Rosalia Rambles

Tag: Gaming

  • Redundancy ‘Review’, Day 104: “Despite Everything

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning humans and monsters, welcome to Day 104 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    For someone who consistently wishes that the Monday blues do not hit people too hard whenever she signs off a Sunday article, god damn do I feel like I have been hit by a truck today.

    All of a sudden last night my impostor syndrome flared up something fierce, not only making me doubt the efficacy of whatever I am doing on this site, or if I am even worthy enough to hold my current position within QA.

    The answer to the latter is simple: yes, yes I am. My brain is just stupid and exhausted from constantly worrying about the situation I am currently in which causes me to ignore my track record as a QA professional and that I would have not sustained a close to five-year career if I did not have some amount of pride or professionalism in my work.

    That, and I am a magnet for bugs no matter what I play… though it seems to happen a lot more randomly in EA games which is very thematically appropriate given my history with the company.

    One way to prove that taking time to rest is helping my brain redshift on what things mean to me is that my body’s response to these feelings is not feeling the need to push myself further, in fact, it is quite the opposite – I feel myself slowing to a crawl, but still trying my best to move forward.

    I think that is all I can really ask for given the year that I have had, that I can keep moving forward and do so with the acknowledgment that I am still here today, even when there was so much that could have brought me down for good, not only in this year, but in so many years prior.

    Considering Undertale’s tenth anniversary was over the weekend, I think the image is pretty thematic.

    Even though I was never really part of the fandom surrounding Undertale and everything that came with it, it is hard to believe such an impactful game is already ten years old. Ten years ago I was in sixth form (name for British education from 16-18 in some schools), possibly some of the worst years of my life due to academic stress, identity worries, and trying to navigate a much lonelier world than I had before.

    When one day, I reconnected with a friend on the bus home from school, talking about some of the stuff I had been up to and what he had been up to, with the conversation eventually turning to Undertale. I mentioned I had heard of it but had not really seen anything about it at all.

    It was given to me as a Steam gift later that evening from that same person… wherever you are right now Sam, whatever you have been getting up to… I hope you are living a fantastic life, and know that I still treasure the memories of our friendship.

    Undertale appeared at one of the lowest points of my life, and even if I only played through it once (neutral route into Pacifist, cause good god I did not have the mental fortitude to do Genocide back then and I certainly do not have the cojones to do it now), the experience still left an impact on me. 

    I still listen to the music, and those immortal words in that screenshot still stick with me today.

    Despite everything, I am still me. I am still keeping on, even if the last ten years have changed me drastically. And that is something that is worthy of celebration.

    Not really a review per se, more just a story that still holds significance in my mind and in a way is topically relevant to recent events. Fuck it, I will put the inverted commas on and post this up, cause I appreciate what I wrote today.

    And I appreciate you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope your Monday blues are not hitting too hard and that you are still able to get things done today.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 92 & 93, “Still Processing The Con”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning scribes and ghostwriters, welcome to a double feature for Day 92 & 93 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Feels weird to say but even after returning to normality today by getting back to work, my mind is still dwelling on VExpo and everything I got up to during that time. I find it funny, that even though there was a lot of organisational scuff and my energy did not sustain me as long as I wanted it to; I would still do it all again this weekend.

    In a way I am trying to ride the high while attempting to convert post-con depression into post-con motivation. I returned to playing Beat Saber yesterday as a form of exercise and, whilst I am most certainly out of practice, half an hour let me work up a good sweat which should hopefully build into doing more exercise like that in future weeks.

    I also find myself being a little bit more aware of my diet, committing to smaller scale lunches than what I would normally eat in the hopes of slowly but surely slimming down my waistline. Whilst I still feel I will not be able to fit into the majority of off-the-shelf cosplays, there will still be some benefit in feeling better in my body wearing whatever custom creations I end up getting, along with fitting into my current wardrobe better.

    The main two things I need to keep in mind are:

    1. Progress is slow
    2. Progress is not linear

    Or, to borrow a very impactful quote from Bojack Horseman (great series, do not think I can ever rewatch the whole thing):

    “It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day, that’s the hard part. But it does get easier.”

    So long as I can try commit to doing some small amount of exercise each day, I can push myself to being in a better position a few months from now, which should hopefully put me in the best position possible by the time the next VExpo comes around.

    Do not think there is much to say beyond what I have said, my mind feels oddly foggy over the last two days and whilst I keep myself moving, I find it hard to write about the last couple of days emotionally – so I am going to jump into the review segment and do a… sort of song review, it is hard to sum up what exactly this classes as.

    When I did my initial Helldivers 2 review, I focused primarily on the gameplay loop rather than any of the narrative theming as I wanted to explain the core game succinctly.

