Petit Planet: Coziness Test thoughts!

12 / 1 / 25

You may recall my post expressing excitement when the game was first announced. I was lucky enough to get into the Coziness test and I’ve had multiple people ask about my thoughts so I figured I’d just write up a post! The Petit Planet Coziness test officially ended November 30th, so it feels like a good time to finally get this up.

A short version is that I think if you like Animal Crossing, this takes a lot of the things that made Animal Crossing fun and manages to make them a lot more relaxing to the point where even the crafting didn’t kill me like most games. The biggest issue, however, is that for some reason, the game features AI through two NPCs (one help bot and one in the multiplayer area) that while you can ignore them entirely like I did, I am really disappointed by its inclusion, and I am hoping these things will be changed/removed by the proper release. There is so much I genuinely really enjoyed, but I do not want to support the use of AI.

With that out of the way, I do want to talk about the things I am enjoying about the game (and some things that are a bit more frustrating or feel odd) which also just highlights how incredibly unnecessary any AI use is needed in the game. Literally, if they took the game as it currently is, removed the AI features, and put it up for sale, I would buy it immediately. I already found the game so enjoyable and fun right off the bat and it’s still in its Alpha stages.

You can definitely see parts that are less developed in the sense that there are only a small selection of characters who can move to your town, the relatively small shop, and only a couple of those characters have special quests to unlock more of their friendship levels, but none of that really took away from me just genuinely enjoying the game. There also was definitely more needed for character customizing– I know I wanted more pink dresses, better ponytails, and I kind of wish we could change our height because our character feels way too big next to some items.

I would say the thing I had the biggest issue with is that currency earning felt very unbalanced. Most things don’t sell for much and so you really had to be constantly grinding to make enough Dough for items. While things do come back pretty often, it still felt like a lot right off the bat that so many items could be 500-2K when most things sell for like 20-30 at most. One thing I really wanted was a pink car skin, but it was 5,000 Dough. I also hit a point pretty quickly where my shop had a daily store item that would cost 2,000 alongside a Dino Onesie that was 15,000. Even if I put in more time than I did (and I do truly think it’s a game I could put in that 10-15 hours’ time like I did with Animal Crossing) as I tried to keep it at 2-3 hours a day due to knowing things would be wiped, I could see it getting really frustrating to spend so much time and barely manage to get some of the things I wanted even though the game does run on real time.

While Dough was the main “normal” currency, there was also Loomi which the best way I can think of describing it is like the Nook Miles of the game. You earn it through tasks/achievements you can complete and while you do eventually unlock some Daily Loomi tasks as well (which is important as you will eventually run out of the other tasks as they’re one and done), there is a cap on how many you can complete each day which kind of ruins the point.

A lot of items that cost Loomi are also on the more expensive side and while there was a point where I felt I had a good rhythm to having enough each day, that did quickly end when I just was running out of one-and-done tasks. Similarly, several items in the shop would go up in price each time you bought them such as the Battery needed for Starsea Voyages (Essentially the games’ version of Nook Mile Islands) and a specific clothing blindbox. I already dislike blindboxes so it going up in price each time was super frustrating, but at least it was another in-game currency.

The last type of sort-of currency were the little puffballs that you earned while just doing things. They are entirely used to level-up Villagers essentially. For the most part, these were actually pretty simple to earn– the only ones that I had a horrible time earning were the Water ones as no matter how much I fished, it seemed I rarely actually got any. All the others were fine though.

You might be thinking “But what about monetization/gacha”? There actually wasn’t any during the Coziness Test/Alpha so I have no clue what could end up being. I’ve seen people thinking Residents which I personally hope not as there are various things unlocked through Residents and customization is such a big deal.

That said, my personal thought was maybe “Luca Fruits”, which are what customize your planet. They are earned both through general gameplay and villagers, but while I hope it won’t actually be the case, it’s something I wouldn’t be surprised if there were premium shop ones.

While I’m not super attached to the purple grass (Pink grass when?), I do love the Sunset Cliffs a lot which is a Luca Fruit I received from one of the residents.

Of course, maybe they will do something entirely different like expansion packs or something. My personal take though is I’d love if they considered making the game a one-time purchase thing instead.

Moving onto the gameplay stuff, you may be wondering how this game managed to be even more relaxing to me and those are essentially a combination of two things:
-No inventory limit
-Most things don’t run away and disappear

The lack of any kind of inventory limit and easy tool switching made it really easy to just do everything I wanted to without going back and forth. That said, you did need to eat fruit or meals you can make to keep your energy up for most tools which could get tiring pretty fast. One of the nice things with the Starsea Voyages is you can go with up to two of your Residents who would essentially help gather things for you which made it a lot more fun. I’d love if this is something they could do on your planet as well if you became good enough friends with then.

When you first do Starsea Voyages, your battery runs out very fast, but it did feel like I was able to upgrade at a decent pace at least which is nice as I really enjoyed doing them. They often had puzzle elements which I found really fun.

As for the second point, you can run all you like with fish, and they won’t run away. You have to actually land your bobber on the fish rather than worrying about being close enough and possibly scaring them– there is no fear of that here. Bugs may start flying, but you can chase after them and catch them. Break your line while fishing? It’s okay, you can try again. This is something I got so used to being something I really had to be careful and stress over and it’s the first time I’ve ever found it relaxing and forgiving.

