Another Journey to Boston: A Ticket to the Common, Newbury Street, and the Library

Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street —Taken with an iPhone 8 

I talked about going back to Boston by train at the end of the first travel blog, and then again in the following post where I highlighted some of the sights that I missed. Much like with the summer water taxi, I mulled over taking a solo train journey and ended up forgetting to do so.

In truth: There was already a train journey planned for my 33rd birthday for a couple months and last year, on September 29th (Birthday Eve), I headed back there for a day with my Mom and sister.        

Top: The Amtrak Sign above the ticket booth.
Bottom: The Entrance to Union Station featuring some artwork and a couple of shelves filled with pamphlets —Both taken with an iPhone 8 

This trip begins on an overcast morning in New London's Union Station where Mom and I sat waiting for an Amtrak commuter train (a Northeast Regional) that was slated to arrive at around 7:45am. The red brick exterior may seem plain and unremarkable, but the ticket office and waiting room exuded artistic flair with classical music playing over the loudspeakers. Much of it sounded like choir hymns, making the station feel more like a church or cathedral than just one stop out of many.  

Nothing eventful happened—I ended up scrolling through Mastodon on decent Wi-Fi with an app that I love called IceCubes. I initially didn't have any goals or challenges for this trip, but I had a very brief conversation with ThetaSigma who recommended a couple of books by Iain Banks—Crow Road and Complicity—in a thread where they talked about how they were enjoying their read of Dead Air. 

Ideally, I wanted to find both of those books if we ended up in a bookstore. Possibly The Quarry as well.

The train ended up being delayed for an additional fifteen minutes before arriving at the station at ten past eight. 

Top: The Amtrak train arrives at Union Station
Bottom: Nostalgic by means of Simon Pegg and Spaced...without having watched the film proper until late October —Both taken with an iPhone 8

The passenger cars were just as quiet as the station, but Mom and I ended up getting separated since there wasn't an empty set of seats for the both of us. Not a big deal in the slightest since I decided to start reading a book I brought with me—Chris Collis's You've Got Red on You—that was recommended by Paul Gannon in either a past CheapShow episode or on one of their Patreon exclusive Crapbook pods. I already mentioned how much I'm enjoying this book in an earlier post, but those early chapters truly gave me a nostalgic kick for Spaced during the course of the ride there.

There are some really cool coincidences that coincide with my birthday—there's International Podcast Day which I mentioned previously, and a couple of Doctor Who serials started airing around the same day with both of them being written by Douglas Adams. Those stories being "The Pirate Planet" which started airing on the 30th in 1978 and "City of Death" which broadcasted the following year on the 29th. 

This year brought another visitor to that group in the form of an Nintendo Switch Online trial for the game Eastward in North America between the 28th and the 2nd of October. This was my Game of the Year for 2021, even beating Samus's comeback with Metroid Dread. It's become one of my comfort games with each full playthrough to the point where I decided to buy myself a plushie of Sam from Fangamer a couple months before this trip alongside pre-ordering the game physically as a Collector's Edition two years prior.    

The number of stops between New London and Boston almost lined up perfectly with the areas in Eastward: New London and my hometown would make up Potcrock Isle, then Kingston as Greenberg, Providence as New Dam City, the Route 128 station took the place of Monkollywood, and Boston's South Station...I'll come to that one shortly.

For now though, we arrived in Boston at around ten o'clock!          

A Federal Railroad Administration Car across from where our train stopped. —Taken with an iPhone 8   

We met my sister in South Station's central terminal which felt like a little bit of a parking garage mixed in with an food court in a shopping mall or an airport. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary—I fully expected the hustle, bustle, and ephemeral grit from the state of the restrooms. There was also ongoing construction work taking place around the hub which, upon exiting South Station, shocked me after we crossed the street and looked back at the historic edifice.  

Top: South Station from the other side of Atlantic Avenue, including the tower that's currently under construction.
Bottom: The view from South Station with One Financial Center on the left. —Both taken with an iPhone 8 

Background research led me to an article written by Boston.com's Nik DeCosta-Kilpa alongside another one by Abby Martin who both report that South Stations new tower will be a mixed-use property for both businesses and residents alike.  But, for now, all I could think about was Ester City and the Eternal Tower from Eastward—it felt uncannily similar, but in reverse. 

