Ape's Enrichment: October 5, 2026
We're back and we're a day late! Whoopsie!
Active Enrichment
- Started up Splatoon Raiders. A ton of fun, many many good things to say about it. It's also, at risk of sounding very yikes here, hilarious colonialist. Like damn, we really are just taking the salmon-guys shit while killing the hell out of them and the game seems to lack any awareness of it. But here I am still playing it and having a great time. So much for the tyranny of the woke, I guess.
- Rolled credits on Captain Wayne: Vacation Desperation. Levels got a bit too long towards the end, but the final level was an absolute delight that brought it all back for me. Highly recommend.
- Taking a break on the Contra 3 grind to capitulate to a long-gestating hunger for some Super Mario World. Did you know that Mario games are very very fun and polished?
Cognitive Enrichment
Hah. My brain is very dumb. I just bought a bundle of Gene Wolfe books though, so there's some reading to look forward to!
Visual Enrichment
- First time watching Creepshow. So, so much fun. I love the EC Comics aesthetic, the bizarre nightmare logic that switches rapidly from nihilistic cruelty to laser-focused karma. Savini is a gift.
- Resident Evil was a great little haunted house of a movie, especially in theaters. Not much to complain about, besides a bit of slack towards the final act.
Auditory Enrichment
- Highlight of the 1001 Albums challenge this week was This Year's Model by Elvis Costello & The Attractions. A name I've heard but never really dug into, just some very solid new wave rock (or is it just new-wave-ish? was that a thing yet?)
Social Enrichment
- Wrapped up the Mario & Zelda Archipelago with my partner! I had a great time, but our randomized logic was absolutely rotten. The random quantity of Shine Sprites for Mario Sunshine in the pool was set to the exact number as the goal, which meant my partner basically 100%ing the back half of Sunshine in order to beat it last, and I was walled out of Zelda 1 progression for basically half of the rando thanks to some key progression stuff being stuffed late into the game (why the hell was my Flute in the final dungeon of Wind Waker?)
- Pirate GURPS is back! Players got into some good OSR-style problem solving deciding to wrench the spears out of a few statues before grabbing a treasure. Unfortunately, they still triggered the trap to animate those statues and it turns out terracotta fists still hit pretty damn hard. I decided to make the statues solar-powered to synthesize with the puzzle of safely grabbing the treasure by shining sunlight into a gem on the door, and my players picked up on neither of those, opting to brute-force the door and get themselves pretty hurt slapboxing the statues, but they prevailed. They ran into a combination siren/harpy on a perilous bridge on the way back, but one of the only party members not lured by the song got an insanely lucky damage roll and one-shot the thing. That's life.
Blog Shoutouts
I didn't really read blogs this week. Sorry guys. I like Toucan't's observation in Roll to Move HP! I wonder how you could reflavor the athletes in Magical Athlete to different weapons, combat strategies, etc. to turn this silly idea into a more traditionally "complete package". Also, more delicious DKslop for me!