Writing For LadiesGamers!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to write a quick little post to announce something new I’ll be doing in 2019 😉 As you may remember, back in November I posted an article I wrote for my friend Yvonne’s site, LadiesGamers, about my Animal Crossing Memories. I thought it was pretty neat of her to feature me on her site!

Now, Yvonne has reached out to me and asked if I wanted to become a permanent writer for her site! I think this is a great opportunity for me because not only are there a lot of really great people writing for her site, but I’ll be getting a chance to play and review some indie Switch titles, which I think is awesome!

My introduction was posted this morning on her site, yay! Here’s the link to the post so you can see it on her site, but I’m going to repost it here, just for fun. Most of you know who I am and this information about me may be things you already know, but I just wanted to share what I wrote!

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Hey everyone! My name is Brandi- you may have already seen an article on LadiesGamers by me featuring my Animal Crossing Memories. Yvonne recently asked me if I wanted to join the team full-time, so here I am! 🙂

Kirby is my favorite character!

I’ve been a gamer pretty much as far back as I can remember. I was born in 1986, so I’ve seen many generations of consoles come and go- and I’ve enjoyed all of them! Though I am partial to Nintendo games and consoles, I do play and enjoy everything else as well. My husband and I own an Atari 2600, a Nintendo Switch, and a lot of consoles in between! That means we have a ton of games, and a hefty backlog that will probably never be cleared!

I enjoy many different types of games. Some of my favorite series include Animal Crossing, Kirby, and Donkey Kong Country. My favorite game of all time is Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super Nintendo- which happens to be my favorite system! For me, the SNES brings back so many wonderful childhood memories.

This game never gets old for me!

For my day job, I’m a psychometrist. That’s fancy way of saying I test people! I work mainly with the elderly population testing for indicators of Alzheimer’s/dementia and other memory loss problems; I also test brain injury patients, Parkinson’s disease patients, and depressed patients, among others. It’s a good job, but can be sad sometimes. That’s where video games come in handy! There is nothing like relaxing with a game after a long day at work. When I was a kid, video games used to be my respite from school work, and now they offer respite in my adult life as well!

The Animal Crossing series is so relaxing!

I’m excited to join the team at LadiesGamers. I feel like there’s a nice little community of people here! I have my own blog as well, Walk Away From The Sun, which is where I ramble on about video games I’ve played, gaming goodies I’ve purchased, and pretty much anything else gaming related! On my site, I write under the name DefyTheMajority 😉 Thanks for reading!

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There ya have it! I’m so grateful for this opportunity and it’s very flattering to be asked to join Yvonne’s team! Of course, I will still be posting on my blog, so don’t worry about that. And when I do a game review, I’ll post it here as well!

Anyway, just wanted to share that exciting little tidbit with everyone. The year is almost over (!!) so I hope everyone enjoys their end of the year celebrations!! See ya in 2019! 😉

Blinky vs. Pac-Man!

As many of you may know, I’m a huge animal lover. I have several pets and while I do love dogs and cats (and have one of each!), I’ve always loved reptiles and amphibians. Some people get grossed out by them, but since I was a kid I’ve always had nothing but love for them!! I have posted a picture of my bearded dragon before, but I also have 4 turtles, an axolotl, a beta fish (not a reptile, but not soft and cuddly either haha) and a Pac-Man frog! 🙂

The Pac-Man frog is my newest addition. I got him at a reptile expo in early December, and he was only a couple weeks old when I adopted him. While trying to come up with the perfect name for him, I thought about Pac-Man and how the ghosts are always chasing him. One of the ghosts’ names is Blinky, and well… the name just stuck!

While the video game Blinky is always on the move, my Blinky is not so active. Pac-Man frogs spend most of their lives just chilling in the dirt, waiting for their food to pass by their face. They don’t move around a whole lot! I thought it would be fun to get my little Pac-Man stress ball and put it next to Blinky to see if I got any sort of reaction out of him.

… nope! Blinky gives no shits about Pac-Man 😉 I’m not exactly surprised, but I thought it would be a fun picture to take anyway!