The ONLY things that really require any kind of more stealth-patience are some of the Sea Creatures like Crabs and Lobsters to the point where it’s almost odd as everything else is so lax. Despite that, I still had a lot of fun getting different ones. The only thing that was frustrating sometimes was when two were next to each other and catching one meant I left “stealth” mode so the other would run away immediately after. Some you could chase and catch, but many would just dig into the sand be gone.

Anyway, I just really hope they reconsider certain things and I’m looking forward to seeing how the game further develops if so.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting an update?!

10 / 31 / 2510 / 31 / 25

So, despite my general concerns for the future of Animal Crossing and complicated feelings on New Horizons especially, the series is still very near and dear to my heart… So, imagine my surprise when Nintendo just drops this:

Let alone that apparently the Upgrade Pack is just $5.

In addition to graphic updates, expanded multiplayer up to 12 players, and using other Nintendo Switch 2 features (such as mouse controls for decorating and designing and the camera), there is just… so many additional things being added as part of a 3.0 update such as:

The Megaphone is back! I always really enjoyed this because finding people can be so tricky so I’m genuinely happy to see it back.
Kapp’n’s family returns with a new hotel on the pier! We get to decorate the rooms and it kind of reminds me of Happy Home Designer even more than the DLC Expansion, especially as it feels like it’ll suggest more things. It seems some older furniture may be returning as well and we’ll even get tickets for various new items from working at the hotel.
Tourists will even wander your island which I think is really neat! I’m excited to make cute outfits for them to wear. Like with Happy Home Paradise, you can use Amiibo to invite characters as well and it seems there is a whole thing with making your island more appealing by crafting requested furniture which also showcased a much-wanted feature: We can FINALLY craft multiple items at once.
We also will finally be getting a storage upgrade in addition to being able to store Trees, Bushes, Flowers, and other foliage which ties into Resetti’s new job which cleans out areas around your island (or even the entire thing) which I think is a nice feature for people who like to change their island up a lot. It’s not really something I’d make use of, but I’m happy for those who it will work for.
As for something I may end up using… Luna’s New Dream World essentially introduces an entire second island (and third and fourth since you can have up to three) for you to decorate without all the buildings on your main island. This is actually super tempting for me to make my full water-pink-themed palace that was tempting, but just not really possible with the restraints on the main island. I don’t know if I’ll make use of all three slots, but I am kind of excited for one. We can apparently set time and weather so I kind of hope we’ll also be able to choose season as well…
It’s really cute that you can terraform and stuff with your friends as well.
We also have various collaboration items being added such as all the Nintendo systems and other neat Nintendo trinkets and FINALLY we can play the systems to play games again like in the original Animal Crossing. Unfortunately, it does require a Nintendo Online Membership because paying for the game isn’t enough, I guess, so that is certainly something that differs from the original game.
In addition to the Nintendo items, we have a whole new LEGO series (with a pink coloration as well!), Zelda items returning with a bunch from Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, and Splatoon items as well alongside new villagers for the latter with Villagers based off Tulin, Mineru, Shiver, and Frye. I’m so excited for the little Seasnails… Definitely want to decorate with a bunch of them. I also love the pink fairy in a bottle.

Everything releases January 15th, 2026 and while the graphic update and additional controls are just for Nintendo Switch 2, the 3.0 update is for both Switch 1 and Switch 2 owners. I’m really excited for it. I should try and get through more Happy Home Paradise before it’s here…

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Return to Beast’s Castle Update

10 / 12 / 25

As always, I technically write the first part of these posts a bit earlier to talk about the patch notes that were just released and what I’ve been up to since my last post. If you want to jump straight to my playthrough thoughts from the update, you can click here.

Being a Beauty and the Beast fan, I’m definitely excited for more characters even if I have mixed feelings on another Magical Bundle. I do wonder if we will eventually get some kind of quest for their appearances like with Ariel (and I suppose Ursula as well, but I would hope they wouldn’t do another paid one). I wonder if their quests will work similar to how Joy’s and Sadness’ worked.

I love collecting the companions, but I still wish their premium shop price was lower. The seasonal Moonstone packs are also back which I still really dislike, honestly, but it does seem to be a permanent thing now :(

That said, this is easily the most exciting part of the update for me:

Also, starting on October 22nd, a portal to The Haunted Floating Festival will appear in your Valley! You’ll have until November 11th to explore and solve all the puzzles hidden on this magically haunted floating island full of surprises. Different puzzles will unlock over time, and after solving each puzzle, you’ll get an exclusive reward!

FINALLY. Giving events their own place. I wish they weren’t doing the slowly have more things to do as it goes though. Especially for seasonal events, people can be busy in real life for their own things around that time– making it so people need to keep checking in rather than being able to knock it out on their own schedule stinks.

Not to mention, despite literally giving us a Halloween area, the “Trick or Treat” part of the event will still be spawning in our valleys… and I really don’t understand why they couldn’t fully move it to the new Halloween area instead.