    Reviewing the Super Earth National Anthem is my way of making up for not talking about the narrative, because the satire of militaristic fascism and how consistent Arrowhead are with making bombastic propaganda is one of the main draws of the game in my opinion.

    And “bombastic propaganda” is exactly how I would describe the National Anthem, right from the start it launches into justifying Super Earth’s campaign of liberation:

    “Freedom must reign over every last star.
    Through citizen’s blood spilled in our righteous wars.
    Honor their deaths, do your part for the cause.”

    It is a hilarious juxtaposition within the world, as it acknowledges that the “freedom” that Super Earth brings comes with an inordinate amount of civilian casualties, to the point that accidental civilian deaths in game only account to small fines to the basic currency acquired for completing objectives. 

    There have been several points in game where a minefield I have placed down has absolutely destroyed a group of civilians and all I get is some requisitions docked and a small reprimand from my Democracy Officer… yes, Democracy Officer, again, this game oozes political satire from every orifice.

    And it ramps up even further within the next verses after these ones, but I want to in particular highlight:

    “No questions or doubts shall be allowed
    Traitors will all be disavowed”

    Not even just doubts, merely questioning Super Earth is enough to make you a traitor. 

    Kill a bunch of civilians with a napalm barrage? Slap on the wrist.

    Ask why Super Earth’s elite have access to napalm barrages? Face the wall.

    I could honestly go through each verse of the anthem and explain the brilliance behind the satire, but I think I can sum up the entire song briefly: it works.

    As a piece of propaganda, the Super Earth National Anthem works because, despite the horror of the lyrics, it makes me feel patriotic to Super Earth and makes me want to dive on the fascist bugs, the socialist bots, and the xenophobic squids…

    …I initially did have a screengrab from the video itself prepared as the thumbnail, as I usually do, but I had a brainwave as I was writing that previous paragraph and, as the song says, anything less will not suffice.

    I am most certainly not immune to propaganda, but so long as it is only fictional nations that I am falling under the sway of, I think I should be fine.

    That will do it all for today, thank you for reading this, as usual, emotionally confusing edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you can find some time to relax, the weekend is not that far away so I know you can make it.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 80, “Side Effects Include Loss Of Appetite”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning munchers and gobblers, welcome to Day 80 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    As mentioned at the end of yesterday’s review, my period has descended upon me, a stumble on the path to greatness that estrogen has granted me. God knows I would be too powerful if I could have the benefits of euphoria without some crippling debuff, and so sees fit to bring down my potential.

    Which in this case has manifested in a loss of appetite… yeah kind of shitty my body has afflicted the one of the few things I have near limitless passion for: my love of food.

    That and writing, cause my brain is fogged up in addition to not feeling like eating.

    So my extremely brief “review” is going to be the most recent Warbond from Helldivers 2, the “Obedient Democracy Support Trooper” Legendary Warbond.

    For context, Warbonds are one of the ways Helldivers 2 distributes premium content, being similar to a battlepass in having multiple pages that unlock as more items are purchased using an in-game currency called “Medals”, earned by completing missions.

    Though that is where the comparison to most battle implementations end, as Helldivers 2 is extremely unique in that the premium currency, known as Super Credits, is entirely farmable in game, found in intervals of 10 or, very rarely, 100 at points of interest around the map during missions. This is unrelated to the main review, I just want to highlight it.

    Most Warbonds cost 1000 Super Credits, though the new Legendary Warbond for Halo 3 ODST costs 1500 instead, potentially to help cover licensing fees.

    Full disclosure, this is the first Warbond I have actually spent real money on, which was £7.99 for 1000 Super Credits to supplement 500 I already had through game progression.

    This is a decision I have no regrets in, especially after actually getting to use the weapons within it. The fact a Halo crossover is present in one of Sony’s headline titles is something I want to support in the industry, and Arrowhead’s implementation of Halo weaponry is incredibly loving and faithful.

    Thus far I have only unlocked the assault rifle, and from the few missions I have used it on I am thoroughly in love with how it has been brought over. Rather than aiming down the sights of the weapon when going into first-person mode, like all the other weapons do, the first-person mode for the assault rifle mimics how the view looks in Halo, with the assault rifle off to the right side. A small detail, but a clear indicator of how much the series means to the developers.

    Additionally, whilst I have a minor gripe with the shotgun being “light armour penetrating” (the lowest value in the game) considering it is modelled after the Halo shotgun that is supposed to annihilate Flood, from what I see of it on its stats page within the Warbond itself makes me confident it will be powerful nonetheless, having a damage stat far exceeding that of the highest damaging base-game shotgun. I look forward to destroying the enemies of democracy with it.

