landofdoom

[landofdoom]

Stardew Valley 1.6 (2024)

Yeah. So. I am very deeply torn: on one hand, I walked into the above-alluded-to event without a single shred of spoilers, and it was an amazing experience. I usually don't care about spoilers for any game, in favor of a Burning Need To Know, and I've never regretted it, but I've managed to avoid virtually everything unless it was teased by ConcernedApe, and finding new things for myself is being a lot of fun.

But.

I also still have the Need To Know. And I'm subscribed to someone on youtube who's made a(n hour long) video that covers everything new in 1.6.

If I watch it, I'll Know. If I don't, I'll keep having more fun surprises, but I'm just now in Year 1 winter of a new farm to experience the new stuff (as recommended by CA,) and I have no idea how long it will take to learn everything. Some of it is supposed to be pretty late-game, to add new things to well-established saves, and shit... do I keep myself in the dark, and hope I notice them? Forever?

I'm leaning toward that now, because I can't just go back to not knowing about something cool that might've been even cooler if I hadn't known it was coming. And on the other hand, there will be bits and pieces I can't avoid finding out, if I ever want to see any SDV videos or fan art ever again. It's a frustrating conundrum, but I guess it'll shake out on its own, in the end.

[landofdoom]

Sometimes, I do think about using twitch to livestream my game sessions. I won't, probably, because there's a lot of work and shit involved, and I already can't remember how to make OBS work. Mostly, I think about it because my mom enjoys watching as I play more than playing, herself, and we can come up with some really dumb/bad/enjoyable-to-us running jokes, but also to just be observed in my natural state of "?????", like Adventures of a Dumbass, or something.

For instance: my Stardew Valley museum collection had been driving me berserk. Under my character's information, my collections of artifacts and minerals WERE COMPLETE... except for the lemon stone. Shit. Back to the bottom of the mines for magma geodes. After cracking open a few, huzzah, lemon stone!

I took it to the museum. I donated it. Nothing happened. Not even a basic reward. Shouldn't... shouldn't something happen, for finding ALL of the specimens? My UI says I did! There is, however, no way in-game to ascertain what is missing. You can't even check it on the perfection tracker in the island coconut room.

Maybe it's the prismatic shard? I only had the one to upgrade my sword at first, but I have a few more on reserve now. I'll just take one of those! I did. Nothing happened.

I go to the wiki. I should get a crystalarium, a stardrop, and an achievement for a complete museum. I know I have not received the latter two yet. I compare a screenshot of a completed museum to a screenshot of mine. The most frustrating Spot The Differences I've ever played begins. I. Cannot. Find. What's. Missing.

Until suddenly, I could. THREE things?! Yes! The number of open spaces on my displays confirms it! AND GUESS WHAT THEY WERE.

A diamond. An emerald. An amethyst. Utter basic bitch minerals. That I had been hoarding back in the early game for gifting and crafting, and just because Minecraft has trained me to hoard diamonds in general, and I just... never went back to donate one later.

I AM IN SUMMER OF YEAR TWELVE.

Anyway, Safay's museum is finished.

[landofdoom]

It's Done!

Three months of work from start to finish! All so I could finally present to the world:

Pocket, Minecraft Edition:

Some standard rambles and fun progress images under the cut :)

So, I started this project in early August, mostly as something I could do during downtime of a then upcoming trip.

I had seen some absolutely amazing art pieces by @royalnaym which kinda gave me the idea that minecraft rendered in pixel art has a pretty interesting while still very recognizable look. At the same time I came across @groupcritpowerdynamics 's speedrun pastel pieces and those really inspired me to try depicting my favourite game in one of my favourite mediums!

In the middle of August 6th, while in the middle of packing for my trip to the UK, I decided I wanted to do this and I wanted to have it to work on during the trip, so I loaded up minecraft and went looking for a screenshot worthy of immortalization. Unfortunately I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for so I made a brand new world and started looking around for the right vibes.

I knew I wanted a lone tree, and that if I ended up including the hot bar I wanted some hearts and food missing, so after running around for a few minutes I decided I would just do it myself and planted a sapling to serve as my centrepiece.

I gotta say I think the resemblance is striking!

And now as promised, the progress gif: mind the slight flashing, I did take these in all manner of different places including but not limited to: a plane, a handful of buses, and a small inn on the shores of England (not in that order).

It's pretty neat to me that you can see how different tones of lighting affect the perceived colour of the thread, I definitely noticed it more on this piece verses other larger stitch projects.

