Cav's Place

For a short game of this genre, it could have been a lot worse. The developer actually put a fair amount of effort into the writing and presentation, not trying to merely make a point or even just explore a certain issue, and also not placing the game in this “reality”, but managing to tell a story and place it in a fantasy world quite well, perhaps better than would usually be expected considering the constraints imposed by the game’s length and the chosen gameplay style. The art also complements this, the fact that it’s “gritty” perhaps making it even more suitable for the theme, and the music is good enough as well. Some puzzles were also reasonably interesting, and I liked the change of pace brought by the “meditation” one, which I “translated” into equations and then took the time to solve.
That said, I’m not fond of the way the regular puzzles play out, needing to be so fast and also pretty accurate, to click the right objects in the right order, and in some cases also at precisely the right moments, not even having a second to spare. In some ways it makes some sense, if you also consider the theme, but this is what makes up the actual gameplay and, as I said, I’m really not fond of it. On the other hand, while the option to skip straight to certain points in the game from the main menu is good, I guess it exists to make up for the fact that you can’t save, which can be annoying if you really need to leave at some point, and I would have preferred to also be able to skip straight to the final choice, to not have to go through the last two puzzles again to see both endings.
As for the way it deals with the issue it wants to explore, anxiety, it could again have been much worse… But also quite a lot better. The scenes depicted actually have meanings and it doesn’t push as hard as many would, reveals a fair amount of understanding, even makes points about those meaning to help needing to learn how, and to just offer comfort, including that moment when Glasswalker is told he tried to teach Juul to fly by pushing her off a cliff and telling her to flap, which tends to be what people do, starting from the “professionals”. However, it does in the end push the need to “fix” oneself, and that great harm will come out of not doing so, to the point that it’s unacceptable to not manage it, and quickly. Needing to accept that as the only path and, even then, to sacrifice much for what I guess is supposed to be the “comforting” ending bothered me to say the least. It’s supposedly not Juul’s fault, but only if she makes exactly the choices she “needs” to and “fixes” herself in time, eh? Otherwise, apparently it is her fault, and not an acceptable course of action.

Took me three days to write it, but yesterday I finally posted the review for Regions of Ruin… And noticed that it ended up being a new longest one. Tried to avoid it, and it’s not much longer than the one for Ember, but it is nevertheless longer, and a bit over 3500 words, while that one was a bit under 3500. And this is for a pretty simple game as well, so it’s really a case of it getting away from me, but it all started from the detailed notes I kept, as I had almost 1500 words there by the time I finished it. And now I see that I have 940 words so far for Lords of Xulima, so I wonder what that will end up at, whenever I’ll finish it. But that won’t happen anytime soon, and at the moment I doubt I’ll even get back to it just now, so the break will likely be even longer, and there will almost certainly be others in the future. But at least that is a long game with plenty of elements and things to write about, so it’d be justified.
Either way, I started writing that review Tuesday and it was quickly obvious that I won’t finish it that day, but then I also got a call from somebody doing a survey and that completely messed me up. I of course couldn’t give all the answers I wanted either, but the worse problem was that I was a complete mess because of it, drenched in sweat and shivering and feeling that I was freezing despite the actual temperature. Did manage to finish the part about the positive aspects then, but that was it, and at least I managed to nap that evening and felt better after that.
Definitely meant to finish it Wednesday, but dad wanted me to do the laundry and I got back to it quite late because of that, being quite clear that I won’t be able to finish it then either and not really trying as a result. So it was only yesterday that I finished it, after sending a number of messages to complain about a return of that proposal to require identifying those who use prepaid phone cards, this time as part of a series of measures supposedly meant to improve the emergency service, using the recent events as an excuse. Those messages would have likely messed me up at other times, but I guess I was angry enough, and also did it right after getting up, perhaps not quite “registering” everything yet, so I could get it out of the way and then focus on the review.

The timed squats during this period were 2:28 on Monday, 2:24 on Wednesday and 2:32 yesterday, and most likely 2:30 on Sunday, though there was a short replay just then. And this week’s run was Tuesday, the time being 47:50.09, with sector times of 4:19.57, 5:04.41, 5:49 (5:48.96), 4:25 (4:24.21), 4:57.78, 5:53 (5:52.13), 4:25.44, 5:03 (5:02.65), 6:02.67 and 1:53 (1:52.27), making for lap times of 15:12.94, 15:15 (15:14.12) and 15:30.76. After once again carrying a lot the day before and still feeling somewhat tired and that my muscles hadn’t quite recovered, I again didn’t aim for anything other than to stay under 48:30 at first, but after lap two I realized I had a pretty good chance to stay under 48 minutes and managed that. At this point I’m starting to think that I’ll consider staying under 48 minutes as a regular run, and getting over that as a rather poor one, unless conditions would truly justify it.
Noticed an issue before this run though, when I just happened to have a look at the bottom of my running shoes and saw something stuck in the right one. At first I thought it was a staple and tried to gently pull from one side, but that just came out, wasn’t inside it, and might have pricked my finger a bit as it did so. The other end was definitely inside the shoe though, and I carefully pulled it out, finding that it was bent pretty much in half, with about one centimeter inside and a similar amount pressed against the bottom, the part that was inside seeming to have gone inside rather sideways, not straight through. Still worry about that gel, if it exists in that area as well, but after having a better look at it and starting to wonder whether it was a needle I was far more worried about it possibly having pricked my finger. There was no blood, but it definitely wasn’t a good thing, and I do recall spotting something that seemed like a syringe recently, and don’t know whether I spotted it in front of me or when I looked after having stepped on something, nor whether that happened last week, when I had my regular shoes on, or the week before. When I asked dad to have a look later, he said it looked like a pin with the end broken off, but he’ll always dismiss worries and go with the safest explanations, so that doesn’t count for much. Admittedly, I had looked at it carefully under a magnifying glass and saw that it wasn’t hollow, but after all those steps on it, it’d have probably been too crushed for that to still be visible either way. One possible good thing is that it’s been there for at least 12 days.
To return to the run itself, went out at 3:15 PM and since it was so sunny it seemed hotter than I expected at the reported 27-28°C, but it was all right while running. There were some people to get around, but the only real issue was on sector three of lap three, when I had to stop for a moment due to two cyclists coming from the opposite direction and seeming to race each other. It was probably my mistake as well, for not cutting to the inside right away when it was obvious that they were carrying too much speed to do so themselves, but I had sort of a deer in headlights moment, noticing their speed and that the one who was behind seemed to be trying to overtake on the inside, ending up doing something between playing chicken and the silly dance with the other. Eventually, the one behind seemed to be getting confused as well and I just froze in place, hoping that they’ll go on either side of me, which was what ended up happening. One of them shouted something after passing, but I didn’t catch what it was.

