02CE4: Independent Geeky Activities

So we really hoped to have a friend or two over for this mid-week holiday but had no such luck. It seems our usual gaming friends were predominantly out-of-town and even my efforts to get some gaming newbies over didn't quite pan out. So that left me and Tobie to our own devices for this little break.

Last night we dug up Escape Simulator on Steam as our main entertainment. This had been one of our staples during the lockdown months and it's nice to see that the game is still alive in kicking. In fact, I had picked up a number of their DLC packs during the different Steam sales, which included virtual escape rooms based on the Portal and Among Us games. They were generally fun despite the occasionally frustrating puzzle, but it made for an interesting way to spend the night at least.

We still didn't have anything big planned for the day and the heat strongly discouraged us from leaving the Sietch. And while Tobie did have to step out to meet up with a board game seller, beyond that we cranked up the AC and hunkered down. We had a hearty Sariwon lunch while watching another episode of Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo and this week's episode of X-Men '97. 

For the afternoon, we dove into the game that Tobie had just purchased - an interesting little puzzle game called Escape Room the Game. While we have so many different escape room board games already, this one is unique in that it uses a unique device they call their Chronocoder that uses a set of plastic keys as the main gate mechanism. Instead of using apps and websites, this one has a little plastic device. It's rather adorable but the puzzle style is pretty unique and will take some getting used to. We didn't finish the first scenario we played through within the time limit as there were some clues here and there that we took a while to find. But we're prepared to explore more of the scenarios - and Tobie's brokering has yielded a total of 5 scenarios for this game.

Then for a "proper" game, we brought out Tang Garden after a somewhat long time away. But to keep things fresh, we took this opportunity to finally play a scenario from the Ghost Stories expansion, which we hadn't touched since we had first gotten the game. This game is still really tight and a lot of fun. I'd like to consider this as a warm-up before the new Seasons expansion comes out...but we still don't have a confirmed release date for that effort.

At least Tobie and I have continued to walk around BGC in the evenings as part of our activities. We probably wouldn't have been able to do so had we pushed through with having guests over, so I should appreciate how things panned out. I know our walks aren't the most strenuous activities we could include in our routine, but it's still better than nothing, right? Plus it's just nice to walk and talk with Tobie. Here's to healthier quality time together.