By the way, Blinky is just under 3 months old now, so he’s still got quite a bit of growing to do. He is already like twice the size he was when I got him, so he’s on the right track! 🙂

I’m A Terrible Tamagotchi Mom!

In 1997, I turned 11 years old and got one of the COOLEST gifts ever from one of my mom’s awesome co-workers: a Tamagotchi! She told my mom people were loving it over in Japan and kids in the US were probably going to love it as well, so she was sweet enough to get me one for my birthday. I hadn’t really heard of it but was extremely grateful for the gift anyway. Once I looked at the box, I was sold!

Not my box, but this is what mine looked like!

My little virtual pet got a lot of love and attention, and soon, that one virtual pet grew into like… I don’t know, 20 or 30! Haha! I was obsessed with all the different virtual pets out there, but my original Tamagotchi remained near and dear to my heart.

Recently, I’ve been tearing apart my office and rearranging everything. Currently it looks like shit and a bit like a bomb went off, but whatever. As I was going through my things, I was pleased to open up a little container and discover my nearly 21 year old Tamagotchi nestled inside (along with a sweet flame Tamagotchi I bought maybe like 10 years ago just because it looked cool!)

So happy I still have these!

Nostalgia hit me pretty hard, and I decided to put a battery in it and see if it worked. It started right up, so I thought “Sure, let me see how long I can keep this little creature alive!”

Still works after all these years! ❤

For the first day or two,  I was pretty good at taking care of it. I attended to it when it beeped, and I was on a roll.

Much like a real baby, they poop all. the. time!

…. until day 3, when I took it to work and left it in my purse all day. Shit! There was like 5 little poops on the screen, plus it was sick, hungry, and bored, but it wasn’t dead! I vowed to take better care of my little creature.

A day or two later, and whoops! Poor Tamagotchi lived in my purse all day and all night. Only when I woke up the next day did I remember it, and I thought for sure it was toast. Nope! The little beast was still alive and sound asleep. I turned the lights off on it, even though it was going to wake up and yell at me in less than an hour.

The final adult form. 

All in all, my Tamagotchi lived to be 9… so I had it running for about 8 days (it turns 1 after a nap it takes after being hatched… yeah who knows what the logic is there). I’m surprised, because even though I had the best of intentions, I completely sucked at being a Tamagotchi mom.

R.I.P. little guy!

I still have a place in my heart for these little virtual creatures though! A 20th anniversary Tamagotchi was released late last year and I totally wanted one… just couldn’t find it at any store. I did just check Amazon and they are in stock (which they weren’t the entire holiday season) so I guess I will buy me one! 😉 Don’t know how much I’ll actually play with it but I want it so I can be reminded of my childhood!

P.S. The flame Tamagotchi I have is like a “Tamagotchi lite.” It only beeps when it absolutely wants something, and you can’t select an option unless the Tamagotchi needs it (i.e. you can’t select the food icon unless it’s hungry) so maybe I should put batteries in it and see if I have better luck, haha!

2018 Plans (Can I Stick to Them?).

I stink at making plans. I have the best of intentions, and I’m really into it in the beginning. Then, something happens- I never finish what I set out to do. Let’s face it- I had big plans for 2017, but it was such a lousy year that I never had much energy to finish much of anything. Not even my idea of Celebrating Kirby With… could be completed.

Of all the things I haven’t done, one thing that really irks me is the fact that I have so many games in my backlog that I haven’t even TRIED, never mind beaten/ completed. That never stopped me from buying games, though- and the result is approximately one billion games I have waiting for me to try! (Okay, maybe not that many, but still- it’s A LOT).

Blah blah blah, right?! Well, I set myself one goal for 2018: try as many games as possible in my backlog. I don’t necessarily have to beat them- I just want to uncheck the “unplayed” box in my Backloggery so I can at least say yes, I have played the game a little bit! I figured I’d probably spend 1-3 days max on them, unless of course it really grabs my attention to where I feel like I HAVE to keep playing!

I’m not putting too much pressure on myself. I’ll get done what I get done, and no matter what, it’ll be an accomplishment! I’m going to try to write some First Impressions posts as I’m playing though these games.