    And again, I have no regrets spending my real money on this. For all the game’s faults and technical deficits, I think Helldivers 2 is a shining beacon in today’s modern game industry – regular free content updates, premium content that can be earned entirely through gameplay, and a beautiful community brought together across all three major platforms. I am proud to support Arrowhead, and I will continue to do so by playing Helldivers 2.

    For a brain addled by hormones, I think I did pretty well writing day. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope your weekend is good, and you can find relaxation throughout it.

  • Redundancy Review: Days 70-74, “Small Victories, Big Losses”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning bassists and drummers, welcome to a massive catch-up post for a bunch of missed days of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    A lot of what I write for the review is self-indulgent. I talk about my emotions, things that make me feel happy, and food I have eaten that tasted good. The entire series is a reflection of myself written down as a living record.

    And so, given the fact I took a very hard loss over the last week, I am going to take today’s catch-up post to let my emotions fly a little bit, because fuck me do I need it.

    There has been a lot that has gone wrong in my life, wasted my degree years due to stubbornness, losing friends cause of a lack of emotional intelligence, and going through severe periods of distress due to transition related issues.

    But I can comfortably say that the last three months of my life have been the worst period I have ever experienced – and that is fucking saying something considering how dark my mind got during my university days.

    Ever since I got the news that the company I worked for was in the shit, I have been fighting every day to try get small victories, and I should not minimise the fact that even small victories mean a lot when I have gone through what I have gone through.

    But for every small victory I feel like I take a big loss alongside it, and I am really fucking tired of that happening.

    Even in the last couple of days I have taken a small victory and a big loss simultaneously with my custom cosplay order falling through two weeks before my convention. The seller was courteous and offered me a full refund for my disappointment, which is the small victory, but the big loss comes from the fact this outfit felt like it was going to be the centrepiece of my convention holiday – something I have been looking forward to all year and now I have to go put together a backup plan in a short amount of time.

    I am not going to name and shame the seller. As part of the refund I agreed that I would not leave a negative review, and I am sticking to that. I would much rather move on and try make something positive out of this mess… finding yet more small victories.

    Every day feels fearful to me now, as if something has changed in my brain that has shifted my outlook from nervous optimism to outright pessimism. I had a breakdown on my partner last night and when I started talking about some of the fears I have about upcoming things, I said a line that breaks my heart even now to repeat:

    “I am wanting to prepare for the worst because that is all I can expect nowadays”.

    Making the best out of a bad situation should be an admirable trait, one I can take pride of, especially as someone who has lived in startup culture for the last three plus years and has made a name for herself of trying to be adaptable in times of crisis, knowing how to problem-solve my way out of anything.

    But I resent the fact I have become that person.

    I resent that I can never go long without needing to put out a fire.

    And I hate the fact that everything I am going through is making me a colder person and I do not know what to do to stop it – which I am not even sure I fully agree with saying cause the main thing that differentiates this period of time from the previous absolute worst time of my life is that I actually recognise I have people to live for now.

    I will keep going, I do not want to stop… but I am absolutely praying for a better season to come my way, because quite frankly, this summer has sucked.

    Going to keep it simple with a different review today, talking about another Stardew Valley save of mine that I have with a friend, this time on the Forest Farm layout.

    I have mentioned it in passing before, but I have an obsession with building infrastructure in video games. Paths, roads, transport structures, all of it is fair game for me wanting to make neat layouts & patterns in whatever I play, and Stardew is a game I find surprisingly useful for that purpose, especially when presented with the challenges of any of the nonstandard layouts.

    Forest in particular has been an interesting challenge, in trying to find the perfect blend of farming crops, farming animals, and utilising the main feature of the farm – that being renewable forage and hardwood options.

    Initially I had struggled with this task, especially when it came to building layouts that could work with the sprinkler patterns I usually use without actually having the sprinklers to plan out the infrastructure.

    But as with my mind itself, things start to make a lot more sense around Winter in this game, and without needing to worry about (much) crop watering and focus more on getting stuff organised for the next year, I feel a lot happier plotting out paths and working out where things need to go.

    On this map in particular, it is evidenced by the massive tree farm I am trying to establish in the top middle of the map. This initially started small scale with each tree type being vertically aligned which made collecting forage from the tappers a nightmare, but once I had established where the animal pasture needed to go a lot of space opened up which has led to the larger scale farm pictured above.

    There is definitely still a lot of work to be done on this farm, but considering this is only the end of Year 1, I am extremely excited to see where this goes next.

    Here is where I would usually say something about getting my rhythm back, but honestly, as much as the Redundancy Review will keep going, I am not sure how well I will be able to write individual days depending on my mood – I definitely want to try chronicle my convention holiday each day, but, we will see how it goes.