What went through my mind was what Adam Savidan said during the second episode of RoadQuest, in which he points to a mountain and says, "That's the big mountain where those, uh, screamy dudes are in Skyrim" (4:05-4:08).   

Put simply: British Columbia gets High Hrothgar while Massachusetts becomes a part of the land called Eastward.      

Enough video game allusions though! Let's get back into the city!        

Where Winter Street intersects Winter Place with a Starbucks in the distance. —Taken with an iPhone 8 

We didn't really have a set plan—which was more or less due to me thinking of any particular place of interest to stop by—so I trusted my sister to give me brief guided tour. Unlike the last trip, where we briefly went up and down the Seaport District, this one took a more westward turn away from one of the poshest places in the city. 

There was some distance to walk before we reached the Boston Commons, Public Garden, and Newbury Street, but there were still sights to see. The streets we walked down to get there, including the above photographed Winter Street, had a sort of fantasy or steampunk-like feel to them. I know the notion of pedestrian-oriented cities is more of a thing overseas than here in the states, but this compromise seemed interesting to me. I'd love to see pedestrian-oriented becoming more of a thing on this side of the Atlantic, or at least having smaller towns and cities becoming more walker-friendly than they currently are—alongside having more robust pubic transport.    

Top: The Brewer Fountain with a few nearby food stands. 
Middle: The Embrace monument in the Boston Common shot in what I believe is the view the artist intended.   
Bottom: The Parkman Bandstand drenched in rain. —All taken with an iPhone8

We hit the Commons shortly after and I took the opportunity to snap quite a few photographs of everything we passed by. The rain was my biggest concern that day and it began to pick up as we walked through the park. I initially thought that it only be a drizzle compared to back home, but I still managed to take quite a few shots.

The Boston Common has a huge history—from being a part of the Freedom Trail to the place where Carole Scott and Martin Luther King met alongside other historic events—and these photos don't really do said history justice. Not for a travel blog, anyway.    

Still, I'm glad that I managed to take pictures of most of the Common's most prominent landmarks while keeping my phone mostly dry. Some additional photos will be in an future blog post as a supplemental entry to this travel blog—much like last time.   

Top: A gate marking the start of the Haffenreffer Walk.
Middle: A view of the Public Garden's lake.  
Bottom: A lone island as seen from the Foot Bridge. —All taken with an iPhone 8

Right next to the Boston Common and right past the Haffenreffer Walk gates is the Boston Public Garden where the flora goes from refined to dignified and flush. It might not be historically significant as the Common, but was still a lovely place to walk through before we finally reached Newbury Street. 

The Haffenreffer Walk went over a suspension bridge—properly named the Boston Public Gardens Foot Bridge—where I was able to snap a picture of the lone island out in the Garden's lake. (Admittedly, I thought of Islanders when I saw it.)

My sister said that there are many tourists who take selfies and pictures off the Foot Bridge. Sadly, I ended up with only the one above...and I'm not usually one for selfies. The rain was more or less to blame on that front since it picked up from a steady drizzle to barely tropical. Much like with the Common, I did take other pictures around the Garden before we crossed the bridge so look forward to some of those in a later post.   

For now, we head down Newbury Street and straight to lunch!   

Top: The restaurant's namesake painted out on a brick wall, motto and all. 
Bottom: A hibiscus margarita rimmed with sugar and nachos almost out of shot. —Both taken with an iPhone 8 

My sister took us to a local Mexican restaurant called La Neta, which was halfway down Newbury Street next to mochi donut shop we would visit on the way out. We might have been the only customers in the building, but the food was delicious and the decor gave the place a good dose of artistic flair. I personally opted for a chorizo quesadilla that just had the right amount of spice and was very filling. This was marked the first time I ever had a margarita with the one pictured above being hibiscus flavored and rimmed with sugar.

