Sunday, June 27, 2021
Ran in place to a 10 Percent Happier podcast that Patrick wanted me to listen to. Medium bowl of oatmeal with milk, cinnamon, blueberries; water. Later Patrick and I had brunch at New Taraval Cafe: Patrick had a 2-2-2-2 combo with pancakes. I had sausage and egg breakfast sandwich on focaccia with side of grilled potatoes. Coffee and orange juice for Patrick. Water for me. Returned home. Long nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: homemade lasagne previously frozen, mixed greens salad with tomato and cucumber and ranch dressing, bread from Bursa, water. I washed dishes. Afterwards we continued watching Stargate (1994) on Netflix instant watch. Patrick went to bed. I finished playing Discolored for iOS on my 2020 iPad Air via Apple Arcade. I played the game the whole way through, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. The controls were difficult to use and panning was often jerky, making navigation a bit unpleasant. The inventory interface was more complicated than it needed to be, and even after completing the game I never felt I understood exactly how parts of it worked like when the viewer worked. The puzzle logic itself was puzzling, for example, how to make a particular item grow or why an expected symbol (leaf) was missing on a communications device or why certain symbols appeared where they did or why a particular object changed. If it had a story behind it, it was never explained. It didn't even particularly use color in an interesting or challenging way. (For example, the flower room in The Witness.) The game quit unexpectedly at different times, usually at important transitions, making it unclear whether the game simply ended and quit or not. When you see credits roll, you're at the end. What good can be said? It is a decent puzzle game set in a 1950s-esque diner that will occupy a few hours. Not awful, but not great.