    Thank you for reading this far if you did, I hope you are able to have a relaxing weekend, a longer one than usual if you are in the UK.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 63, “Let It All Out”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning sobbers and weepers, welcome to Day 63 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Last night I had a good long cry, lasting about three-quarters of an hour, and it was really needed. For some reason (possibly estrogen-related), my emotions flared up and I found myself wanting to cry over seemingly nothing, the main trigger point that finally set it all off being a Youtube short of a cute guinea pig wheeking loudly – animal videos tend to set my emotions off regardless, but very rarely do they make me want to cry.

    And I just… let it all out. First time in a long while that I have had a good cry, and even though I am paying for it this morning, it was something I needed.

    Part of the reason is definitely lingering anxiety around the convention I am going to soon. It has been almost six years since my last convention experience and I am feeling exceptionally nervous about both putting myself out there, cosplaying properly for the first time in a good few years, and trying to make friends/be social within a community I have been a quiet participant in for many years.

    Additionally, despite the fact I feel I am starting to heal from my redundancy, there is still some lingering trauma from everything that went down that seemed to be gnawing at the back of my mind during my emotional moment.

    I keep telling myself that I am still here, despite everything I have gone through and continue to go through, holding on to my continued existence as a reminder that I am extremely lucky in a very unkind world. My brother once told me that I “had the confidence to sail into the storm, and you have what it takes to make it out of it” – he specifically said that in reference to the fact I came out as trans, but it is something that sticks with me all the same.

    It is hard to exist as a trans person in today’s world full stop, but there is a certain pain that comes from being a trans person in the UK, especially when a supposedly left-wing government got voted in on the promise of “do not be as shit as the Tories” have specifically shat on me and people like me harder than they ever did.

    But I will make an effort to still be here, and still be myself.

    I will not be erased.

    I will not be silent.

    Death before detransition.

    I still have stories to tell, and even if it is taking a long-ass time to tell them, they will be told. Both for myself, and for whoever needs them.

    Feels kind of weird to pivot from such an absolute statement into the positivity of Hololive Tuesday, but… Happy Hololive Tuesday everyone! I am extremely excited for today’s review as it combines my love of VTubers and my love of card games as I review the Tokino Sora and AZKi Starter Deck for the Official Hololive Card Game English release.

    I bought two starter decks, one from TokyoToys in Glasgow when I visited, and another from The Gamers’ Emporium in Swansea on delivery, the latter of which was nice enough to send me a tournament promo pack as part of my order, thanks for that!

    I have laid out the majority of the contents on the included paper playmat, but to give a rundown, here is everything that is included in the box:

    • Two “oshi Holomem” cards in the form of Tokino Sora and AZKi
    • One 50-card preconstructed main deck
    • One 20-card preconstructed “cheer” deck, consisting of white and green cheers
    • 1 quick manual rules sheet
    • 1 paper playmat with marked zones for cards
    • 1 cardboard sheet containing a selection of damage counters and a “SP Oshi Skill” counter

    The box’s contents allow you to take everything out and play right away, with a surprisingly smooth first time play experience when following the included quick manual. 

    When my partner and I did a starting game both using the product we only had to clarify one rule using a Youtube video, after which the flow of the game became rather clear to us – though this comes with a small disclaimer that I have been playing card games regularly for around a decade now, meaning I can adapt to new games easier than most.

    For a brief explainer of how the game works:

    • You have your “oshi Holomem” who acts as the face of the deck, determining your health and carrying two special abilities: one you can use once each turn, and one that can be used once per game
    • You have a deck made up of “Debut”, “1st”, “2nd”, and “Spot” holomems along with support cards.
    • “Debut” holomems act like Basic Pokemon from the Pokemon TCG, being able to be placed directly on your “stage”, or bench to further borrow Pokemon terminology
    • Whilst on your bench, you can place down “1st” or “2nd” holomems to “bloom”/evolve your holomems into more powerful cards
    • “Cheers” act similarly to energy in Pokemon, being attached to your holomems as part of a “cheer phase” and being used to activate “Arts”/moves
    • You have a “center position” holomem who stays on the field until destroyed or swapped out, and a “collab position” holomem who stays on the field for a turn before returning to the bench to “rest”
    • The game ends when a player’s life is reduced to zero, when a player has no holomems on their stage, or if they cannot draw a card from their deck due to it being empty

    A lot of standard TCG rules and terminology, but given a Hololive flavour. I often describe it as Magic: the Gathering Commander format crossed over with Pokemon, which is possibly why I enjoyed it so much. The game definitely takes some amount of time to play through one round, which is why the current official tournament format is only Best-of-1.

    The card quality is fantastic, feeling solidly constructed especially compared to how modern Magic cards currently feel, with the included oshi holomem cards having texture applied to their foils, a common technique in most card games but a very pleasant inclusion for a starter product.