I sadly couldn't get any other pictures of the restaurant itself outside of a blurry shot of the "Tacos, yes. You, maybe" neon sign, which you can also see on their webpage. When you're as tall as I am (6'2'' in Imperial) you tend to stand out in trying to get the closest thing to an immaculate picture with the subject being a shelf of sauces or a bathroom door that wouldn't look out of place in a Douglas Adams novel.

Then, the shopping portion of the trip began...with a brief stop in the future...        

The webpage for Anime Zakka shown on the iPad's DuckDuckGo browser. Neither plush came from their, but the Wobbuffet would be an example of something you'd see in the store —Taken with an iPhone 8 (and one of the last photos to have this honor)

There were a few locations we visited that I did not get photos of: With Levain Bakery, I blamed the rain. In the case of the Japanese multi-purpose store Muji, I didn't find anything interesting to add to the haul. Anime Zakka on the other hand had the opposite problem of having a lot of neat items I could have bought—an unboxed figurine of Teddie from Persona 4, Pokemon plush keychains of Gengar and Dragonite, shirts and hats from the myriad JoJo's Bizarre Adventure arcs—but I decided not to because, well, I don't think they'd remain unscathed in my tiny backpack. 

Also: I was spoiled by Arisu Anime over in Mystic with their back shelf entirely dedicate to manga and was surprised that Zakka didn't have a dedicated section.

This would be easily be alleviated as we go back into the past and across the street to where the haul begins to form...         

Top: The sign and awning for Newbury Comics. 
Bottom: The storefront for Trident Booksellers & Cafe with a sign above the off-camera door, but with tables, chairs, and the window logo in shot. —Both taken with an iPhone 8

Newbury Comics was a place where, for some reason, I did not believe would have a dedicated manga section. I was wrong. There were a few sets of shelves near the front of the store containing droves of Japanese graphic novels to the point where I found myself overwhelmed and indecisive. I eventually managed to choose a few volumes to buy that I knew I would enjoy and, ultimately, keep in my collection. 

The store itself is a New England-centered chain that I remember occasionally walking by in the Providence Place Mall when my parents, sister, and I would go over there during the late-2000s and early-2010s for the Apple Store and a few other places for, clothes, cookware, and furniture. Next time I find one in the wild, I'm definitely going back in to shop there again.

Down the street from Newbury Comics was the Trident Booksellers & Cafe where I would figure out whether or not I could find those specific Iain Banks novels—if not them, then any books from him in particular.

We skipped on the food since we already had lunch, but the cafe portion seemed busy and somewhat packed. Many of the shelves were packed with literature as expected, but the walkable spaces in-between them were tight, making the store somewhat difficult to navigate. I did walk out of there with a good haul, but I'm saving the full results for the end of the post.

Top: The mural for Ten One with a squirrel at the center.
Bottom: Boba tea consisting of royal jelly and blue boba beads. —Both taken with an iPhone 8 

The next stop was a brief respite at the tea shop, Ten One, that my sister said makes the best boba. She also said that it was proper boba compared to that one place in the Olde Mistick Village that she heard about—I don't remember if she went there though. 

This was an neat little place where you ordered the tea from a self-serve kiosk, choosing whether or not to include jelly or boba beads in your drink, and wait by window giving a nice view of Newbury Street.        

The view from inside Ten One of Gloucester and Newbury Street. —Taken with an iPhone 8  

I personally opted for an Osmanthus pineapple green tea with royal jelly and blue butterfly boba, which I nursed for the next leg of the trip. 

The view above is essentially what most of Newbury Street looks like—a lot of red brick buildings, trees and shrubbery. There are still many high end stores on this street, especially near the Boston Public Garden, but the further we went the more homely it felt. There were more shops that I could personally scour on this road alone compared to the sole bookstore down on the pier—even if it made up for all the other expensive stores and restaurants surrounding it. Compared to the the Seaport District most of Newbury Street felt way more welcoming overall with the nice mix of local businesses and recognized chains.

