Rinn

I had a N3DS, it was my first handheld and it was great! Really good selection of games. My most played were Monster Hunter Generations (which was my introduction to the series) and Fantasy Life - one of my absolute faves, a charming and colorful fantasy adventure with life sim elements. The story is a bit meh but the gameplay loop is incredibly satisfying and there's nothing else quite like it. I've been replaying it on an emulator (rip Yuzu/Citra devs) recently and it's still a blast.

Nothing quite like Hardspace: Shipbreaker, but farming games/life sims often fill this niche for me. The classic one to recommend is Stardew Valley, I also really like Graveyard Keeper, Slime Rancher and Fantasy Life (3ds, works well on emulators).

ARPGs (Diablo style, so kill stuff to get loot to get your numbers up to kill bigger stuff) can be nice zone out games too, I recommend Grim Dawn (going to get an expansion soon, quite complex), recently released Last Epoch (very enjoyable, but might want to hold off for a while if you want to play online - the servers are a mess right now), and Chronicon (most casual of these three, very cheap, colorful explosions across the screens).

Other games I've tagged as "Space Maintenance" : Planet Crafter (pretty chill number go up/building kind of game where you're slowly making a planet livable), Deep Sixed (short roguelike, try to keep a ship together enough to get through the game, very hectic and no progression between runs so may not be what you're looking for), Delta V Rings of Saturn (top down space mining).

I was in the mood for a) something that won't require a lot of thinking and b) something high fantasy. So... I started The Way of Kings. I'm not Sanderson's biggest fan, but I can't deny that it's a very quick and fun read (despite its monstrous size). No thoughts, just get swept up in the world and enjoy.

The storm-based worldbuilding is very cool. Coincidentally, I've been playing Against the Storm a lot. Very interesting how a similar base idea (what if we had a world ruled by a cycle of storms?) can go in such different directions.

Spoilery thoughts:

I'm trying to get out of a reading slump I've been in for the last... 3 months? Picked Orconomics to get back into things and just finished it today. Honestly, the first 50% was like pulling teeth. But I got pretty hooked after that, once it really got going and subverting the usual fantasy tropes, and enjoyed it enough that I'll probably read the sequel at some point.

There was just one bit of weirdness that kinda bothered me - in the main cast there were two decently important female characters and they were both absolutely fine, I liked them a lot! But there were just... no other women in this world? No female city guards, innkeepers (there was the innkeeper's wife, I guess, but she was there for a joke), no clerks or managers or shopkeepers. Idk.

Oh interesting, one of the reviewers on goodreads that I mostly trust has just published a fairly (heh) critical review of the first one, apparently you're either going to love this or be completely baffled by what other people see in it xd

Agreed 100%, the end is not great and feels very rushed but it's not really about the plot, it's about the vibes/ideas.

...title? Asking for a friend, of course.

Maybe Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente? Her Orphan's Tales have some interesting cities too, but that's a bit of a stretch.

Again, not just one city, but take a look at Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino - it was a direct inspiration for Fallen London.

China Miéville might be worth checking out - go for either the City and the City or for Perdido Street Station.

I grabbed Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Sleeping Dogs Definitive Editon, both of these are supposed to be great on the deck! Still stuck in Packaged purgatory though, so it's going to be a while before I actually get the chance to play them. There were some other games I was considering, but I gotta stop spending so much money right after buying a new piece of hardware... One day Sekiro will be at 70+% off, and that is the day I'll buy it.

I have not been in a bookish mood recently, so... does playing a visual novel somewhat count? These things are basically overgrown choose your own adventure books, after all. The one I've been playing is Slay the Princess - it's a horror game (disturbing/somewhat graphic rather than actually scary - check out the content warnings if you're concerned) where you have to go into a cabin in the woods and, well, slay the princess who is trapped in the basement. If you don't, the world will end.

It's quite cleverly written - I've had many little moments when I was following a conversation and thinking about what I, as a player, would like to say under the circumstances, and then the game would offer me exactly that as one of the dialogue options. The voice acting is on point, the art is beautiful, about the only issue I have is that I didn't enjoy the final resolution all that much (idk why - I think that it's at least partially a pacing issue and spreading the last infodump out a bit more would have helped). I encourage anyone not violently allergic to the concept of a visual novel to give it a look.

Oh, and you get to bully the narrator and it's beautiful.

Light-ish romances I've read semi-recently: Strange Love by Ann Anguire (fun and surprisingly engaging sci fi alien romance), The Elf Tangent (fantasy adventure).

Not a romance but low brain power required: Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson (young adult fantasy adventure, power of friendship).

Lightning fast read, frequently gets emotional + medium brain power required: Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells.

And I personally tend to go for either fanfiction or progression fantasy/litrpg when I want something easy to read. The Wandering Inn was my gateway drug to the former.

Out of nowhere I dove into Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination. I'm only interested in the first two of these keywords so I probably will drop it once it gets into the more mystical stuff, but the history section has been fun and interesting so far. Especially the long, long chapter which could be titled "how French occultists were wrong about everything and making shit up all the time". Petty drama in occult communities is always entertaining, and historical occultists are no exception.