Oh, and I will probably still be working through a specific game while doing this, too- right now, I’m still playing Harvest Moon: Animal Parade on the Wii, so I’ll finish that before moving on to another game of my choosing. Of course, all my Animal Crossing games will be thrown into the mix as well! 🙂

Anyway, enough of my rambling! This should be enough to keep me busy for quite awhile. See ya!

R.I.P. Game Boy?!?

My Game Boy… please don’t be dead!!

As I mentioned in a previous post where I played though Hoshi no Kirby to celebrate Kirby’s 25th anniversary, I had fully intended to play the game on my original Game Boy. I figured why not have the authentic experience and play the game how it was originally intended, right?

Well, my Game Boy had other ideas. In fact, it just flat out refused to work! I put in one set of batteries and when those didn’t work, I figured I had accidentally grabbed some bad batteries. So I tried another set. And another set. Nope. Nothing worked.

I checked the battery terminals, which really looked quite clean for a system that has been used A LOT since 1992. I cleaned them anyway. I still got nothing.

I dug through cords I had and found a plug that would fit into the Game Boy- I was hoping an external power supply would be the answer. But no, that didn’t work either.

I came to the conclusion that the problem must lie in my Game Boy’s screen. The last couple times I played with it, part of the right side of the screen was cut off- it was as if all those pixels were dead or something. It really didn’t interfere with gameplay that much, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.

Well, I guess I was wrong, because now it’s not working at all 😦 The power light doesn’t even come on, which makes me think it is definitely the screen… some troubleshooting tips I looked up all seem to point in that direction.

Why am I rambling on about a 25 year old plastic, clunky off-white box? Because to me, that clunky little box IS my childhood. I spent an ungodly amount of hours playing games on it, and it has brought me so much joy. I guess… I guess since I’ve lost so much this year, I almost feel like if my Game Boy is truly dead, that’s just something else that’s gone too. I realize that it’s just an inanimate object, but I can’t help feeling sad about it!

BUT! I’m remaining hopeful that I can fix it! I have zero experience with repairs, and I’m a little clumsy, but I’m willing to try. I’ve read some articles and watched a couple tutorials that show how to repair Game Boy screens, so I’m going to give it a whirl. What’s the worst that could happen? At the very least, I’ll know I tried to fix it before giving up on it forever.

Sorry if this post is a little morose, but I truly am bummed about my poor Game Boy. I’ll keep everyone posted on if I am able to repair it successfully or not. Wish me luck, and if you have any tips, they would be greatly appreciated! 🙂

Blogging Goals!

If there’s something I’m good at, it’s setting a certain goal for myself… then becoming distracted and doing something completely different! What can I say- I have a bazillion thoughts in my head all at once, a bazillion things I want to get done, and hardly any time to do anything! Anyway, I’ve been thinking about all my video games that I still have not tried, and I think that’s just terrible! My point of all my babbling is this: I’m going to make it a point (notice I did not say the word “goal”) to try all of my games I haven’t yet played! I don’t need to beat them or even get very far in them, I just want to try them out. So expect to see quite a few “First Impressions” posts coming up as I share my experiences!

BUT FIRST, THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE I NEED TO DO!

As I’ve mentioned before, and some of you are probably already aware, Kirby’s 25th anniversary is this year. That got me thinking about all of the Kirby games I own… and how I want to play through them all to celebrate his anniversary! 🙂 There are a few of the games I haven’t beaten (I know, I know, I suck) but I still think it would be fun to play through all of the games I have as a way to celebrate 25 years of my favorite pink puffball! I’ll be sure to blog a thing or two about each game 😉

So there you have it! My new, revised blogging goals for the next few months or so. I do have one First Impressions post that I will do before I start all the Kirby fun, and I’ll still make sure I post any fun new gaming goodies I get. I think I’ll do a wrap up at the end of the month to let you know what other games I’ve been working on, too.

