Hitman 2 which I have now been playing solidly for nearly three months. I'm rather glad it doesn't have an "hours played" marker. I just can't seem to drag myself away from this: there's always more to do. There are three levels (Marrakesh, Bangkok and Colorado) I haven't even looked at yet, I've barely touched Escalations or Featured Contracts, they keep adding more stuff and they haven't even announced the DLC yet. May be the biggest game I've ever played, and certainly the one that's held my attention consistently the longest.
Guacamelee 2 which is absolutely rock hard and seems to have flown under a lot of people's radar, surprisingly given that Celeste (with which it has a lot in common) was such a hit. Maybe it's because it's been labelled a Metroidvania, but it's not really: it's very linear, with vicious combat challenges scattered throughout, and although you can go back and access areas you've not been to before with new areas, there's none of the "where shall I go next" feeling that you get from games like Super Metroid or Hollow Knight. It's very funny as well: I particularly enjoyed the "Dankest Timeline" which is filled with NPCs spouting YouTube criticism of the first game, and the "Grindiest Timeline" is a turn-based RPG.
Shenmue II which is really very different to the first game, much more in line with modern expectations and curiously slightly less interesting as a result.
Want
Several things, for once. Resident Evil 2 looks fantastic, Ace Combat 7 has my purchase finger twitching and of course Shenmue III is allegedly out this year and I have no idea what that is going to be like.
Bin
Reached the end of the road with Batman: Arkham Knight - some of the side missions are actually quite tedious and I'm not sure I have the patience to get the "true ending". But I've enjoyed my time with it.
God of War, though less than I really should. I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to it in one go, is the main thing, and it doesn't feel like the kind of game I should be hopping in and out of.
Want
Anthem, still, I think. I'm less excited about it than I was, having played a little more, but only in the sense that my expectations have been tempered.
All Hitman 2, all the time. I've just done The Classics 1 - my own self-imposed criteria for moving on from the Hitman 1 levels - which has taken several weeks of pretty dedicated effort. I've yet to touch any of the Legacy bonus missions, the Patient Zero mini-campaign, or any Escalation Contracts (bar the one to get the Sieger Ghost); my completion percentages on all of the stages is still embarrassingly low.
I've absolutely rinsed the Hitman 2 intro mission, Hawke's Bay, and have managed to scrape completions on Miami a couple of times, but I still think about those unfinished challenges in Morocco, the Mission Stories in Sapienza and wonder if I should take the time to really finish off the Legacy stuff before diving into the sequel.
I've just started Wargroove which is exactly what I wanted and expected, though it remains to be seen if I'll see it all the way through. It feels a little bit perfunctory, though hopefully as more factions show up and I get more Commanders it'll start to reveal its personality some more. So far its plot and characters are fairly generic.
Want
I've returned to the Bubble in Elite Dangerous to help a friend who's just starting out, but I'm looking at the newly-announced third waypoint for Distant Worlds 2 and thinking about heading out into the black again. It's more than 250 jumps away, though.
Bin
I seem to have already trimmed all the fat from my gaming diet; apart from Hitman, Elite and now WarGroove, I'm not playing anything so I think for the first time I'm honestly free of binnables.
Play
Videogames: I played a lot of Mario Vs Rabbids last month. I was up to 40+ hours when I finished and then I started playing again but without using Luigi and Rabbid Mario (because I kind of fell into a couple of comfortable strategies with them). I'm about half way through that second playthrough but I haven't touched it for a week or two. so maybe I'm done with it. I certainly grab the DLC at some point.
RPGs: Whitehack is going well if a little intermittent. They survived a fight with a Beholder last session which was lots of fun. Unfortunately for them it was the linchpin of the small city holding together six opposing families and one imprisoned god. We left the last session with the PCs in the tower above the awakened god's cell. I am somewhat excited about Monday's session. Also one of my players is making candied bacon for the session.
Want
Wargroove, because Advance Wars are some of the best videogames ever made and if there's even a chance this is half as good as Days of Ruin, I must have it.
Bin
Uni work not working. I'm supposed to be setting up IntelliJ, Docker and Github and NOTHING WORKS.
