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timschaffer · 3 years

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It’s been a good 6 months with these new systems and here’s my long inevitable rant on them.

Ok so I beat Demon Souls and Astrobot soon after the system releasing and it’s been just me playing PS4 games since on the PS5. The frame rate/resolution does improve on some titles but it’s not many as it pretty much has a be a game where it was unlocked so it has room to fill either/both, which Xbox does the same but the difference being PS5 with 47 titles(found a good list googling) and Xbox actually with Hundreds of titles.

Than we have 120fps games and PS5 is at 11 where Xbox is at 45. I’m super into 120 frames but I get it’s not for everyone and not many even have a 120hertz TV. For me, it’s a HUGE plus though. I’ve been messing with Titanfall 2’s 120fps boost and man is it a game changer. Nioh, a PS4/PS5 exclusive also got 120 frames and it for sure makes the game. Another one that would be unexpected for most is New Super Lucky’s Tale. A good platformer at 120fps is so much fun!!

PS5 does has the cool haptic feedback and strong pressure sensitive triggers. I wouldn’t use them competitively but for single player games it does add an extra layer of immersion that I liked. It is starting to get old and I been recently just turning it off. It’s much more impressive than the Switch Joycon’s HD rumble but with both of them you just get over it after a few months. With Tony Hawk’s remake I had to turn them off as it was dramatically messing up my combo game as triggers are super important when you need to do a reverb to keep a combo going and it doesn’t register because you have to be so quick with it and any pressure you have to add only makes it harder to pull off.

Game Selection

Both currently are in the same boat of not much new for the systems to play. Demon Souls does give the edge to PS5.

Ratchet and Clank and Horizon will be out this year, Ratchet getting very close now :) , but that’s about it. And Xbox has Halo coming.

Now 2022 and beyond Xbox now has 32 studios under their belt where 2 years ago they were at like 12. And Sony with PS1,2,3,and 4 has always had stellar first party titles so it should be the same with them, about 2 huge blockbusters a year. IF Microsoft can have these studios come out huge hitters than we could see a shift in who has more AAA big hitters, 10/10 games.

Huge win for Xbox with back compatibility

Xbox has where you can play OG Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series titles. For me this is one of my favorites as for some examples...

I been playing Lost Odessey the last few days because of the new game the same people made, Fantasian, which has become an instant masterpiece for me so I wanted to go back to their last game and sure enough it’s as good as JRPGs can possibly be. Also playing an original Xbox title that is 20 years old, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

So having these games run so smoothly (as the original for sure had issues) and it be in 4K is just wildly cool!

Breathing fresh new life into older games is so nice :)

Game Pass - The best friend of gaming

Pay $10 a month and have access to a great selection of hundreds of games!

Some highlights

Destiny 2 + All Expansions

The Outer Worlds

Halo Master Chief Collection

MLB The Show

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Outriders

Doom Eternal

Skyrim w/ Mod Support

Monster Hunter World

Slay the Spire

Hollow Knight

Yakuza Series

Grand Theft Auto V

Tetris Effect : Connected

Hellblade

Dishonored 1+2

Nier Automata

Dead Cells

Microsoft Flight Simulator

No Man’s Sky

Anyone could find at least 10 games they’d want and instead of paying 300 dollars for those 10 games (trying to take sales and older release dates into consideration instead of just saying $600 if all new titles), you could pay $120 a year or $10 a month and have more than you could ever want.

I been playing Outriders a ton and only because of Game Pass. I played the demo(beta) and I was very meh on it, but the more I play it as I didn’t have to buy it and it was just sitting there the more I realized that if you just ignore the horrible story segments and just play the game, it’s has an amazing gameplay loop and mechanics!

There has been many examples for me where I played it because it was on Game Pass and ending up finding something great I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

Plus than you have games you for sure would have bought and spent hundreds/thousands obtaining these games and now you don’t have to.

The Bigger Picture

You have a gaming PC, a smartphone/tablet, a cheap laptop with a browser... as long as you have access to a web browser or Google Play/App Store you can now stream Xbox games on these devices. And unlike other streaming services, you can also download these games to devices powerful enough to run them.

