Honestly, I find it kind of hard to believe that the day for us to make everything official and finally get married to my love is coming up so quickly.official I'm getting married to my love. I'm sure it was just yesterday that we still had a month to go before this big day. Now I find the big day is tomorrow!
Will this change anything? Of course it shows that we're committed, but I don't think it will change too much. I could be wrong, but other than a change of name and signed paperwork... I think we're pretty much already a married couple. Does that make it any easier and less nerve-wracking to go through with such a big event? Not really. This will be on display in front of our closest friends and family of our commitment to our relationship. We can't just go through with something like this then give up on it at the first sign of trouble. This is the real deal.
This is is no longer a recording with all the mistakes edited out of it. This is a livestream with all the technical difficulties you didn't expect. I have great confidence that together we won't be just another show cancelled after the first season. We will be an ongoing series right up until the end when there's nothing left for us to do... At which point they'll make spin offs of the other characters in our show going on to do their own things as they get older. Now, if all goes as planned... Or unplanned... we will have a long time with many adventures to go on about for quite some time.
Seriously though, I think we compliment each other so well it's almost scary. She's excited, I'm content. She's loud, I'm quiet (usually). She's clean, I'm dirty. She's wants things done right away no matter what, I want to take a little bit more time to think about it first. The real tough part seems to be learning to communicate together. We're absolutely getting better at it each and every day, but it's certainly an ongoing process to learn about one another and how to coexist together under the same roof while raising children.
Let me just take a moment to thank family for being so helpful and supportive even at the worst of times, and friends for giving us people to socialize with and talk to besides each other. Most of all, I should thank Carley for continuing to put up with me no matter how silly or stupid I may be on any given day. I mean heck, even though we have a child doesn't mean we have to make things work; though I am glad that thing's do in fact work between us.
Here's to a wonderful future with many years to come. I love you Carley. <3
Our adventure continues further into this massive map where we hope to goodness that we don't have to start again from the beginning. I hate to reload when dying but... unless we're in a SUPER awful position where there's no hope, I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and continue on with the game rather than restarting over and over again.
Maybe if each level of this game wasn't so long that wouldn't be an issue...
I've always had a strange like for trains; I don't mean something weird where I have pictures of trains up on my walls everywhere and I can't think about anything else other than trains... but I would gladly live in the time when trains were the big new thing. So here's Pocket Trains, a game where you start as a train company in Europe trying to get big enough to expand all over the world.
You start with three basic trains in the middle of Europe. The gameplay is simple enough: pick a train, load it up with materials or products at one station which gives you destinations for the items, and send the train on its way to the other cities on its route. Only one train can own each section of track between each city, so you have to plan your routes to allow other trains to connect up and transfer train carts if necessary. If we're just talking about money, it's not so big of a deal, but things get a little more complicated when there's secondary resources in question.
Everybody loves having money to work with, but that only goes so far when you need Bux to open crates and get better trains. Bux can be earned in a couple different ways: Sometimes there are ads available which can be watched for a couple Bux, but that tends to be a little hit or miss. If you select a train in motion, you'll get a nice view of it going along the track and sometimes coins and Bux and even crates fly past; if you click on the flying item you'll get it. The most reliable method to getting Bux and crates would be to transport them to a destination via train which can mean you're sending it through multiple different trains just to get the cart a few cities over.
There's an energy mechanic to this game where each train has its own supply of fuel which regenerates while sitting idle at a train station which usually means the train has arrived at its destination and you're probably not currently playing because you have a live to live. This is great for getting people to stop playing... I would know... if not for this mechanic, I'd absolutely keep playing all the time. The tough part about this is that some trains have a larger supply of fuel than others and some sections of track are quite long. So long that you may only be able to send a basic train across this track once. As you progress further into the game, you acquire more train pieces from the crates which are opened by spending Bux. The train pieces are completely rancon (though you may have a better chance of getting better train parts as you level up). Better trains travel faster, have more fuel, and are able to carry more carts at one time.
So the gameplay of Pocket Trains is fun and easy, but it does get repetitive after a while and once you start reaching points where you have to spend a lot of money to continue, the game really starts to slow down quite a bit. I haven't yet decided for sure whether I like this slowdown or not because I haven't managed to expand into all the different continents yet... but at this point, it's not my favourite part of the game.
Sound design isn't the largest factor in mobile games; here we're pretty much asking whether or not there's sound, if that sound fits the game, and whether we like listening to it. Yes, there are train sounds, and yes, there are sounds when you press buttons and do things that sound nice and pleasing. What I don't like is the music; it gets really repetitive and can be a bit overpowering. It also sounds a little bit western to me, which FITS... but isn't great to listen to on repeat in my opinion.
I'm going to start breaking down my scores a little more from this review onwards to give more clairity to my thoughts and to better explain why I'm giving the scores that I'm giving. Now on to the scores!
Gameplay = 7/10
+ Easy to learn
+ Great for putting a little bit of time into every hour
- Progression can be really slow if you don't have time to check on your game every hour
Sound = 5/10
Music is a highly important component of a great game. Without good music, a great game can fall flat.
+ Train and station sounds are nice to listen to
- Music is repetitive and can be overpowering if not turned off
Replayability = 7/10This isn't the kind of game you'd be finishing and then starting over again, so this is really a score of whether or not you'd pick the game back up after playing it for a day.