Went back out after that, but I should get back to Sunday first, in fact starting just a little after midnight, when that initial scan finally finished, after just over 28 hours! But that’s just a little note about the night before, the day actually starting at 11:15 AM, when I was roughly woken up by a cramp. At 12:25 PM I was out, going to Kaufland to check prices and then to Carrefour to get two kinds of cat food and cat litter, as the day’s offer was a discount for all pet food and accessories. The discount for a third kind of cat food was a fake one though, the base price having increased so the resulting “discounted” price was a mere 0.02 RON less than what used to be the normal price, so I didn’t get that as well. Meant to get some more bread too, but I saw the same person who had served me the day before and I didn’t want to ask her again so soon, so I gave up on that idea and just got a bunch of green onions, since the price was good. Then went back to Kaufland to get toilet paper, being surprised to finally see the kind we used to get again, some paper towels, since dad was likely to want more soon, and a cabbage. It seemed odd when the cashier rather blatantly took a mere 0.03 RON more, not by rounding, which they sometimes do in either direction, but by taking those little coins I had given her in order to make it easier for her to give me the change, but entering the amount received without them and giving me back exactly what the machine said the correct change to that amount was.
That was the easy part though, since I then had to walk back carrying 19 kg, again weighing the stuff after getting back in order to see just how much I had carried. Was leaving Kaufland around 2:15 PM and only got in at 3:00 PM. Made plenty of stops, but rain was coming too, starting to drizzle soon after I left but not being a real issue until I got on the street leading to mine, at which point it started raining properly and I was worried about the cat litter, being in paper bags as well. Meant to make two more stops after that point, placing the stuff on benches, but that was no longer an option, benches not being sheltered by trees either, so I just picked two spots that were better sheltered by trees for very brief stops, just to grip things better again, and just pushed myself to get here faster. At least my left arm was going numb and I was feeling out of breath, had started getting a bit dizzy now and then even earlier, but managed it. A muscle in my left arm still complains a little even now, though.
Tried to nap in the evening, but dad chopped some meat just as I was falling asleep and after waking up in such a manner I couldn’t fall asleep again, ending up just staying in bed until 9:50 PM. But what made me really anxious happened after that, at 11 PM, when dad called me over to tell me that when he took out the trash he found a sleeping bag, placed in its bag, which in turn was placed in another bag, which he said was tied as well… And he had brought the sleeping bag in, along with its bag, just leaving the other bag there, and he wanted me to set the washing machine to wash it. Now I’m all for reusing, but that raised red flags everywhere and I first asked about the homeless guy in the area, meaning that somebody might have left it for him, but dad misunderstood and said that he doubts he’d have left it inside but even in that case, if that guy no longer needs it, why shouldn’t he take it? I could think of plenty of reasons, so I then said that we don’t know what’s inside it… Which he again misunderstood, telling me what the stuffing was when I was referring to fleas, lice, bedbugs or who knows what other things, even more so since somebody seemed to have gone through some trouble to not let anything spill out. But he said he had shaken it out in the living room and looked and didn’t see anything… Which to me obviously just meant that he just shook everything out in the living room already. But the damage was done, it was already in the washing machine too, and apparently he was convinced that detergent killed everything, being very surprised and at first not believing it when I told him it didn’t.

Gave it a quick washing that evening, despite the late hour, and he set it out to dry, but the plan was to wash it properly the next day, and use some disinfectant as well. Not that I’d be in any way convinced that disinfectant would do too much against the eggs of those parasites, but since I wasn’t sure how to use the one we had, since it’s liquid but the instructions say to mix it with the detergent, which is powder, I went back out after running the next day, leaving just before 5:45 PM. Again had a look at Kaufland first, dropping off some things which may be recyclable there too, then at Carrefour, getting some dishwashing liquid which was on sale from there, and that bread I had given up on the day before. The price for the disinfectant I wanted was the same in both places, but at Carrefour the label was the only thing in that spot on the shelf, so I had to get back to Kaufland and buy it from there… After actually asking a Carrefour employee who was right there, but he checked the storage space above those shelves and there was none left there either… And then he seemed to want to talk, telling me how good that disinfectant is and that it’s the one he also uses, and after he pointed out the reason why and I said that was why I was looking for it as well he seemed even more interested, coming along to explain some more things as I was walking away, before I rushed away to get rid of him.
Thought it won’t take me too long to get that, but I was only back some two hours and ten minutes after leaving, and then I had to get that thing back in the washing machine and set it on a more thorough program. Still, with dad having left a note to say that he’ll be back very late, I then started to make myself some mamaliga… Only for him to walk in before the water had even started to boil. But I couldn’t really give up on the plan at that point, and I told him, and he left me alone in the kitchen, going to take a bath instead. And that was my dinner then, not going back to the kitchen to eat again at night. Also went to bed earlier, at 4 AM.