I’m a bit nervous about how expensive the Dream Castle Skins will be, but I like them in theory. I hope they maybe give us some free ones. I won’t be using the Halloween one myself (not my style), but I’d love a pretty pink one.

Expansion Update: For Storybook Vale Expansion Owners, the Teal Baby Dragon and Black Pegasus are both available to collect.

Very excited to be able to get these as well. I wonder if they’ll just be like the other Dragons and Pegasi or if there will be some special way to unlock it. I guess we’ll see soon enough.

Of course, we do have a couple of things to bring up since our last update– more Premium Shop Pets and the Inside Out event finally started which let us finish the new memory for a new pet as well.

The update released so here we go! This is unfortunately a bit late as I’ve been really under the weather recently while dealing with some health-related things so thank you for your patience! I did get both parts up on my Youtube pretty quick at least and still did my best to update the DDLV guides. That said, it took me a bit longer than I’d like to realize there were additional daily quests again with the bundle…

As soon as we got on, we had a letter in our mailbox essentially inviting us to go back to the castle where spooky things were happening.

Of course, I did take a quick look at the Star Path first. It’s not really my preferred theming, but I still made sure to get the new pet right away. I would say the main frustration is that there are even more walled off extra objectives this time :/

Getting back to the main point of the update, the castle is essentially covered in spiderwebs and dust with flickering lights. Regardless, we see Lumiere right away who thinks it’s a ghost. As we clean up, some mysterious things show up. We then end up heading to the Garden where Cogsworth is and unlike Lumiere, he feels there is a more scientific explanation for all this.

The plot essentially has us cleaning things up and restoring the castle while gathering up these book pages. That said, there was never really an explanation for the Rainbow Roses…

In the end, it’s discovered that the chaos is coming from an invitation you gave Lumiere and Cogsworth to hold onto because our childhood is incredibly depressing. To cheer us up, they try to host a masquerade just for us.

As per usual with realms, there is also a little bonus thing where if you clean all the dusty furniture, you get pieces of a painting that you can put together at the Fireplace for a reward.

Regardless, with everything now taken care of, and after taking care of a few other things, Lumiere and Cogsworth finally made it into the valley.

Lumiere’s questline involved trying to figure out some mystery happenings in the Valley which ended up being a pair of Critters from the Here and There reunite.

While Cogsworth’s was generally trying to make the Valley a more cohesive place ending with a Mayoral Election. I ended up voting for Jasmine, but I think he’d make a good assistant to her.

It was then onto the new Dream Bundle quests where I just… genuinely really loved the items from it. That said, I’m definitely getting tired of a lot of the purchase packs… The game costs money, you have expansions, the Premium Shop just doesn’t have a good reason to still be here :/

I really want to figure out a nicer place for all this.

At the very least, there were a lot of new items just from general gameplay as well that I really loved implementing into my House.

I had essentially thought I was done, just popping on for new shop things while I waited for the Halloween event to start…

But it turns out there was actually another line of daily quests like the Ursula one had. Unlike those though, these had barely anything to do with Belle and the Beast and were more character’s reaction to it all.

Mirabel wanted to make a community-inspired item, Daisy needed help with her creative process, Kristoff wanted to re-create a quiet hangout moment with the Beast (they walked around and fed the Critters), and Jack Skellington wanted to make a familiar spooky accessory which I honestly hated having to wear.

Mirabel’s quest reward was probably my favorite. I had a lot of fun implementing it as I did more decorating.

Finally, our recent Dreamsnap updates to finish this off!

And with that, this long-awaited post is finally set. I don’t know if I’m going to write about my thoughts during the Showcase on the 15th, but if I do, I’ll probably do some mix of that and the Halloween update… Or just possibly add onto this.

Let’s talk about Petit Planet!

9 / 25 / 25

It feels like it’s been a long time since there has been a game trailer or some kind of announcement that made me really want to talk about it beyond just “This looks neat” or “I’m looking forward to it”. That isn’t to say that I’m less excited for games I may be a bit more to the point about, but that sometimes a game hits a specific spot, and I just need to yell about it a lot and this very much did right from the trailer.

If you haven’t watched the trailer yet, you can check it out below:

Otherwise, let’s get to the rambling.

Petit Planet is a newly announced game from HoYoverse/MiHoYo (The creators behind the Honkai series (Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai Star Rail, and the upcoming Honkai: Nexus Anima which I am also pretty excited about as I love the creature designs), Genshin Impact, Tears of Themis, and Zenless Zone Zero). It will be following the usual free to play model which does worry me a bit with this type of game, but I’ll get to my concerns with that later.

Unlike all their other games that use various different battle mechanics (Yes, even Tears of Themis with its card battling lawyer debates), this seems to be their first step into the Cozy Simulation genre. To be blunt, there are so many cozy simulation games I can think of coming out. Many I liked to some extent, others not really as much for me, and all trying to give maybe their own type of spin or just do something better.

An issue I often have with many of them though, which even New Horizons felt guilty of at points, is they felt like a giant collection of “things that could be deemed cozy” rather than really finding a place. Here’s crafting, cooking, farming, and also all those things you like in Animal Crossing which the fun simple nature of it quickly becoming overrun by the grind you’d find more typical in a farming and/or crafting game.

