TotK. I’m going the maximum exploration route, so I’ve only gotten the Travel Medallions, Tulin’s Sage, and the locator so far. I’m leaving the main story until much later. 135 hours in, though, and only playing an hour or two most days.
Pinky: What are we doing this weekend, Brain?
Brain: The same thing we do every weekend…We’re going to take over Hyrule!
It can be a bit overwhelming, yes. I purposely did enough of the main story line in ToTK so that I could get the Hero’s Path and the Travel Medallions. And now I’m ignoring the main story and just exploring the world bit-by-bit, like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’m still thoroughly exploring Central Hyrule. I’m racking up side quests and adventures, but only doing them if I want a break from exploring or want to better my gear or something. It takes the pressure off for me to do it this slow, relaxing way. The game feels like it has hundreds of hours in it, which is what I tell myself when I get antsy. I have almost literally all the time in the world.
My favorite thing is that I use mine connected to the dock, but handheld, so that it’s the controller to what is on my TV. It also has an ethernet cable connected to the dock. Not sure if this would work for everyone. I sit on the floor on a tatami mat and the 40-something-inch TV is also on the floor. It is heavy, so my hands tend to rest on my folded legs while playing, or I’ll put a pillow on my lap for it to be a bit higher.
There’s a distinction between child-ish and child-like. So far I haven’t seen anyone say they enjoy anything child-ish (except maybe alternative song lyrics?), but all the lovely child-like responses warm my heart. I eat “sugar cereal” for dessert. Because I’m an adult and I can. Also, I make up silly songs all the time and talk to myself and my cats in silly voices.
I put olive oil on the popcorn first, make sure it’s nice and coated and then sprinkle on a mix I previously stirred together in a little bowl:
1/2 teaspoon Chicken Bouillon powder
shake in as much of the following as I want:
Italian Seasoning (usually more of this than the others)
Cinnamon (couple shakes)
Taco Seasoning (or any other kind of premade seasoning mix - the Chili flavor packet from Top Ramen is good) about a teaspoon, maybe
And finish with a lot of nutritional yeast.
Stir really well. I use the end of a wooden spoon kind of like a pestle in the bowl to break up the nutritional yeast flakes.
I’ll pop a cup of popcorn at a time and put on maybe 1/3 to half a cup of seasoning. I made it last night for dinner. It takes about a minute to do the seasoning mix.
If you have an -ism (and some would argue that we all have -isms) there is likely a 12-step group for that. What is needed for friendships to develop:
I’ve spent a lot of time in my adult life trying to find ways to bring people together and develop friendships. It isn’t easy and most people aren’t willing to commit to one of the three things above, so you’ll have to go to places where they do.
If you want a community without the religion, I suggest trying out the Unitarians. Each congregation is different, but they don’t have any dogma and each person is free to believe what they like. They have all the good social aspects of belonging to church without any of the toxicity in other religions.
Heaven’s Vault was fantastic and can be played multiple times to get different versions of the story. It’s also on sale right now. What I thought was especially well done is how they tied the narrative to replaying aspect.