Got a gaming PC and a smartphone? Got an Xbox and a tablet? Install it on your PC/Xbox and than continue your game with your smartphone/tablet on the go. Everything is tied to your account when it comes to game purchases, subscriptions, and save files. Being able to jump to any device and not only play but continue your progress is ... well living in the future. We’re finally there, something we thought was only possible in dreams.

Media Optics

Sony has had major mishaps and here is a good video breaking it all down in a few minutes.

https://youtu.be/u6lzBl9kUf0

If you are unable to watch or just not wanting to watch some key take aways are this

-PlayStation has a few big hitters on the way but Microsoft has far more things in the works and if they become successful games Sony is going to be in a big losing position. Sony can release 1 or 2 great games a year but it won’t be enough.

-Sony’s competitor is investing, is excited, they have interesting personalities and they go in podcast and they do live streams. And they’re far more active on Twitter. They interact with their fans. “And Their studios don’t sound like fucking robots, and they don’t have the State of Play girl voice over and that’s it” “They aren’t stuck to a PlayStation blog post, where they can’t say a bad thing about anything they make”

-“You’re not going to be able to get by in a Game Pass ecosystem in 18 months, the way you would be now, unless you have something to compete. And if your not going to compete on the subscription level, than you need to have repeatable AA and AAA. More 2nd party and 3rd party exclusives”

-“I’m nervous, I been covering PlayStation (since early PS3 days), I been playing PlayStation since the beginning. If you not a little worried right now, I think you should be”

-“It doesn’t feel exciting right now. I turn on my PlayStation 5 and I just like, eh. Like it doesn’t even feel like they are trying to draw me in.” Sony has a very assertive and very active competitor, and PlayStation isn’t doing that right now

-In other dark moments of PlayStations history they had a strong Identity and a lot of games, they weren’t always great but they were trying. Now all they want to focus on is the few huge blockbusters. Meanwhile Xbox is making moves not only for tons of big exclusives to follow but this great and exciting Game Pass movement and being constantly active with their fans and bring big updates to their games and other companies games for their platform.

“PlayStation isn’t offering much to be excited for.” “I turn on the PlayStation 5 and I don’t see anything to be excited for to play” “I keep saying I don’t feel like you need a PS5” “I also wish they would talk to us. You can’t announced something huge like PS3 and Vita stores closing deep in a forum post people have to randomly come across” “You sold us a dev kit and than canceled the console’s store the next month”. Thank god they later go back on it.

Xbox has been having big and fun announcements at least once a week

Just today they added 12 more games with 120FPS boost enabled and another going from 30 to 60..

2 days ago they made it where you can play free to play games and join party chat without having to pay for an Xbox online subscription.

3 days ago they made it where iOS and web browsers can now access Game Pass

So what is PS5 Currently offering its competitor doesn’t have?

Demon Souls

Controllers with Adaptive Triggers and Haptic feedback

PS4 exclusives

So what does Xbox Series X|S offer that it’s competitor doesn’t have

Game Pass

Account saves and instant gameplay access across PC, Android, Apple, Web Browser

Quick Resume

(Queue up to 6 games to be able to switch back n forth between without the software having to close)

“Auto HDR” on games without native HDR support

91 Xbox Series vs 11 PS5 120fps games

VRR support

(Variable refresh rate)

Playing games off external storage solutions

Having Access to 4 generations of games dating back to 2001 with higher resolution and resolved frame rate dips.

1440p support and being able to select your resolution and hertz you want to run.

Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One Exclusives

The Future

PS5 “must have” games for future we know of

Final Fantasy XVI

Ratchet and Clank A Rift Apart

Horizon 2

God of War 2

Forspoken

5 big games in the next 2 years’ish.

Xbox “must have” games for future we know of

Scorn

Halo Infinite

Starfield*

Elder Scrolls VI*

Hellblade 2

2 this year, 1 next year, 2 maybe exclusives as with * they haven’t said if they will be exclusive or not.

