Mari Musings

I didn’t wait 5 months to update again. It’s a miracle lol. I’ve still been a bit reclusive lately, but I’ve been a lot less anxious. Overall feeling a lot better! Let’s hope it stays that way.

3DS Hacking Shenanigans

I hacked my 3DS XL about a week ago, so I’ve been playing with that. For anyone on the fence about doing it, I highly recommend taking the plunge. The system is crazy easy & safe to modify these days, and it took me like 30 minutes total. Modding my 3DS is something that’s been on my ‘I’ll get to it’ list for years now, but now seems like as good of a time as any with online services shutting down a couple months ago. I also promised I would play Bravely Default before year's end!

I’m not really one to care about sailing the seven seas either way. I wouldn't have been able to play as many games as I did growing up if my dad hadn't done that. But now that both the e-shop and online services have shut down, there is no way in all the hells I’m going to pay the nostalgia premium on old, secondhand games. —Or let e-shop exclusives stay dead. And neither should you! If you’re curious about what games I have on my system currently, I made a page specifically for that! (Update, I deleted it SORRY lol 11/27/2025). I’ve wanted to make a page of game box art for awhile, and I was inspired to finally make it by Deid who has a wonderful collection page.

The first game I decided to play with my shiny new hacked system is the English fan patch for Tongari Boushi to Oshare na Mahou Tsukai (Enchanted Folk and the Stylish Wizard). I’ve been a fan of Enchanted Folk since I was a kid, but because the sequel games were never translated into English, I never played them. There is an awesome translation project going on for the 3rd game, Stylish Wizard, that I’ve been following for awhile. It’s rough around the edges and has a lot of issues, but it’s playable! Because of the performance issues, I probably wouldn’t recommend it to newcomers to the series (YET), but for seasoned players like me, it’s really a godsend. I’ve been working on an Enchanted Folk shrine, much like my Animal Crossing shrine. Playing the game put me back in gear, and I have the outline for each page done.

I have also been playing Rune Factory 4 for the first time. Despite being a longtime Harvest Moon fan, I never paid much attention to Rune Factory. —And I have been missing out!! I’ve only put in about 12 hours so far which means that I haven’t played enough to give a well informed opinion about the game. What I can say is that it’s crazy fun and may just ruin me on every farming sim forevermore.

For the uninitiated, it’s a quarter of the time a farming simulator, half the time a real time action RPG, and another quarter of the time a social sim! For me, the social sim aspect of the game is of utmost importance, and many Harvest Moon-inspired games like Stardew Valley don’t have well-developed social simulation. In most cases, the townsfolk are flat and uninteresting. In Rune Factory 4, the characters are fun and their dialogue isn’t repetitive, changing every day in response to the world around them. It basically knocked my socks off and gives me real incentive to talk to everyone every day.

Additionally, I had always assumed in my transient knowledge of the game that it was a turn based JRPG, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s a real time action RPG instead. I love a good turn-based game every now and then, but unfortunately, many turn-based RPGs—especially older ones—tend to be slow and grindy. I just don’t personally have the patience for that unless the rest of the game is compelling. I will definitely be writing more about Rune Factory 4 in coming entries!

General Life Updates

In other news, I was actually offered that job I mentioned in my last entry! I am so, so grateful to finally end my unemployment era. The pay is kind of bad considering I have a 4 year degree, but at this point, I’m just happy to not work at the ol’ golden arches lol. It is really rough out here. I don’t start until July first, so I’m happy to have another month to just chill without worrying. …as if lol.

That’s all from me today! Do you have any fun summer plans? :3

Current Status

Listening: Animal Crossing OST

Reading: The Last Wish (The Witcher #1) • Andrzej Sapkowski

Watching: One Piece

Playing: Rune Factory 4 (2013)

Ham-ha! It’s been awhile since I wrote a blog post, so I decided to write about… why I haven’t written any posts lol.

I actually wrote a long blog post talking about toxic positivity and my aversion to talking about negative feelings… but I don’t think that the ending of the post was very satisfying because I’m not really sure what to do about it.

