Strange Obsessions

Okay, so being a stay at home writer means finding lots of ways to occupy your time to keep from writing. (Not that I do that, no way, uh uh, nope, I am focused and always on the job...yeah, right)

Actually, since I quit my job I watch less television than I did before and while I do read more than before, some of that is 'research'. And while it seems like I write about playing Wii a lot (NOTE: I am hot on the trail of a Wii Fit and hope to own one later on today) I really only play on Sundays with my family. So most of my "spare" time is actually spent working on the cookbook, researching and developing recipes. But all work and no play makes Shae incredibly bored (even when the work is fun). So about a year ago I bought a Nintendo DS, mostly because the SIL-to be Val got one. It looked like fun and a lot of the games were for grownups, like Brain Age. So I would go through bouts of playing it obsessively, then not at all, then picking it back up again, etc. I do that with sudoku too. I hadn't been playing for a while, then Val loaned me her game "Professor Layton and the Curious Village."

It took me a couple of weeks, playing for an hour or so at a time (okay, the actual total was under 10 hours of playing, I know because the game keeps track) but I finally finished the game. It's a very creative game where you roam around the town of St. Mystere and play puzzles to find clues to the mystery. Most are logic puzzles, spatial reasoning exercises, etc. I love those sorts of things so it was right up my alley. I never would have bought the game because it looked like a kids game, but it was actually a lot of fun. It combines the puzzles with the mystery and cartoons in a Japanese anime style. (It's kind of strange to hear British accents in characters that totally have that Japanime look). There are 120 puzzles in the game with 15 more you can unlock by solving various mysteries (you find painting scraps you have to put together, you find gizmos you assemble, etc.). Then you can download more puzzles via the DS's wi-fi connection.

Look, I grew up in the era of Pong and the Commodore 64 so if you told me that at my age I'd be playing video games, I'd have thought you were crazy. But I'm glad that not only is the technology there but that there are games that I would want to play (since Halo is not my idea of fun). If you have a DS, I totally recommend "Professor Layton". If you don't, I recommend you get one, they really are a lot of fun.

Speaking of games, I was talking to my friend Nathan about our holiday Wii tournament and he told me about a Japanese Wii game that sounded to bizarre to be true. And it was. It's actually an April Fool' joke. But it's funny. Check out the video of Super Pii Pii Brothers. I'd almost want to buy this game if it were real...almost.