That isn’t to say this game necessarily seems free of that– we very clearly see some kind of farming in the trailer, but we also see a point where the Neighbors are mostly taking care of it instead.

The main thing though is of all the games I have seen that are trying to give off that same kind of charm, this is the first trailer I’ve seen for one of those types of games that actually did give me the same feeling Animal Crossing did.

You essentially have your own planet that you build on and decorate. The Neighbors feel so dynamic. The characters look really cute. There seems to be some tree you build up that also enhances the look of the town. You sail through space in a car to other planets to seemingly find other Neighbors and visit friends. You can give gifts. There are cute minigames to play together. Maybe there is still a bit of farming and crafting, but the actual simulation and decorating part feels like the main focus more so than anything else.

I love the art style and graphics. I love what looks like a museum and cafe… It just genuinely looks adorable.

My favorite Neighbors are probably these two: A pink bunny whose name I’m not quite sure what it is and according to the website, Medowlyn the Sheep who is a Plushie Designer.

Frostia also looks really cute and gives me Celeste-vibes.

One of the things the website mentions is that you can “Decorate the sky, coast & land as you wish” which makes me feel like we may be able to change even the backdrops which is something I hoped Animal Crossing would do in a main game after Pocket Camp, but alas.

Of course, with this being a free to play game, there are concerns on what the monetization system will be. Customization is a HUGE part of these types of games and exactly how much gets monetized can really make or break things. It’s possible they could do a Premium Shop similar to Disney Dreamlight Valley where some items can be bought while others can be earned in-game but considering they usually have some kind of gachapon element, I don’t know if that will happen (though, I think it’d be my preference).

As for gachapon, I think if there had to be something, I’d probably prefer it be certain Neighbors. In most of their games, characters are the gachapon element, but you can also get some characters for free as well through events and the story. I think this would be the main option that doesn’t make you feel like you have to get something, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, unfortunately, certain customization options are what get thrown into the gachapon machine. Regardless, I’ll wait to see how it all works before making any judgements. They just started pre-registration and beta sign-ups and hopefully they will be open to a lot of feedback as these are types of games people are very passionate about and the best way to encourage that fanbase is to let them be able to use their creativity to the fullest.

Finally, there are also these little Puffballs and I have no idea what they do or what their deal is, but this one is my favorite:

Anyway, I’m really excited to see more from the game and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be as enjoyable as it feels.

In which I talk about my latest hyper-fixation: Clickeez !

8 / 31 / 258 / 31 / 25

As someone who enjoys various fidget toys, these immediately caught my eye when I first saw footage from Sweet Suite. While I had no luck at stores initially, I did decide to grab some on Amazon as I was really excited to check them out and they did not disappoint.

If you’ve never heard of Clickeez, to give a quick summary of what they are, they are a keycap fidget with various cute designs by Goliath Games and were designed by Navinity Art (Who also designed Secret Findees Magic Mailbox which I absolutely adore and need Zoee and Hailee– if I ever manage to find those purple mailboxes, I really want to do a video about them in the future). There is a total of 71 different designs– 49 “Common” Designs split among four different themes (Strawberry Treats, Cozy Garden, Kawaii Dreams, and Celestial Sky– each has 12 designs with Celestial Sky having a bonus design for a total of 13), 12 Epic/Rare* designs (three per theme), Four Legendary/Ultra Rare designs (one per theme), and finally, one Limited Edition Chase (because I guess there wasn’t enough rarity labels) which is limited to 5,000 (Though, I’ve seen some places list 3,000?).

*Epic designs are in the Epic category but also feature the “Rare” tag. Legendary does this as well with having the Legendary category and the Ultra Rare tag. I’ll be sticking to Epic and Legendary for the rest of the article if only because the Legendary ones literally have “LEGEND” in their names.

If you’ve seen any kind of Keycap fidgets before, you probably have an idea how they work already, but they can essentially be stationery, attached to a keychain (which is included in most of the products), and/or even connected to each other (which I’ll show further down). You can also switch their base to a different base if you prefer the base color of one of the other designs/themes. They also have various peripherals they can be put in as well and depending on your keyboard, they can even replace one of your keys if you want! That said, they do not work with every keyboard so that may not be an option for you.

I decided to get the Keyboard Mega Pack and a five-pack to start. The keyboard had a handful of exclusives I really liked, and the five-pack seemed like a good deal (The two-packs are two for 5 while the five-packs are five for 10) to start off with. As for why I decided to go for the keyboard first instead of the controller, it was generally as I really liked the aesthetic, all the exclusives are great, and I think it’s a really cute way to display them. That said, the biggest reason was that it is essentially advertised as the “Starter Pack” as in addition to the five exclusives, you get ten other Clickeez– 5 which you can see (if you found them in store anyway), one of which is a guaranteed Epic, and a second set of five that are hidden. Despite there being a tall mystery box alongside the 4 squares, you are not guaranteed for one of the mystery ones to be Epic– it could still just be a common (And if it was supposed to be guaranteed, then I’m just unlucky I guess as I didn’t get one).