Even if that's partly my bias for the architecture speaking, I think I'm personally sold on Boston. Thing is, I've barely explored the city. The next half of our journey will help rectify that a bit, but first a detour...   

I Got Ahead of Myself Before 2024

The Bedford Building Clocktower closes in on 1 O'clock —Taken with an iPhone 8 

So I thought I could manage to get a decent portion of writing done on the second journey to Boston before the new year, but I find myself organizing the photos in Scrivener instead. I decided to use the program to both sort through the material and write the post out proper—similar to my process with the video game reviews—as opposed to writing it all out in Blogger like I did with the first trip.

I'm glad I chose this method since it will help me re-trace my steps alongside a hint of Apple Maps—which helped in documenting my first Boston outing. 

In sum: This is the last delay on recounting this excursion and will be the first major post for the year—and for January*.

Wishing you a a happy and prosperous New Year! Let's go 2024! 

Update as of January 29th, 2024: It will be the first major post of the year, but in early February because I waited until last minute. Although if I manage to finish it by the 31st, I'll delete this line.

Resurfacing from the Wreckage—Ink for December 13th, 2023

It does look like I'm taking the book out, but it's the other way 'round. A slight fumble in submerging the Shipwreck in question— Taken with an iPhone 8 

I took a small walk down to the mini-library this afternoon and finally returned Shipwreck Lane to its stacks. With the poll results tallied, I now have another romance book to read for Valentine's Day: Ali Hazelwood's Love, Theoretically.

Thank you again to all of you who reblogged the previous post and participated in last week's poll! 

I set up a deadline for myself to have this book read, with a review written and posted on or around Valentine's Day—admittedly, I only mentioned said deadline in the Mastodon poll.

This will not only provide me with ample time to read the book, but also allows me some breathing space for the rest of December—outside of the travel blog post on September's Boston trip. I'll probably spend some of that spare time finishing Clark Collis's You've Got Red on You, which documents the making of the Shaun of the Dead film. Simon Pegg was one of my favorite comedic influences in late high-school with Spaced. I bought the DVD boxed set at Borders after school on a whim, binged through both seasons and found myself being drawn to the wholesome nature of the entire show—the direction, sets, and the way the characters embraced their own quirkiness.  

Also, as for Shaun of the Dead, I got around to watching it last month and well, I loved it!  

Other things I've been Distracted By...

I'm not someone who usually watches Twitch streams these days, but between Banjo Guy Ollie doing one out of the blue in October alongside LoadingReadyRun's 20th Anniversary Sub-a-Thon, the streaming website was the place to be. In my case, it was the iPad app where all of the action happened—outside of occasional chat glitches, I think it does a pretty good job of playing the role of terrestrial television. 

There was also the annual Desert Bus for Hope charity livestream last month which was a lot of fun! Many of the highlights including supercuts of popular segments are over on their YouTube channel—I enjoyed waking up to some parts of "Keep Talking and Nobody Bricksplodes" alongside the call-in with the folk group, the Longest Johns. 

On the podcast front, there's Leighton Night with Brian Wecht which has now become a permanent part of my podcast rotation. This is partly thanks to the CheapShow episode I mentioned in the last post alongside Leighton Gray's GDC talk—or rather those were the initial hooks that convinced me to give Leighton Night a listen. Shortly after, I decided to pick a few shows from their backlog. There were a couple of them with Paul Gannon, one with video essayist Sarah Z, another with producer and writer Abby Russell, and last one I picked out of the archives was with stand-up comedian Chris Grace.    

It's hard to describe the show, but it reminds me of when I used to read Boing Boing during my community college and university years—when Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin, and Maggie Koerth-Baker used to post on there. In sum, it's a glimpse into today's Internet with fun hosts who make a podcast informative, chill, and ultimately fun!

Other distractions...