Xbox will be at E3 and Sony will not so there is a possibility we do see all the game announcements from the 32 studios Microsoft has under their belt now but yes going off only what we know at the moment PlayStation’s intermediate future looks brighter. I do think it’s safe to assume that at least 3 more games could be huge coming from Microsoft and we just aren’t aware of it yet.

Of what we do know, I’d say neither is enough for someone to buy a system based of the exclusives we are aware of yet (with the exception being Elder Scrolls VI for millions, just not me) but more of the promise of what’s to come.

I am a HUGE Final Fantasy fan so for me XVI is enough for me to own a PS5.

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alldempretties · 7 years

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VKM 10 Rough Translation

Vampire Knight Memories 10′s rough translation is now available! As usual, please take my translations with a healthy grain of salt, given how difficult Hino’s writing is for someone who is an intermediate translator such as myself. ^_^

I’m trying something a little different this time. I’ve updated the viewable dropbox account with the translations in comments by their respective images for side-by-side viewing. If that’s of interest to you, please check out the first link below. Otherwise, please enjoy the translation below the cut!

VKM 10 Translation & Raws side-by-side: [view]

VKM 10 Full LQ Japanese Raws: [download]

Note: All character thoughts are placed in brackets [] for convenience. My translator notes are in {italics}.

P01:

Tagline: “Together once again——”

P02:

Yuuki: [It was snatched away.] {TL Note: She’s talking about how his smile was stolen from him as a kid.}

Yuuki: [He lived in order to obtain revenge.]

Yuuki: [He who continued to carry a deep darkness in his eyes…]

P03:

Yuuki: […began smiling more once Ai was born———]

Yuuki: [From his heart…]

P04:

Yuuki: [Please let this gentle time last for him from now into the future…..]

Yuuki: [As I wished that within my heart, decades passed.]

P05:

Yuuki: [I have a friend who left me behind after aging beautifully.]

Yuuki: [In the end, within her limited time, this friend I respect devoted her life to her children and her beloved.]

Yuuki: [I understood the obstacles she faced.]

Yuuki: [I just foolishly wished to spoil her with an infinite lifespan.]

P06:

Yuuki: [And then….]

Yuuki: “…Thank you for always supporting me……”

P07:

Yuuki: “Thank you for saying you’re fine with me the way I am… Zero…”

Zero: “I should be the one saying that to you…” {TL Note: Zero literally says “All of that’s my line…” But that sounds a little frivolous in this situation, so I took some license.}

P08:

N/A

P09:

Random Cops: “This is the police! Freeze immediately!”

Criminal: “Shi— Let go!”

Criminal: “I’m not sorry at all that you people alone have long lifespans! You puppet demons who sneer at humans!”

Rima: “…If I said that scared me a little, would that surprise you?”

Shiki: “Not at all… I was relieved when the cops arrived too. It would have bad for us to get hurt fighting back.”

P10:

Shiki: “I’m glad nothing happened to you, Rima.”

Rima: “…It’s like what my dad and the other people did to me in the past… At least with my name changed I won’t be recognized if I go back there.”

Shiki: “But Rima…”

Rima: “Ah, look there. Ichijou-san is being approached by some suspicious people or students’ parents.”

Shiki: “Sure enough… Those people are making some strange expressions.”

P11:

Shiki: “Oh… That’s it… Those people are that. You know, vampire pilgrims. The “King of Vampires” is deep underground over there, so they’re trying to receive his blessing and the like…”

Rima: “Ah— I should get a blessing too… It’d never happen, but I’d ask something like ‘please take away the anti-vampire organization’s fear of me.’ I’m really excited to be in my first play…”

Shiki: “You’ve always said you wanted to be an actress.”

P12:

Rima: “Yeah… I admired your mom. I loved how brilliantly she came alive in her films. …I was so sad when I learned she quit being an actress after only ten years…”

Rima: “Look… My dad said that to enter human society well I should make gathering news my work. You know how I said originally that I was interested in performing…?”