Google+. It's days are numbered and the many communities I have been a member of for the last four years are scattering to the four webs. Twitter is picking up some of the slack but others have gone to MeWe, which is a bit gross, or Reddit which is very Reddit. Trying out all of the various alternatives to G+ has really made me realise just how good G+'s fairly minimal features were. I'm going to miss it.
Play: Anno 2205. This ongoing series of PC strategy games is very German, which is perhaps why it's never really received the attention it deserves. But all the games in the series are superb city-building/economy management games that rapidly ramp up from being quite manageable to incredibly involved with multiple settlements and supply chains and trade routes all over the place; despite that they're never too stressful as it's hard to actually "fail" and even your most hopeless cities tend to trundle along while you spin plates in the background trying to make them actually function properly.
This is the most recent instalment and it's been streamlined in many ways: instead of one huge map with boats everywhere, you manage a number of different sectors on a strategy map and set up trade routes from there, but you're still zapping between them at speed trying to keep everything up and running. Combat has also been relegated to its own little maps meaning you're not constantly trying to fight off pirates. The sci-fi setting is a matter of personal taste - I personally prefer the historical games in the series, which makes the forthcoming Anno 1800 a very tempting prospect - but all the series trademarks (including over-earnest presentation and terrible spelling) are present and correct here and it's actually a pretty good jumping-on point.
Play
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. More stabby Dishonored fun. The powers don't seem as interesting this time around, they're quite fiddly. But maybe I'll learn how to use them as the game progresses.
Into the Breach: I think I'm enjoying this. I saw the credits after around half an hour, and I'm not really sure why you're supposed to carry on playing. The levels are generated randomly, from what I can tell, so there's no real incentive there. I have a decent amount of fun while playing, but I don't seem to be working towards anything.
Moss, AstroBot, PSVR things: Picked Moss up in the sale and it's lovely. The VR seems to be more of a gimmick here than in AstroBot, but the world is an utterly lovely place to spend some time. AstroBot continues to wow – it's an utterly stunning game. Easily the best Mario game since Galaxy.
Spiderman PS4: Still chipping away at this. I've decided to ignore all of the side content; it's just not that much fun. The main story is great though. It would definitely have benefited from being a linear game. The Rikers set piece was incredible, up there with anything Uncharted has ever scripted.
Want
More time to play through The Stack.
Bin
Yakuza 0: Had a lot of fun with this, although it definitely dragged towards the finale. In fact, it took three hours to actually end, most of which was cutscene. I'm going to wait a while before moving on to Kiwami.
Amplitude: I have no rhythm.
Yoku's Island Express: Absolutely lovely game, and at five or six hours it was a perfect counterpoint to all the epic slogs I've been grinding my way through recently.
Final Fantasy XIV - FanFest made me wanna play this game asap, I missed my friends, I missed Eorzea. I kinda' wanna' try PvP, a part of the game I've endlessly shit on because I thought it was terribl. But I saw some people I knew play a championship match at FanFest and I was screaming like a lunatic, I wasn't even playing and it gave me stress and anxiety!
Smash Ultimate - The FanFest made me miss the biggest tourney for this yet, so I'm going to watch this and play some more. I playedsome random matches in a fucking Travel Lodge because my friend bought his (Switch is God) and I reallllllly like the look and feel of Pikachu, definitely going to pick him up!
Kingdom Hearts 3 - Want to try and platinum it, I'm so glad this was good after FFXV turned out to be a let down.
Want
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers- They released this extended trailer, which is kinda spoilery but due to the exact nature of it (it may be time travel, alt dimensions who knows) but one thing is for sure, IMO they make just as good expac trailers as Blizzard do for WoW.
See the new class, Gunbreaker )or something like that), it'sbasically the Gunblade from FF8! I'm finally going back to tanking?!?!
Resident Evil 2 Remake - Eventually.
Bin
Eurostar. I'm probably being unfair, if it's snowing too bad I guess they can't function but that train station was like fucking purgatory regardless. I felt bad for the woman who said she was supposed to be getting married though, made my plight seem like nothing :(.
Play: Anno 2205. This ongoing series of PC strategy games is very German, which is perhaps why it's never really received the attention it deserves. But all the games in the series are superb city-building/economy management games that rapidly ramp up from being quite manageable to incredibly involved with multiple settlements and supply chains and trade routes all over the place; despite that they're never too stressful as it's hard to actually "fail" and even your most hopeless cities tend to trundle along while you spin plates in the background trying to make them actually function properly.
