(🐍Update post) Racing Lagoon, and project updates
First of all, thank you PlumPan for showing me Racing Lagoon and convincing me to play it.
I've finally made it to the end of this amazing game. Like I told Plum privately, what I think of it is simple: It's amazing. It's insane. It's simultaneously the goofiest and the most earnestly serious racing story I've experienced. As a game, it is criminal it never left Japan and it should be considered a war crime that nothing of the sort has ever been made since. Driving Emotion Type-S should have never been; the Playstation 2 needed a Racing Lagoon 2. But it never happened.
And with that ends a months-long obsession. This game is, personally, on the level of Yakuza 0 in how important it is to me. I needed to play this, and not only do I feel like it massively enriched my gaming tastes, but it will absolutely inspire my own projects for a long time. BT-R, in particular, since it's always been a dream of mine to build a game (and write a story) about driving and racing.
Since we're on the subject of my projects, I do need to do the update part of this update post.
It's been a month since Cohost has shut down. I've shed all my tears, and nothing has replaced it yet. I've kept in contact with as many people as I wanted or needed to on Discord, and things have fallen back into the new normal. Wake up, log in, check servers, drop a line every so often.
I've fallen back into getting mired into my own projects. Lately I've been all-in on research for the BT-R TTRPG, but friends and contacts are inspiring me to not forget the rest... So, in no particular order, here's what you can expect from me in the coming months.
- Sapkaer: This is at the top of my list of things to do now that I'm no longer grinding Racing Lagoon. I'll try and get the rest of my Touhou music reviews and my good long-form posts on the site as soon as possible, preferably before the end of the year.
- MazeWorld: I need to return to MazeWorld and resume my update roadmap. Because of my months-long hiatus, we won't hit everything on the roadmap before the end of the year. But I should at the very least run a couple of sessions again, properly test the new job system, and work on the next few planned minor updates. If all goes well, I'll be back to GMing on November 12 as well.
- BT-R TTRPG: Against all odds, I was able to find reliable sources of data for pre-1989 Toyota car specifications, so I was able to get through what I thought would be a roadblock and add every flavor of Sprinter Trueno I could ask for to the roster. Now all I need to do is finish Toyota, and I'll have all the Japanese cars I need. I might take a break after that point; having cars is nice, but I've gone a tad overboard researching JDMs, and I'd like to develop the rest of the game at some point! Maybe I'll toss in a couple of non-Japanese cars last minute, but I really have to get moving.
- BT-R Fic writing: I've been writing on and off and progress has actually been quite good. I have three chapters done and a fourth in progress as of the time of writing. Once I finish the current story beat, I'll start publishing on AO3 and showing it around at long last. I also have commissions for artwork of what will be the two main characters; once I get that I will obviously be excited to share my blorbos around.
- Gaming: Once I give myself a few days, the next game I want to tackle is probably going to be Ace Combat 7. This one is for the one who gifted it to me - you know who you are. After AC7, or perhaps simultaneously, I might try something else... thinking about a change of pace with Crash 4, or maybe I'll finally start Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. We'll see. I am trying to take it easy.
2024's almost over and it still feels like there is no end to the list of things I need to do. But bit by bit... I will complete my projects.
MazeWorld, in particular, needs to go back to priority one, if for no other reason than this game needs its wings and must continue being played without my intervention. And for that it needs to at least be finished.
It's not that I want to stop working on it... Hell, my damned probably-ADHD brain wants nothing more than endless projects. But MzW needs to hit the end of the roadmap because I want this game to be played more than worked on, now.
Ah well. Until next time.