All the Dust That Falls (Zaifyr, Kindle eBook)



As far as introductions to the LitRPG genre go I guess I could have done worse than a Roomba getting isekaied into an RPG. It's even a decent example of how you world build around what object you've decided to send into the fantasy game. The Roomba, Spot, was mistakenly summoned by the mages at a university that studies demons, and when this new demon they've summoned powers through their chalk wards like nothing and eats their anti-demon powders for breakfast they all get the hell out of Dodge. But the mages keep their demons in suspended animation by drawing patterns on the ground around them with enchanted salt, with more powerful demons requiring more complicated patterns. And they've just brought a being into their world whose purpose is to clear tiny particles off the floor, then left it (almost) alone in the castle. And one of the demons the university is keeping contained is one of the twelve most powerful demons in the world. Oops.

The book switches between the perspective of Spot who's a happy-go-lucky little guy who just wants to keep everything tidy, and Bea, a maid who was left behind when the mages abandoned the university who thinks Spot (or "Void" as she calls him) is some ultra-powerful demon. Ostensibly there's a ticking clock hanging over the story because when that demon lieutenant, Nazareth'gak, wakes up shit is going to hit the fan, but most of it is Spot and Bea being cutesy as they struggle to understand each other. They go down into a dungeon under the castle and explore for a bit, just to establish there's a dungeon under the castle, I guess. Like with Knightmare Arcanist it's the first book in a series so I guess I can cut it some slack as it sets up the world and its rules, but the book is over 600 pages and while Spot and Bea are both adorable enough to keep a decent pace, it just didn't seem like enough happens to justify that page count. Maybe it accounts for extra large font?

Rating:

Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy)



This is another ghost from my childhood, but it goes back even further than Battle Network 2 and Minish Cap and all the way to elementary school. I had a friend with an original Game Boy and this game, borrowed both for a bit, and couldn't get far into it. Looking at Donkey Kong Land as an adult, I have no idea how anybody could tell what the fuck was going on in it on a classic Game Boy. Even on the Game Boy Color I was fighting against screen crunch, confusing graphics, and borked collision boxes, you make the sprites the same color as the background and throw a blurry-ass display on top of it all and you've got an uplayable shitshow. I guess they expected you to use the Super Game Boy but that means you have an SNES, so why not just play Donkey Kong Country?

Candy's Save Points are gone, and instead you have to find all four KONG letters in a stage to save. So if you want to save but couldn't find the KONG letter in the level you just completed, you have to go back to a previous level where you could find the KONG letters and replay it. And hope you can complete the level and save before you run out of lives and lose all your progress. Why not just go all the way back to the very first level of the game and save, you ask? Well, if there's a way to change maps I couldn't find it because Funky's Flights is also gone.

There was one level in the second world I missed, but unless that level contained the magic "fix the collision and physics" switch, I don't think it would significantly change my opinion of the game.

Rating: , would have been if it had gone on much longer