    I also have to admit that whilst I own significantly superior playmats that I will likely be using in future; I definitely have a soft spot for the included paper playmat. It reminds me too much of the old paper playmat you would get in old Yu-Gi-Oh starter products and tickles a nostalgic part of my brain in a weird way.

    As mentioned, the quick manual was actually rather intuitive for doing a first game, my only issue coming in the form of the explanation of the cheer phase. In the manual it reads:

    “Turn the top card of the cheer deck face up, and send it to your holomem on stage.”

    This reads pretty simply, but it caused the issue for myself and my partner to only initially send cheers to our centre position holomem until we looked up a video to check another rule where the person’s explanation of the cheer phase made it clear a cheer can be set to any holomem on stage, front position or back position. 

    A very minor gripe that might not affect a majority of players, but I would prefer the wording to be something like:

    “Turn the top card of the cheer deck face up, and send it to any holomem on stage (front position or back position)”

    For a little bit of easier reading.

    However, I find myself already in love and simultaneously anticipating & dreading when the next couple of sets are localised, knowing full well I have yet another card game I am going to become obsessed with.

    Well, considering that the next in-universe Magic: the Gathering set isn’t until 2026 now, maybe that is not such a bad thing.

    The starter deck was well worth the money in both instances, and if my brief review has made you interested in playing it, I definitely recommend picking it up.

    Three pages and 1000+ words, oh yeah, I am thinking I might be back! Thank you for reading today’s card game edition of the Redundancy Review, please continue to stay cool and hydrated wherever you are along with not letting the world get you down too much.

    For more information on the Official Hololive Card Game, visit the website here: hololive OFFICIAL CARD GAME｜hololive production

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 55, “Titles Are Hard”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning placeholders and seat fillers, welcome to Day 55 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Being fully honest, I have not had the headspace to write today.

    So I am going to share a picture of the rad Stardew Valley farm my friend and I are working on as a regular gaming sesh.

    It is a Meadowlands farm type, and the infrastructure is slowly coming together. There is a fair bit I want to refactor in here but I am excited to finish this all off.

    Have a good day slash evening slash night everyone.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 45, “On the road again”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning wanderers and travellers, welcome to Day 45 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    This review comes from the seat of a National Express coach as I head towards Glasgow for the weekend to see my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew for the weekend.

    It was something I said I would do once my redundancy money came through, to make an effort to travel up north and spend some time with them since I have not really had a chance to do so after he moved up there.

    The issue was trying to find the right weekend, usually being occupied most of the time with one thing or another, but my redundancy initially presented an ideal opportunity to take some time away.

    I feel a lot better than I did yesterday, with my therapy session helping a lot in regards to organising my feelings and understanding specifically what they were – in a way, what I am still processing grief from my initial redundancy.

    Whilst my contract work is entirely within my remit and an industry I am familiar with; I no longer have the relatedness of my colleagues like I used to, along with a good chunk of the work feeling hollow compared to what I was doing before.

    Trying to disconnect myself from the role is helping to some degree, in that I am here to do what my terms stipulate and nothing more, but I do desire to return to something where I can exercise my passion properly.

    The idea of becoming a more permanent freelancer did come up during the discussion as well, that once this current contract ends do I feel I would do better throwing myself into companies as a free agent, never staying in one place too long for risk of becoming bored or complacent again.

    Part of this weekend is to do some soul searching away from home, using being in an unfamiliar place to do some proper thinking at the same time as not trying to think about work.

    How delightfully oxymoronic.

    Today’s review is going to be the exact spot I am sitting in, specifically, seat 2A of a National Express coach.

    I have a particular soft spot for coach travel over train travel. The former definitely takes a lot longer to reach my destination, but considering the prices of the latter in the UK, the extra time spent is well worth the savings in my opinion.

    Seat 2A is a lovely little tip I picked up from a travel blogger shortly after I had returned from a long coach trip last year, advising that reserving this seat provides extra legroom due to the assisted travel seat in front.

    Ever since I strive to book this seat. Being around six foot tall usually means my legs can get cramped in standard seats, but with this lovely tip I can stretch my legs out without disturbing whoever is sitting in front.

    It is especially good considering the length of my journey today, a lovely eleven and a bit hour stint with a handful of stops in-between. My Steam Deck is charged, my phone is loaded with music, and I got about a litre of coffee.

    Let’s rock.

    Thank you for reading this shorter travel themed Redundancy Review, I hope you can relax over the weekend and take whatever time you need for yourself to unwind. For me I am going to settle into my seat and absorb myself into my own world.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 41, “Damn Gubbermint”

    Redundancy Review: Day 41, “Damn Gubbermint”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning senators and representatives, welcome to Day 41 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    As your standard left-wing trans girl, I do not have a very high opinion of the UK government (what a topic to start Monday morning am I right?). This dislike comes from a wide variety of factors, some of which might be too heavy to discuss in an easy-reading blog series, but today is going to start with a micro-rant against Universal Credit.

