akabur

413 - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Added 2025-12-29 15:06:59 +0000 UTC

WELCOME to another Monday Blog Post! The year 2026 is about to start — are you guys ready? I’m not, to be honest. XD Well, in any case, today is Monday, and you know what that means. Let’s do this thing!

THE SHOP. I added a new item to the shop. The decision to add this particular item was inspired by an AI pic based on a drawing that bro rfm914 shared on my Discord server (the one I used as the cover for this post). I thought it was cute, and it made me want to do more stories with Ginny Weasley in future episodes of SC34. For now, though, I’m just sharing the PSD files of that CG from the game, with all the layers intact. Go check it out. :)

THE PIN. I’ve been staying in touch with MrLazare over the past week. He’s mailed out around 20 pins so far, and there are still some pins left. If you want one, you need to be on a $5 (or higher) tier and contact MrLazare on Discord.

SUMMON NIGHT 3. I decided to give Summon Night 3 a try. It had been sitting on my backlog for a long time, and a few days ago the mood finally struck me. The game has an EASY and a NORMAL mode, but there’s no explanation of whether EASY just makes enemies weaker or if it locks you out of a good ending or something (which is a thing in some JRPGs). So I went to GameFAQs, and most of the posts there were made about 13 years ago… Whenever I see stuff like that, it always makes me feel things. Like I’m reading messages left behind by my predecessors or something. I start to wonder what became of all these guys. Did they start families and live happy lives? Are they still gaming? Are they still fucking alive?

OmegaVideoGameG. One of those threads stood out in particular. It was by a guy who was supposedly working on a translation patch for the game. He had been posting small updates for about four years. Then he made a post saying he’d gotten married, things were going well, and he was close to completing the patch. And that’s it. Two years of silence since then. Did his wife kill him and bury his remains in the backyard? No, seriously — did he actually die? What could have happened? I suppose we’ll never know. Uff… for some reason, when people online just go offline for good like that, it always makes me a bit depressed. It’s like that meme…

THE MEME. This is the one I meant. Memes are supposed to be funny, but every time I see this one (or its variations), it hits me over the head with a metaphorical bag full of existential thoughts…

MOVING ON. I finally took my laptop apart. Properly this time. I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, but quite some time ago one of the cooling fans on my laptop began making noises it was never supposed to make. I opened the laptop up, but soon realized that getting access to the fans wouldn’t be easy, so I closed it again and started wondering if I should maybe get a new laptop — which I really didn’t want to do for a whole bunch of reasons. Well, last week I decided to give it another try, and after watching a couple of teardown videos on YouTube, I was able to do what needed to be done.

MSI GP63 Leopard / GE63 Raider. My laptop is quite old (in laptop years), but it was a beast back in the day and still performs admirably, so I’m glad I’ll be able to extend its lifespan now. I’ve already ordered a replacement, which was surprisingly cheap, by the way ($30). All I need to do now is wait a couple of weeks for it to arrive.

FOR THE TIME BEING, I put it back together — including the faulty fan, which I cleaned thoroughly (though it didn’t reduce the noise in the slightest). I left the back cover unscrewed because it’s a bit of a pain to take off. The screws are easy enough to remove, but it also uses those little plastic clasps that I hate dealing with unless absolutely necessary. Plus, leaving the shell half open like that provides additional ventilation, and half the time the fan doesn’t even turn on unless I do something that demands a lot of resources. ^^

THERMAL PASTE REPLACEMENT. That phrase always sounded so scary to me whenever I heard it. But after doing some research, I realized it’s actually a pretty straightforward process, so I decided to take care of that as well. Since my knowledge on the subject is limited, I decided to play it safe and bought a paste that was on the pricier side. For now, though, I’ve just put it aside. I need to wait for the fans to get here first.

AKABUR SENPAI. Since I have Mia now, I have access to her personal story, and I’m happy to report that apparently even the localizers couldn’t resist her cuteness and decided to give up and let her say “senpai.” Here’s the thing: I play with Japanese dubs (the phrase “Japanese dubs” sounds a bit strange, since Japanese would normally be the original voice-over—but because this is a Chinese game, they are technically Japanese dubs). The characters constantly use Japanese honorifics, but they’re usually translated as Mr. or Miss, or more often just omitted altogether. So for me personally, it was a really nice surprise to hear her address me as “senpai” and then read the same thing in the English translation as well. Good stuff. <3

DID YOU KNOW? In Snowbreak (as of right now), you can marry 6 out of 20+ operatives under your command. And I mean all six of them at once. And it’s not some gimmick — it’s actually part of the main story and gets brought up often during both main and side events. What’s more, for every wedding you get a customized ring that you can equip (or not) on any finger you want. You can equip just one, or as many as you have, and they’ll show up on your character’s hands during cutscenes. I only have one, because weddings cost real money — and also because I only had interest in one of the six girls currently available. ^^

TO OTHER UNRELATED NEWS! I decided to buy an RG35XXSP. Fuck it. It’s New Year’s, and I’m 40+ fucking years old — I can do what I want! And it’s only like $50 on the official Anbernic page (on AliExpress). I know I don’t need it, but I want a Game Boy Advance–dedicated device that looks like a Game Boy SP! I want to put all the The Sims games on it! Also URBZ, Harvest Moon, Sword Craft Story, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, Advance Wars, Comix Zone and that’s it. After that, I’ll probably just let it collect dust. But I still wanted it, and I bought it. End of story! It should be here in a week or so. ^_^

THE WORK. I have some good news to brag about. Last week was super productive for me. I didn’t mention this before, but I’ve actually been having some trouble with the Skatergirl character. I got her visual design right, but I just couldn’t nail down her personality in a way that felt right to me. I even had to rewrite some of her earlier events because her personality was all over the place. But finally, I was able to develop her enough to the point where I’m happy with her. Yay. I know this doesn’t really tell you much, but just take my word for it: Skatergirl will feel alive and exciting to interact with, and her ending routes will feature multiple events and be extremely distinct from one another.

QUICK QUESTION! In the game, there will be multiple A/B choices where your decision adds +1 toward one of a character’s endings. This worked well with Azalea in PT, where certain replies clearly pushed her toward either her public or private ending. For Reporter Trainer, I’m thinking about adding a short notice after each such choice, like: “Your choice pushed Skatergirl one step closer to her Bitter ending.” This would help players understand whether they’re progressing in the direction they want. However, I’m worried this might take away from making choices naturally and only seeing the consequences at the end. So the question is: should I add these notices, or leave things more ambiguous?

AND THAT IS all I have to say for now. Thank you for checking out another one of my Monday Posts! The year is almost over, which means the next Monday Post will be next year! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, cherished bros! Stay around for a few more days — we’ve almost made it through 2025!!!

Laterz.

-Aka-