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| My horse Bucephalus at Sassau Monastery KCD |
As you may have seen in the news, California was burning at both ends spawning human tragedy in its charred wake. Even if one had the good fortune of your house not burning down, all of the Bay Area was coated thick with toxic smoke and we could not venture outside without a mask with a proper particulate filter. The many days of dirty orange haze with everyone scurrying around in face masks gave me a terrible sense of forboding- a sense that such scenes were going to be now a new normal wrought by global warming.
Dear Readers, I haven't written much since I have been trapped in the coffee doldrums. I am shamelessly gulping down a budget Guji as I write this- at least it's a single origin hand ground single drip brewed cup. Most mornings I slug instant coffee- I tried to downgrade to drinking instant coffee like methadone or nicotine gum to wean myself off the real thing. But instead of the desired effect, I became thoroughly addicted to the substitute. Although I'd like to point out I'm not chugging just any old supermarket variety but rather some of the finest Nescafe to be had personally hand delivered from Germany by a sympathetic friend. Germans I've determined make superior instant coffee. But coffee/caffeine addiction is a real thing and I fear I must suffer the cold sweats and headaches to go over the hump.
(A note on these photos- I could put up shots of vessels with various liquids in them but who wants to see that! You've probably seen every permutation I've presented in the last few years of this blog and thought I would mix it up with some gaming shots.
While I was cooped up indoors, I drank buckets of matcha, played a lot of Kingdom Come Deliverance galloping around the cool verdant forests of Bohemia. I had visited Prague this summer for the first time- utterly charmed by the beauty of the city and overwhelmed by the hordes of scantily clad tourists in an epic heat wave. After dozens of hours engrossed in this medieval peasant simulator I'm hoping to return to Czechoslovakia for a cooler countryside retreat.)
> ... some of the finest Nescafe...
ReplyDeleteNescafé no es café. I've heard that's how it's said.
Dear Sir Cheeselog,
DeleteNescafé is like instant ramen- there are points in one's life where that's just the thing. Hand grinding heirloom Ethiopian beans should be for special occasions- I just wore it out.
H
Hello again, good to hear from you! How did you find KCD? (I rather loved it, despite occassional glitches). Btw. the place where the game takes place is pretty close to Prague and it's easy to get there by train or bus. You might find many locations extremely similar if you decide to visit (and looking at the Google map reveals how the layout of cities/villages is close). The Sassau (Sázava in Czech) monastery still stands (I cannot vouch for the internal layout though :)), Rattay (Rataje) is of course rather different, but you can still see the link to the game (the town square is similar, and the southern castle/tower is partly conserved). Ledetcho (Ledečko) is where it should, etc. The forests are a little less wild and there are fewer hares, unfortunately, but the area around Sázava is generally really beautiful.
ReplyDeleteDear Jakub!
DeleteLet's just say it would be impossible not to have heard of KCD as an open world RPG fan since historical non-fantasy variants come around so rarely. (I regret I didn't back Warhorse on kickstarter.) I waited a long while to play to have the bugs rolled out but also to get my 1080ti. KCD definitely was beautifully immersive in a way I didn't expect out of being lunkhead Henry and it's definitely my favorite PC pancake title this year.
But I have a visit to Sázava on my bucket list. Ledečko is my favorite town- learned how to read there plus something else. I won't have my elm bow so the hares can relax (actually I am a terrible shot) and had to mod in a reticle.
H
Hello!
DeleteOoh, so nice to hear this! Agreed, it's a rare game and in so many ways it's really amazing. That's not to say there are no bugs, obviously - but sometimes, one also enjoys tea that's gobsmacking in several features, while lacking in one, as opposed to an all-around very good, but slightly uninspired one.
Haha, the shooting was hard - I must shamefully admit that at a start, I just tended to put a little paper dot on my screen to mark the aim location. But in general, this is what I really enjoyed about the game - this, lockpicking, swordfighting etc. - the player has to learn to do this. It's not about killing 100 boars and increasing a stat number, after which the player kills bandits - one really has to learn how to do things, which is something that not many games ask of a player.
Haha, I can see many charms of Ledečko :-D
Hopefully the last act will be out soonish.
All the best!
Jakub