This is the most recent instalment and it's been streamlined in many ways: instead of one huge map with boats everywhere, you manage a number of different sectors on a strategy map and set up trade routes from there, but you're still zapping between them at speed trying to keep everything up and running. Combat has also been relegated to its own little maps meaning you're not constantly trying to fight off pirates. The sci-fi setting is a matter of personal taste - I personally prefer the historical games in the series, which makes the forthcoming Anno 1800 a very tempting prospect - but all the series trademarks (including over-earnest presentation and terrible spelling) are present and correct here and it's actually a pretty good jumping-on point.
the Anno 1800 Beta is up and running right now which you can sign up to at Anno Union. It's well worth it and it's a lovely fun game.
I saw that but honestly I’ll just wait for the full game, it’s day one for me. I also reinstalled Anno 1404 which is still the series peak and looks amazing for a game that’s a decade old. So that’s a few hundred hours right there.
Play
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. More stabby Dishonored fun. The powers don't seem as interesting this time around, they're quite fiddly. But maybe I'll learn how to use them as the game progresses.
Don't say that! I've just bought it (for a fiver) although the second is sat on the shelf waiting to be started (and I only got round to the first one PS3 in 2017)
As for the FFXIV talk, I don't think I ever made it to the end of the initial campaign let alone any of the expansions (I definetly had Heavenward though).
Play
Same last month: FFXII, Yakuza 0, GT Sport and Yooka Laylee. Oh and Persona Q. Biggest change is that the new FIA races have started up on GT Sport. I'm only doing the manufacturer series and have gone with Mercedes (and applied my customary pink livery). Had two good races so far, I'm firmly lower mid grid but there's some good battling there and unless you're genuinely crap then you always have someone to battle. Adding tyre wear and fuel depletion to the mix has resulted in me maybe finishing higher than I would have based on my ability at the moment as all too often some drivers leave the pit stop till their tyres are completely fucked and they're limping back round the circuit, I think some are refueling too which I've not seen the need to do so far, I've not even had to alter how thirsty the engine is (you can alter the consumption on the fly, sacrificing power in order to run longer) so if they added a couple of laps to a race it could be even more interesting with people trying different strategies. So far even with tyres I've been able to run mediums till just over the half way point then switch to softs (again, I think some may be going medium medium).
PLAY Mortal Kombat X - Back to this again. I reckon the trophies are doable, with a bit of grinding, though it does mean playing with real people online (ugh). Still, it's a great fighting game and I've already got MK11 pre-ordered for the beta in March, so it's probably best that I polish this off before then. After the open-world expanse of Sleeping Dogs, some enclosed punching people's heads off is a good counterpoint. I'm utterly numb to the fatalities, brutalities and other nastiness now though - just makes me roll my eyes. And every lady has ridiculous outfits with huge boobs! At least they're dealing with the latter in MK11, I believe… Red's Kingdom - Virtually nothing to do at work currently, so I've taken to playing this on my Switch during the downtime (we published it). I like it. It's a puzzley-Metroidy-rolly thing. Nice to dive in and out of.
WANT Nothing games-wise - Still nothing I particularly want outside of the three games I've allowed myself to get this year (MK11, Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime Trilogy on Switch). So, that's a good sign for not breaking my 'no games, just backlog' rule this year. My old job back - My old seat on the marketing editorial team at Nintendo has become available again. I've applied for it. No idea if I'll actually get it, given I've already worked there and left once, but circumstances are different now and if I can get back, I'll never leave again. I want this far, far too much, and I really need to temper my hopes so I'm not bitterly disappointed when they give it to some young pink-haired person with a YouTube channel, as seems to be the way of things these days.
BIN My current job - I leave Rising Star Games in just under two weeks (15th). Got a new thing ahead starting the week after, on top of the hopes for Nintendo. Bit worried, as it's a pay cut (another one!) with the promise of bonuses to top up the shortfall. Hope my cash flow can take it. But it's an interesting opportunity and one that could go well if it works out. Better anywhere but here though, this place has been ruined by the new owners through incompetent management and general neglect. You hear all the time about publishers/developers being shut down, people being laid off and so on. But when it's just slowly strangled until it fades away and only the name remains, no-one's even going to notice it's gone. What a pity.