This style of action combat, requiring speed and coordination, doesn’t suit me and it’s also not what you’d expect when you think of dwarves, all of this applying to platforming as well. Nevertheless, there was something about Regions of Ruin that made it seem interesting enough and I had also seen that later on you’ll end up quite insanely overpowered, so I expected to no longer be frustrated by needing to use skills I don’t have once I’ll get through the early part of the game, which indeed proved to be the case. Of course, what to me was a good thing may well be a bad one for those actually looking for this style of gameplay, but the higher difficulty settings may help them to some extent.

But, when it comes to the positive aspects, I should probably start with the number of locations. I see numbered files going up to 253 and that seems quite right, and while a small number need to be pointed out by NPCs or discovered in some other way, most of those locations can be accessed at any point, requiring only some food in order to explore that area of the map. And those locations are just about varied enough to keep things interesting much of the time, and I rather liked the caravan master’s little comments too, often pointing out what to expect when you talk to him once you get to a location, though it’s true that sometimes what he says is generic or even wrong. And yes, you can actually continue after finishing the game, if you left something you’d still want to explore, since going through all or even most locations is not required.
And then there are the puzzles as well. There are those involving runes too, but those are usually simply a matter of finding the right sequence somewhere, so what I’m actually referring to here are those involving switches and/or moving ruins. They’re to be found in the locations with beacons and a few more important treasures, so there aren’t many of them, but they can be interesting and just tricky enough, especially in case of those required to reach the later beacons.
In addition, the few siege locations add a tower defense aspect, and since they’re clearly marked, I’d recommend saving them for moments when you may need to go through a number of similar locations in a row or start to feel bored by regular locations in general. I left it quite late to try even the first one, and only got to the last two when I had almost finished the entire map. Do make sure you have enough room in your inventory before a siege though, and that resources aren’t too close to the maximum either, if you want to be able to pick up all the rewards at the end.

This next part will likely count as a bad thing for many, but for me, seeing as I don’t have the skills for this game’s combat style, ending up overpowered was a good thing, as was the fact that you could in effect become so before actually becoming powerful enough to easily defeat the enemies in combat, by being able to get rid of them without actually fighting them. And, of course, nobody’s forcing you to make use of these methods if you would rather fight, and even I decided not to let companions do my work for me, in fact hiring a single one and setting him to be defensive and wait, only making use of him when necessary, before I could do everything on my own, and during sieges.
Speaking of companions, apparently they were hired for a single journey at first, until an update changed that and hiring became permanent, turning it from something very rarely worth doing to a way to very easily clear out all areas without even having much of a need to move, much less fight, if you so desire. But, again, that’s all your choice, and even if you do get some you can, usually, have them wait out of the way and keep going on your own, while if you later decide they are necessary you can instantly teleport them to your location with the press of a button. Either way, the experience gained is not affected by having companions or their involvement in a fight.
As for being on your own, you’ll find sneaking extremely powerful, and that brings a layer of tactics into the combat. Later in the game, after obtaining certain powerful sneaking skills and bonuses, a little care will pretty much turn you into a ghost, being able to clear an entire area before the enemies can see you, and you will constantly be sneaking in order to do just that, but even early on you can make great use of it at night. That’s another thing that may perhaps be worth noting, that a game that is otherwise quite simple does have a day and night cycle and takes it into account for sneaking, but that is indeed what’s happening and you’ll find that even early on you’ll be able to defeat enemies that’d crush you almost immediately in any sort of actual fight if you wait for night and position yourself properly.

As for positive odds and ends, I’m not exactly making a point out of it because it doesn’t exactly make for good reading and there are some other issues as well, but you will end up with a fair amount of lore in your compendium, explaining what happened in the past, the current state of the world and also the traits of the dwarves depicted in this game. Other than that, there’s a fair amount of humor, which sometimes works, and the developers seem to have made a point of giving particularly funny names to bosses and funny reasons for the bounties showing up on the board. And it’s also nice that stamina is no longer used once an area is cleared, even if you get back there for a bounty, so you can dash all you want in order to explore and also while fighting a character with a bounty on their head and their minions, since the locations are selected from the areas you have already cleared.

When it comes to negative aspects, I’ll start with those having to do with the positive ones mentioned above and say that there may actually be too many areas and it can get tedious to keep visiting them after a while. That doesn’t mean I’d have wanted less content, but I’d have much preferred to have the same amount of content, or of course even more, separated into fewer larger areas. Improved saving would have likely been required in that case, but that’s an important problem that I’ll get to later, and it affects even small areas anyway, since there are some spots where you can get stuck and, while you can always travel away if not in combat and then get back, you will lose anything that’s on the ground.
Then, not sure if this fits here, but since moving platforms are part of some puzzles and I mentioned those above, it is a problem that you need to keep moving as well when you are on such a moving platform, as otherwise you will remain exactly where you are until it will move away and you will fall. That makes no sense and strikes me as nothing other than bad coding.

When it comes to companions, the reason why I said that you can usually have them wait out of the way is that they’ll always appear next to you when you enter or exit a building or when you load a save. That’s just a little annoying if you want to do something on your own, but may be more of a problem in the opposite scenario, if you want them to do something while you do something else, or even hide away.

As for the writing, it would be nice if the content of the books would have something to do with the benefits gained after completing and studying them, but that’s not usually the case. But the text issues themselves are perhaps more frustrating, and I’m not just talking about typos or the little oddity in the fact that eight pages can be displayed for each book, regardless of the number of entries, which may at first give you the impression that more needs to be found if they’re not filled. More than that, I’m talking about the fact that the text quite frequently doesn’t fit the text areas and is simply cut off. You can barely see the start of the books’ titles, each entry ends with the book’s name and the entry number but that gets cut off quite a few times, and the actual content of at least one entry is cut off as well. In addition, the effects of a few items may not be displayed quite properly and many effects get cut off in the runeforge’s imbue screen, where not even the maximum essence is displayed properly, the last digit getting cut off. May also mention here that it took me a while to realize that “armor pen” is penetration, initially assuming it was penalty. And also the little fact that the resource display overlaps the corner of the journal, compendium or map if you don’t shrink the UI.

