There's something strangely comforting about Civ 7 being a messy little mess on release. Like my government is a mess and probably getting messier. But my Civ game is a mess and will almost certainly get better. As long as I tie my mental health to Civ improving, my mental health will be well.

My gaming the last few weeks has been disturbed by the *general vibes* since 1/20 so I didn't post last week and I forgot to share yesterday, but I am still playing videogames and trying to learn German (for anti-nazi reasons, I promise!)

it hurts to see people lose their jobs. people who, against all odds and development hell, shipped a game almost bug free, with beautiful graphics and environments, with heartfelt companions and stories. they didn’t deserve this. EA is a shitty soulless corporation that can suck a bag of dicks

Okay I didn't want to post yesterday because I was feeling the vibes a little hard, but here's a review a day late. I tried RTSs (which I love!) #AgeofMythology & #AgeofEmpires Sadly, RTSs are paced too fast for effective immersion :( but the games and fun and (would) teach interesting vocab.

There are not enough video games in the world to get through the next four years. bleghbleghbleghblegh

Hallo zusammen, this week I played Growing Up by Vile Monarch, which I was really excited to do (it was a holiday present!)

I have a sick pet :( so I don't have the energy to go in depth about my game of the week, but I thought I'd share my review all the same: It's Wylde Flowers by Studio Drydock and there's a free demo on Steam if anyone wants to check it out!

I just watched a YouTube video about the application process to make Sprites for Pokemon Infinite, and it's soo much work and there's a lot of systematic criticism... But it's just so wholesome to see how inclined humans are to self-govern. it's like, the theme of Survivor but with rattata-hypnos.

I think the most realistic inversion of 'all girls want bad boys' is both Elaine and Morgan want Guybrush. #MonkeyIsland

As promised! Here is my foreign language game review for The Guild 2: Renaissance, an old favorite of mine that is currently on Steam sale for $2.49. It was an interesting game to rate because the game is medieval so the language is fairly historical.

Hey GAMER SPIEL readers ✨ ! I haven't played enough of Newcomer to formally review it on my blog yet, but I thought I'd share that it's on sale for less than $3 (because I love sales ♥️) AND BECAUSE this is literally a videogame designed to teach foreign language & that's just my thing.

Jay@newcomer.bsky.social · 2y ago

Hey ya'll, Newcomer is the cost of a fries on Steam until the Winter sale ends. It's an immersion-focused language learning experience that I've been making for the past 3 years! Available L1s: En, Es-MX, Fr, It Available L2s: En, Es-MX, Fr, It, Ger, Pt-BR, Es-Es, Ni, Fil, Tr Happy holidays!

[vague political content] I've been seeing a lot of memes from well-meaning Americans depicting "Greenland's response to Donald Trump" and I just wanted to kindly suggest people stop liking and sharing them. I even feel a little iffy on sharing the rebuttals of Danish politicians.

Hey sis, it's christmas (eve)! I usually post my reviews on Tuesdays (+ some Thursdays) but since it's the holidays I'm going to wait to share my foreign language review of the *The Guild 2: Renaissance* until the end of the month/early January. Happy Holidays everyone <3

Hallo Zusammen 🧙 my foreign language gaming review is a little different this week! I actually played #Baldur'sGate3 in English with German subtitles and while it probably wasn't worth the dozens of hours I put in I still got something out of it. I did, also, accidentally eat a companion. [1/3]

I played Baldur’s Gate 3 (in English) to Learn German and it only mostly didn’t work

Can someone please explain why Raphael is so obsessed with me? Also did Halsin kill Isobel?

dasboudicca.substack.com

I cannot stop playing Monster Train. Like it's so fun and I do recommend it (with a caveat that it takes some relaxing into) but oof it is no longer helping my language skills. 😶

Okay so this might be my most *controversial* opinion so far (sorry for the clickbait energy but I'm scared of being attacked for this) but I played Stardew Valley at the suggestion of the internet and it was *not*! helpful for me learning a foreign language

I wanted to see how effective roguelike deckbuilders would be to study a foreign language and I settled on Monster Train since I'd never played it before. I ended up very conflicted about its utility. I think generally roguelike deckbuilders aren't a great genre for language learning, but...

Gaming bluesky is a strange, new experience for me because most of the men following me seem at least slightly interested in what I have to say and most of the women messaging me seem to be OF models hitting on me. It's something of an inversion.

So I'm not a capitalist or anything but I just saw Polygon's Black Friday sales roundup and it was so uninspired that *I* was inspired to make my own Black Friday Sales roundup. Six iconic videogames that advanced language learners (B2-C2) can benefit from playing.

My CEFR ratings for playing Humongous Entertainment's classic children adventure games to learn a foreign language: (context below) [not pictured, but always in my heart: Putt-Putt, SpyFox, Pajama Sam]

There's something wild to me about the fact that German uses "Oh Junge!" as an exclamation even though it's a literal translation of an equally silly English expression (Oh boy!) Does anyone know if one language copied the other? Mein Freund blames Mickey Mouse, but he doesn't have any proof, lol.

Just published my review of playing Planet Zoo to study a foreign language (German, in my case) and it was such a mixed bag that I amended my rating graphic (below) to include a range of scores... [1/2]

Full review: dasboudicca.substack.com/p/i-learned-...

I Learned German and Simlish with the Sims 4 (study review)

Sul Sul! Shpansa! Töpfchen und Raumfahrttechnik.

dasboudicca.substack.com

das Boudicca@dasboudicca.bsky.social · 2y ago

Multiple resources on the internet listed The Sims as a good videogame to learn a foreign language, but I still went into the Sims 4 with absolutely no faith. But I was super proven wrong! It was super useful! For example I now know how to say "potty training" (Töpfchentraining) in German.

Multiple resources on the internet listed The Sims as a good videogame to learn a foreign language, but I still went into the Sims 4 with absolutely no faith. But I was super proven wrong! It was super useful! For example I now know how to say "potty training" (Töpfchentraining) in German.

For the last month or so I've been reviewing videogames on Substack from the lens of how useful they are to learn a foreign language. I thought I'd condense my reviews down into a PNG and share them with the world on here (+ on Instagram). Pop over if you want to see more! #langsky

Might as well just post my reviews too! Here's Skyrim, the one that started it all. dasboudicca.substack.com/p/learning-g...

Learning German with Skyrim

How easy is it to learn German with Skyrim? Surprisingly. Like a draugr in the daylight.

dasboudicca.substack.com

In comparison to Pokemon Platinum I learned so much from PokeRogue (the unofficial Pokemon roguelike fangame). I would fully recommend this game to anyone with a semester or so of language experience looking for ways to level up their language skills.

I struggled trying to play Pokémon Platinum in German (not my native language) and had one very unhappy experience trying to get a bike so I ranked this game pretty low. Turtwig was very cute though. He gets 5/5 stars for being such a good tanky boy.