TL;DR I learned that toxic positivity isn’t just invalidating the feelings of others but it can also extend to invalidating oneself. I notice that I isolate myself when I experience difficult feelings because I don’t want to be a burden, and I don’t want others to see me suffer™. SUCH DRAMATIC WORDING but that’s my reality, I guess. Despite this being a personal blog, I don’t really like sharing super vulnerable thoughts publicly for all to see. I don’t even really like sharing them privately, and even admitting here that I’ve been struggling the past several months seems like a huge overshare. But the last thing I want to be on this blog is inauthentic… so I just chose not to post until now despite really wanting to. My hope in sharing this is that I will feel more comfortable posting even when I'm not feeling well.

—ANYWAY, I’m happy the cold months here are winding to a close. I'm sure this is hilarious for anyone who lives in a place already under the full force of Summer and at the mercy of the sun... or maybe at the mercy of your AC...? Sunshine is supposed to be good for you, but I'm skeptical lol. (JK). I still haven’t had luck finding a job, but I’m feeling hopeful about the last one I interviewed for. Fingers crossed.

I’ve been busy with other projects this year, so my game has been on the backburner until recently. I’ve been doing a lot of planning and storyboarding! I really want to meet my goal of finishing the VN as soon as possible because I have a million game dev ideas.

I’ve been playing some retro games lately, and I find the most inspiration thinking about how I would improve them if I was the game designer. The other day, I wrote about my experience with Princess Debut (2008) in my gamelog. I had given up on casual emulation on iOS, but Delta emulator has defied all of my expectations. I’m still planning on hacking my 3DS soon, though. I find that most DS games are actually better on the original hardware. I think this speaks volumes to how unique the DS is. So many designers made effective use of both the dualscreen and touch screen. It's hard to 'emulate'—literally and figuratively—the experience accurately on other devices like a smart phone.

Anyway, that’s all for today! I have a corkboard full of blog ideas that I’ve wanted to write for awhile but just haven’t due to the anxiety demons tormenting me. Thanks for reading!

Current Status

Mood: Anxious tbh

Listening: Princess Debut OST

Reading: The Last Wish (The Witcher #1) • Andrzej Sapkowski

Happy New Year, lovely reader! It’s still 2023 where I live, but only for a few more hours. I don’t really have any New Year plans. I’m just here at home! My partner and I are going to watch the new Black Clover movie in a little bit and eat delicious, stovetop popcorn. It’s one of my favorite snacks to make and Black Clover is one of the most underrated series I love!

I’ve been crazy busy this month, as many of us are. To be honest, I’m really happy the holidays are drawing to a close. I’ve still had no luck with finding a job. I hope that I will hear back from somewhere in January. Fingers crossed!

I’ve been playing a truly insane amount of Baldurs Gate 3 lately. I’m only in act 2 (after 60 hours), but I’ve played pretty much every waking hour since my partner gave it to me last week. It’s so funny because I also got him BG3 as a Christmas present. It’s been a fun week of parallel play lol.

I don’t think I have anything new or very insightful about the BG3, so I’m not sure I’ll write a full blog post about it. I will say that I am enjoying it much more than Divinity Original Sin 2, Larian’s last major release (to my knowledge). The systems make much more sense to a casual CRPG fan than DOS2, in my opinion. I also much prefer BG3 to Dark Alliance, though I’m aware that BG3 is more similar to Divinity than to its predecessors.

I’ve been RPing as an edgelord character lol. I’m playing as a high elf paladin oathbreaker with the Dark Urge. And of course, the only party member I feel will really accept my character’s propensity for murder is Astarion, so of course I’m romancing him. It’s been a lot of fun! Games like Baldurs Gate 3 only come around every once in a while, and Larian totally earned the GOTY title.

If you’ve picked up any games over the holidays, I would love to know! I recently revamped my blog style, so I hope it’s more pleasing to the eye. ^^ Happy New Year!