Rima: “…I can’t remain within people’s memories…according to my dad, that’s my duty, but…”

Shiki: “I know your family always moved from place to place because your neighbors were always humans.”

P13:

Rima’s Father (memory): [“The most difficult thing about being a vampire living in town is that you can’t allow humans to realize your lifespan is many times longer than theirs. Most of the general population doesn’t know we exist. If our true selves are discovered, it’s possible we’ll be hunted to the ends of the earth by a mob of humans.”]

Rima: “Dad was always telling me to live by concealing myself. If I didn’t like that, I should shut myself up in a nice quiet coffin deep in the mountains or find myself a husband from the vampire nobility……”

P14:

Rima: “Hey, Shiki—— Won’t you be my husband?”

Shiki: “Sure thing.”

Rima: “How frivolous…”

Shiki: “Huh? How come…?”

Shiki: “Aren’t I saying that I want to get along with you from now on, Rima? Is a quick decision so bad?”

Rima: “You never change, do you…”

Shiki: “How do you figure…?”

Rima: “Before, when I obeyed my parents and went to the office information briefing…”

P15:

Rima: “...at that time, you said, ‘Good girls are great.’ and ‘She’s my friend.’”

Rima: “Even though I couldn’t naturally become an actress, you dragged me from the assembly hall just like that and had me debut with you as a model. (I was so surprised when I found out your mother was the actress I admired.)”

Shiki: “…Mom randomly got the idea into her head to have me get into modeling and she wouldn’t brook any refusal from me… (This is a pretty old story, isn’t it?) But it was lonely doing it alone, and Ichijou-san wasn’t interested.”

Shiki: “And then suddenly there you were, and I liked you.”

P16:

Shiki: “…Around that time, I just gave it some thought and decided on it. That’s probably all there is to it.”

Rima: “From the beginning, I thought you were an idiot didn’t have anything in your head but an on-off switch.”

Shiki: “Now that I think about it…”

Shiki: “At that time, I felt an intense aura emanating from you.”

Rima (memory): “I won’t live by hiding away. I’ll absolutely enter the world I admire.”

P17:

Shiki: “I think I was probably charmed by the strength of your will.”

Shiki: “…Why didn’t you let go of my hand at that time, Rima?”

Shiki: “——Ah! Rima, look! This time the prefect combo has dropped by!”

Rima: “Wow…sure enough.”

Shiki: “…They’re holding hands.”

Rima: “They sure are holding hands…”

P18:

Rima: “…Even if I couldn’t remain in anyone’s memories…”

P19:

Rima: “…surely I would remain in the memories of the boy who held onto my hand.”

Rima: “I think it’s a great thing to have a partner who will run ahead of you holding your hand.”

Rima: “Ah. (That’s it.) I have to keep on doing my best——”

P20:

Takuma: “Eh…? Did you drop by to visit…?”

Zero: “From now on, we’d like to be allowed to be openly together. We’re making the rounds to make sure there are no objections.”

Takuma: “Eh… I don’t have any objections.”

Zero: “Great.”

Takuma: “If I said that I did, what would you do?”

Zero: “…Huh…?”

Takuma: “Just kidding! Didn’t you actually come here to see Mr. “King of Vampires” down in the basement?”

P21:

Takuma: […A long time ago, Aidou was complaining that he was disappointed about those two’s half-hearted style of dating…]

Takuma: [This is certain to reassure him… That Aidou…]

P22:

sfx: *grip*

P23:

Mii-chan: “Excuse me, sir.” {TL Note: Mii-chan was the little girl Zero saved way back in chapter 50 of the original series.}

Mii-chan: “I… You look exactly like the person who saved me from being abducted when I was about the age of my grandchild here….”

Mii-chan: “I’ve always wanted to thank that person. Perhaps you might know something about that person’s relatives…”

P24:

Mii-chan: “I believe my grandmother who rushed over to me called me ‘Mii-chan’ at that time. Does this ring a bell for you at all?”

Zero: “……..no… I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you.”

Yuuki: “Mii-chan…?”