As always, thank all of you so much for reading! Every like, comment, and follow I receive makes me so happy, and I’m so grateful for the friends I’ve made here! 🙂

This Might Seem Silly, But…

For some reason the other day, I was thinking about games I used to play that I don’t anymore. Mostly games in this category consist of browser-based games that don’t exist anymore, but there is one game that popped in my mind that was a very popular game about 8 years ago…

Yes, I was thinking about FarmVille! I have no idea if people still play this or not. I checked FarmVille’s Wikipedia page, and it hasn’t really been updated in a couple years. A quick Google search revealed some complaints on a forum about how farms have been deleted or reset, and those complaints were posted last year, some as recent as December 2016! Anyway, I just felt like taking a little trip down memory lane and writing a little bit about my FarmVille days!

It was a co-worker of mine that first introduced me to FarmVille. It was 2009, and I was working the front desk at a bowling alley. We had periods of downtime, so one day she brought her computer in to show the game to me. She was SO excited about it and showed me how you could have a cute little farm, grow crops and raise animals! It was like Harvest Moon, but online!

That is A LOT of crops!

There was just one problem- I did not want a Facebook page! I already had a MySpace page (god, how old do I sound?!) and quite frankly, I thought Facebook was boring. However, that little game with the catchy background music and cheerful sprites finally piqued my curiosity, so I signed up for Facebook and started playing!

At first, it was SO MUCH FUN! I found myself signing on every day to play. I did not care about the social aspect of Facebook at all- I literally got on just to play games. I played the hell out of FarmVille for several months. My little farm grew and grew, and tending to it was a blast!

I was never this creative with my farm…

Soon, almost everyone I knew was playing FarmVille. I told my stepdad about it, and he played it so much that he got to a high level very quickly and I couldn’t keep up with him! My husband even made a Facebook page just to play it.

Just… wow. How much time did this take?! 

After awhile, though, the game began to get annoying. For instance, you needed a certain number of friends to send you items so that you could build new buildings. Or you had to sign on a certain number of days in a row to get something. Or the price of an item that was crucial for progress was so unattainable, you needed to spend real money to get it! I wasn’t about to start begging people to send me stuff, so I got aggravated and played less and less until finally, I just decided that I wasn’t going to play anymore. I’m pretty sure this was sometime in early 2011…

Shit like this was just aggravating…

For me, that was a sad decision. I grew to love my little farm, and I enjoyed the game immensely in the beginning. I just couldn’t stand behind the new format of the game that forced you to be social and relied on you to get stuff from your friends.

By the way, I deleted my Facebook back in like 2012 (so did my husband, since he quit playing too). I never used it much outside of playing games anyway! I don’t really like social media at all. I do have a Twitter that I use just for following some of my favorite bloggers and companies (and I follow many of you guys on there!) but I don’t write anything on it.

Anyway, it was really fun thinking about FarmVille! I still half-wish that it would be re-released in a single player format, but I doubt that will ever happen. Besides, I have all of the Harvest Moon/ Story of Seasons games, plus Stardew Valley, to get my farming fix! 😉

My Backloggery Is Complete!

So, after months and months of entering in all my video games, then all my husband’s video games, I’m happy to say my Backloggery page is now completely up to date! For those of you who aren’t aware, Backloggery is a site that lets you keep track of your games for all your different systems. It’s a very basic site that I’ve enjoyed using for a few years now- it just took me forever to get all my games on there! Then I decided that I should put all of Michael’s games on there too, because why not? Anyway, the grand total of all our video games is…

1168!

Wow… just wow. I knew we had a lot of games! Now, I added all my iPhone/ iPad games on there, but I didn’t add any of Michael’s mobile games. He tends to play games for awhile and then get rid of them, so I don’t really keep up with them. Also, I have a Miscellaneous section for all of my Kindle games! 🙂 Here is a screenshot of my Backloggery:

If you are interested in going to my Backloggery and seeing what games I have for each system, click here! If the game is Michael’s and I haven’t played it, I nulled it out so it doesn’t count negatively towards my tally of games completed. Not that my completion rate is that impressive… one day all my games will be finished! Now, if I could just stop adding to my backlog… 😉

The Cricket Catastrophe!