Mood: Joyful

Listening to: Omori Soundtrack

Watching: Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King (2023)

Playing: Baldurs Gate 3 (2023)

Eating: Popcorn

Drinking: Water

We are nearing the end of the year, finally. This year has passed faster than any other. I wonder if it’s because I was busy or just because I’m getting older? I’m not really a fan of Winter or the ‘holiday’ season, but it’s important to me to do things to stay grounded in time. The holidays are hard for me, but I do appreciate seeing all of the beautiful lights in my neighborhood.

I appreciate the period of reflection leading up to New Year’s. I am in the camp of people who like to make changes throughout the year, but I dislike it when people are condescending about it. It’s good to reflect on what you want and how you’ll achieve it. I want a job, as I’ve talked about in previous entries, but I’ve been thinking about what I want beyond that.

I also want to make sure I’m continuing the development of my game. Reflecting on the past year, I have made great progress on it. I completed a demo, and I learned a lot. I think my next step is refining the details of the story and writing the script. I imagine that those two aspects of development will have to be done concurrently for the best results. My goal is to finish the game within the next two years, but I should be thinking about where I want my game to be in development by next December. Maybe I should plan to finish the first draft of the script by then. Scary to think about!! That’s the hardest part. If I’m feeling brave, maybe I’ll join a game jam to practice my skills.

I also want to play more games next year to stay inspired. I read advice from, if I remember correctly, Christina Norman, the lead designer for Mass Effect 1 & 2. It was something along the lines of ‘play lots of games now because when you’re working in the industry, you won’t have enough time to play and learn. So play as much as you can and learn from your experiences.’ Unfortunately, I couldn’t find this quote online and I no longer have the book I read it in, so excuse my paraphrasing! (The book was Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton, if you’re curious).

On that note, I made a backlog inspired by this video. I simplified Daryl’s spreadsheet, but the spirit of it is still there. There are more games I want to play, of course, but I looked in my games library for titles that I’ve always wanted to try (or finish) but never got around to. I will probably add more as I go. I also added games that I’ve been excited about but don’t have yet. We love Steam seasonal sales!

I think it’s achievable to finish all of these games in the next year, but I’m not going to worry too much about the timeline. The important part to me is to make sure I’m living my life mindfully and doing what I love, instead of letting time pass by.

I have other personal hopes for the New Year, but I’ll leave this here. I would love to hear about your holiday plans and New Year's resolutions.

Current Status

Mood: Hopeful

Listening to: Hole

Watching: Spy x Family

Playing: Cult of the Lamb

Happy 11/11! Can you believe Skyrim was released 12 years ago? I remember that day clearly. I was in 7th grade and my little brother used his birthday money to buy it on release. I was in a phase of my life where I pretended not to care about things I thought were interesting. Even still, I would watch my brother play and secretly wanted to pick up the controller when no one was watching. I eventually did play the game years later when I was about 16, and I’ve loved it ever since.

Skyrim was the first game I played in first-person POV, and it made me so dizzy! I had to play in 3rd person mode for the longest time. I got the hang of it eventually! Though I had played open-world games like Bully, Skyrim was my first foray into open-world RPGs. The aspect of Skyrim that drove me to keep playing was building up my house and providing for my wife and adopted children LOL! I loved RPing as a mercenary mom who came home to dote on her wife and kids. The cozier aspects of Skyrim like this remind me a bit of Harvest Moon or even Animal Crossing. I wonder if putting Skyrim into this perspective may entice players who otherwise wouldn’t think to pick it up.

Every so often, I feel the urge to pick Skyrim up again. I always have to tell myself, ‘Mari! That’s the devil talking!’ The devil, in this case, is the ghost of Todd Howard whispering in my ear HAHA!

Skyrim aside, life is going okay. I’m still looking for jobs and am getting a bit nervous. I have another batch to apply for, but if I don’t start hearing back, I may try to look for work in other fields in the meantime. Oh well! I am trying not to take it personally that I’m not hearing back. The job market is fickle these days, and it may not be me or my resume that’s the problem. I just need to keep my chin up and have patience.

I hope everyone is doing well! Is it getting dark earlier for you? It’s dark before dinner time here!

Current Stats

Mood: Hopeful

Listening to: Hole

Watching: Spy x Family

Playing: Cult of the Lamb