Zero: “…I’d figured she would have forgotten that by now……”

Zero: “Let’s go….”

P25:

Yuuki: “Take that!”

Zero: “Ouch!”

Yuuki: “It’s sad being the one left behind, but it’s great that girl was able to live a happy life.”

P26:

Yuuki: “Please excuse me!”

Zero: “I’ll make tea, so make yourself comfortable.”

Yuuki: “Okaaay!”

P27:

Yuuki: “This is the first time I’ve visited Zero’s den… (Uh-huh.)”

Zero: “…Obviously.”

Yuuki: “…In general, the threa—I mean greetings are over. I’m sorry that for the most part people weren’t happy for us.”

Zero: “Why are you the one apologizing?”

P28:

Zero: “Hey… About that starting over from the beginning business you were talking about—“

Yuuki: “Ah!!”

Yuuki: “I haven’t told Ai…”

Zero: “No… Ai’s in the middle of her long-term sleep, isn’t she? She earned us not to disturb her for any reason.”

Yuuki: “Ah… You’re right….”

sfx: *dejected* A 60-month sleep… I wonder if a month is a normal cycle of life? I can’t see her for another 30 months…”

Zero: “She’s absolutely against being the one whose heart ages…apparently.”

Yuuki: “An aging heart…”

P29:

sfx: *slam*

Yuuki: “I definitely feel it…”

Zero: “I’ll also age together with you.”

Zero: “….what is it?”

Yuuki: “Nothing.”

Zero: “…..Truthfully speaking…I don’t really have a clue what you mean by starting over from the beginning.”

Yuuki: “Doing things together and telling each other things, maybe? (Innocently!)”

Zero: “That so—…”

P30:

Yuuki: “For example, holding hands— (Innocently… Heart poundiogly…)”

Zero: “We held hands earlier, you know.”

Yuuki: “We could eat meals together on the way to and from school. (INNOCENTLY!)”

Zero: “We did that every day in middle school.”

Zero: “…It’s fine if we do it again……… (What’s with that weird face?)”

Yuuki: “That’s right... We... were never that innocent...

Zero: “There are things about you I still don’t know. I’ll ask this time…”

sfx: *clink*

P31:

Zero: “….. THAT. I thought its power should have disappeared with the first forge. …Yet you haven’t taken it off…”

Yuuki: “….. Yeah…”

Yuuki: “Because this is a ‘promise’… I said I wouldn’t kill you, Zero…”

Yuuki: “At that time, it was made by the powerless human Yuuki. It was the single thing she could do…”

P32:

Yuuki: “Because of that, I wasn’t able to to agree with painting your future as hopeless. The truth is, I always…. hoped the day would come when my incredibly kind partner would be able to smile peacefully…….”

Zero: “Yeah… …Somehow, I always understood that…….”

P33:

Yuuki: “…….Is that so….”

Zero: “Yeah…”

Yuuki: “Since then… a lot’s happened, hasn’t it…?”

P34:

N/A

P35:

N/A

P36:

Yuuki: “Zero.”

P37:

Zero: “I want to devour your blood to my heart’s content.”

P38:

Yuuki: “That’s fine… Drink as much as you like… Even if it’s to the very last drop of my blood.”

P39:

Aidou: “Put it over there in some suitable place, Ichijou.”

Takuma: “The ice coffin’s maintenance went perfectly. I’m not match for you, though, Aidou. (I brought you a drink and some cake.)”

Aidou: “Quit your joking.”

Takuma: “It looks like you’ve made some kind of progress?”

Aidou: “I discovered a component that didn’t exist in the age when Kaname-sama was conducting his research in the past.”

Takuma: “That so…”

P40:

Takuma: “Maybe with this you’ll be able to make the medicine that’ll change vampires into humans soon, then we can free Kaname from the forge…”

Aidou: “Assumptions like that just get in the way right now.”

Takuma: “Then…what’s the component you mentioned?”