+ Addictive if you have time to put into the game
+ Easy to lose track of time with more to do as you get more trains
- Progression is too slow if you don't have time to put into the game
Overall Score = 6.5/10Pocket Trains is a solid game which I would happily play given enough time to progress through it. The unfortunate thing is that the same track of music over and over and over gets really annoying really quickly. As slow as the game can be at some points, it is rewarding once you finally break past that money barrier and move into new lands. I would recommend this game and say that if you don't mind the lack of music, it'll feel much better than the score makes it look.
Well... I can't say I'm totally surprised at this outcome, but at least it was early in the game rather than after playing hours upon hours of the same map, right?
A little over a week ago now we camped on the beach at Lake Diefenbaker with the dogs for the second time this year. This time we stayed for a little longer than one night; this time it was four days and three nights of lovely beach weather. What a dream it was out there... I can never get tired of spewing about how amazing it is to go outside in nature where there's next to no technology and nearly no people nearby at all.
During the last time we went camping we had borrowed a tent from my parents and during that time the zipper split and there was nothing we were able to do about it. So we decided to purchase our own tent online. This is the tent which arrived which was exactly what we were hoping for. We then proceeded to spray the tent with Camp Dry spray which is to help keep everything waterproof.
We started by parking a little bit closer to our little camp than last time which was up on a hill where we were able to take things down the hill and set up on the beach which was pretty pretty much out of sight from anywhere other than the water. The water level was a little higher than last time which also contributed to where we parked the car this time. We were able to set up our new tent in about five or ten minutes and from there everything else was a matter of sorting and finding places for things to go. Autumn follow me up and down the hill for most of the journey until she finally got tired and couldn't keep up with me.
Never have I seen the dogs so incredibly tired as I did on that trip. They were constantly running around and wrestling and chasing each other and anything you could possibly imagine to run themselves completely out of energy and then they would be so tired that they would sleep in the middle of the beach. I was incredibly surprised to find that they both managed to willingly step into the water at least once each. In fact, we were both very proud of Autumn for showing Furgle how to get around when he was stuck because he didn't want to get into the water and couldn't figure out on his own where to go next without getting wet.
Day 1: After getting everything set up and taking a rest for a while to enjoy the peace, quiet, and to rest my weary feet. We went on a journey through the water around the beach much farther than we had ever gone before. We saw absolutely beautiful sights and even got a video and some pictures without falling into the water or dropping our phones and wrecking everything. It was really quite a sight; I'll share the pictures and videos, but it simply won't do it justice. We found ANOTHER beach with not a soul on it which we wanted to continue exploring, but with only one pair of water shoes, we weren't able to continue any further without risking the health of our delicate feet.
Day 2: I woke up to a wonderfully quiet morning with no wind at all. Never have I seen a more calm body of water outside. I could have stayed there and stared out at the water forever, but eventually I pulled myself away from the amazing sight.
We finally REALLY got into the water and "swam". I still wasn't brave enough to go fully under water including my head, but I did make it to my lower chest and even managed to bring Furgle in as well where I learned that he's not too bad of a swimmer if he were only able to keep up his back end. We figure he would have a much easier time swimming and might even enjoy swimming if we were to get him a doggie life jacket. Autumn on the other hand is a fantastic swimmer and once she went into the water on her own and figured it's not so bad in there, she was in and out of the water like crazy as long as we were there too.
Day 3: This was the day all about walking around the nearby town or whatever you would call it. I'm pretty sure there isn't any kind of convenience store in the area, so what exactly you'd call it I"m not too sure. As with everything else in the area... it's absolutely beautiful there. Would I consider living there? ABSOLUTELY! Though... considering there doesn't appear to be a store in the area.... I'm not so sure it would be possible to live there during the winter unless you had the capacity to store A LOT of frozen and canned foods. It was on this day that we found out there's a public washroom in the park... huh... that would have been good to know a little sooner.
Perhaps this would be a good time to mention that we had come by the idea to go for a super long walk around the village area because the dogs had run away. I swear, you turn around and look the other way for a minute, and suddenly your four-legged furry friends are long-gone. This wasn't exactly unexpected either; they normally wander away down the beach or jump up the hill and explore up top until we call them back and then they come running. This time however, they didn't come running back; they were completely out of sight. I don't know if they honestly went exploring over the hill and continued on until finally they ran into people on the far other side of the golf course you have to pass to get to the village from where we were.... or if they saw a bird and chased it until they lost it and then saw people. Thankfully people are awesome and friendly and Carley's number is on Autumn's collar so the people who caught her gave us a call and let us know where to find them. It was after all of this and we had gotten back to our camp that we figured... why not go for a walk around the place and see what it's like here?
So other than the dogs running away for a little while, the whole trip was very awesome and super rewarding. We managed to make multiple fires using firewood and nearby dry grass as kindling as well as some firestarters. We cooked steaks, chicken nuggets, tomato soup, and of course we found the time to roast marshmallows over the fire. Let me just say, marshmallows over a fire is one of the absolute best things ever; what made it even better than usual was the fact that we had picked up some jumbo marshmallows. Normal-sized ones get that nice crispy outside and totally melt on the inside, which is of course pretty awesome... but these ones had an even better thing about them which was a gooey center which wasn't quite totally melted. BEST. MARSHMALLOWS. EVER.
Now I find myself getting ready to head out for ANOTHER camping trip. On one hand, sure I'll probably find some way to have fun out there, and on the other hand, I just want to spend some nice time at home for a while without feeling like I'm always just trying to keep up with the next thing that's coming up. Please please please oh world of mine... could you slow down just a bit after the upcoming wedding?
Our adventure continues with part 2 of scenario 6. This is a large map and we're not in a great position right now, will be be able to pull through without restarting?