• Continuing with podcasts, the Channel 84 Variety Show's doing an advent calendar where each day they discuss an item, event, or tradition related to Christmas in a segment they call "Bin it or Keep It". 
• I've also been on a Red Letter Media kick for a couple months, courtesy of a Noiselund remix. I particularly enjoy Half in the Bag which blends brief comedy skits with in-depth discussion on films.
• There were also the recent Doctor Who specials and it was great to have David Tennant and Catherine Tate. I did a brief, spoiler-free review of the first special over on Mastodon. I might expand on that next year.
• With games, it's been mostly a mix of Mario(s) and Minecraft. The latter of which was inspired more or less by my second cousin's visit in August. 

That's all from me this evening! Have a wonderful week!       

Yearning for a DNF Option on Goodreads and Some Housekeeping With Another Delay

I won't bury the lede for what goes without saying—the travel blog for my late September Boston trip will be pushed back to next month. Not going to set a specific timeline for it this time because, admittedly, I did not work on it at all last month. This was, more or less, similar to why I delayed the Goldeneye book review back in August. Even with the holidays looming, I'll do my best to pace myself accordingly so that I can properly work on the post and eventually get it online. I had a full tumblr of Yerba Mate earlier today and almost forgot how it helps in motivating me to write—it's probably the best thing about this week's cold snap.

I did think about the other book I planned on reviewing in December and I thought, instead of possibly marking it as a "Did-Not-Finish", saving it for February. This will give me an opportunity to give it a proper read and, well, finish it...

...but as November went on, I started thinking of other ideas. With an official tie in the poll I did months ago, I technically didn't need to review The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane. The truth of the matter is, I added it into the queue to impress someone locally. It would have help me further acquaint myself with a genre that I don't usually read, but the problem is with the writing—how the characters are written, the narrative's tendency to mesh opposing tones together, and so much "telling" instead of "showing". 

I have my Mom to thank for pointing out that I picked out what is usually considered a typical romance novel—at least here in the States anyways. She recommended other romance novels that having better writing including Red, White, and Royal Blue, and Love Theoretically. The former happens to have an audiobook version, which now sits on my Libro.fm wishlist waiting for me to drop a credit on it.

I'm going to set up a poll tomorrow after I publish this post to see if I should continue on with Shipwreck Lane or change course and read one of the other books instead. Or, with the fourth option, I could play through a visual novel in the same literary genre. You could blame a particular episode of CheapShow for this, but it was Leighton Gray's talk at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) that made me think about giving this game a shot! 

I'll be posting the polls in the usual places, Twitter and Mastodon, like usual. Although it will probably end up being the last one for the former considering how that guy's essentially run the network into the ground and that's putting it lightly. 

Mastodon on the other hand has essentially become my online home, social media-wise aside from Goodreads (and StoryGraph). That won't change for the for the foreseeable future, especially as the Fediverse gains traction alongside other services taking advantage of the ActivityPub protocol—there's an article from the Verge that explains it a little better alongside Cory Doctorow's recent DEF CON talk. 

That's it for now! Hope you all have a good weekend!       

Swapping Places

Just writing to note that I'm switching the ETAs for the review of Shipwreck Lane and the second travel blog on Boston. I'm planning to work on the latter within the next couple weeks and I'm aiming for mid to late-November to have the post up on the blog. 

Ideally, the book review will be for December, but it's been a challenging read. There's work and the usual excuses that I mention every time this happens, and while I've made decent progress on the book itself, it's been difficult to pick it up.

Admittedly, a part of the challenge is the it's the print copy. I'm not afraid to share online that I'm reading it, but I'd probably get strange looks at the local Starbucks or on a bus ride somewhere. That's minor though...

I briefly mentioned this on a Mastodon post with my Friday reads for October—more or less the month's reading list—but the writing makes it a rough ride at times. The comedic and narrative hooks also seemed off to me at times resulting it weird shifts in tone.

The book may be more or less "not for me" at this point, but I do plan on finishing it and reviewing it though. (No, it won't be like a Kermode-ian rant.)

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

Summer Plans Made Too Late and a Birthday Weekend Update

There's a lot of covering up of pass details, but I can assure you that Hikau, the Robot is a fun game. —Taken with an iPhone 8 

There were a couple of things I wanted to try out this summer that, unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to do—the major one being a trip on the local water taxi.