    Universal Credit is the main benefit you can claim in the UK when unemployed or going through hardship, it was created with the intent of combining several other benefits in the UK to streamline the system with people not having to process multiple different claims for benefits.

    Having been through the system twice myself, once in 2020 after graduating university and from June 2024 onwards as part of a joint claim with my partner which then translated into me dealing with the system in regards to my redundancy…

    I cannot stand the fucking process of Universal Credit and the Jobcentre.

    Over the last year or so, my partner and I have had to deal with all manner of different crises in claiming. From degrading interviews with people who do not fully understand or care to understand our circumstances, to the system being incredibly obtuse and plagued with IT issues at every turn, this process has been exhausting.

    But it would all be worth it, right? You deal with stressful interviews and jumping through constant hoops in exchange for extra money to help with bills, right?

    Wrong.

    Over the last year, we have received a pittance due to the benefit being means-tested, meaning it reduces as income is made and is deducted based on your savings as well, punishing you for being smart with money and building a nest egg. This tapered off our UC by an insane amount due to my salary and savings at the time, with it going completely to zero once my partner got into work.

    That makes sense though, right? We were both in work, so it would make sense that it tapers off to nothing as we were both making enough – and yeah, that is right for the time we were both employed.

    But from the moment of my redundancy, Universal Credit and the Jobcentre have not helped me in the fucking slightest. Due to fuckiness with payroll being run in error by the administration company, we got nothing for the month of June, and then with my statutory payments coming through, we have received nothing for July as well.

    Again, it makes sense, payments taper off with earnings. What pisses me off here though is that I got no fucking support from the Jobcentre at all outside of two short JSA meetings, which, yes, I was able to demonstrate I was capable of searching for work on my own, I had a fully capable CV that listed all my accomplishments, and I was aware of every website you could search for a job on.

    I felt let down all the same, because I had already felt like my world had collapsed inwards with my redundancy, and the near-complete apathy I received from the system pained me even further.

    To bring… some semblance of balance to this rant, I know the people who work in the Jobcentre are quite literally doing their jobs. It is not their fault they are trying to navigate an unfair system as well, and whilst I railed against them not caring about circumstances, they have a limited number of time per case – they do not have the bandwidth to learn each one in detail.

    Which just exposes the problems in the system more. The people who are there to help others navigate through it do not have the time to know each claimant, to understand their circumstances, and to give them the right guidance they need based on who they are.

    And with my contracting role due to pay me for the next assessment period, we are still unlikely to receive anything from UC, but we are still expected to play the games and jump through the hoops.

    So, yeah, I am in a bit of a rough mood this morning due to government bullshit, and considering I have to call up HMRC to try to get my self-employment status sorted, my mood is probably not going to improve.

    God after that rant I need to talk about something cute and calming or else I am going to burst a damn blood vessel.

    I know the perfect thing!

    Cinnabunny is a cozy farming & baking game released in February 2025, so a fairly recent addition to my library all things considered. It is very easy to compare it to Stardew Valley in terms of game mechanics:

    • You grow crops
    • You use those crops to make things
    • You can sell those things or gift them to other villagers
    • You can explore caves and forests to find other collectibles

    Except the difference is that every character is a bunny in this game.

    As someone who loves bunnies as animals in general and has put in an unreasonable amount of time into playing Stardew across multiple saves, this seemed like the perfect game for me. Whilst I did have some troubles initially getting used to how the camera works in this game, I have found myself thoroughly enjoying it.

    Out of the mechanics I have explored so far, this definitely does feel like a simplified version of Stardew Valley in some areas. For example, the mining mechanic is way less in-depth than in Stardew, with you only really having two types of mineral to mine – that being regular salt and pink salt. This makes sense in the context of the game, as why would a bakery bunny need anything beyond that, but it would have been nice to get some extra depth beyond that.

    The true depth of the game comes in the baking mechanics, and by extension, the gifting mechanics. At the start of the game you are only able to make flatbread, and unlike Stardew where new machines/tools are unlocked by levelling up your skills, Cinnabunny instead prioritises learning about the other NPCs likes and dislikes to give them “loved gifts”.

    Loved gifts will unlock new recipes, bakery equipment, and upgrades to existing equipment with each unique one gifted. Learning what each bunny likes is also a more involved process than in Stardew, as you will be required to give gifts and then read the bunny’s dialogue to understand what flavours, shapes, or baked goods they love. This can then be recorded in your journal to reference at any time in your pursuit of true bunny friendship.

    Whilst I wish for more depth in some of the mechanics in this game, it is actually a refreshing change of pace to have something more relaxed compared to Stardew… which sounds weird, let me explain.

