Last week, I finished playing the game Potioncraft. It was honestly exactly the sort of cozy little dopamine hit I needed during the end of the summer and all the changes and transitions going on.
It’s also the first game I’ve ever 100%’d on Steam, or possibly ever. (I don’t tend to finish games; even Spirit Tracks, my favorite Zelda game, isn’t complete because I couldn’t fight Ganon or whoever it was. Gosh, was that really 15 years ago?)
In any case. If you like crafting sims that are navigational puzzle games, give Potioncraft a shot.
I’m always looking for new ways of thinking about money, and this post highlights one of my own weaknesses: I always tend to go for a mathematical solution, rather than looking at the root emotional causes of what I’m doing. So thinking about what it is I want to be able to do with my money is an important thing for me to step back and contemplate.
Along with that, though, her second point about creating a Descriptive Budget first is something I already love. The first step (or, in her list here, the second step) to taking control of your money is knowing where it all is going.
Steps 3 and 4, emergency fund and employer matching, are also good; though from the title I had expected 4 to be about Lifecycle funds. But I guess that comes later!
Step 5 is interesting. She calls it “pay off then highest interest rates first,” but also talks about the snowball method (pay off lowest balances first). Fortunately, those two things often run together – a credit card balance is likely to be smaller than a car, house, or student loan, and it’s likely to have the lowest rate. So that makes sense.
Steps 6 and 7 are emergency fund and retirement, again. I approve. Then step 9 is about aggressively paying off debts. I like that this comes after establishing baseline financial security first; debt is not a great thing to have, especially if it has high interest, but it’s not evil.
Steps 8 and 10 relate back to Step 1: thinking about what you want again, and then making it happen. Most things in the world come with a concrete price that you can look at and save up for, even if that price is not immediately visible. And prioritizing your dreams and placing them within the context of what you want to do is a great way to make them much more accessible.
This past weekend, I played through the prologue demo of Harvestella. It was pretty fun, but I’m not sure if I’m going to eat the full game cost. Maybe for Christmas.
I just think I’d probably pay $40 for it, and I’d definitely pay $20; but $60 is just more than I’m willing to do right now. I know that’s probably irrational. And it is a very pretty game. I just have others, that I already own and haven’t finished, that I’m inclined to finish before shelling that out.
I like the concept, though. I enjoy related-but-different-genre games, like Pokemon Conquest or Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King. (“Now, with more colons !”)
I did really appreciate that there’s a non-binary option for your character. Even though I think it’s just for pronouns.
Emilybook 