On that note, could have done with a manual, or better in-game help. Took me a while to figure out that the bar under the health status marked the progress to the next level, as I kept thinking it should be some graphical representation of health and couldn’t figure out why it kept increasing. And when I figured that out I was left searching for some other place where the actual health is listed, before realizing that it isn’t actually listed anywhere, so you have that text that lists your status and the injuries that limit how much you can regenerate, but the actual hit points aren’t listed anywhere. Some things about the skill tree and stats can also be a little confusing at first, and the clicker game could do with instructions as well.

Speaking of that clicker game in the tavern, it’s odd and it takes an awfully long time to achieve anything at first, and then it completely gets away from you when income starts coming in quickly, so you’ll just change something now and then and otherwise let it run on its own until you get the available rewards. But those rewards make it quite important to spend time on it early on, earning what you can as soon as a new metal is available, after you build another building in the settlement, before playing more of the actual game. And then, of course, once you do earn all the rewards, you’ll never touch it again.

I mentioned the problems with saving before, and there are plenty. It’s all in a single .json file, so I guess you could also edit it if you knew what you were doing and it’s at least a good thing that the file in question is in the game’s folder and not hidden somewhere in the user folder, as so many games infuriatingly tend to do, but you just have three slots plus the one for the autosave made whenever you enter an area, not everything is saved and there’s no information about what’s in each slot. There’s a tiny delete button in the corner of each slot, if you can spot it and figure out what it’s for, but otherwise the first chosen name sticks and there’s no way that I could find to just rename a slot, so I kept finding myself loading each save when I got back to the game, trying to figure out what the most recent one was. And things that aren’t saved include the status of sieges, so even if you save after completing one it’d be as if you never started it, the minions killed when going for a bounty, any items on the ground, the time of day, as it’s always daytime when you load, the way any creature is facing, though this may help if you want some to look away from you, the position of companions, which I already mentioned, or that of switches, likely making any puzzle impossible and even getting you stuck, between walls or even inside one, if you save and load before completing all of it.

But more important is that controls could definitely be better. Of course, since this style of gameplay really isn’t my thing, it will always be a problem for me, but quite a few improvements could be made, and I’ve seen enough complaints about this to be quite sure that those who like this kind of games are bothered as well. And while this mostly has to do with combat, I’ll also point out that pathfinding is bad, watching enemies, or for that matter companions if you don’t teleport them to you, being possibly quite amusing for a while. Also, ladders are always weird, being treated simply as a series of tiny platforms.

Another technical issue that affects gameplay is that clicking to pick something in a menu also acts as if you clicked in the game, so normally, if you click, such as to save, you’ll attack the instant the menu closes. And sometimes the game will still register what you press after you Alt+Tab and act accordingly, though that’s not always the case and I couldn’t figure out what makes the difference. And I’ll also mention here that early on, when armor breaks so quickly, by the time something turns yellow in the corner of the screen to warn you that it’s badly damaged, it’s probably too late. And another issue is that friendly NPCs can get killed by enemies, which is most frustrating when it comes to bounties, which bring tough enemies to areas you had already cleared, where NPCs which may still be useful may be, and may even make them appear right next to NPCs that you couldn’t reach in time even if you’d dash right there.

It doesn’t take a killed NPC to break a quest though. There don’t seem to be problems with the main ones, but otherwise there are plenty that are broken, to various degrees. There are some that show up as completed the instant you get them even if you didn’t already do what’s required and some that don’t register as completed even after you do, or register as completed but give no rewards of any kind even if the journal says you received something. There are also missing journal entries, either completely blank or, amusingly enough in one case, simply placeholders. Also found a couple of NPCs with exclamation marks above them, which would indicate that they had quests to give, but they said they had nothing for me to do when I asked. And, throughout the game, I was led to expect that the rabbit queen will show up somewhere in the north if I’ll kill enough rabbits, but she never did, and I must have killed thousands, and returned several times to northern areas where any rabbits would appear.
In addition to that, there are quite a number of quests which are not completed in the same area where you need to turn them in, but which will not mark that area, so you’ll complete them and then have to wander around, trying to find the quest giver again and get the rewards, and there are also no marks for places with rewards you didn’t access yet, for example because you need to find a phrase or the correct sequence of runes elsewhere, so you’ll find what you need and then possibly have no idea where to use it anymore, both of these being quite different from not marking where you need to go for the quest or solution itself. That also happens, quite often, but letting you explore and discover the solution yourself is a good thing while this is just frustrating.

Another important bug has to do with smelting, as for some reason the forge takes into account the resources you have the moment you access it, then deducts any resources used and sets all resources, so even those it couldn’t possibly use, to the result once done, which obviously means that any resources gathered by workers while that menu is open are lost. Of course, later on you’ll have nothing to do with the resources found and end up with dozens of unexploited locations, since it’s so easy to get the maximum amount even with fully upgraded storage and the bonus from the clicker game, but while you’re still struggling to get enough, this can be quite a problem.

Since I mentioned workers, I guess it makes some sense, but it’s still odd to see how inefficient they become as the numbers increase, the amount gathered increasing for the first four, then there’s a double increase when you get to ten, I guess the fact that it skips eight being another bug, while the following thresholds are at 14, 20 and I guess what is intended to be every 6.(6), rounded up, after that. Not that there’s much point in having this feature anyway, since the time that passes doesn’t matter, so you can have one worker start gathering and leave the computer until he finishes if need be, which also means it’d have probably been better to just do without the whole rescued workers concept and simply allow the player to decide where to gather from, and possibly also how much in case of wanting to avoid hitting the limit, and have it happen instantly.
Another oddity would be the randomized amount of materials recovered when dismantling equipment, which just means you’ll be saving and reloading a lot, and considering the small amounts obtained from dismantling compared to what’s used for forging, I see no reason why the full amount couldn’t be offered each time, or at least why it wouldn’t be determined by the level of the blacksmith. It’s also odd that the same materials are used for all weapons, differing by weapon type but being limited to the simpler ones, with the better metals only used for armor, and that all weapons, regardless of type, dismantle into two wood and three iron. And that’s another little bug, since the amount listed is two wood and two iron, just like for a shield type it says four wood but the maximum is actually five.
Also about the blacksmith, it’s nice to be able to craft equipment, but that precision clicking game used to determine the quality is annoying, and I never crafted anything other than to test how it works. Never imbued anything in the runeforge either, as I could make do just fine with what I found and later in the game you can find some items imbued with more essence than the runeforge’s maximum anyway. But speaking of the runeforge, it’s also odd that there’s no button to imbue, the only button that exists being for disenchanting, while double clicking an item switches to imbuing, while in any other building double clicking does the same thing as the button available.