Being able to see some though is why it’s honestly pretty worth it to try and find them in stores. While I managed to get lucky with the four regular keys shown, the one Epic design I got was one of the few I didn’t really care for, though, it has grown on me a bit (I really like the eyes). Still, as I usually do with blindbox stuff, I would have loved to get one of the higher priority ones for me (And in general, 75% of the Epic ones are ones I really like). Unfortunately, the Keyboard won’t be showing up in any of the physical stores around here and well, there isn’t much of a reason to get a second one anyway.

Probably one of the neatest things with the Keyboard itself is that there is actually a spot for nearly every single Clickeez keycap. The various face designs are put in a spot so you can see where they go, though, obviously you can put them wherever you want.

The close-ups were taken before the full board picture, so I had gotten a few more to put in! Despite that, not all of the Clickeez I own are in the keyboard for reasons I’ll get to later.

The only one to not have a designated space is @The_Lucky_Bunny which is the ~~super ultra rare epic legendary chase~~ Limited Edition one. The design itself is closest to Ladybunny so I guess you could technically choose between the two to place in that spot, but like I said, while there are designated spots, nobody is stopping you from placing them wherever you want or even filling the keyboard up entirely with your favorite design.

Some issues I have with the keyboard though are:

The rest of the keyboard is just a plastic mold so none of the non-Clickeez keys work. They are just… plastic which feels like a missed opportunity to give more fidget aspects to the keyboard, especially with how big it is, even when people may not have tons of Clickeez yet.
The Clickeez don’t actually snap into any of the spots on the keyboard so they can easily just fall off it.

The second issue especially bothers me as more than once I’ve had some fall over or out just while trying to move it and it feels really insecure for something where half the point is a display stand.

Regardless, next was my Five Pack. Unluckily for me, 2/3 of the visible ones ended up being ones I had gotten from the Keyboard. Again, this is where it’d be really nice to actually find them in stores instead of buying online :( Despite my lack of luck, I still really liked them and figured maybe I could trade my extras or something in the future.

Anyway, still overall being pretty happy, I couldn’t help but get the controller next which was really tempting me (as someone who loves video games) and has a color palette I adore.

The Controller comes with four visible Clickeez (another advantage if you can actually find them in stores) and one hidden one. It also comes with three panels (pink, purple, and blue) you can put in the Clickeez spots– as you may have noticed, we already took out the purple one to put another Clickeez in. All the ones we have in the controller are duplicates I’ve gotten.

In addition to being able to tap the Clickeez, there are also shoulder buttons, a little gear you can spin at the top, and a moveable joystick (though, I do wish it wasn’t so stiff) which really makes the rest of the keyboard just being a plastic mold stand out.

At this point, I had gotten the other accessories, and I was already really loving these, so I was like, why not get the cube? If nothing else, I’m sure my husband would love it. The Fidget Cube comes with three visible Clickeez (Yet another perk if you find them in stores) and one hidden one along with some logo keys, a strap, and three different charms: A Strawberry, a Purple Star, and a cute blue holder where you can display a Clickeez keycap (The Clickeez will not be clickable in it– it’s literally just a display holder for showing off).

Much to my surprise, this was actually my favorite. I love fidgeting with it, it fits perfectly in my hands, and I love to just spin it around slowing tapping away at each Clickeez.

And because of that, I cannot say enough how much it absolutely breaks my heart that the Fidget Cube does not come with any bases for the Clickeez. If you want to display them in your Keyboard, you either need to borrow a base from another Clickeez or they will literally just sit there un-clickable. This also means if you want to switch them out, they will have to be switched onto another Clickeez’s base. I don’t mind that just the keycaps go onto the cube unlike how they go onto the controller or keyboard– I just really wish alongside the hidden one they would have included the bases. Even the hidden one, which isn’t even attached to the cube, does not come with a base.

I hope maybe this is something that can change in the future or maybe they can sell some extra bases or something because I’d love to have enough bases for all of them.

Anyway, after multiple fruitless store attempts, I FINALLY FOUND SOME IN STORES!! I do not want to talk about how long I spent going through every single one they had to narrow down to some of my favorites. While there were only two-packs for sale (and they are likely all I will find in stores around here unfortunately), that did not lessen my excitement. At the very least, I could guarantee getting at least one I really wanted.

And thus, it was time to open them… For the most part, we did pretty well. I was able to get mostly new ones including many on my want list.

You may be wondering why I didn’t do an unboxing and the answer is simply I was too excited about finding them in stores to wait. I’d like to do an unboxing in the future though.

My family ended up surprising me with two more two-packs so…

We did end up getting another duplicate (which my mother claimed), but overall, I think it was pretty successful, and the seven two-packs ended up knocking off a lot of my want list. At this point, we have 36/71 Clickeez so literally half. I don’t think I’m going to try to get them all, but I hope to at least get all my most favorites.

Before I finish this off though, I do have one very specific question: What is with kawaii_LEGEND’s color? The checklist and keyboard give it this beautiful pink-tealish blue gradient which I absolutely love. But for some reason, the stock photos show it as a very dark teal-green and that makes me really sad as I love the colors so much. I hope it’s just an issue with the early versions maybe and ones you can actually find in store will be the proper colors because I feel like if they’re not, I’ll be absolutely devastated in more ways than one.