As many of you may know, I have a sweet, lovable bearded dragon named Bowser. Bowser is the coolest guy ever, and would be content to lounge around with me all day. He doesn’t really move around too much- he’s awfully lazy- but one thing he loves is his crickets! I’m so accustomed to having crickets in my house, it’s pretty much an afterthought. That is, until I find one where it DOESN’T belong!

I’m still in the process of fixing up my office (lame, I know, but for the past week and a half I haven’t really done much in there), but at least all my games and systems are pretty much set up! I was sitting on the floor, arranging this huge pile of shit:

Do I have too many games? Nope!

…and in general was just amusing myself by alphabetizing all my games because that’s what I do! I decided to get all of my DS games together, since they were in various random cases and that was annoying me. They were pretty much all in one larger case that I had, along with my Game Boy Micro, a charger, and a few other odds and ends.

Boring story, right? Well, it was business as usual until I smelled IT.

At first I thought my cat or dog came in and shit on the floor or something! I looked around, but didn’t see anything. Then I organized a few more boxes, leaned forward, and smelled it again.

I looked around again, sniffed the carpet (which is brand new), sniffed my own damn FEET (which were clean, thank you) and could not figure out the source of the stench!  I thought I was going nuts.

After I leaned forward a couple more times and kept smelling it, it dawned on me: the case that was holding my DS stuff was the source! Oh my god! I quickly removed everything else from the case and that’s when I saw it: THE DEAD CRICKET.

See it? On the tissue? That’s the source of my problems!

If you have never smelled a dead cricket before, I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like… like mold, sweaty feet, an old sweaty gym bag, and cat turds, all rolled into one. I don’t know how one little insect can smell SO BAD, but I am not kidding when I say it is vile.

Now, please remember that this little bastard must’ve bit the dust BEFORE I even moved. One must have escaped my little cricket enclosure at my old house, traveled its happy ass across the living room and into my office, cozied up in my DS bag and died. I unknowingly packed it up and took it with me- so that means the awful smell was festering for almost 3 months! Sick!!!

Whatever. I disposed of it and carried on. Organize games, lean forward to put them on shelf… AND SMELL IT AGAIN! What the fuck man! Again, I sniffed the floor, sniffed my games… and realized that my poor Game Boy Micro was the source of the stench. That’s right- the smell was so awful in that case it permeated the things in the case too! Disgusted, I removed the game that was in the Game Boy Micro and put it in the corner of the room to deal with later.

Side note: The Game Boy Micro is really cool!

Satisfied, I carried on. Organize games, lean forward to put them on shelf… OH NO NOT AGAIN!! 

Yep, the smell was on my poor Guitar Hero accessory! I was seriously pissed now! I added that to the pile of shit that smelled awful.

This is a fun game, but man does it hurt your hand!

I didn’t want to carry on, but I did. Organize games, lean for- OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE HOW COULD SOMETHING ELSE STINK?!?!

Turns out, the game in the Game Boy Micro also smelled. By this time, I was absolutely seething. How could one medium-sized cricket cause me all this irritation?!

I don’t know why I couldn’t get a good shot of this game, but it’s Wario Ware Inc…. one of my favorite GBA games!

Luckily, everything aired out after a few days, and now nothing smells anymore! Now I’m paranoid about everything else I still have boxed up, because if I have another cricket dead in any of those boxes, I think I might die. Ugh.

 

Kirby’s 25th Anniversary!

While browsing on Twitter a couple nights ago, I came across some fabulous information:

Wow! 2017 marks Kirby’s 25th anniversary! For his 2oth anniversary, Kirby’s Dream Collection came out, which was a really nice mix of games, challenges, a “museum” to view information on every Kirby game, and even a couple anime episodes!

With that being said, I REALLY hope they do something awesome for his 25th anniversary. Right now there is a website (all in Japanese, of course) that you can look at if you’re interested. Just click on this link! This website is so adorable and I can only hope that Nintendo of America will show Kirby some love too!

Oh, and I’m not usually a huge fan of watches, but…

I really want that watch! How cool is that?! I’ll take the keychain next to it, too! 😉