As for other odds and ends, strikes me as using too much of the CPU for such a simple game, and there were times when it refused to start, the process running but nothing happening, though if I forced it closed and tried again it always worked that second time. Then, I always wondered why pressing any key was needed for the menu to appear on the start screen. And thought something broke when I first saw that experience was no longer an integer, before getting used to it. It’s also a bit frustrating that time doesn’t pause when you have a “window” open, such as the inventory or a building’s options, and if it did then that bug with the forge wouldn’t matter either. Still on design choices, I wondered how come bronze is better than iron. And being able to raise one attribute by one point when you level up quickly becomes completely irrelevant when equipment offers such large bonuses. Also, last but most definitely not least, I sure hated the dwarves’ attitude towards nature and trees, being so bothered by “green things” and saying that the only purpose of a tree is to be cut down.

Overall, you could do worse than Regions of Ruin, especially considering the price it may have on sales, but it is nevertheless a pretty simple game with plenty of technical and design problems. The developers put in a fair amount of content and had a few interesting ideas, but seem to have just kept pushing forward while seeking solutions, often not fleshing things out or polishing. In many ways, it doesn’t just show that it’s their first game, but actually feels rather like the draft of one.

I’ll undo the work done recently to get a better ratio of non-personal posts with a second personal one this week, getting me back to a buffer of only one, but one of next week’s posts should be the review for Regions of Ruin, which I finished last evening, so I should at least be fine for one more week. And this won’t fit here, but just as I was sending a correction for that game’s entry on MobyGames now, there was another double middle click, this being the first one I clearly noticed since July 9. But there isn’t much of anything I can do about that when it happens so rarely, which may well continue to be the case until right after the warranty will expire.

Since I already mentioned something that happened today, I’ll start here, since this morning I woke up at 8:15 AM and was out the door at 9:20 AM, since all bio (organic) products have a 25% discount at Carrefour today and, on top of wanting to get there before they’ll run out of this yogurt, the forecast listed likely rain and even storms during the day, and it was already rather cloudy at that point. Interestingly, it cleared as I was getting back and was nice and sunny for a while, though just now it seems to be getting cloudy again and the forecast still lists possible storms, though after 3 PM and the risk dropped below 50%, while when I went to bed it was up to 70% in the afternoon, and over 30% starting in the morning. But at least I got that out of the way, though I got too much yogurt, clearly needing to freeze some of it to use when I’ll make mamaliga, and spent an almost equal amount on something else I also got, and I actually needed to save all I could now. But also got bread for all of next week from there, so I saved a bit with that, and this time I pointed out that the scales displayed 140 grams when empty and the person there corrected it without a word.

To get these things out of the way, Wednesday I left around 4:10 PM and saw 7:48 PM when I got back. Felt quite exhausted while outside, and it was hot, though it also got cloudy after a certain point. But the idea was to use the remaining four trips on the found metro card I still had, which was expiring that day. Meant to check other recycling machines, and after first checking another place to confirm that I could drop off used batteries there and get some new ones in return, making a mental note of it for some other time, I went on that planned route. Cora was the first stop, and after checking the exact location marked on the map before leaving to try to get a better idea I actually found the recycling machine quite easily, realizing that I probably passed by it last time, looking the other way. Had a look through the store too before searching for the machine, but didn’t get anything. Did end up getting two little things from the Auchan next to the new IKEA though, as I wanted to check for information about recycling batteries at IKEA too and it was right there, so I went there first and then to IKEA, though that was pointless, as I couldn’t find anything listed… And it was also infuriating, as I got to see with my own eyes how they cleared the trees from that entire area, apparently to ensure that the store will be visible. Either way, after that I went to look for another machine I just recently noticed should be at Obor and found it, and also saw that it’s a different kind and has rewards listed per kilogram, including for plastic bottles and aluminum cans, with one kilogram as the minimum amount required, so I really should ask if that means they can be delivered crushed, because I do believe there are enough beer cans from dad for that minimum amount and I’d sure like to not carry air anymore.

And now I’ll get to the things that messed me up even more these days, starting Thursday, when that issue with Vivaldi happened again, since I just noticed the incomplete loading bar for the page I was on as I was about to close it and couldn’t stop myself, and that caused it to no longer start again. And since there was no update available, trying to reinstall it didn’t fix the issue, since it would appear that something locks a file and the reason the update fixed it last time was that the new files were in a new folder, since it makes one with the version number and then deletes the previous one, which previous one I then noticed was still there, as it hadn’t been able to delete it that last time.
A reboot might have fixed it for the moment, but I didn’t want to do that, so I tried uninstalling it, but that didn’t work either, since nothing was showing up when I tried to do that either. So I started searching for solutions, tried deleting the sessions and tabs files, then renaming the whole Default folder, then the whole User Data one, but nothing made any difference. It was only when I tried renaming the Vivaldi folder in Program Files that I realized that some file was locked, though none showed up as being open when I checked Resource Monitor. And after I later went through the folder to delete the files I realized that the file in question was vivaldi_child.dll, which I could delete for an instant, but then it reappeared almost immediately. It’s possible that the same thing happened with vivaldi.dll when I first deleted that as well, but after the second try it didn’t show up again.
Noticing exactly what file was the culprit came after reinstalling it again though, and that came after renaming the Vivaldi keys in the registry, so it’ll act as if it wasn’t already installed. But I highly doubt any of that had anything to do with why it worked after doing that, the reason almost certainly being that I installed it per user, not for all users, so the files were created in the user folder and it no longer tried to use that one from Program Files. And then I confirmed that settings had nothing to do with it by copying the whole User Data folder over the new one and seeing that it still started. Then I cleaned up the old Vivaldi entry from installed programs, telling it to delete it when it realized there was nothing to uninstall, but was left with the Vivaldi icon pinned to the taskbar and I could neither get rid of it nor use it. I could remove it after reinstalling it the first time that day, but after the second time it seemed that it put the original one there again, as trying to click to unpin it did nothing at all, clicking to use it resulted in a message stating that it can’t be found, and clicking to remove it in that prompt did nothing either. Even looked up other ways to remove such icons and deleted a link file from a listed location, but that did nothing either.

