Derik Badman's Journal

Thursday night the government started to tell people to close down shops and events and gatherings for at least 2 weeks. All the schools are closed. Many of the places in town closed down. Apparently the grocery stores were insane Thursday night. We went to our co-op yesterday morning. It was surprisingly calm, and while some vegetables were (almost) totally gone (broccoli, carrots, potatoes, spinach), we didn't have trouble finding what we were looking for to stock up on a few days worth of meals. They said they'd had the most sales ever on Thursday. So now we are all staying home and either have no work or are working remotely (no change for me since I already do). I hit up the liquor store yesterday afternoon (also calm and stocked), and probably won't be going anywhere for a few days (maybe just walks).

So far our county has the most virus cases in the state (22 was the last count I saw). Hopefully people will follow the various instructions and the cases won't increase exponentially. "Social distancing" is the phrase of the month. It's all so abstract at this point, and the doom and gloom are at odds with the very nice weather we are having (especially for March).

I continue on with most of my normal routines, excepting morning coffee at the bakery and any other errands I can avoid.

I played another short game on the Switch, Gris. It's a beautiful 2d action game that is both simple (in play) but complex visually and metaphorically. It's clearly built around a metaphor of depression. You play a young woman who starts out in this grey world of mostly ruins. You can move left or right and you can jump. As you explore, you find these little stars, and as you find them as connect them in shapes and constellations you gain some abilities but also add colors back to the world. So at one point red comes back to the world and the landscape changes and red is infused in the setting. The artwork and design is really impressive. It looks almost hand drawn, often with a watercolor texture and gradiation to the coloring. As you gain colors and abilities you can explore different areas. There's no fighting, just exploring and puzzles based around the use of your abilities and certain items and creatures in the setting that respond to your abilities in different ways. The landscape is also at different times dotted with these cracked or crumbling statues of a woman (she does not look like the protagonist, but I also find it possible to read them as a representation of the same individual). My main issue in the game was how much there was of setting that had no interaction and passages where you are basically just moving through areas with nothing to do but move through them. Otherwise, though it was fun and moving game. Not excessively short but also a pretty quick play.