Anyway, it wouldn’t really be right for me to talk about all this fidget stuff and something called Clickeez without actually sharing how they sound so here is a quick little video of the cube, controller, and just one by itself (since that’s how they go into the keyboard anyway)!:

And if you happen to have any of the Clickeez I’ve been looking for, let me know!!

Disney Dreamlight Valley – Emotional Rescue Update

8 / 24 / 258 / 24 / 25

As per usual, we’ll start with talking about the patch notes that released on Monday!

I’ve never actually seen Inside Out so I don’t really know tons of the details with the movies. Regardless, I’m always excited for new Realms so.

A lot of what was mentioned was already covered in the Developer Update which I didn’t end up talking about. The main reason was I figured it was best to wait for the patch notes anyway as it was on the short side, but most of what was shown that I would have had more to say on are things I’ve mentioned previously and am still disappointed about such as actual characters being forced into the Premium Shop as companions (Lucky being the newest to join this -_-) and my usual frustration with the Star Path (this theme looks cute, I just do not enjoy season passes– similarly, do not like the whole seasonal Moonstone bundles still being a thing either).

I am excited for the upcoming Floating Islands, but only to an extent as you still can’t make one an official home for your character which as my Valley continues to be destroyed by item spawns and events, I really wish we could.

The Memory Mania Mini-Event will also be returning, but not for nearly a month and once again, items will be spawning all over your valley and I just… I’m not surprised, but I’m still disappointed every single time.

I’m definitely intrigued by the changes they are doing to the Star Path, but it does sound like duties will be walled off to some extent which is terrible as someone who does not have a standard schedule. I can play much more some weeks than others. At least nobody will miss out if they join late, but this just feels like an awful thing to do, especially considering it’s something people pay for.

I’m excited about being able to have multiple companions on, though, I’m still working on leveling up a lot of them… I am curious how assigning companions works in the sense that if you do assign them, can you still wear them at the same time or is it one or the other?

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don’t really like the motifs for Dreamsnaps, but I’ve never been one for the putting stickers on photos type of person in the first place.

The Teal Baby Dragon and Black Pegasus will both be available to collect for the Storybook Vale expansion owners in our next update, after Emotional Rescue.

So, we still need to wait one more update, but at least we know they’re coming soon.

As a final thing, the full Pirate frame code was finally fully shared. I don’t know how often I’ll use the frame (I feel like I constantly forget there is an option to), but it’s nice.

And one last note, the community companion voting ended with Design 1 winning:

It is the design I voted for, unsurprisingly, but I really do hope we see both of the other designs in the future somehow.

I would say my only disappointment is I don’t really care how the Dragon model looks so I really wish they had done some changes to its head shape like some of the Foxes and Squirrels we’ve gotten.

The update is now out, so let’s talk more about it! I had initially planned to post this on Wednesday, but due to some issues (I’ll talk more about it further in), I was holding off for a bit…

As always, my first stop was to the Premium Shop. I unlocked the full Star Path and immediately got the new Companion and Lucky.

It was then onto the Inside Out Realm which we needed to take care of a couple of tasks before we could actually enter.

Once inside, we helped Joy fix the console where I also found various other items that had nothing to do with that and then it was onto us to get equipped before heading to the next area to find Sadness. I always appreciate when it realizes we took the appropriate actions already.

With that, it was time to place the remote headquarters and then reassure Sadness as we finished some extra tasks to get them both in the valley. I had a lot of fun with the puzzles in the realm.

As for those extra items I picked up, it made it so we could craft this very cute plushie of Bing Bong.

Since Joy entered the Valley first, I figured I’d start with getting her to level 10 and doing her quests. First up was a game of Capture the ~~Flag~~ Sun which we managed to win (I’m assuming we have to win but I do wonder if you stood around long enough if someone else could) which took a dark turn when our prize ended up being a severed teddy bear head which is pretty terrifying honestly.

Joy did end up mailing us the proper prize later.

However, rather than doing Joy’s next quest, it was actually locked until we progressed with Sadness and this is essentially how their quests would go the rest of the time where each time you completed one, you would have to do the next quest for the other. Regardless, this meant I ended up getting Sadness to level 10 pretty quickly too. Sadness’ first quest involved investigating these mysterious rain clouds that were appearing inside buildings with her worrying it was her fault as they only started after she entered the Valley.

Talking to Remy, Scrooge McDuck, and Mickey ended up causing the clouds to disappear in the Restaurant, Store, and Castle respectively, but then had us dealing with clouds outside… Which with a little help from Sadness’ own tears, we were able to get rid of only to be greeted with the beheaded body of the bear… Now, on one hand, I really wanted to fix this teddy bear because teddy bears, but also this is incredibly unsettling.

It was then onto Joy’s next quest which involved us checking in on and trying to cheer up the characters we had invited to play Capture the Sun with us– Merlin, Donald, Goofy, and Venellope as they were all incredibly depressed. Unfortunately, it didn’t really work, but I would say I think someone helping clean would make me feel a lot better too. I’ve been sick a lot lately so everything has been kind of messy… We also got one of the cutest new recipes with our attempt to make a Joyful Meal for Vanellope.

