August 2023 Update

"Monthly Update" Thumbnail.

It's been a very quiet period of time overall. Some things have definitely happened, but overall I can characterize these last ~30-31 days with words like "monotone" and "somber". That was the nature of my current routine as I followed the flow that didn't have much to offer, much to my frustration. Despite having a fantastic moment to celebrate and be happy for once, my life has naturally gravitated towards achieving total balance between positive and negative things.

Unlike last few Updates (such as July one), I'm pretty confident about my ability to keep this one short since I don't want to repeat myself twice in some aspects... or many, now that I think about it. Not only I would provide some brief updates on my current laptop endeavors, I'll also try and dig up whatever else I could mention in this format.

Summary.

Starting out with a sort of update to "Beholding The Ultimate Force" post about me getting used to my ASUS TUF FA507RC A15 Gaming Laptop. I was embarrassingly stupid about Delete button thing as I didn't even recall this thing called "Num Lock", which was the primary reason behind this "confusing" situation... and that's about it, I would say. Not much progress on non-gaming subject. Previously I thought that it would be easy to move onto something new and be more productive about chosen hobby, but in reality I'm still lost and confused. Looking into BlockBench for a few minutes completely scared me away, so currently all I have prepared is LibreSprite. Obviously, I haven't properly jumped into pixel art and/or explored other potential options just yet.

My typical procrastination was powered by financial & employment issues that's been ongoing for around three months. Basically all of my savings were drained out during this time period: due to both regular expenses and more tragic circumstances. Thankfully, my scuffed cycle of life includes positive phases as well. Getting new laptop likely delayed this effect as I was very unlucky with finding some kind of gig, but it appears that my search has ended and I'm about to get a very busy routine.

In the meantime, I kept up with playing games on regular basis. My Stardew Valley journey is still ongoing, even it slowed down in comparison with the past. Same implies to occasional forays into Heroes of the Storm. Besides sporadic jumps into both Ion Fury and Quake, I've tried to make a "proper use" of my current hardware by "scouting" DOOM 16, but it ended up in a waiting line for an unexpected reason... Quake 2's re-release was leaked way before its initial announcement and I originally dreaded coming back into it as my previous attempt to revisit the game met quick end. However, I ended up being fairly surprised by the work done by Nightdive Studios as this game is actually kind of fun now.

Running through original campaign allowed me to get a general feel of that, and it was pleasant and laid back approach as its achievements aren't difficulty-specific... Hell, you can just select the last Units of Mission Packs and beat them on Easy difficulty for respected achievements. That's what I did because of course I'm going to cheese regardless of their current state and it just so happens that this process is much easier than it was with original Quake's re-release, so I'm taking it. Sticking to this strategy with Quake 2 64 & Call of the Machine would've definitely been more time efficient, but I'm not going to do as I'm more than eager to experience them fully for the first time. Moments like this are very inspiring and I might go back to revisiting my Trial of Runes concept for a third time: likely still in text format only, but outside of the blog since I don't want to keep rewriting about this idea without next to none prospects of it materializing one way or the other.

All that's left for me to do within this "article" is to give an answer to unasked question about current state of Ilko's Hall. While I can't provide a definitive reply at this point of time, perhaps that's all it needs. You know, its current three-year run was rather chaotic as is, and it's not like there's any following around this silly blog. At the end of a day, all this official fluff truly matters only to myself as that's pretty much what this whole thing is actually about. So that's where the positing the blog is taking with me reporting on substantial changes through Update posts if there are many. For now, the door is open for random "articles" in case I have time, motivation and energy to write them.