Full Time Casual

Did some hacking this week and finished building out auto-import of games into the TempusGameIt catalog.  ICYMI, the import works like this: Pull down the latest version of Discord's detectable's file, which contains game executables by platform (Windows, OSX, Linux), and the Steam ID Lookup games in TGI by the Steam ID to see if they have been imported. If we haven't imported them, hit the IGDB API to pull the game metadata by Steam ID.  This gets us the name, description, box art, platforms, and genres Store the IGDB metadata along with the executable information from Discord in the TGI catalog I set this process to run every 24 hours, and it imported close to 5000 titles.  Here's the run from last night, and it included a certain popular title, which made me excited to see the process in action. Starfield is here (even if I'm not in early access)! It's full of stars! This sudden explosion of games in the catalog has led to a much more interesting view on the

At the end of last year during the holidays, I took some time to work on some features over at my personal side project TempusGameIt.com. And those changes sat idle for quite a while deployed out to the development environment.  Over the past week, I buckled down and made sure things looked good, and pushed them live.   Here's what's new!  Game Source Updated Originally I sourced all of the game information from GiantBomb, but I had been eyeing IGDB as a better source of information.  So I made the switch over to linking games to IGDB.  The box art is much more consistent both in presence and dimensions, so we're less likely to have a link return a 404, or to have square or misshapen box art. Another big bonus is the fact that many titles include a link over to their Steam record if present.  This is a big win that I'll talk about in a sec. In light of these changes, I updated the game card to include these links too. Now with external links Discord Detectable Integrati

The weeks continue to be busy with work, school, and after-school activities, as is clearly evidenced by my gameplay. Elder Scrolls Online I spent most of my gaming time in the Elder Scrolls Online , and most of that was wandering around in High Isle's Galen zone with no real purpose other than exploring, doing zone events, and the odd side quest.  It was mindless fun that was an easy way to wrap up the go-go-go IRL day. Along the lines of Eveli re-appearing in Deadlands, ESO does a great job of having you cross paths with characters as the story progresses over the years.  This time I got to see my old buddy Razum-dar and we sussed out a pirate haven dressed in disguise. ESO--for the assorted "offness" of its art style/direction to me--always does an amazing job of setting up beautiful places. World of Warcraft In Azeroth, I spent most of my time replicating what I was doing in ESO--logging in and doing nothing in particular.  If I was around for the top of the hour, I&

Been a busy week again at work with push on to hit some deadlines.  So gaming during the week wasn't too high on the priority list once things were said and done.  I played a lot of things this week on the weekdays, but they were in short bursts testing something for work, so it looks more interesting that it actually was. This weekend though my wife was a bit under the weather, and that ended up translating to some more gaming time.  Here's the breakdown from tempusgameit The Elder Scrolls Online The Zeal of Zenithar event served its purpose and got me to come back to the game and do more than just login for the daily reward.  I've got about half of the expansions halfway complete, and I decided that I'd work in a completely random order and picked Blackwood to finish. I had previously finished the Blackwood portion and left off somewhere in the Deadlands.  Turns out I was maybe halfway through this part of the story, and it was a fun, not too long ride to the end. I h

In the spirit of Blaugust, I'm reflecting on the games that were important to me throughout the years.  One that comes to mind pretty much immediately is Ultima IV. If I could get a print of this to frame and hang I would! I was almost 11 when this was released, and at the time I was completely beholden to whatever software my dad was purchasing.  I don't think I'll ever know what made him pick this up--maybe a favorable review in a Apple magazine at the time?  But at some point the game with the fantastical cover above just showed up at the house. I distinctly remember that we set up our Apple IIc with monochrome monitor in a corner of the basement next to the laundry room door.  Looking back, the monitor itself had a tiny viewport but at the time it seemed amazing.  And so crisp too compared with the Intellivision and TI-994a that were run off our old TV. It ain't easy bein' green I don't recall the details of how or when I decided to start playing, but I do d

Last week was a week!  Kids' first day of school was on Tuesday, and everything was fun but busy until later in the afternoon when the company's founder sent a message that was along the lines of, "hey, there's some weird things going on with that feature you released.  Can you take a look?"  And a bit later in the week one of the product people was asking, "Hey, how are we looking on publicizing that feature next week?" So most everything was tabled last week, including both Blaugust as well as and any kind of real gaming.  I messed around briefly in Elder Scrolls Online doing just enough for the daily Zeal of Zenithar event, but that was the extent of things. The PR for the assorted fixes just went off to review an hour ago, so here's hoping for a more relaxed pace this week.  I'd love to catch up on a little bit of Lord of the Rings Online too, as I'm close to getting the legendary item reward track seagull at level 25. I am happy that eve