At the end, we ended up getting another part of the Bear which then seemed to cheer everyone up somehow? Either way, they at least weren’t still feeling depressed.

Sadness’ next friendship quest involved us making her a Pillow Fort so she could have some quiet time when everything is just too much, and I get that and would also really like a pillow fort. The hardest part of this was having to find a bunch of Donald’s feathers around the Valley… They really need some better way to work with spawns (Personally, I think it would have been better to just pick some up in his house) because it’s always such a huge pain.

I’m probably going to try and move it inside somewhere and re-do things… In general, there is a lot I want to re-do decorating-wise when it comes to the Valley and certain other areas, but the whole item spawning situation has me so discouraged with all of it where it feels like I should just leave things empty for easy spawning spots because of how much of a mess things get, especially during events. (Speaking of which, during the day the update went out, the event spawns were spawning early… It was fixed pretty quickly but I managed to finish half of the new photo… I wish they could have just left it alone)

Regardless, as we finished each of these quests, we ended up getting another part of the Bear. I feel like we could have just fixed it with the head and body seeing how they looked, but I guess we can use more stuff.

Moving on, it was thus time for the next Joy quest which uh, was us making a bright spot in the Forgotten Realms.

Unsurprisingly, it did not seem to end well with a bunch of Night Thorns spawning out of protest.

Sadness’ next quest involved having a “talking session” for everyone to talk about their feelings. This made a weird orb show up we had to plant… which then turned into a teddy bear part.

It was then onto Joy’s final friendship quest, and this is where things got problematic and are why this post was delayed. To give some context on the quest, we slowly realize that this Bear was sort of our Bear (I saw sort of because this Bear is huge and the Bear being hinted to/shown was likely a lot smaller as it was a teddy bear she could carry as a kid) that we ended up getting rid of after something really hurt us as a kid (I ended up doing a mix of two options) that lead to the bear getting destroyed. In order to spawn the last part of the bear to hopefully get out these sad feelings that are sinking into the valley and affecting everyone who lives there, we decide to put on a performance with the Forgotten about what happened.

Unfortunately for me, in the middle of the performance where we needed to press a specific light… it broke. Hitting the lights wasn’t working no matter how many times I tried. It wasn’t the first bug I had with this quest either– we also had an issue where the broken lights were still showing despite them having been fixed… Regardless, after a few days and some bug tickets, I finally managed to finish the quest.

It was then time for Sadness’ final quest where the goal was, unsurprisingly, to fix up our Teddy Bear friend. Of course, it wouldn’t be Dreamlight Valley without another spawning issue. Before we fixed up the bear, we had to repair the memories of what happened… Two of the memories weren’t an issue– they were in the castle and Inside Out Realm respectively. The last one though? Essentially, you’re supposed to find it outside your house… But it wasn’t locked into a house you spawned into. It could load in front of any house you placed. I use a lot to decorate so in the end; I finally found mine in front of one of the castles I had placed on Eternity Isle. Regardless, with this step done, it meant I could finally repair my Bear which I was hoping to be able to do the moment we found its head in a box.

With the Bear all done, it was time to place it and decorate around it… And then Joy decided we should have fireworks near it because surely setting of fireworks next to a teddy bear won’t cause any problems I guess.

We then received a custom Teddy Bear base so we could also design our own Bear!! You know, between the Teddy Bears and Pillow Fort, maybe I will finally watch Inside Out.

Now I just still really want a teddy bear we can hold. I will say that when the teddy bear thing started, I thought there would be some mystery thing and not… let’s talk about really depressing childhood trauma. I also really didn’t like the implication that we tore the bear over someone else doing it which I tried to imply with my choices. No matter how humiliated or upset I felt (and I absolutely had to deal with similar issues), I never would’ve taken it out on the teddy bear :(

Anyway, as always, time to finish this off with my recent Dreamsnap entries:

Let’s talk about Pokemon Friends!

8 / 15 / 258 / 15 / 25

If you’re unawaare, Pokemon Friends is a mobile game (also available for Nintendo Switch) that was announced and released during the recent Pokemon Presents in late July. Despite a lot of the complaints about it, I’ve actually really been enjoying it. I love puzzles and I love plushies, so this game just felt like a must-play for me. I know a lot of people feel the price is too much, but I feel like considering the general Nintendo License price, ~$35 for a full puzzle game didn’t seem too crazy to me, especially with the quests and additional decorating.

That said, the game does have a balancing issue and ironically, as you get to harder puzzles and get any of those expansion packs, those issues get all the more highlighted. While you could say that because the game generally is set for you to only really earn two types of yarn a day, there is supposed to be a slow burn, but that isn’t the problem– regardless of how many puzzles you do a day, you will still hit this issue eventually.

And regardless of if you get the ability to do as many puzzles a day as you want or not (You can also change the unlimited puzzles to a specific limit as well in settings), the quest system is still stuck on a daily loop so you will hit a pause point no matter how many puzzles you do.

