Preemptive Retaliation

I woke up on my birthday absolutely shattered with a sore head and sore knees, and sudden unsavoury opinions on immigrants. I guess this is being thirty, yo.

To my shame I didn’t complete my novel in time for my thirtieth birthday. My writing discipline was thrown entirely when I opened my Nintendo Switch on Christmas morning. My usual nightly typing was replaced by nightly videogaming, and then when I found I had the opportunity to write I instead slept or messed about and generally didn’t even give a wayward glance in the direction of my novel. I was so close to the end as well! I only had four or so more scenes to write before I had what I could consider to be a completed draft. And then it got interrupted. By videogames. Story of my life.

Saying that, these videogames are pretty sweet. Christmas night was spent passing the controller back and forth between my brother and I as we went through the single player mode in Smash Brothers Ultimate. We stayed up far too late having far too much fun. It was like being a kid again (except with more alcohol). Since then I’ve been picking it up for stretches lasting form fifteen minutes to a few hours. It’s an addictive loop.

I’ve also been filling the Switch with a few indie games. Hollow Knight is on there, since I’ve been looking for an excuse to play it again. Dead Cells is on my list since all my Switch friends keep going on about it. I’ve spent a lot of time on Celeste though, which is the first game in a while that has given me a sore on my thumb from pressing buttons. I had heard good things about it, but held off for so long since I wanted to play it on the Switch. It is such a good game.

It’s a platformer first and foremost, though I started seeing it as a dexterity puzzle in the end. Madeline, the protagonist, can jump, climb and dash in midair. Using these skills you need to guide her up a mountain that’s filled with perils and traps and magic. Along the way there are these floating strawberries that act as challenges for you – some extra problem solving or skill is needed to achieve them. They are numerous and sometimes tantalising, but completely optional. At first I approached it with my Hollow Knight feeling of that I needed to get everything and try everything, and within the first few hours I felt myself getting burned out on the game. I spent ages backtracking looking for these floating strawberries and finding secrets, and when I stumbled across an even secreter secret I would scour every screen for the hopes of finding another one.

The game is tough already (hundreds of deaths in every level for me) and before I finished the main missions I had a shot a one of the b-sides; a new mission with the same mechanics of the level you were on, but infinitely trickier. To date I have only completed one of these b-sides, and that was out of pure spite more than anything. Whenever I figured out one particularly tricky puzzle – how to get Madeline from one side of the room to another – I was met frustration at not being quick enough to pull it off. And then the deaths stacked on top of each other and at times I was close to throwing the controller across the room. Then, after so many, many tries, I would succeed! My plan would go off without a hitch and I would finish the room… only to be met with another one.

It was masochistic and cruel and punishing but it was incredibly rewarding to just pull off the series of button pushed perfectly and finish the room. I haven’t done any of the other ones, because I don’t hate myself, but I’m thinking about them. I’d like to. I don’t want to burn myself out on the game, and I’m anxious to start the others that I have on my system… but it’s such a great game. Definitely a highlight to start the year on.

My brother also got me Zelda; Breath of the Wild for Christmas, which I did play to death when I got it in 2017, but I was still excited. I downloaded the special hardmode, turned off the maps and indicators and… promptly got wiped out in my first battle. I think I’ve waited long enough to forget some of its surprises, to get lost in the world again, and maybe the added difficulty will keep me on track.