This was on me for buying a season pass way too late into the season (Mid-August)—and finding out that the taxi's hop-on hop-off service only operates on Saturday and Sunday. My Dad was working on the deck over the summer and since we both managed to frequently get Saturdays off, I wanted to be present to help him when he needed it—especially when the heat managed to break. 

The other one was a Grub Street virtual class and they had some really neat ones including one on writing unlikeable characters and a scriptwriting workshop. I'm not worried about missing them—I feel like they'll come up again regardless of season. 

However, I do have one day trip left back to Boston to start off the birthday weekend—and to properly close off summer. This trip is going to be a little different and will be more of a proper downtown tour. I'm going to post the highlights as I go on Mastodon—with later crossposting to Twitter*—and will probably do a longer blog post about it later on next month. 

What else? 

Shipwreck Lane will be a review for October. I might sneak a poll in next week to see what game I should review before the end of the year. 

Hope you all had a good summer! 

*I no longer use Twitter on my mobile devices, meaning that I don't log into Twitter as much as I used to.   

Islets & Islanders—An All-Accommodating Getaway Package

Even if I took this photo in mid-May, I enjoy having an early sunrise in the summertime. Not so much the late sunsets though for some reason. —Taken with an iPhone 8 

Summer and I do not exactly get along. Sure, there may be more opportunities for adventure and spectacle with a local fireworks show—unrelated to US Independence Day—but it is the extensive heat that sours what is otherwise a low-key season. Walks were something I would usually avoid in summer more or less because, well, I usually end up in a aura of moisture about ten to fifteen minutes in—sometimes after I make it across the street. While it might be a bit of bummer, the little things like a Dairy Queen Blizzard treat,  or going to a family reunion at a lake house make the season worthwhile. The ideal summer image of a tropical island vacation also sounds promising with two games making up a vacation package of easy-going fun.

One of many quirky and lovable characters who reside in the sky islands. —Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode) 

The first stop in this vacation cruise is a journey to the skies where a chain of once-connected islands lies scattered across the clouds in Islets—a game developed by Kyle Thompson for Armor Games Studios. The official website describes the game as “A Surprisingly Wholesome Metroidvania” and, while I think it fits the adventure to a tee, it also does not do the game proper justice. Even if I was alternating between this game and Tears of the Kingdom back in June, I found Islets to be a vibrant and refreshing change of pace. This starts with our main character, a warrior mouse named Iko, who sets forth on a journey to join the sky islands together again and he is far from alone as a competing warrior, an overzealous show-off named Snoot, manages to tear down Iko’s boat by merely revving his own airship. Once Iko crashes onto the lush green plains of Northstable Island, his quest truly begins with a simple tutorial and some low-fi beats from the game’s composer, Eric Thompson.

The controls are very easy to get the hang of—even if I sometimes forgot I could do forward rolls—and the power ups are the usual standard metroidvania fare. Players familiar with Hollow Knight will recognize the double jump and Islets's own approach to wall-clinging abilities where Iko can just climb straight up to the top. When Islets does its own thing, though, it does so it a cool fashion from arrows that can create contrails for platforms to airship boss fights which feel like something out of Cotton, Darius, or Turrican. 

The big innovator which fully gives Islets that refreshing change of pace is the exploration itself. While Iko might not have the expansive move set of someone like the Knight, the act of reconnecting the islands acts a series of power-ups to encourage backtracking. Each time I added an island back to the chain, the journey back through them almost felt like new with additional pathways sandwiched between adjacent ares instead of a mere trek around the map. The visuals themselves, while not as detailed as Hollow Knight or Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, still breath life into the aerial archipelago and the characters who fly about them and the hub town, Sky City. If the links between islands are like powers-ups, the characters and how they develop act as pieces of lore, in which denizens tell Iko about landmarks and points of interest.

