the vynsane asylum

never got into skylanders or lego dimensions, but i went apeshit for disney infinity. i still want to play that, but the WiiU hasn't even been turned on in years. i've been trying to find a good deal on the base for XBONE (since, of course, the two i have are somehow incompatible with XB, but works for Wii, WiiU, PS3, and PS4!)

should've bought the LD packs just for the figs and builds.

I actually fired up Disney Infinity earlier this year. I bought the PS4 disc from Gamestop for $3 and started replaying the Star Wars OT and PT games.

We had all of the Disney Infinity characters, except for a couple of the clear figures from the first version. At some point Toys R Us put the power discs on sale, we bought a bunch of packs. We never got all of those, but we have a bunch of duplicates.

Portal. I played it many, many years ago when somebody lent me the Orange Box set that had Portal, Half-Life, and Team Fortress on it. But I got hung up on one particular level and never finished the game.
I have since then played and beaten Portal 2 a couple times, but never finished the first one. Well, my wife bought a bundle with both games on her Switch a few months ago, so we fired it up and I’ve been playing it on and off while I’ve been recuperating. I finally got past the level I got stuck on 15+ years ago this weekend.
And last night I defeated GlaDos for the first time. Yay! Something else to cross off my do-list.

Gran Turismo 7. Actually, I've been playing it on and off for a while. But, I started using a feature I've been ignoring. You can create or download paint jobs for your cars. I have an 80s Porshe that I use, and found an G1 Autobot Jazz paint job for it. There are downloads for several others. It is a little weird driving around as an Autobot that can't transform.

I’ve been playing a mobile game for several years called DragonVale. My daughter downloaded it on my phone like fifteen years ago when she was young and asked me to “check” on it while I was at work. Eventually, I became invested because of repetition.
Anyway, they introduced a dragon back on May 2, 2013. You can use his ‘energy’ to do a thing every day, or NOT use it and accumulate enough to level him up. After 12 years, 6 months, and 21 days of NOT using him, I accumulated enough to max him out at Level 25.

I’m just posting this here for posterity. 4588 days is a long time to be patient.

the only games i've been playing on a regular basis now are the New York Times Games app - the "mini" crossword, Wordle, and Spelling Bee. i am trying to get back into regular practice of doing at least the mon, tues, weds crossword also. thursday+ is just frustrating to me.

i have a three week streak of 'queen bee' on spelling bee now that they've introduced "badges" (cumulative dopamine rewards). i promised myself i would not use the hints until i've gotten to 'genius' level on my own, though i've broken that promise a few times when i'm stuck with ~10 points or less to go.