    As someone who did a Perfection save on Stardew 1.5, I know a lot about the game, perhaps too much. This leads me to know the optimal plays in most new saves, and feeling in a rush to do things properly so I can unlock even more new things to get my farm up to spec.

    But with Cinnabunny, there is a certain peace that comes from not knowing anything at all combined with the simpler mechanics. All I need to do is focus on baking things and exploring, it helps me zen a lot more than Stardew does.

    Cinnabunny is one of my games installed for my upcoming ten hour coach trip to Glasgow at the end of the week, and I very much look forward to playing it to pass the time.

    Thank you for reading this bizarre mix of anti-government ranting and chill game easy reading. I hope the Monday blues are not too harsh for you and you can get through whatever work you need to do easily.

    For more information on Cinnabunny, visit its Steam page here: Cinnabunny on Steam

  • Redundancy Review: Day 34, “Setting Back Up”

    Redundancy Review: Day 34, “Setting Back Up”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning angels and demons, welcome to Day 34 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    This edition comes live from my desk once more, as I slowly wake myself up with coffee, ice water, and waiting for my onboarding meeting to arrive cause I can not really do much without getting set up with everything. 

    Admittedly I did not sleep well at all last night, initially going to sleep way later than I had planned because of some commotion going on outside my flat last night and having a desire to people watch whatever was going on, but even after I had settled down I ended up waking up midway through the night for seemingly no reason at all.

    The residual heat and humidity is not doing me any favours either, as I woke up completely drenched in sweat and feeling generally gross, requiring a quick douse in the shower to feel a bit fresher.

    Time will tell how things in this new role turns out for me, I feel a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty about how things will go. My main plan is to go forward for the next two months or so to take me to the convention in September, enjoy myself for a weekend among fellow nerds, and then evaluate where I want to take my life & career.

    For now, I stay in my role as a QA techie – one that I am extremely good at mind, but one I still want to try to transition away from.

    The review topic for today is going to be about one of my favourite bits of gaming kit in my possession: the Steam Deck.

    An OLED Steam Deck

    Initially released in February 2022 with a follow up OLED model in November 2023 a couple days after I received my base model, the Steam Deck is the culmination of Valve’s prior experimentation with both Steam Controllers and Steam Machines. I actually do have a soft spot for the Steam Controller, having bought one on the cheap when they were discontinued and appreciating the haptic feedback it came with.

    One of the main selling points of Steam Deck is just how compatible it is with a large portion of Steam libraries due to how SteamOS works, using the compatibility layer Proton to ensure Windows-based games are able to run on the Linux-based OS. That said, Steam Deck is also a beautiful machine for emulation of older hardware through the use of EmuDeck.

    For me, the Steam Deck is a boon for my low-energy days when all I want to do is stay in bed but I still want to play games. On days like that even dragging myself to my PC can be difficult so being able to relax with the games I love from the comfort of my bed really made them easier.

    Which brings up the question, “But Rosa!” I hear you cry, “You had a Nintendo Switch long before Steam Deck came out! Did that not achieve the same effect?”

    And in terms of the original Switch, as I have not had a chance to mess around with Switch 2 yet… it might just be I was primarily exposed to some of the poorly optimised games on the system, being Pokemon, but I often felt it hard to play my Switch on those kind of days, whereas Steam Deck not only ran a lot of games better; it also was where most of my investment was, meaning more options for me.

    Additionally on lower spec games such as Balatro, Slay the Spire, or Dorfromantik, I never encounter many issues in terms of battery life with usage only being a concern when playing more intense games such as Monster Hunter World/Rise or EDF6.

    My Deck has helped me out through several different points since I got it around two years ago, and considering I have around twenty hours of travel to Glasgow coming up soon, I know it will continue to serve me well.

    That does it for today, I am going to continue to wait to be onboarded. Thank you for reading the not so redundant Redundancy Review, I hope you can have a relaxing Monday and do not get too overwhelmed by the stress of returning to work.

    For more information on Steam Deck, visit the Steam Store page here: Steam Deck™

  • Redundancy Review: Day 30, “One Month”

    Redundancy Review: Day 30, “One Month”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning killers and survivors, welcome to Day 30 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    One month.

    One month since I got made redundant, and felt like my world had collapsed.

    One month of writing every day to document my journey through unemployment.

    One month of trying to share joy about the things I love.

    It has not been easy, to be completely honest. Whilst a love of writing comes naturally to me, keeping on this route does bring some stress and strain to me, which feels weird to say given… every previous review I have written.

    Possibly due to self-doubt, I currently find myself sitting here wondering if it is worth it to try to push towards writing professionally, especially as I return to the tech sphere on Monday. I still intend to write the Redundancy Review with no name change, but part of me wonders if I should just keep this a hobby, a passion I share with the world with no hesitation or desire for compensation.

