⭐Weekly Update⭐
🧺SDV Mods: 🧺
- Drawberry ESR: On my quest to finish all of the seasonal East Scarp mods, I decided to tackle Drawberry’s ESR first since several mods already cover the original characters. This week I finished Corwin, Dale, Edith, and Ethan. I’m currently working on Jade. She has a lot of portrait variations, and her different hairstyles make her a bit more complicated to draw. Thankfully, I finished the base portraits this week, so completing her outfits shouldn’t take too much longer.
- Color-Themed Flooring and Paths: When I wasn’t feeling well this week but still wanted to get some artwork done, I spent time updating this project. I wasn’t happy with the colors or the design of the crystal flooring, so I decided to give the entire project a complete overhaul. I’m also adding recolor options for some of the most popular mods with open permissions, including Earthy, VPR, and Bluegrass. This project is taking much longer than I expected because I constantly have to check whether the flooring matches the environment properly. That means a lot of testing, adjusting, and then testing again. So far, I’ve finished red and most of pink. Considering I have 16 colors planned, it’s safe to say this project will be keeping me busy for a while. I also plan to upload a legacy version since the new crystal flooring looks completely different from the original design. I don’t want players who preferred the old version to be left out.
🎮Games:🎮
- Persona 4: This was my go-to game this week. I’ve spent more time in bed than I would have liked, but at least that meant I got plenty of gameplay in. I really enjoy the Persona series. It’s one of the best JRPG franchises I’ve played. I just finished the dungeon involving the kid who admitted to being the murderer. Somewhere along the way, I ended up over-grinding every dungeon, so my party became super overpowered. Finishing the dungeon in a single run wasn’t a problem, which gave me plenty of extra time to focus on improving my social links.
- Diablo 4: Unfortunately, it may be a while before I can play with my husband again since work is keeping him busy. In the meantime, I’ve been running around completing side quests for fun. I have a hunter I’m building around traps and a pyromancer that I’m trying to turn into a strong summoner. The game’s systems are surprisingly complex, so I’m taking my time learning everything. I don’t know if I’ll end up maxing out either character this season, but we’ll see.
- Octopath Traveler: I absolutely love how this game looks. I didn’t get to spend much time with it this week, though. Since I started as the merchant, I had a hard time deciding who to recruit next. I eventually chose the scholar and decided to work my way around the map counterclockwise from there.
- The scholar reminds me of Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock had become an academic instead of a detective. Having him in my party has also been incredibly helpful since he shows enemy weaknesses.
- American Truck Simulator: Since I have a lot of book club reading to get through, this is the game I play while listening to audiobooks. I love how good the game looks on my PC, and it’s surprisingly fun driving through miniature versions of real-world locations. At the moment, I’m hauling a load from Montana to Kansas. Yes, I’m absolutely the type of person who bought most of the DLCs (on sale).
- Mega-Modded Stardew Valley: It’s funny that I’ve ended up playing my mega-modded save more than my simple one lately. I do miss my simpler farm, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with the heavily modded one. That said, progress has been at a turtle’s pace. I turned tool upgrades into a bundle requirement (via a mod), and now I’m struggling to gather enough coal. Meanwhile, I’ve been focusing on foraging and using whatever energy I have left after watering crops to chop down trees. It’s slow, but honestly? I like taking my time.
- Minami Lane: This was one of the games I picked up during the summer sale, and it was absolutely adorable. I was a little disappointed by how short it was, but considering how inexpensive it was, I definitely got my money’s worth. I just wish there had been more levels and customization options.
📖Reading: 📖
- Invisible Man: I finally finished it this week. I can definitely see why it’s considered a classic. It’s a solid, suspenseful story, especially considering when it was written. While it didn’t end up becoming one of my personal all-time favorites, I’m glad I read it and can appreciate its impact.
- Shogun: Still making my way through this one for my Big Book Club. Progress has been slow since I am not a fan of this genre of story… but I’m continuing to chew through it whenever I have time to sit down and read. I am only partway through the first chapter, so I don’t have much to say on it yet.
- Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen: I picked this up on sale because I’ve enjoyed the original series so much. I can understand why it hasn’t received the strongest ratings. The book is incredibly cozy, but it doesn’t really have much of a story. I do think it’s charming that it’s essentially a recipe book set in the Witch Hat Atelier universe. However, without even a little bit of drama or plot progression, I’m not sure I’ll continue collecting the series. Still, I’d recommend at least the first volume to fans of the original manga who also enjoy cooking.
💬Life: 💬
This week has been so hectic due to significant changes in my living situation. Despite everything that’s going on, I still managed to find time to work on my art projects, and my portrait mods are progressing along nicely.
Over the next week, I’d like to switch between a few different projects to keep myself from burnout. The color-themed projects I rushed to finish for the contest a few months ago need to be overhauled. (Which I’m dreading and looking forward to.) Between formatting, recoloring, and compatibility checks, these projects have become far more time-consuming than I thought they would. Lesson learned, next time I tackle a project like this, I won’t release it until it’s finished exactly the way I want it.
As much as I love working on Stardew Valley mods, I’d also like to carve out some time for fan art and my secret project. Theoretically, I should have more time for personal work, but life has a habit of getting in the way of my plans. So we will have to see how things shake out.
With everything shifting around this week, my body decided it wanted to be a drama queen, which stuck me in bed more than I would have liked. When I was able to move around, I worked hard on getting things done. When I wasn’t, I focused on resting and recovering so I could get back to it sooner. Thankfully, things should be much less hectic over the next couple of months, which means I should finally be able to get some proper rest.
Take care, everyone, and if you made it all the way to the bottom, thank you for reading my blog. I appreciate every one of you.