So I gave this a quick look last night. It seems… fine. I don't think it helped that I was playing with randoms and no headset; I didn't know what any of the guns are or what the map layout is, and we just kind of wandered around for a bit until we got caught in a bottleneck and the whole squad died.
I would be interested in trying it out with a couple of real people, though. I feel like communication would make a big difference, and while there are "pings" that let you highlight objects, players and locations for your squadmates they are incredibly limited.
I'm looking forward to playing this at some point. Given Titanfall 2 is the last game I finished I was hoping there would be some transferable skills that would pass into this but it seems they've removed the parkour stuff and famously (if something that's existed publicly for 48 hours can have famous elements) there are no Titans. It looks good though and the post on Penny Arcade (https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2019/02/04/essentially) makes a good argument for the pedigree of the game.
Play: Hollow Knight. Still playing this but haven't for a while. Want: I'm interested in Mutant Year Zero. I loved XCOM but after hours with Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within I couldn't bring myself to play XCOM 2. I know XCOM2 is supposed to be excellent but this looks like it's similar enough without actually being XCOM for me to take a punt once the price drops. Bin: Sleep & video games. We had another baby last month and she doesn't really sleep in her basket yet so I'm watching a lot of TV and reading books into the early hours of the morning. All in all it's been pretty relaxing; there are worse ways to spend January and I've read more books in the last four weeks than I managed in the whole of last year.
I've been enjoying it, I'm properly bad at it, but have one win under my belt that I'm attributing to me being the Support character meaning the other two guys racked up six kills
I think the pings work fine as far as communication goes, probably better than saying "there's a helmet here" or that you've spotted someone as an icon appears on everyone's HUD when you hit R1 (it's context sensitive) rather than relying on your team mates taking their eyes off the action to check the mini map
I think Apex Legends has the potential to be huge. It's incredibly satisfying to play, and the most polished free-to-play game I've ever seen. The ping thing is a stroke of genius, as are the other quality of life comms bits, such as a shortcut to say 'thanks' popping up whenever someone aids you. It really helps make you feel like you're part of a team.
Also, I thought the titan gameplay in Titanfall 2 was naff. I LOVED Titanfall 2, but that was all down to the pilot gameplay.
Really? The Titan-only modes are my favorite ones in Titanfall 2. #Scorch4Lyfe
I didn't play the multiplayer, which may be why! In singleplayer I was always looking forward to getting out of the mech. The huge guns weren't satisfying, and it didn't have any of the joy of movement that pilot mode had.
I still have no idea of how to do games and childcare.
thanks – can see there will be a point where gaming comes back with interruptions to administer a bottle of milk but not for the time being.
Really? The Titan-only modes are my favorite ones in Titanfall 2. #Scorch4Lyfe
I didn't play the multiplayer, which may be why! In singleplayer I was always looking forward to getting out of the mech. The huge guns weren't satisfying, and it didn't have any of the joy of movement that pilot mode had.
Couldn't agree more but also didn't play online. Played the trial room at the very start of the game a whole lot and came away from the overall game wishing that more FPS titles implemented the move set of Titanfall in their games. 2016 Doom with wall running would have been even more fun.
I've been playing the Devil May Cry V demo for like, 8 hours. It's that fucking good, it takes a while to get used to the Devil Breaker system but so far this demo is giving me more joy than some actual full games, you have a sword you can rev like a motorbike for fucks sake.
Additional PLAY Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap - Last night's reveal of Link's Awakening for Switch has got me hankering for a Zelda game again, but I'm not so dumb as to go replay the very game they're releasing later this year. I've got that, both Oracle games and Minish Cap on my 3DS, but the latter won out in the end. It's quite… er, quick. Certainly quicker than I remember it being. I've only been playing it for about fifteen minutes and I'm already hunting down a great evil by wearing a talking hat. Good old Capcom and its silly take on Zelda.
Bin
We (son and I) finished Knack 2 on Very Hard, so you don't have to! I think we're done, the remaining trophies are ridiculous, which is a shame, as if they were realistic we might've ground them out.
There's a lot to like about Knack 2. There's a timelapse sequence in it, which has to be a first for any game, used to relay a period of time passing in a really elegant way. Some of the vistas and views are spectacular, and it does what it does very well. Constantly re-inventing itself and providing novel ways to repurpose the game mechanics. I sort of enjoyed the story too.
