It’s been a weird couple of weeks. Every so often I get in this state where the tablet just doesn’t ‘feel’ right and I need to bust out some markers or pencils until my mojo comes back. I say that when I should really be going ahead and knocking off this annotated bibliography for a research assignment, but… Ehhhh.

It dawned on me the other day with my new setup I can stream game footage in addition to the periodic Picarto streams. (Note to self: add sidebar links for my stream pages.) So over the weekend, I started playing The Guardian Legend live before trying my hand at the ROM hack version, TGL: Secret Edition. It’s kind of a trip playing a rearranged version of something so familiar. Playing online with a chat, small as it’s been, has already helped me learn more and appreciate other little things about the game I hadn’t noticed. I just love learning little details like the item drops not actually being randomized, or the curious “rubber band” pattern the Crawdaddy boss has. (If you maneuver side to side, he begins swinging around as well, spreading his projectiles and making him more annoying to hit, but if you stay put horizontally you can use the Saber Laser to cut right through him and his claw tossing with no fuss at all.) Secret Edition turns things on its ear by rearranging the entire overworld, upping enemy counts, changing what items you find where, and in especially interesting cases, puts shooter bosses in the overworld and vice versa. I never realized how much of a help that initial rapid fire upgrade out of the gate was until SE withheld it from the earlier stages and increased the number of enemies, which makes me rely on sub weapons more than I normally would. Which made when I reached an item room selling Rapidfire for 150 chips when I only had a max 100 kind of a kick in the teeth.

One of us has fists, you know.

I’ll continue to pick at it and probably some other games off and on via twitch when I have free time. I figure as long as I can support it, why not waste time with company?