noita
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1.0 dropped a little while back. i messed with this game in early access but it was way too chaotic for my taste. here is a short death segment from early access recorded on the first level of the game:

https://imgur.com/a/31B51iA

1.0 toned the chaos down quite a bit. it's a controlled chaos now. i think there are fewer elements and enemies on screen at once, at least in the early levels, so you're less likely to wander into a clusterfuck like in the above image. navigating downward through the levels is more consistent and frankly fun since you're not dying to entropy every 3rd run. it's still kind of tough to play with a controller as you can't adjust stick sensitivity and the aiming isn't always accurate due to projectile spread on the wands. the wand and potion mechanics are still not well (at all?) explained but the experimentation is part of the fun. it's enjoyable to throw some shit out there and see what happens. if you die then the next run is 5 seconds away. i'm enjoying it


persona 5 royal
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this is replacing 2k19 as my stationary bike game because i'm tired of 2k CPU cheating even though i'm blowing every opponent out nearly in every game. just because i happen to hit 4 wide open threes in a row with bad shooters doesn't mean that the next wide 6 open threes from my good shooters should miss, 2k programmers! also, dame lillard running behind jaren jackson jr just after he released his previously wide open jump shot doesn't make that shot a lightly contested one!! that's not how basketball works!!!

i'm picking up where i left off: level 59 with mostly level 80+ personas going into the penultimate dungeon of the base game. i got over my optimization paralysis that caused me to drop the game previously and am just going to barrel through the rest of the game with my overpowered personas. i want to see how much damage my level 99 satan is going to do on the first enemy in the dungeon after some debuffs. the new story beats still don't interest me that much and i'm not going to s-rank the trophies or max out all my confidant ranks in one playthrough. i just need a new semi-auotpilot game to play while i'm exercising


trials of fire
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yet another card game, this time with tabletop rpg style hex movement! the presentation is mostly good but some parts of the interface are severely lacking in polish. it seems like a nitpicky point but you do spend a lot of time in these ugly menus. the flow of the game seems fine. the matches are a little overlong but that might be due to me still learning the ropes. i like the idea of running three separate decks in each match and taking resources from one deck to bolster another. there is some creative stuff with movement and resource management in here. it seems like it will be fun up until just after the moment you figure everything out, which is fine for a game like this. i don't see much replayability in it like in slay the spire or monster train


civilization vi
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i think i'm basically always playing this game. the season pass was a big ask of the audience when it was announced but it added a lot of variety to the game in the form of optional tweaks to stale mechanics like barbarians, unique units, and luxury resources. i do think a lot of this (paid) DLC kind of breaks the game. the basic strat of "oversettle, overproduce, win" seems to still be viable but there are other methods that are nearly as viable, which is a weclome change of pace. i'm working my way up to deity difficulty. watching potatomcwhiskey's yt channel did wonders for my knowledge of this game. i looked at some of my older saves and was astounded i won with such inefficient city and district placement. it's fun and challenging to use newly acquired knowledge to win games on higher difficulties in new ways