Octopath Traveller is probably the most disappointing RPG I've played since FFXV. It's a 2 hour gameplay loop x 8 for multiple chapters. The idea of 8 separate character plots that may or may not intersect eventually as opposed to a big main single storyline is a good idea, but the execution of it here is very sloppy, no explanation given for why your team is working together, they just are, would it have hurt for them to try to write something? Why should I care about Ophilia's quest to do the rite of kindling if it has nothing to do (yet) with Primrose's quest for bloody revenge? Because I sure as hell don't care about hers (or anyone not Olberic/Prim so far) on it's own.
The cutscenes also take the absolute piss sometimes. In frequency length, which makes storylines such as Ophilia's all the more vexing.
Gameplay is actually really good, and as well as the graphics, might be why I'm yet to flush the game. I like the ally actions everyone has, everyone has their own ability so Olberic can challenge NPC's to a fight to move them out the way, Primrose can allure NPCs (all who have their own stats and skills) to the party as a summon of sorts and combat wise you can set up allsorts of strategies and the boost system is really satisfying.
Yeah, Octopath really needed some kind of overarching villain or calamity to tie all the stories together; each of them feels so small and separate, and there's no in-fiction reason for you to join up with new members. Even mechanically, I resented having to swap out my existing, leveled party members to fit some scrub into the lineup.
You can add Apex Legends and RICO to my Play list. The latter is for a review, the former is because despite being crap at it in really really enjoying it and am looking forward to seeing where they take it. I've just got this skin from a loot box I'd gotten from ranking up
Which is pretty cool, certainly one of the better skins in the whole game (seriously they're nearly all a bit shit).
Additionally as some may not have seen on Twitter/RLLMUK.
Charlys operation was successful, we saw the consultant just over a week ago, she's happy with the assesment of the tissue they removed, she said there was 2-3mm of live cancer cells in the tissue but the rest of the cancer had been killed. They took 15 lymph nodes but couldn't find any cancer cells in them so they believe it hasn't spread. She's got to have another MUGA(?) scan on her heart and she's due for pre-assessment at the beginning of March ahead of her radiation treatment. They're continuing with chemo but have to alter the dosage depending on the results of her MUGA (whenever that is)
Let's see how long I last until I download Apex, I don't even have the space for it after redownloading Hitman though. I couldn't be less interested either way, teams in a battle royale game doesn't sound fun to me, but people are loving it so maybe it is.
And after turning my Switch on, really considering what to do about Octopath…
Not really an ongoing Play, but I had a go of Soul Calibur 6 yesterday on a friend's account. It's kind of… exactly the same as the first game, as far as I can see. Most of the characters were familiar and it seemed like fairly unremarkable button-mashing fun. I'm sure it's got some depth to it but there wasn't anything there that made me want to dig into it. Seemed a bit low on content too, with not too many characters and some fairly dull stages, but then after SSBU, TTT2 and SF5 I guess a lot of fighting games are going to seem a bit anaemic. Played it for half an hour then went and did something more interesting.
Soul Calibur's biggest pull IMO is that it's the only weapons based 3D fighter out there as far as I can see, and it's good in a different way to Tekken in that it's easier and fights have a slightly different dynamic tothem because of stuff like ring outs. I don'tthink Namco know how to make an unfun fighting game, I just wish I had a better connection to play it.
Speaking of Namco, Evo Japan 2019 just finished and Tekken 7 showed the gameplay trailer for Negan (yeah, Tekken is getting Negan from The Walking Dead) which included his special attack which has him using Lucille to crush someone's skull. I'm far more excited we're getting Julia (who is now aTwitch streamer using her following to help the rainforest, lol) but Ngan looked okay.
In terms of guest characters now, Tekken 7 alone has:
Tekken 7: Negan (Walking Dead) and Noctis (FFXV) and Geese (King of Fighters) and Akuma (Street Fighter 5) Meanwhile Soul Calibur 6 has 2B from Nier Automata, and Smash Brothers has Ryu and Ken, Cloud, Mega Man, Snake, Bayonetta, Sonic, Simon and Richter Belmont…
Never forget that Soul Calibur 5 literally had Darth Vader.
