My secret on puzzles is setting limits. I never put more than fifty pieces together per session. I never spend more than an hour per session. Early on, I always feel like I’m stopping before I need to. In the middle, I slot about one piece every two minutes so the hour timer exists to keep me from rage-quitting. Near the end, it gets easy, even with the nearly identical pieces since there aren’t many places left to place them. (I also save the outside borders for when I need a confidence boost, so the last pieces I put in were the entire bottom row).

Typing while walking along a six lane roadway leads to a lot of typos. The only thing I miss about Xbox is Culdcept. I bought an Xbox 360 for the sole purpose of playing it. Then I bought a second one. After red ring 2, I gave up. I’m still holding out hope for a new version of that for a Nintendo system one day.

I’ve got to (probably) the last “to be continued” of Great Ace Attorney collection. The twists at the end are definitely hitting the Herlock Sholmes ideal of whatever you haven’t eliminated is the truth, no matter how improbable. I’m in the middle of walking to the ice cream shop or I’d be racing to the end right now.

I’ve been so happy with the mobile Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent that I haven’t gotten out Octopath Traveler 2 for Switch again in weeks. And with XBX on the way, the itch to play through new game plus with Xenoblade Chronicles 3 with all the DLC.

And I finished my Breath of the Wild puzzle in less time than it took to get comfortable with the idea of fighting a boss. Just under 22 hours!

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! It was nice to play a Zelda game without feeling it take over my whole life for a year.

I keep seeing you post about Xenoblade and I remember now I tuned out before the expansion pass content was complete! Not this weekend, but soon…

I’ll be working on my 1000-piece Breath of the Wild puzzle this weekend. I’m at a tough part now (I just spent an hour to put in 17 pieces), but I still have the entire outside of the puzzle waiting for when I need to give myself some confidence.

I’m hoping to finish off the penultimate Great Ace Attorney case this weekend, but I don’t have a clue who to even suspect yet, so that might be a later in February goal.

Storywise, it’s kind of amazing that there is so much more in OT1’s world in this free-ish game. It’s not life-changing story, but it’s entertaining even when predictable. Gameplay-wise, I love the battle system so much more (8 characters instead of four, 8 weapon types).

But I did enjoy my time beating a boss this weekend before going back to Great Ace Attorney.

I’m working my way through the back half of Great Ace Attorney now, but OCTOPATH Traveler II is back in my Switch for the first time since launch. I’ve been itching to get back into it since the mobile game recently expanded into the second game’s world. I stopped because I enjoyed Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent more. We will see how long it catches me this time.

I’m probably finishing off Picross 7 this weekend. I’m on the final color puzzles before giving the giant 30x30s a try. School started up again so I won’t be racing to the next one soon.

I’m working on Picross S7 while listening to older Vampire the Masquerade actual plays on the Roll4It YouTube channel.

I borrowed Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze from the library and cracked it open this morning, but passed it off to the children in the house. They played through one stage before they disappeared back into their Pokémon Sword and Shield Soul Lock play through.

I am so happy to have read this comment. Drainus looks like a perfect return to my college days playing Gradius.

As a teacher starting his Winter Break, I’ve got my eyes on the Laughing Man (that’s the Famicom Detective Club VN). But most likely, I’ll be continuing to plug away at Picross 6.

My plan is to continue meditating my way through Picross S 6.