If you have no idea how the game works, to give a quick summary, each set of puzzles contains three different puzzles with anywhere from 3-6 rounds in them that you need to complete. Finishing the set of puzzles gives you a random yarn (what possible types depends on if you have any expansion packs or not) or a “pretty nice” version of the yarn. You would then use this yarn in the giant Pokeball to get a random plushie of that theme/type (While some are more straightforward, other yarns combine multiple types in them). Getting the pretty nice version means you have double the chance for Legendaries and a 25% chance for an additional plush of the same type giving you two for the price of one, essentially.

If you don’t want to deal with RNG, after making a plushie once, you can make another of the same plushie for two of the yarn it came from. Exceptions are Legendaries which HAVE to be pulled. You cannot make them. If you’re wondering why you would even want multiple plushies, it’s because quests often want specific plushies (whether a specific Pokemon or specific type/category like one quest that wants one of each Cat Pokemon you can make a plushie of). Of course, you also have the option to put multiple of the same plush in a room. You’re limited to twenty plush per room though, which honestly makes me sad. The plush have physics to them so the idea of piling a bunch in a room would be really fun. I suppose you still could, but it wouldn’t be as fun when you can’t truly pack it to the brim.

This is essentially my room thus far:

I’m waiting until I unlock all the decor I really want for quests before really redoing it and narrowing down the 20 plush I’d want in the room. I do wish we could pick the floor/carpet separately from the wallpaper though.

Finally, I did want to bring up one other odd thing: The controls. Controls vary between touch screen-based, button-based (in the sense that you tap buttons on the screen), or full on gyroscopic. I’ll be talking a bit more about this below, but it kind of drives me nuts as most of the puzzles could work with any of these options and I wish you could pick which you prefer.

So, what exactly are the balancing issues I mentioned?

1. The more yarn types to pull from and more possible Pokemon available from each, the lower chance of getting a specific type you want.

To be blunt, this is a pretty obvious one. The reason I bring it up though is because some of the early quests you get are clearly aimed towards those smaller windows. Even though Grassy Yarn is one of the options from the start, it took me forever to get my first, let alone an extra for a quest. At this point, Grassy Yarn is still the least I’ve gotten with over 200+ rounds of puzzles done. It is the one I still need the most Pokemon from followed by Toothy Yarn.

2. The variety of Puzzle Levels.

In terms of different puzzles overall, there is a lot of variety. The problem comes in the specific rounds themselves, but only as you get to later difficulty levels. The game features nine different difficulty levels so while you’re going through and slowly leveling up, it’s rare you’ll get the same round twice. Once you get to a difficulty level you may be stuck on or hit the maximum though, you’ll start seeing repeats of those puzzles. Obviously, I don’t expect there to be infinite number of rounds per puzzle type, but an easy fix to this would be the option to allow puzzles of any level up to the one you unlocked to be picked from which would give bigger variety even if you have seen them before.

3. The timer sucks.

Okay, your mileage may vary a bit with this one, but I hate the timer so much. There have been many times where I figure out a solution and I’m just… not fast enough, whether due to touch screen troubles, my own wrist/hand issues, or how slow the characters move with the button controls (The Primeape Puzzle is so incredibly slow to the point where if you’re not booking it immediately, it’s so easy to run out of time on). It doesn’t matter how fast I solve the puzzle if I am not also fast enough to execute it and with a touchscreen-based game, it’s something I really feel like should be more forgiving than it is.

I wish the timer was optional so much. I wish I could spend as much time on a puzzle as I want and just skip/move on if I am really struggling. Or at least give some options to it.

The amount of time you get does not change at any point. It is always sixty seconds so even as the puzzles get harder, you do not get more time to work on them.

4. Puzzles get more difficult but ultimately feel less rewarding.

This is probably the biggest thing and the main reason I wanted to talk about the game in this post. I don’t mind hard puzzles. it is absolutely satisfying to finish them. But you know what isn’t? Seeing myself finish them all and maybe not have as much time left on them as the game liked and getting a single basic yarn.

Pretty Nice Yarn is a rarity as the puzzles get more difficult which makes me regret even getting to higher difficulties which shouldn’t be the case. You always only get one yarn no matter how well you do or how difficult the puzzles are. And even if you do amazing on 2/3, if you mess up on one, too bad, still basic yarn.

While it is nice that you still get some yarn no matter what, it’s still discouraging that even with more difficult puzzles, you don’t actually earn anything more from them. The fact that I could just leave the puzzles open for three minutes and let it auto-fail vs working really hard and the game not feeling I did good enough thus leading to the exact same reward really sucks.

And this is another reason I wish there was a mix of all the difficulties (maybe an optional choice) because while the puzzles are fun, the selling point of the app is earning those plushies and when you keep getting the same reward as ‘doing bad’, why even try to do well?

I still really do like the game and I am trying to earn all the plushies and finish all the quests, but I’d be lying if I said the balancing issues haven’t been fairly discouraging in the process. Where I initially did dozens of puzzles a day, I now am only doing 1-3 just because I do feel really discouraged at this point. I do hope they’ll consider making adjustments (also please add Mega plushies, I want Mega Audino so badly), but at least for the moment, it does feel like they didn’t really consider how nice the game would be to play at the later stages.

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