[landofdoom]

So, I needed something to distract me from Good Omens 2 and THAT ending, so started playing Animal Crossing again - that game is great therapy! And then I saw that people had converted thing from Animal Crossing to the Sims, which led to this...

65 clutter items converted from Animal Crossing to The Sims 2! A few of these have been done by other creators, but I wanted less chunky versions. Everything is in Deco -> Misc for 12 simoleons each. Most have recolours.

I would like to point out that the jigsaw puzzle can easily be recoloured with any picture you like - it's like recolouring a painting or poster, just in case anyone wants to make more recolours. :)

Download Here

[landofdoom]

On the left: spring, Year 1. On the right: spring, Year 5.

I want minecraft 1.20's bamboo wood in my first world, but that world pre-dates the change where your world has to be checked as "experimental" at creation in order to access snapshot assets. Predates it by a lot. But, the 1.20 update that is no longer experimental nor a snapshot should be released on June 7th, and I can make bamboo stuff until my eyes fall out.

In the meantime, I've been playing Stardew Valley. I figured from others' videos that it's like a cross of Pokemon, Minecraft, and Sims 2: Seasons, and it kind of is, and I like it rather a lot.

Looking at my own screenshots here, there are clearly more trees now than there were then, but I think there's only one (1) that has never been cut and replanted. Guess I need to put a tapper on it now, to remind myself to keep leaving it alone.

[landofdoom]

This was originally just a recess in the plains/meadows terrain, when I first got to the village right behind me in this shot. But I love me some dang water features, man.

I meant this to be a frog habitat, after fishing up a bucket-of-tadpole, but they all fucked off for the grassy hills (??). They're nearby and all, but rarely come back to the water. Ingrates. But regardless of intentions, it's a very nice view to have while fishing. A wandering trader sold me the dripleafs and a few buckets of tropical fish. Kelp and sugar cane are from a nearby shore. I may or may not have cheated the mangrove propagules.

[landofdoom]

Mistakes were made.

[landofdoom]

Before the vote update, I had just managed to find a trail ruin.

It was nowhere near any civilization, so I ended up dismantling it for parts (if I find one reasonably close to a village, I want to figure out how to live in it.) It yielded A Lot. Must've had upwards of thirty total blocks of suspicious sand and gravel--some of which cannot be seen from below, and if you break their supporting block, they fall and whatever was inside shatters. Top-down is definitely the best way to make sure you get to brush them all, but that does mean ruining the ruins. In the end, I only ended up shattering two, from opting to unearth the whole structure first.

Ladders or scaffolding are must-haves. These things run deep, and it may feel at first like you can just jump your way in and out, but that feeling does not last.

I had assumed from xisumavoid's video that train ruins would always be along river banks, but this is absolutely not so. As you see above, this was smack in the middle of a tundra, no nearby water, and I might not have even come across it, if I hadn't been filling out a map on foot. When you're close enough, you will notice the terracotta sticking out.

[landofdoom]

I'm still playing with the April Fools 'vote update', and I, on single player, voted to randomize what chickens drop, and ONE OF MY CHICKENS POOPS OUT BEACONS.

I never go to the End, and I'm still pissed at the nether for the last time it killed me and took all my good stuff, so please understand how impossible it is for me to get beacons without cheating. I actually don't cheat them, because I cheat lodestones, and don't do mega-builds that would make use of beacons' stat boosts.

I also have a chicken who poops out ender chests, and two that poop out shulker boxes. It has been a wild time.

[landofdoom]

Multiple times today, I have been able to come at a shoreline at an angle, and row my raft up 1-block climbs.

Don't know if this is new to 1.19.4, since there was a pre-release update today, or not, but I don't remember this happening before. If it's on purpose, it's gonna be huge for people who have to transport villagers. You won't need rails and minecarts, if you can step your path up to where you need to go.

[landofdoom]

When cherry groves were first added to experimental worlds a few days ago, I did a /locate biome search, only to be told a cherry grove could not be found "within a reasonable distance". This seemed suspicious, as I've gotten results for biomes or structures a good 6,000+ blocks away before.

In my map-filling escapades this evening, I found TWO naturally-generated groves, on the same dang 4x map as the village base where /locate had said "sucks to be you". (actually, there was a third one visible in the distance, after I took these shots and traveled on further. two were tiny, maybe a dozen total trees, but the first one was pretty huge.)

