This is from my pet account where I haven’t been posting much over the last couple of months due to family reasons. Instead of searching through comments I thought I’d share the message I got yesterday. It cheered me up as we are going through some horrible stuff behind the scenes, but all I ever wanted to do was share realistic ferret ownership and seeing the came across made my day.

run to the artist area and get new artwork and merch to decorate the house with (sort of my actual plan for Saturday)

My most expensive bit of tech was an apple MacBook Pro 16 inch from 2014. It would have been around £2000 maybe a bit more.

I loved that laptop. The screen was amazing and even though it was a big laptop it wasn’t as heavy as my previous Dell.

At the time it brought me so much joy. I could help friends edit videos, store all my photos on it and I carried it everywhere. I learned to code on it, blogged about my sewing and made so many friends and connections in the online world as well as in real life by organising meet ups locally too.

I bought it at a time where I had just gotten my first Senior role and bonus, and started to feel a bit more of an adult. Good times. My next laptop didn’t cost as much though. :D

I’ve been thinking about this for a little while and it’a been so tricky. So here goes:

Die Ärzte - German punk rock band that’s still active and in my opinion always a great headliner. Great songs, crowd interaction and some humour.

Beatsteaks - another great live band from Germany. Always fun to watch, the singer will crowd surf or get someone from the stage to crowd surf on a surf board.

Paramore - energy energy energy. Great fun to watch and they will get the crowd ready for the evening performances.

Billie Eilish - selfish addition - I’ve never seen her play live but I think the music is interesting and different enough to add something to he line up.

Seeed - another German band (you wouldn’t know that I’ve lived 2/3rds of my life in the UK). This would be more hip hop with reggae vibes. Great for the evening but also a sunny day with good vibes.

This is so hard especially as I tried to think about music I know and like and but not just favourites as it could get a bit tiring to just have similar guitar music after guitar music.

Interestingly I also found myself initially not including any female led bands but once I realised I quickly thought of some of my favourites and more interesting artists to watch.

Having worked as a localisation tester I wanted to include something on my favourite translations of the little monsters.

Bulbasaur vs Bulbizarre

Bulbasaur is actually more of a mistranslation of the original. The original Pokémon name has a meaning closer to ”weird or bizarre seed.” Apparently the creators were not too fond of the English name because it places more focus on a dinosaur element rather than the grass type inherent in calling it a seed. The French is therefore a lot closer to the original name.

It has been a few days but I enjoyed actually going to an event again. I used to go to many conferences in the past and I miss the in person stuff. Feeding of the enjoyment and excitement of everyone there was lovely.

Highlights were:

1. seeing the lamb from cult of the lamb

2. The curiosity area - such lovely conversations and some really creative games

3. The university showcase area - the creators there were so inspirational. Creating their own worlds and textures with little to no help. You forget sometimes how people start out and it was so nice to see this.

4. Reconnecting with old friends over games and gameplay

We often see that we can define an indie game based on how it "feels". I do agree that there is often a feeling involved. It is like you can feel the enjoyment and passion of the team behind it. Maybe we imagine this though.

The indie scene or gaming scene in general is very competitive so indie developers need to / want to do things to stand out. As consumers this means we can expect experimental gaming mechanics, interesting story telling and new or different graphics and artwork. This makes it exciting for me.

If I look at the general triple A games, it is often RPG and shooters. This can get boring, so I look to indie games to have something different to keep gaming fresh and interesting. Be it playing as a cat or potato, or just seeing beautiful artwork.

I have also been thinking about this topic in an unrelated way, because I got a steam deck about a month ago and mostly played Stardew Valley on it and got obsessed with all the stories and modding community. Maybe that magical feeling is actually a community feel. A group of people enjoying and chatting about an indie game. It is often more niche and brings together more like minded people than a triple A game might, as the reach of those is so big it is harder to really connect with a smaller group of people. I have also never tried to bond over a triple A game rather than a smaller indie game, so my perception might be wrong.

But yeah the magicalness of indie games for me is a mix of innovation, passion and community.