18th April
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we’ve been playing. This week, Connor loses his grip on reality and finds it instead on the haft of axe; Victoria feels the sting of giving an unappreciated present; Kelsey tries to stop Cooking Mama from catching a restraining order; and Bertie shows off.
What have you been playing this week?
Here’s another question: do you remember what you were playing last week? You don’t have to! The What We’ve Been Playing archive has you covered.
Old School RuneScape, PC
I have fallen into a loop, a devastating grind from which my mental health may not recover: cutting trees, banking the wood, whittling the timber, and making bows. These bows then act as flourish for totems, honorifics for ents who exist in a tranquil loop of admiration for the nature around them. For me, it’s experience for fletching, which I am sorely lacking.
I have spent hours doing this. It starts in Seer’s Village, on dedicated forestry worlds. Here, me and many digitally doomed lumberjacks swing endlessly at trees, occasionally breaking the monotony by engaging in special events giving baby ents haircuts or foiling fox hunters. Imagine dozens of anonymous people, felling trees; discussion among these hopeless few can be rowdy, friendly, and immature, though somehow, inevitably, it drifts to the political.
I started with maple trees behind the bank, being occasionally visited by a scorned individual from the Yew tree spot at the other side of town dropping off their wooden haul. I had it good back then, though I didn’t know it at the time. I must have gathered hundreds of logs, which I then turned into countless bows.
However, this morning before work, I made my way to a new tier of trees, Yew trees, and these take longer to cut down. My rune axe is starting to feel blunt in my hands. A better axe does exist – a dragon axe – but the only way to get one is to kill a boss that’s far stronger than I, or by getting a one in 10,000 drop from an activity called Wintertodt. Or I could just buy one, but that’s for losers.
This may sound like a special sort of hell, and it is, but it’s also magical in its own way. After this is done, I’ll not only be able to make better bows (and sell them), but I’ll be a better woodcutter too, able to cut magic trees. This opens many doors – golden chests in the Shades of Morton crypt, sacrificing charred bones plucked from mithril dragons. That’s the beauty of Old School RuneScape I think. Each achievement is tied to many others, the journey a web of connecting ventures each worth pursuing. Except from the Mage Training Arena. That’s a step too far.
-Connor
Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Nintendo Switch
I am still wrapping my head around the fact that Animal Crossing is now 25 years old. I remember the first game coming out so clearly. It maybe doesn’t feel ‘just like yesterday’, but it doesn’t seem that long ago. Does it?
Earlier this week I logged onto Animal Crossing: New Horizons with my daughter, who I share an island with. “There may be a little something in your post box,” I told her with a knowing wink. She set off to check and yes, she had a special commemorative item to celebrate the series’ 25th anniversary waiting for her. She opened it and placed it proudly outside her house. Then she immediately decided she didn’t like it so she was going to sell it to Timmy and Tommy in Nook’s Cranny. You unsentimental little…
Did you notice that the commemorative item sold for 25,414 bells, representing Animal Crossing’s 25th anniversary on the 14th April? I pointed this out to my daughter but she wasn’t interested. Still, she does have a nice new cooker in her house now.
-Victoria
Slay the Spire 2… on a plane
Technically I didn’t only play Slay the Spire 2 and Vampire Survivors again this week: I did also play a game I can’t tell you about yet, and I went to see a game I can’t tell you about yet as well. I feel very smug telling you I’ve done secret things, though I felt much less smug stuck in a non-moving Brexit queue to fly home.
Nevertheless, travelling provided a novel experience in that I got to play Slay the Spire 2 on the move, borrowing a kindly PR’s Steam Deck so I could get my Slay fix. They offered (under some duress)! Now, this PR hasn’t had a successful run in Slay 2 yet because they’ve only been dabbling with it, and because I’d been talking up my current obsession, the pressure was on to do well. I was sitting next to someone from PC Gamer as well, whose eyes I could feel wandering over to my screen, so I was nervous about making a good account of myself.
An hour or so later, I handed the Steam Deck back. It took a moment before the PR registered what was on the screen: Victory. I’d done it: I’d slain the spire. The PR looked delighted and, I have to say, somewhat impressed. Even the PC Gamer person looked impressed. It was all I could do not to let a goofy smile of pride break out on my face.
-Bertie
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Nintendo Switch 2
I have been incredibly excited for Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream to release, and already I’ve created a rather chaotic island. So far we’ve got Leon Kennedy, Agent 47, Ditto, Lara Croft, Professor Layton, Dr. Gregory House, Cooking Mama and myself living it up in paradise.
Lara Croft keeps falling in love with just about everyone she meets whereas Leon Kennedy seems to dislike everyone he meets. This includes Agent 47, who thinks Mr. Kennedy is his best friend after their nights of having sleepovers and sharing secrets. Awkward!
The star of my island (and not for good reasons) is Cooking Mama. Everyone’s favourite video game chef is bordering on getting herself a restraining order given she won’t stop following Ditto around and staring at them. Given my island has only just started to show signs of life, I dread to think what comes next for Cooking Mama and co. but I’m sure you’ll all be hearing about it in the coming weeks.
-Kelsey