All of that made me decide to actually do what I had actually planned, not simply uninstalling ESET Antivirus after the trial period, but restoring from the “clean” backup made before installing it, to make sure that no traces of it will be left, including when it comes to security certificates and keys. Also apparently made me manage some very fast squats, 2:19 on Thursday, but to get back to the matter at hand, this was even more important after realizing that ESET was probably the cause of those Vivaldi problems, and likely related to Internet Explorer often using one CPU core fully for quite some time. But Internet Explorer either recovered on its own if I waited or, if it didn’t or I was impatient, I could immediately see which process was doing that and kill it, and it never refused to start again, regardless of how I closed it. Vivaldi, on the other hand, didn’t give me any indication of what process should be shut down, in case that was somehow the solution, and didn’t seem to recover on its own either, and then it of course refused to start at all if closed in that state. Sure took me a long time to figure that out, only doing it quite some time after the trial period had ended, but since I had neither uninstalled nor purchased it yet, it was good enough. Was actually just about to purchase a license, for two years too, but hadn’t done so yet.

Either way, despite being awfully scared of going through that again, yesterday I did restore from that backup, again formatting the system partition and the associated “System Reserved” one first, and everything seems to have gone well. Also, after being wary of checking other sites without security software at first, since I don’t remember Vivaldi freezing in such a manner if I was only using it for GOG.com, I did so for a while and the problem didn’t reappear without ESET installed. And then I installed it again, and started another trial, which may be unfair but is necessary in order to decide what to do. However, this time I started the trial from the installer and didn’t change other settings either, so it was active right away and apparently that already caused it to create that certificate and turn on filtering for secure connections as well, and Comodo Firewall didn’t notify me about it either, though it had done so when I enabled that setting last time, seeing that it wasn’t enabled at first. Whether that was because it wasn’t active, since I looked through the settings before starting the trial, or they changed the defaults between then and now, since there has been a program update, I’m not sure, but what I did notice was that only svchost.exe and Internet Explorer showed up right away as programs being monitored in such a manner. Now I have no idea whether Vivaldi would have showed up as well after I’d have started it the first time after reinstalling ESET, but I disabled that sort of filtering before doing so… And that seems to have resulted in it not having any power over Vivaldi, since if I added a site to be blocked, one which normally shows up in an iframe, it’s still blocked in Internet Explorer, albeit with an error, including errors appearing in event logs whenever it happens, instead of ESET’s message, but at the moment I’m writing this it seems to remain accessible in Vivaldi.
Either way, Vivaldi continues to work, that problem didn’t reappear even with ESET installed, now that it doesn’t actually do anything to it anymore, and at least up to this moment when I’m writing this I haven’t noticed Internet Explorer using up one CPU core in that manner either. But I don’t like the price for this, and I confirmed that it blocks HTTP connections to something it detects, but for HTTPS, which is nearly everything now, it’ll only react when the files are being saved. Even if I keep reading that it’s bad practice to allow security software to intercept secure traffic and it’s supposedly safer to let browsers handle it while the security software should stick to scanning files once they end up on the computer, which was what Emsisoft limited itself to as well, I really want that sort of “interference”, and the browser being stopped from accessing something potentially malicious in the first place, in the rare case that I may stumble upon anything of the sort. But, more importantly, I also want to be able to block things I don’t want to load through the security software, and by that I mean just such a regular, “Antivirus”, solution, not an “Internet Security” one, to be able to continue to pair it with Comodo Firewall, since the fact that Emsisoft was no longer able to do that for anything loading in an iframe, and for anything not visited directly in Internet Explorer, was an important point against it.
But another issue now is that, since I activated ESET from the installer and didn’t change any options, that initial scan started, and it’s still running, after close to 19 hours at this point. A quick search revealed even worse cases, and I see what it’s doing, using the most thorough settings and really working through installers, stopping for several seconds at DLLs too but spending even 30 minutes or so, maybe even more, on large installers, or those of complex programs, and I have all the games from GOG.com plus installers for various other software and drivers. But it’s those games that are the worst of it, and while it goes faster through some, reporting an “unsupported option”, and also goes quickly over those that just have a smaller executable and separate files for the actual content, those that are in a single, executable file take an insane amount of time, and there are plenty left. And it’s not like there’s anything for it to find, but by this point I’m curious how long it’ll end up taking if I just let it do what it wants to do.