Aidou: “It’s a human existence exceedingly close to vampires. The eternally young chairman——“

Karen: “Even though it’s spring, somehow it’s a bit cold……”

Next Issue’s Preview:

“While Yuuki is starting over dating Zero, the unusual phenomenon occurring within the Cross Academy Chairman’s body is…?!”

#vampire knight #vampire knight memories #hino matsuri #matsuri hino #vkm translation

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30somethingrookrookie-blog · 6 years

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Days minus-4 through 0: Introductions

Thursday (day “minus four”): My best friend found himself in a hospital burn unit after a cooking accident. With temporarily immobilized hands and feet from skin grafts, and his immediate family out of state with other commitments, he wasn’t going to be able to do much on his own. I came by to stay at least through Sunday morning, in order to help him with food, drink, lip balm, and just generally keep him company.

While the burns had been healing somewhat well, he had just had his skin graft performed when I came in. He was in immense pain, reporting that his thighs (the skin donor area) hurt worse than the actual burn sites. They kept him under heavy painkillers and he faded in and out of both sleep and lucidity. While he appreciated the company when he was able to talk, he spent more time out of it than in. I realized quickly that I would definitely want to find something to focus on during the times when I wasn’t needed, because I planned to be there for a while.

Now I had played chess on-and-off before. I had the chess.com app on my phone to mess with casually, and even was briefly on my middle school chess team a couple decades ago. But, I had never taken it even slightly “seriously” and still considered myself an absolute beginner. I had checked “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” out from libraries a couple times in my twenties and was loosely familiar with things like forks, pins, and checkmating a king when he was all by himself on the back row, but never learned to apply any of it, so really, my level of play was always “probably beat someone who just learned the rules, and literally nobody else.”

What had brought me back around to chess was an ad I saw in an idle game I was playing for an app called “Magnus Trainer”, which seemed to be a chess training app released with the blessing of a notable player (who I would soon find out is the current World #1 and World Champion, Magnus Carlsen from Norway). I went looking for it in the app store, found two programs with this guy on it: the “Trainer” I was looking for, and also a cute program called “Play with Magnus” that offered simulations of the Champion at various stages of his life. I installed both, because it sounded a lot of fun to play against the 5-year-old version of a future world champ.

I poked around both of the Magnus apps and the chess.com app for a little bit, and then watched some TV with my friend. The cable selection was extremely basic (no FX, no Cartoon Network, only ESPN for sports channels), so we found ourselves watching lighthearted programming that was easy to watch back-to-back, like TruTV’s prank show “Impractical Jokers” and the CW’s stage magic showcases “Masters of Illusion” and “Penn And Teller: Fool Us”. The nurses were reticent to give him heavier painkiller doses, because of the risk of respiration difficulties, but he was eventually able to get off to an uneasy sleep, and I found myself drifting off in the recliner.

Yowza, I’m starting to notice I’m using a ton of brand names on this. I promise I’m not being endorsed by anyone to make a stupid blog about being a 30something chess newbie, or to trick anyone into watching dumb TV shows or downloading free-to-play apps.

Day -3 (Friday): Friend was in a lot of pain still, but his respiration rates had stabilized, and they were able to give him some of those unspellable medications they have. I found myself with a lot of free time between the moments he was able to get up, and decided to really crack into the lessons on the Magnus Trainer app. It started off with super-basic lessons that amounted to drills practicing the pieces’ moves and captures, and gradually increased in difficulty so slowly I hadn’t yet noticed it was happening. Some of the “games” in the lessons seemed especially bizarre - there was one where you were moving around trying to escape from a “monster” piece which slowly floated around in real time. The challenge would increase when it would as you to pick up “keys” on certain squares as you fled, and then to play as pieces that are increasingly difficult to get to those particular squares, such as knights.

I was having a good time and felt more confident, so I tried playing the Play With Magnus game. Happily I discovered that the biographies for the first few difficulty levels (Ages 5, 5 1/2, 6, and 6 1/2) indicated that they all took place before he developed a particular interest in playing chess, and mostly talked about his hobbies at the time (soccer, geography trivia, and books about pirates). I tried a few games against ages 5 and 5 1/2 and found that he would often make completely erratic moves, failing to capture in obvious exchanges or just leaving pieces completely en prise (fancypants chess talk for “just sitting there so you can straight up snatch em up). A few wins boosted my confidence further, and I went back into the Trainer app, completing all of the sessions marked Basic and Easy, and making some headway into Medium.

