Raft 4

I played and enjoyed Astroneer, Space Engineers, and Raft, and Raft ends up being my favorite. Mind you, all of the games above «work» and are polished enough for me to invest dozen of hours into each.
Space Engineers is the most complex one and the building part is very nice once you get the hang of it, however, the game suffers from a lack of purpose. Yes, I can build all kinds of vehicles, even starships but why I should? After you build a tiny base to give you oxygen and energy any goal you have is one you gave yourself. It's the most «sandboxy» of the three.
Astroneer is the simplest of the 3 but I don't think this bad, and you eventually learn about the gates which give you a goal. I really like the interface and looks but the game is just too easy for its own good. After you realize you are 100% invincible inside a vehicle AND it refills your oxygen you pretty much found the game version of god mode, which kills the survival part of it and the game turn into a puzzle of how to open the gates in the most efficient way possible.
Raft end up working because it's the one that takes the longest for you to attain mastery of the elements. You need to deal with hunger, thirsty and the shark eating your ship and those keep being an issue for a good deal of the game which gives you a reason to explore the game in search of a more definite solution for those issues. The building is complex enough for you to make your dream ship, but not complicated enough for you to need a tutorial video explaining the physics of the game. I guess my biggest critics is I thought the girl character was a second dude until someone pointed otherwise.
I think what I want to say is, while there are several good survival games out there, the multiple moving parts of their system many times just don't align and Raft managed to be good simply by nailing the basics correctly. Quick example: Astroneer added automation to the game, which is fine but the simple stuff is easy to make manually, and for the complicated stuff like nanocarbon you only need a small handful. It's not automation was bad, it just not needed.
tl;dr - I enjoyed Raft. 10/10 would drink saltwater by mistake again.

Sparks Joy

Angie wearing a t-shirt because you want something light and loose when you are sunburnt. Don't worry, she'll get her leotard back soon.
However, I may make the last pic of her with the ragged version on my Patreon, tan lines included. ;)

Sparkling

Guys, guys,
Hey guys…
Hey.
That massager… guys…
…is not really a massager.

Danger Level

You think you are smart, you think all you need is to run to the side and dodge the tree… until the tree hits another tree and start a butterfly effect of falling, rolling logs which will instakill you if they as much as graze your body.
Fun game tho, very atmospheric and not obnoxious. I hope some of its ideas like how it handle hunger and resources is adopted in the genre.

Water Hazard

Someone said this works similarly to Breath of the Wild swimming where if you run out of stamina into the water you faint, except in BoW you are teleported to the closest shore, and in Valheim you just die.
Better yet, if you were running and the last notch of your stamina gauge was spend entering the water you will slowly die 1 foot from land, because you can't move at all once your stamina is gone and it doesn't recover either as long as you are in the water.
I guess that's why Vikings developed boats, going into the water is a no-no.. still very brave of them knowing they would pretty much die if they feel off a boat.

Norse Farm Simulator

The plot of Valheim is you been chosen by Odin to prove your worth in the land of the dead so he can choose you. I was expecting some never-ending battle versus hordes of enemies with a little base building to the side so I could sleep and manage my inventory before heading back to the fray.
Instead, I spend most of my time chopping wood, hunting deers and improving my little cottage. Sometimes I fight some greydwarves or skeletons but given the game has no XP and enemies usually don't drop anything worth you actively avoid fighting them.
Not complaining, I am enjoying my viking countryside retreat but it was NOT what I was expecting when the giant crow threw me in Valheim. :)

Relevancy

I feel Street Fighter is just not the powerhouse of a game it used to be. Fighting games always been kind of niche but now multiple options exist from Fall Guys to Fortnite people just don't want to beat the learning curve necessary to start having fun on those games.
What I mean is, the return of a «classic» character on a very niche game probably has less impact than being a skin on a popular one. I am sure Dan mains will disagree and I challenge than to a 1v1 so we can discuss it over a match.
You need to pick Dan tho.
p.s. Seeing Ryu walking around with a gun bothered me more than he doing silly dances.

Customs

The writer on me say perhaps the reason you can teleport with swords and armor made of metal, but not the raw metal is because the equipment is specially treated during the forging process to be teleport-friendly.
But than you find you can teleport gold coins and iron nails, but can't do it with dragon eggs and my theory start to go wack. There is no rhyme or reason to it outside trying to make mining harder.

Scam

Today's comic is kind of a public service announcement.
There is a scam going around on Steam where someone, either random or using a friend's stolen account trying to convince you to go to a site and link your steam account to vote for some event.
I expect people to be pretty much immune to those low level frauds at this point but after two of my friends contacted me on steam with slight variations of the same swindle I decided people may not be as paranoid as I am and perhaps I should warn my readers about it.
Free advice? Just don't link your Steam account to any site. Maybe Twitch or some big site you know but definitely don't do it if its a site you never heard about, even if the site seen know and popular.
p.s. My eyesight is getting bad so that's why I been updating late recently, but I already have a check up scheduled so hopefully we'll go back to our normal schedule soon.

Neighbors

Animal Crossing and Valheim are pretty much the same game.