This post will start right after the previous personal one, because I mentioned that bite on my shoulder to dad after coming back from the run and he told me to be careful with such things, which got me worried and thinking about tick bites, considering the rash around it. Looked up the symptoms, but since I couldn’t really see that well there either I ended up asking him who could have a look and we went to the infectious diseases hospital nearby. Also wondered what I had exposed myself to while there, with the guy who was there before me eventually being told that he just had a cold but the other one who was getting checked out at the same time I was being worried of hepatitis, but when the doctor had a look at the bite and she said it was just a spider I was embarrassed for having wasted her time, and then even more so when she wrote me a prescription with several things on it anyway. It got even more awkward when the nurse asked for some information to write down and the doctor, who had already congratulated me for volunteering when I said where I believe I had gotten the bite, told her not to register me since they’ll have to charge me and they don’t charge volunteers, yet the nurse did so anyway, telling the doctor that she’ll just tell me to state that I can’t pay and did just that, asking me to write that down and sign.
Since the doctor had said that the prescription was so the effects would go away sooner and not bother me as much, I had calmed down and had no intention of getting those things, thinking to at most use the first thing she wrote, since I knew that we had some already. There was another thing, which she had said was an allergy medicine, which I thought might be a good idea to have around in case of one of those wasp bites I had been warned of, but definitely not to use for this, and didn’t want anything purchased right away. However, dad insisted, asking what I had decided to do when he came back after stopping on the way for a beer but completely dismissing my answer and going anyway despite me repeating that I didn’t want anything purchased, won’t touch any of it if he will buy them and feel awfully guilty about it.
That completely messed me up, I was feeling so terribly guilty for all of it, the doctor’s time, the expenses, creating demand that will justify production that will use even more resources, all of it for no reason, just me getting scared again. So I completely ignored him when he came back with the things and I decided to literally not touch them, not even the little paper bag some of the things are in, so they’re still in the middle of the kitchen table even now, as he’s not putting them away and, as I said, I literally will not touch them for any reason… Not that it helped much, and that night I didn’t even go back to the kitchen to eat, just sitting here rather in a daze, hugging myself, and eventually getting in bed by 4:20 AM, this obviously also leading to Sunday’s post… And also to still doing without something I wanted to ask him to buy the day after that mess, as I definitely couldn’t do that anymore, and still didn’t, and I don’t have enough set aside for it, not to mention it plus any regular purchases that should be made these days, plus that I’m not sure I can purchase it with cash, and while I’m in no way certain about the decision, the matter is quite pressing.

Moving on, since it wasn’t a tick bite, I decided to volunteer at the Botanical Garden the next day as well, again just between 4 PM and 6 PM. Again meant to leave at 3:10 PM and again was a couple of minutes late, but actually got there a bit earlier than last time. Also took a training shirt otherwise worn around the house with me this time, though the pants were still the running ones. And at the entrance I did catch a guard’s eye and told him that I should be on the list, but he told me to tell the one who was next to him, eating in the guardhouse, as he should know better, and that one just waved me through, not checking anything.
When I got to the gift shop, a car was just parking there and a guy started carrying some packages in just as I went to that bathroom to look for gloves, at which point I noticed that Anca was also there, but I got out of there quickly, then had to go back after noticing I had taken two gloves for the same hand, but eventually found a pair and went back out, finding that other volunteer already watering. She handed me the hose again right away though, and went back to cutting weeds, which I guess was also why she was so fast, compared to me actually pulling out the roots. She also seemed in the mood to talk a fair bit until I was getting too far to hear, and after we ended up next to each other again at a later point she eventually said that she’ll let me meditate, since she noticed that I come for peace and quiet and don’t like talking. So I watered the plants up to the point where the two hoses, or more exactly the second and third segments, are joined together, and also quickly washed the legs of the benches and the trash cans, though I couldn’t also wash the solar benches, only carefully spraying the legs of one a bit, since a guy sat on the other all that time and I risked spraying him even if I tried to wash that one properly.
When that second hose, the third and fourth segments, were no longer needed, we separated it and meant to gather it, so I could help as well, even though Anca had said that she’ll help gather it when it’ll all be done. The thing is that the other volunteer said she had no time to gather it properly on her own last time, since it takes a very long time, and she put it in something, which led to Anca getting angry that it’ll get damaged that way, so it seemed a good idea to try to do it this way… And I sure saw how hard it is. Not sure that the way she taught me to do it is the right one, but that thing definitely doesn’t seem to work as you’d expect it to and we couldn’t get it to fit, struggled for a while, then pulled most of it back off, then tried again, saw that it wasn’t any better the second time either and she eventually wrapped what was left of it around the top and took it back that way, which Anca at least said was good enough. My pants were dirty by then, as the hose had rubbed against them, but other than trying to wipe with a bit of water there wasn’t much to do about it. It was 6:25 PM by the time I left anyway, due to struggling with the hose for so long, and I was back here at 7:15 PM.