Day -2 (Saturday): At this point I had started to grow a little obsessed with this Trainer app. I was sometimes failing tasks, especially on the ones where speed was an issue, and I got determined to keep on plugging through, and at the very least finish all of the Medium sessions before I left the hospital burn ward on Monday.

Couldn’t sleep at all, except brief nods-off in the recliner that peaked at maybe one hour. When my friend was asleep, I’d put my headphones in, pop on a podcast (listened to a lot of McElroy family shows in this time, especially Sawbones, My Brother My Brother And Me, Wonderful!, and the backlog of the discontinued Coolgames Inc.), and blast straight into the chess tactics and games. I found myself beating the ages 6 and 6.5 versions of Play With Magnus (plays somewhat similarly to ages 5 and 5.5, but doesn’t as often decide to just randomly give up the queen or miss an obvious capture). I was intimidated by the description of age 7, where young Carlsen was motivated by sibling rivalry to defeat his older sister at the game, so I started playing games against the CPU of the chess.com app, which even offered an estimate of the CPU’s Elo level (the score used most commonly to rate a chess player’s overall performance. a number in the 3-digits is a true beginner; an Elo rating of 2000 in the USCF is considered an Expert, and a professional International Master player holds a FIDE score of no less than 2400). As that parenthetical aside probably tells you, I ended up doing some research as to what the ranks and rating numbers mean, and what I could expect to know at each stage. As I played the chess.com app, I noticed that Level 1 (Elo 200) seemed to play full nonsense moves most of the time, and Level 3 (Elo 500) seemed to be the level where it first started really punishing any super obvious blunders I made. Unfortunately I found myself moving too quickly and leaving valuable pieces en prise, so I ended up going back to tactics in the Trainer.

My goal was to finish all of the Medium lessons by Monday. I finished them by the end of Saturday and was starting to crack into the last set, the “Hard” ones. Sleeplessness is a Thing, y’all.

Day -1 (Sunday): Doesn’t matter how many tactics lessons you do, you lose against easy mode CPUs if you leave your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. Stop leaving your queen en prise. All losses and no mates make Jack a dull boy

Day 0 (Monday / yesterday): Left hospital at 6 PM, confident my friend was once again in good hands. The next day he was to have his graft sites looked at, and should have regained some of his ability to do things (I will update this tomorrow with his condition). He was acting like his normal self, and even suggested that the experience might have given him the experiences he needed to go back into standup comedy, which made me happy to hear. It was what he had wanted to do a decade ago, but politics at some of the local comedy clubs ended up leaving him with a distaste for the scene, and he had quit. I hope he follows up on that, he’s legitimately a funny and talented guy.

Still starting to make some headway into the Hard section of the Trainer app. Moved exclusively to playing Play With Magnus on the 7- and 7.5-year-old levels, as level 8 is officially where it jumps to “intermediate” and suggests that the boy had started to put in some serious study, which seems well beyond my point. Still found myself making reflexive moves without thinking, and moving pieces that were critical to defending other ones. Currently, my record against this app is 28 wins, 7 ties, and 16 losses, and it rather generously estimates my level of play at 892.

During a game against the Level 3 (Elo 500) chess.com app CPU, I managed to get the game down to a mate-in-1 situation 3 times in the endgame without even noticing. I will make a separate post about that one, it’s wicked silly.

Day 1: done made me a blog, yeehoo!

I’m trying to figure out what a realistic goal is, if I keep on practicing fairly consistently, where I can try to reach in a month and in a year. I’m in my early 30s, which is probably way too old to start taking a game seriously and expect to become the best ever, but I do wonder if I can ever make it out of “beginner” and into, I suppose, “chess player” status.

#chess #chessbeginner #diary entry #journal entry

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