual middle fingers however, I relented and took comfort in the fact that I had backed up my PC before embarking on this upgrade, and formatted the entire drive to make Windows happy. Turns out, that wasn’t enough. After some Googling, a user on some forum basically ran down a list of commands I needed to type into the command prompt to more thoroughly format the drive or something. I didn’t quite know what I was doing, but I was assured it would solve the problem. And solve it, it did!
Something you might not be aware of is just how much Windows locks you out of when you don’t have a product key. Every time I wanted to do anything that resembled customizing how my desktop looked, I was gently reminded that cheapskates like myself don’t get those privileges. After some time of trying to track my key down, I ultimately gave up and just bought Windows again from Microsoft, essentially boosting up the price of this upgrade by another $150. Five minutes after that purchase, I found my product key just kind of sitting on top of everything in a drawer that I definitely looked in earlier. Thankfully, the customer support people at Microsoft were very understanding and were able to give me my cash back, but the whole experience just didn’t need to happen.
Bow that Windows was finally installed on my fresh drive I was off to the races, or so I thought. Then I discovered that the system image I made of my computer the previous day no longer existed, maybe that deep hard drive format had something to do with it. I had backed up certain files to an external drive, but not everything. That’s when the panic started to kick in.
Years of projects, articles, and artwork, all gone in the blink of an eye, including literally everything I had for this very website. I very nearly had an emotional breakdown and was ready to write up a post about how the site would be vacant for a bit before I was able to rebuild what had been destroyed. And that was my mentality for a few days.
Then something wonderful happened. I plugged in all of my external drives a few days later and was so thankful that I’m an idiot who gives cheeky little names for all of my hard drives. Never in my life was I so happy to see my external drive show up in the finder than when I saw “Count Backupula” themselves. I dug into the Count’s files, and hidden about 10 layers deep, in folders that was just titled as symbols and numbers, I found it all. My entire desktop was just sitting there, waiting for me. It was a great feeling of relief mixed with the affirmation that I knew I couldn’t have been that stupid to forget to backup everything in several places.
Now I have the best of both worlds, where I have all of my old shit at the ready, while simultaneously getting to enjoy the feeling of a freshly wiped computer. I’ve learned a lot from this experience, particularly the importance of redundant backups. I’ve also learned that while my CPU and RAM upgrades may feel slightly incremental, the biggest and best upgrade one could invest in is an SSD. Seriously, I don’t know how I ever played video games without an SSD eliminating the vast and shitty load times I used to endure so regularly.
And that’s kind of been my week honestly. I’m still happy I made the choice to upgrade, but boy howdy do I need to plan more thoroughly before I do anything like that again. The only upgrades I need to do from here are maybe a new case and the ever elusive 30 series graphics cards. Seriously, those things are just as impossible to find as a PlayStation 5.
The Bonus World 