The next day I was supposed to buy cat food again, and I did go, but at first I pretty much shut down. I was eating something before leaving when dad asked about the bite and that was that, didn’t answer, didn’t answer his next question either, and was whimpering as I rushed back to my room. So I waited a bit longer than I meant to before going out, but that also meant I was still here at 3 PM, when ESET Antivirus otherwise deducted a day from the time left on the trial, but it still said it was active then, so I hoped it’ll be different on that last day and remain active until midnight… Yet when I got back it said the trial had finished, though it still seems active in itself even now. Didn’t update it since then, of course, and it is the pressing matter I was referring to above, as I rather mean to just purchase it, without also trying BitDefender or perhaps Kaspersky, or even both, but I don’t know what will happen in the end.
Either way, went out the door just before 3:10 PM, but once I was outside I realized I didn’t have a cap on and ran back to get it. Then I first walked to what I consider to be the big Mega Image from the area, where I hadn’t been in a long time, and checked the prices there. After that, walked to that Kaufland, being surprised to see one kind of cat food on sale, though I hadn’t seen it on the site, so I made a mental note to buy that from there, and another one about the price of another kind at a pet shop from that place, considering how much its price has increased in hypermarkets. Kept going after that, walking to the Auchan from that area and finding that second kind of cat food at a slightly better price than at that pet shop, but they seemed to have every kind except one of the two I was supposed to buy, so I bought some of the type they did have, then took the free bus to that Carrefour… After a rather uncomfortable exchange with the driver, even more so considering my state of mind, since when he got in I asked if he was the one leaving then and he rather snapped at me, saying rather aggressively that there’s no point in asking, and when I said that sometimes there are two cars he said it doesn’t matter, each has his own schedule, which was just my point, wanting to know whether he was scheduled to leave then or was waiting for the next listed time.
When I got to that Carrefour, I also checked to see whether they still had the cooking oil that was listed on the site as a limited offer, then went to that farmers’ market and got some cheap plums, leaving apples for some other time. Got a bit confused after that, meaning to go to that pharmacy next but being unable to figure out how and eventually deciding to get back to Kaufland first, walking back there and buying the cat food I could get from there and the other kind from that pet shop. Interestingly, the listed price for those snacks from Kaufland that Liza is addicted to was higher than normal, but when I scanned them they showed up as still being the regular price, and it’s very unusual for the real price to be lower than the listed one at Kaufland, or anywhere except at Auchan for that matter. I guess they’re about to increase the price and somebody changed it too quickly, perhaps.
Walked back after that, finally getting to the pharmacy, going around the farmers’ market since I had wandered around inside it for a while before getting those plums and didn’t want to perhaps appear even more suspicious by showing up again. Then, after getting what I wanted from the pharmacy, went back and into the Carrefour Market that’s next to that farmers’ market, having a look and seeing that cooking oil available there as well, at the same price, even if they just had three packs plus one single bottle and the list left by my mother mentioned two packs. So I bought that as well, then stopped to rearrange everything in the bags, bought a pretzel from a place that’s just there, and walked back, actually managing to only stop twice on the way. Admittedly, took a couple of minutes each time, giving myself a bit of time to recover and rubbing my arms, but it was nevertheless something to get back here with just those two stops, walking what Google Maps says were 1.4 km while carrying a third of my weight, 16 kg compared to my 48, as I weighed myself and the stuff right after getting back, at 7:35 PM.

Saturday’s only notable event happened soon after I got up and could have been ugly, since I again ended up being on the toilet longer than it took the water to start to boil and it ended up putting out the fire. Judging by the smell, the gas was left on longer than the first time, so I was a bit concerned, but immediately turned it off and opened the window, waved the newspaper I had been reading on the toilet around for a while, then just gave it some time and eventually turned the stove back on, carefully trying the electric lighter next to the window at first. Just like last time, after that I also lit a candle and carefully carried it around, raising it in some places around the apartment to check for any small pockets which might have ended up there, but there was no sign of anything, and no real risk of anything of the sort existing anyway.

As for yesterday, I ran, in good part because the conditions were good and the forecast for the rest of the week seems split between heat and storms, but also in an attempt to clear my head to some extent, still being a mess, hiding from dad around here and not wanting to speak, wanting to avoid dealing with people enough to not even have a look at the protests that took place these days, after Alexandra’s murder. I also didn’t do laundry until today, so yesterday I had neither my running pants nor either of the t-shirts I run in, but I just ran in the clothes I was wearing inside then, and it was rather fortunate that I had the biggest t-shirt on and you couldn’t see much of my shorts, because it’d have been rather weird otherwise. And since the “equipment” was so unusual anyway, I also took the regular shoes, not the running ones. In addition, due to avoiding dad, didn’t even drink anything before going, managing to make tea but not getting back in the kitchen to drink, and didn’t eat any of those wheat things either, since I didn’t go there to put jam on them. Even took me two tries to take a shit, as the first time he got out of the living room as I was in the bathroom and went to use the other one and my muscles just seized and I couldn’t get anything out anymore.
Still, got up from the computer at 4:05 PM and went right out. Was a bit worried about the wind on the way to the park, but it died down and there were just a few small places where I felt that I was running against it, and nothing relevant even then. And, even though at first I didn’t really have any target other than to stay under 48:30 and after the first lap I was worried that I may fail even that, I ended up being faster than last week, the time being 47:18.90, with sector times of 4:19.69, 5:04.09, 5:49 (5:48.90), 4:24 (4:23.86), 4:54.24, 5:47 (5:46.31), 4:26.21, 5:03.09, 5:47.05 and 1:45.46, making for lap times of 15:12.68, 15:05 (15:04.41) and 15:16.35.
The keys were one problem, really swinging in the pocket of these shorts, and making the shorts move around a lot as a result, but that didn’t last long, as they fell or flew out before the end of the first lap’s second sector, since I noticed a tear in that pocket but have no idea whether it was already there or they tore through. Either way, after obviously losing a few seconds to retrieve them, I held them in my hand the rest of the way. After that, the next issue was on the second lap’s first sector, when I had to briefly stop and wait for a way to go through, when I was about to go around two people, one holding an umbrella with the pointy end dangerously to the side, just as a cyclist was also going around all three of us and another cyclist and a skateboarder were coming from the opposite direction, and we couldn’t all fit in the same place at the same time. And then, on that lap’s third sector, as I went wide to let three runners coming from the opposite direction stay on the inside, I felt my back starting to hurt in a way that I didn’t think could be fixed while running, by finding a way to snap it. Tried a few times, but had to accept the situation and keep going like that, and while the pain lessened after a few minutes, it still hurts to some extent even now. However, despite these problems, with a lap two that was faster than the first, I realized I could manage a better time and pushed on lap three, not really aiming for anything more than to stay under 48 minutes but realizing on sector three that I had a small chance to even beat last week’s time. I rather doubted it, but just kept pushing, also on that final sector, and actually made it with several seconds to spare.

As for the clear timed squats during this period, those were on July 24, 2:38, and July 28, 2:21. On July 27 and 29 I tried to time, but there were replays when I finished, and while yesterday it was a short replay and I can say it was about 2:26, give or take a second, the 2:25 estimated for Saturday is quite rough. And I waited to post this after doing today’s squats as well, but once again there was a replay just when I finished, so I again have to estimate and I’d again say about 2:25, probably give or take no more than a second.