An unexpected highlight of Islets, which puts some arcade-like action into a Metroidvania. —Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode)  

Even for a game that makes simplicity shine in everything from world-building and character development to gameplay, there are some rough patches of turbulence—mostly in the form of boss battles. While I found it really cool that said bosses and normal enemies had projectiles that were easy to see—and simple tells of attack prep with a few exclamation marks—the big behemoths felt like they took forever to defeat. Even if these fights get tedious after awhile, the sword-fighting does not feel out of place. The variations between the difficultly levels are not much to write home about either—the more difficult the setting, the stronger the foes are. They also develop more complex bullet patterns between each tier, but it feels more subtle with the most notable difference being in the first boss’s second phase with both easy and normal modes being completely identical.   

The last little niggle deals with Islets own version of health and ammo bonuses—a roulette of additional perks which range from the afermentioned to adding extra power to every other attack and in-game currency you can use in Sky City for other perks. This is another one of Islets’s neat twists to the metroidvania formula and most of them are not that difficult to obtain. The ones that pose some trouble seldom require extreme coordination or reflexes, making Islets easy to fully complete. As for the rewards, even if there is a choice whether to play it safe with a health increase or risk it for gold, the variety in choice sometimes varies greatly. The incremental increases offered both with said pickups and the Sky City stores might prompt players continuously go for the former, but considering how easy it is to gain funds, there is some breathing room. 

Islets might lack the palm trees of a tropical beach resort in both in the literal and figurative sense, but it is still a metroidvania that manages to both accommodate newcomers and challenge the pros simultaneously.

This island reminded me of Windwaker while I was building the mills and cities. I couldn't help but think of Windfall Island. —Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode)

The next destination is a proper cruise from one island to the next where the cities, tourist attractions, and even the agriculture turn the vacationer to a full-time construction worker in Islanders—an indie game developed by Grizzly Games. Unlike the intense focus on finances, budgeting, and proper zoning in similar titles like Sim City, Islanders focuses more on just developing the procedurally-generated islands into livable spaces while aiming for a high score. Each island requires a certain amount of development and points before the player can start an expedition to the next one and the key to a quick getaway is, well, zoning by building type. Each building can benefit from either adjacent structures—like mills and fields—or by the surrounding resources, which can significantly bolster the score. Even if a player reaches the expedition cap, they can still continue to further develop the island with fountains, parks, and towers among other options. 

Even if the sessions can be short—usually between one to two hours—Islanders has quite a bit of depth with its gameplay with situations that require some out-of-the-box thinking. There may be islands where the game provides you with multiple wooden piers (or plateaus) in order to make up for the lack of land mass. Some locales might even provide you with major buildings and exclude the smaller producers—think sawmills without lumberjacks or mills without fields. Even particular buildings like the Shaman’s Hut involve some pixel-perfect placement to get the highest amount of points possible, and to make up for the reduction if there is a mansion nearby. 

This deceptively simple gameplay loop kept me enthralled with Islanders with each session I played while the 3D visuals and music evoked that relaxing island atmosphere. There are both tropical and snowy islands alongside many interesting geographic variations which help keep the game fresh. For those who just want to get creative, the game also includes a “sandbox mode” that takes the scoring system out completely. Both modes make Islanders into a game that embraces the best aspects of summer—a laid-back day at the resort with a crossword puzzle and piña colada. (Other drinks are available.)     

Top: Another one of my favorite builds in Islanders, featuring some of the 
Bottom: A tour guide contemplates a price hike in Islets. —Both Captured on Switch (Handheld Mode) 

From sky back to the seas, the full vacation package contains a duo of pick-up-and-play titles that manage to balance both challenge and difficultly. Islets might have boss fights that feel like in-flight delays, but the journey across and between the sky islands provides a fresh take on metroidvanias for veterans and newcomers alike. The follow-cruise with Islanders suffers the opposite problem with (sometimes) short sessions, but the gameplay is engrossing enough to keep the momentum. Whether you are big into metroidvanis or want the therapeutic experience of constructing an island city without noise pollution, this vacation package has you covered! 

Islets In Sum: Brave Mouse Discovers New Technology. Epic Monsters Still Rampant: 8.5 out of 10 

Islanders In Sum: Urban Development at Its Ideal (Albeit Brief)—Tranquil and Deceptively Easy: 9.5 out of 10