… or that Soul Calibur II had Link. ACTUAL BLOODY LINK FROM ZELDA.
Oh, and Spawn from the comics, but nobody played as him because Xbox.
EDIT: Oh shit, I think I actually have Soul Calibur II for GameCube in storage, along with my GameCube. That's getting played once I get everything set back up again.
Sure did! And the PS2 version had Heihachi, which seems 'boring' compared to Spawn and Link, but given the fact that Namco also made Tekken, and it was actually really interesting to see a Soul Calibur version of Heihachi, I can't remember if he still had Electric Wind God Fist though.
And the PS2 version had Heihachi, which seems 'boring' compared to Spawn and Link, but given the fact that Namco also made Tekken, and it was actually really interesting to see a Soul Calibur version of Heihachi.
I didn't mention him because since both games were made by Bandai Namco, it wasn't much of a stretch to take a character from one series and put him into another similar one. Having Link in there though, given how protective Nintendo always was about its own IP… bloody hell.
GameMaker 2.0 - I guess this is more of a 'play with' as opposed to playing. I used to tinker with the original version of GM years back and got quite far into making a stupid game about baseball that was actually a reverse bullet hell shooter, but never finished it. Now my license for GM1 appears to have vanished (certainly, my GM account doesn't exist any more according to the website, hey ho) and I have no idea where the raw files for my projects are… possibly backed up on my spare PC. I'll have to have a look. In the meantime though, I'm going to tinker with GM2 and see what I can do since my new job isn't exactly busy at the moment (we have one project, which I could do in my sleep). Plan is to try and make a passable WrestleFest clone. We'll see.
Doesn't someone here work at Yoyo? I can't remember who… I want to say wev or aniki, but I honestly can't remember. Either way, any chance of a free license please?
Is Game Maker a WYSIWYG tool? How simple would it be to make a top down, kind of simple Hotline Miami type affair with Gameboy graphics for someone who hasn't typed code before?
There's a "drag-and-drop" mode where everything's done in a visual editor, as well as the full code ("GML") mode. The official YoYo YouTube account has some tutorials for both approaches. The older tutorial is a bit more in line with a Hotline Miami-type game.
I'm a total code noob, so I always used the DnD tools when I used GM1. They must have worked, because I managed to get pretty far down the road of making something (I had one complete level up and running with full mechanics working properly, which I then populated across 16 different instances via a level select screen - I had plans to alter each one to be different until I just didn't). Trouble was, if I ever ran into a roadblock and took to the forums to see how something could be done, every response was just 'Well, try learning code instead' rather than someone being helpful. Barely a single person on there thought using the DnD tools was the way to go, so I got absolutely no help at all and just got disillusioned with it. Hmm.
I'm going to try learning again using the tutorials, though I'm already eyeing up a beat-em-up asset that someone's created to use as a base for making what I want. If nothing else, it'll be for my own amusement… I'm shit at art, so there's no way I can make the assets I need to do everything properly. But hey, it's something!
Drag and drop is okay for learning concepts, but code is, unfortunately, the way to go if you want to have proper control over things. A lot of the DnD stuff is pretty analogous to how the code works, from what I understand, and I'm pretty sure you can convert from DnD to GML (though maybe not the other way?) as you get more confident.
The problem with the forums (you might have better luck on the subreddit?) is that every single one of them thinks they're going to be the next Toby Fox or Rami Ismail, so they expect everybody to be as tediously ambitious as they are. (It's why they would not shut up about a Switch export even though none of them is ever going to release anything on console.)
Drag and drop is okay for learning concepts, but code is, unfortunately, the way to go if you want to have proper control over things. A lot of the DnD stuff is pretty analogous to how the code works, from what I understand, and I'm pretty sure you can convert from DnD to GML (though maybe not the other way?) as you get more confident.
Yeah, this works. What I found myself doing was using DnD, but having the code window open so I could see what was happening under the hood while I was doing things. Then you could play around with values and other things to see how that had an effect. It didn't teach me code exactly, but it gave me an appreciation of how it all hung together.
Like I said, I'm tinkering. It's all a bit of a pipe dream that's purely for my own fun, I have no aspirations to be like anyone else. Just a bit of fun to prevent boredom setting in while I've got nothing much else to do.