    Make it my escape from the world of tech rather than a new career path entirely – I still want to create, I still have plenty of stories to tell, I just do not know how best to… be a writer I guess. For someone who has been writing different pieces for around nine years now (think I got started in 2016 with GeekOut), albeit with very little consistency, you would think the self-doubt would go away.

    Regardless, I am going to try to enjoy my time before I return to work. This period of unemployment has let me explore my different hobbies a lot more and make some improvements around the flat, but I am looking forward to having a regular source of income for a short amount of time.

    Should be having some social time with friends today as well, which should be fun and give me a bit of time out the house.

    Going to skip the call to action today, instead I want to ask for any encouraging words from other writers about getting past self-doubt. Wondering if I am doing good enough just by telling my story.

    Time for the review, and considering I 100%ed another game last night I think that makes it a good time to talk about it – especially considering it comes from possibly my favourite franchise of all time.

    Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is currently the latest entry in the beloved series, releasing in June 2021 for PS5 and later receiving a PC port in July 2023. For those unaware, I really like Ratchet and Clank, having almost every game collected in physical copies and having even written a full retrospective on the trilogy years back. Having skipped out on the PS5 because of being a broke ass bitch, I was excited to give the game a go.

    It did not disappoint.

    First off, this game is absolutely gorgeous. The characters are well lit, the models are extremely expressive & bouncy, and for the most part the framerate stays at a consistent 60fps even at 4K on my rig. Both Rift Apart and previous iterations of the franchise have been called “playable Pixar movies” with it not being difficult to see why, the art style really lends itself to that whimsical feeling.

    The premise of the game is the return of series favourite villain Dr Nefarious stealing a device known as the “Dimensionator” and using it to cause a dimensional cataclysm that sees our titular protagonists thrown into a new world, meeting another Lombax in the form of Rivet.

    After getting a certain way into the story, the perspective shifts between the two Lombaxes across different planets, letting Rivet become more familiar with Clank and Ratchet getting a new robot on the scene named Kit to open up and trust others a bit more.

    Despite there only being nine planets in the game, one of the smallest amounts next to Into the Nexus, there is plenty of variety across all of them. 

    Quite a few planets are revisited as part of the story with new areas being unlocked upon return, either due to actions happening in the story or, in the case of the battle arena, new sets of challenges being unlocked – good for making sure players have a reason to return, bad for me because I love the battle arenas and want to do everything in one go.

    The core of the Ratchet and Clank franchise are the weapons, with Rift Apart being no exception in producing phenomenal weapons with unique traits across all of them. Rosalia Rambles Ratchet tradition dictates I do a rule-of-three rundown on some of my favourite weapons, so that is what I am going to do.

    The Topiary/Toxiary Sprinkler is your typical enemy disabling weapon present in the franchise, giving you a chance to switch to a more powerful weapon to deal unabashed damage, In this instance, it takes the form of a sprinkler that will turn any enemies (even big massive bosses) into decorative topiaries of themselves for a short while. A silly and entertaining take on a standard weapon class.

    One of my favourite entirely new weapons is the Ricochet/Wreckochet, a weapon that fires a seeking projectile that will hit an enemy before bouncing off it, hanging in the air and allowing you to press the trigger to use the projectile to enable a follow-up attack. With fun sound effects and having uses in both crowds & against larger targets, it quickly found a place in my heart.

    Finally, we have the Blackhole Storm/Blackhole Vortex, a rapid firing gatling gun that is unlocked fairly late into the story, but is incredibly worth it once picked up. Taking some time to spin up, it will unleash a torrent of miniature black holes, raining antimatter death upon your enemies… until it overheats, after which point it needs some time to cool down.

    What is unique to note that due to this game being on PS5 originally, it does support DualSense controllers with plenty of unique vibration patterns across different weapons, and the majority of weapons having a system where half and full trigger pulls do different things.

    As shown in my achievements image, it did not take me long to 100% this game, having finished the remaining achievements only an hour or so into my New Game+ save, but I consider that time fully worth it. There were no instances of me being disappointed by any planet, the setpieces were fantastic and the combat has evolved for the modern day with features such as a dodge move and the rift tethering mechanic.

    I would like to end off my review with a tribute to Captain Qwark’s original voice actor, Jim Ward. The captain returns in this game however briefly at the start, being voiced by a new actor, with Jim Ward having retired due to a double whammy of a severe case of COVID-19 and developing Alzheimer’s Disease.

    Mr Ward, thank you for being one of the most recognisable voices of my childhood. I hope you can enjoy retirement.

    That calls it for today, thank you so much for reading the Redundancy Review. With a heatwave on the way in the UK, I am going to focus on trying to stay as cool as possible.

    Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is available on PS5 and Steam.