Another day, another post!

Day 2 here we come~

Nursing? 

I have been thinking a bit over the past few days about the stress that this job brings and ways that I can show that I still am enthusiastic about my job. It has been a little hard when I am tired all the time. It also doesn't help that waking up in the mornings is quite a struggle for me. Not quite sure what to do with that at them moment other than keep showing up to work.

I am also in a mood where I am trying to think of where I want to go do with my degree. Travel is something I would love to do but not for a holiday, to work and live. America always sticks in my mind, lord knows why. I dislike a lot of what I have heard to do with their healthcare system and it makes me wonder if I would be able to work within it. Not to mention the issues that would come from trying to get a work visa. England on the other hand, much more feasible. A lot of Australia's health care is based off of England's structure (and viscera), getting a work visa will be a lot simpler for me and they are also apparently on a call out for nurses from Australia.

Here is the problem, silly heart has given me this somewhat reoccurring dream that I will be able to make the America idea work then magically find myself in California with a nursing job also doing something to do with video games on the side. What video games stuff has depended on the night, some nights it is game development and others it is shout casting. The destination however is eerily consistent. Practical sense though, England has a lot more support for me, I am more familiar with it, relatives live there, work is available, and it has the stuff that I am after anyway. So why America?

The more I type this the more I realize that I want to make moving to another country work, figuring out when is the fun part.

What video games are you playing?

I am still on the Splatoon and Dota 2 train, not much else to report from those. I did however buy the game Life is Strange yesterday, it is downloading at the moment. My friend said he enjoyed it from a storytelling perspective saying that it hit the right notes. I haven't read that much into it so I will report my first impressions when I play it.

Art?

I have been trying to do a bit of art but I feel I have not gotten that far. During the 3am phase I came up with this while listening to Little Person by Jon Brion.

Issue now is I don't really know what else to do with it. I will come back to it when I get a chance.

Watching/Reading anything?

Still watching some AGDQ speedruns! Youtube has provided for those that I missed watching live.

Reading however, I started that search I sometimes do for Shojou manga. I have read about 5 different series in the past day, favorite one being Moe Kare drawn by Ikeyamada Go. Part of what I liked about this one was that is filled all the general things I expect from a shoujo.

It also gave me this amazing page:

The other one that I kinda enjoyed, drawing by the same artist is called Kobayashi ga kawai sugite Tsurai. Now this one is fantastic because it revolves around twins that switch gender roles then fall in love. Big bonus for the male side of it making out with our heroine before they knew that she was cross dressing.

It also had an interesting pairing where the hero was falling in love with a girl who was deaf and was thus learning sign language to communicate better. Was interesting to see how that was drawn. They don't really touch on it often enough but I like it being there.

I should really create a checklist of things I expect these manga's to have then grade them based off of that.


Be warned, I have found some Yaoi to read and I will be talking about that later on.

What song have you got stuck in your head?

Till next time~

Havra

Why Lara doesn't like me - Starting the run, breaking the game

A few months ago I was watching my good friend practicing his speedrun for LaMulana when I said to myself: "Yeah, I wanna speedrun a game".

Lord knows why, half of the time I was watching it was him swearing or saying how shit bats were. It was decided though, so I had to decide a game to start with. My friend suggested a short game that I was familiar with. I wanted a childhood game of mine, one that I would take pleasure in breaking.

The first game that stuck to mind was Tomb Raider. While this is not a short game it is easily segmented and that was probably more what I was after. Tomb Raider was a series that I got into as a child that helped me realize how great boobs are. More so though, it was a game that even as a child I could break.

It also helped that there is a ton of information about how to speedrun Tomb Raider games here: http://www.tombrunner.net/. Do check it out.

So here we are, Tomb Raider III. While Tomb Raider II had more childhood trauma for me I found that TRIII was a little easier to break in ways.

The old man that follows you around everywhere in this one farts. Constantly.

I took some screenshots of my efforts today as I practiced a few things. There were 2 things I used to do a lot when I was younger and I am going to show you here. 

My First Glitch

It isn't complex, it isn't that wonderful, but when I was a child it was the most amazing thing I could ever do. I found a way to get to the top of Lara's mansion. This technique is used throughout early Tomb Raider speedruns. 

Note, how easy it is to put Lara into objects. 

As Lara jumps up and down she drifts slightly. Using this, you can place her in walls. 

And when the game doesn't know where she is. 

She gets spawned on top of whatever you stuck her in. In this case, she is now on top of her house. 

Look. Lara. Everything the draw distance touches, is our kingdom...

This led to more fun with me finding the strange textures and the magic floating platform. 

Looks like there's nothing at all! Nothing at all! Nothing at all!

Old Man Antics

What probably made me like TRIII more than TRII was the old man antics and the addition of a quad bike. The old man antics was something I was sure to do every time I played this tutorial level. 

You get access to guns at the end of the assault course. 

Not sure what Lara is shooting but she sure is keen

In this the poor old man becomes a target. Just so you remember how much of a bitch Lara is.

Of course, you shoot him. 

He only groans a little when he gets up. It's not like he may have arthritis...

It's okay though. It's all for queen and country!! 

Now here is the cruel bit that I couldn't stop laughing at. This is for if the farts get too much.

In the kitchen there is... the Freezer. 

Get yourself all ready....

Hello gorgeous!

Kbye

Aaaaaaaaand you shut the door. 

Thus, preventing him from following you. You do still however, hear his farts from the rooms surrounding. 

Now, back to the going fast. Over the months I looked up a few ways that people went through the levels, practiced the techniques and finally today was the day I gave it a go. 

The First Level

The current best time for the first level is 38 seconds. You will find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgcioHGIBXU

This is the route I decided to go for. 

Different techniques and a slightly different route have had a lot of runners complete the first level in just over 1 minute. 

First attempt at me doing this, did not end well. 

No matter! I will just have to jump a little differently. 

Finally I got to the first area where I could do something silly. You jump through the edge of the wall and can get yourself on top of it. 

I got stuck. While there is "quicksand" I wasn't sinking but in this case, I had wedged myself in something and couldn't get out. 

It doesn't even look like I am stuck...

No matter!

Close but not quite on that. 

Again not quite. It was a good try Lara.

Aha! Success! Now to jump over to the other side. 

Easy so far. Now here comes the bit that I spent hours... to try and get. Grabbing into the block so that when you pull yourself up, you hit the trigger for the level exit. 

If you can see it, Lara's shadow is in the block.

And this is what happened: 

Yaay out of bounds! 

Lets try again. 

Hooray! I did it! But...

Something didn't seem right and the start of the next level.... Is this Ninja Croft?

No Matter! I will load again. 

Okay then... I didn't wanna see Lara's face anyway. Load again...

Okay I didn't want to see the level either. Bah. 

As it turns out, one way of hitting the level exit means you skip the cut scene after it. Useful? No. Every time this happens you will load a level or a save that is either missing the art for Lara, or the art for the level. 

Restarting and having another go, I completed it. 

Yaaaay! Go me with breaking the game. Does this make me a speedrunner?