But, I can't be mad. Just look at them. And I have four stacks of pink petals flowers at my disposal now, just from taking them off of the sloping side of a ravine. What you see here was all left untouched. Also got twelve saplings from one tree, so that was rad, also.

I may cheat, but I do my best to stick with the rule that I can only cheat things that I've honestly encountered (no diamond gear until I mine a diamond, etc.) I couldn't wait for the cherry grove stuff, since the game itself told me I was out of luck, but ha ha to you, game, I can 'officially' cheat them all I want now.

[landofdoom]

I really, really tried to do things "right", to find a cherry grove biome. But the /locate function said it couldn't find one "within a reasonable distance". So, I am a cheaty mccheaterson, and gave myself a dozen cherry saplings, six pink petals, and a stack of bonemeal.

This was not helpful. The trees look lovely, made a great canopy unto themselves, and I didn't want to chop them down. I grew the last sapling off by itself and got the least-ornate variant, so thank goodness, I could harvest that one for parts.

This is what I wanted to do with the leaves, and I'm delighted that it worked out almost exactly as I'd hoped. This house is just a basic plains village model, with the cobblestone swapped out for green bamboo and a stone bricks foundation, the oak logs swapped for cherry, and the formerly cobblestone walls bumped out by one block. The roof is still the original oak "hat", with a round of bamboo slabs around the edge (and a glass block skylight,) minus corners, which were filled in with cherry leaves.

10/10, highly recommend cheating yourself the saplings to get started.

Up on the hill, to the right, is this village's Gumby Shelter, which was also a normal square plains house, with all the cobblestone removed and some stairs on the outside corners added for structure. Once my house proved to be a good idea, covered in blossoms, I did the same for the gumbys' house. There's always two or three up there, now.

[landofdoom]

Something I like doing in every village where I'm going to stay longer than just passing through and looting houses, is build a Gumby Shelter(tm), to give them somewhere to stand out of the rain*. It's often made of pumpkins or haybales, since there are usually so many in/near villages, and you need a jack-o-lantern to craft a gumby deliberately, so it feels kind of fitting. And since the gumbys occasionally hold out a poppy to uncaring villagers, I gather all the poppies in the area and make them a garden. I add nether mushrooms sometimes, if I have any.

I've noticed that gumbys appear to actively like the gardens, and will congregate in an area with the most flowers. If this is on a hill above the village, even better. I'm sure they reason it's for the vantage point, to protect against pillagers better, and it is, but it's equally to do their job without the villagers underfoot and hrrm-ing all the time.

*gumbys don't rust in the elements and do not actually seem to care about rain, but I do, damn it.

[landofdoom]

Utterly love the trees, the thought of another new place for bees to spawn, the potted saplings, and I need the petal carpet blocks SO VERY MUCH.

just fell to my knees.

[landofdoom]

[landofdoom]

eehhhnnnngghhhh it is so hard to get into this 'season' of hermitcraft, man. first, everyone goes missing for weeks/months, like they'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else. and like, burn out happens, but it's half the damned series that comes and goes at once. then there's the king shit, which I did not find amusing from living in the US with fascists wanting to install a dictator-for-life so people like me can be death-camped, while no one with the power to stop it has any interest in doing so. it doesn't sing "comedy gold" to me, friend! then the empires crossover, which... if I wanted to watch empires, I would've already been doing that (I refuse to watch it, honestly, because so many treat Solidarity like shit, and it's not funny. it hurts my heart, tbh, and I can only hope to hell he consented to that 'role'.) but that's over now, and it's back to no-dictator hermitcraft. should be good! only now, every episode is about the in-game trading card game. which took a lot of work to make! and make functional! but I don't play or understand trading card games! I've tried and failed! more than once!

and this last development is purely a 'me' issue, but it still leaves me certain that I'll just watch something else for the next month, or try (and likely fail there also) to use that time for sketching, instead.

[landofdoom]

still filling out maps around the main base in my first world, and am coming across things I totally forgot that I'd built, and other things that I can't believe were just a couple thousand blocks away, and I would never have known about them otherwise.

like a landlocked complete shipwreck in a bamboo forest

(which is a fun satellite base, because the only place open enough for the wandering trader to spawn with his llamas was on top of a ground level jungle tree, surrounded by bamboo, effectively caging the three of them until they despawned. bonus commando chicken, hiding in the grass.)

and a broken nether portal in a lush cave. only other time I've seen portals in caves has been twice when entering from a surface portal, entering again from the nether, and getting spit out into a random deepslate-level cave with no idea how tf to get to the surface.