I paused the weekly report for a week. This report should have been published last week, but maybe I was too busy and couldn't concentrate on organizing my thoughts. So I decided to take a little break and merge it with next week's report to make it a biweekly report.
Currently, my main writing software is Ulysses. Although there have been many complaints and people quitting after it switched to a subscription model, I still feel that the writing experience is the best, and features like annotations and keywords are very useful. Here, I would also like to talk about my personal writing habits. I usually collect some scattered thoughts in Logseq or Flomo, and review them when I need to write a weekly report. This is inspired by Zhou Guoping's approach in his book "Paper Scraps in the Wind". Only by recording these scraps can they not be blown away by the fast pace of life.
After organizing these scraps, I have a draft. If I still have the energy, I will polish and adjust the text based on the draft. Of course, this process is the most mentally exhausting. After all, most of the time, I don't want to review what I have written (just like not wanting to review my own code 🤣).
Typhoon is coming to Shenzhen again, two weeks in a row, heavy rain starts every Friday, and the company kindly notified us in advance, unlocking the experience of remote work for two days (although the efficiency is not very high).
I was worried that I wouldn't be able to go out on the weekend, and I was constantly reminded by text messages, WeChat, and Weibo not to go out. It was really scary.
But the typhoon really only raged on Friday night, and on Saturday it started to move away, and on Sunday it returned to high temperatures, with no trace of the typhoon, and the sun was shining. It seems that the typhoon took away all the clouds.
As usual, I went out to play badminton on Saturday. After the typhoon passed, there was a light rain, and the streets were hazy and quiet, without any noise. This fast-paced city of Shenzhen has also slowed down.
On Sunday, Wenjie asked me to play a murder mystery game together (although we only met for the first time at last week's book club, but he became familiar quickly 🐶). After being tortured by 7 hours of intense reasoning, I don't dare to play detective games anymore 🥹.
On Monday, I went to work and saw a rainbow (although I didn't take the photo).
This is the introduction to this weekly report.
👀 Murder Mystery Game#
It's been a long time since I played a murder mystery game. Wenjie organized a game on Saturday night. We wanted to play a mystery game with a touch of horror, so we chose the one recommended by the venue - "The Awakening of the Dead in the Night of Illusion" (we were really ignorant, and soon we experienced the pain of being tortured).
We played for nearly 6 to 7 hours, and I have to admit that it is a well-designed script:
- Two stories, one fantasy and one classic, cleverly combined with a perfect twist.
- Narrative tricks.
The script is actually composed of two stories. The first story has a fantasy setting, where time travel and changing names create a chaotic parallel universe. We spent more than 3 hours deducing the first script, and the reasoning process was very smooth, with the DM nodding frequently (note that this is a trap).
Then came the second half, where everyone realized that their memories were distorted, and the fantasy setting and the stories of each murdered person in the first script were all fake, all fabricated! (It's really mind-blowing, it exploded).
So, everyone had to find their own identities again (of course, we couldn't do it with our poor reasoning abilities), and the DM had to personally intervene, "carrying a train and running away" 🤣, there is a photo as evidence:
I won't go into detail about the specific reasoning process, but I'll mention a few points:
At the beginning of the story, everyone's identities, appearances, genders, and names are deduced from each other. The DM only guides you at key points. As for your reasoning results, the DM always agrees (no wonder reasoning is so easy, it turns out to be a setup for the twist 🥹).
Another point is the first encounter with narrative tricks. What are narrative tricks?
Let me give you an example:
In my script, there is a story about an ignorant villager who draws lots to select someone for sacrifice. The result of the draw is: Xiao Youshan (a nickname unique to the Japanese, which means "small" + surname, so in fact, no one knows the real name).
In the subsequent deductions, because the script mentions that the villagers said, "Makoto will be sacrificed."
So everyone unanimously believes that the person drawn is Makoto Youshan.
However, the reality is completely opposite:
- The result of the draw is just Xiao Youshan, not Makoto Youshan (it is later deduced to be Tsubasa Youshan).
- "Makoto" is going to be sacrificed, but this is actually a replacement for the originally planned sacrifice (because she died).
There are many similar examples. It can be understood as a false truth that creates a preconceived impression. It was my first encounter with this 🫠.
📚 Rereading "The Submarine in the Night"#
I reviewed "The Submarine in the Night" (I finished reading it last year), but it was so well written that I want to write something to commemorate it:
Reading Chen Chuncheng's novel is like being a patient, being deceived and lied to by him, lying on the operating table.
Closing your eyes, the anesthesia takes effect, under the dim light, when he confirms that you can no longer move.
At this moment, he starts to go crazy, deconstructing the words almost to the point of madness, leaving only radicals, as if performing a mysterious word formation.
It seems that the winding paths of the maze of the soul, the laws of evolution of the universe at the end of the cosmos, and the wonders of the dark space are all enveloped, contained, and exhaled by him.
You can only watch all of this, unable to resist, unable to struggle.
Among them, the first chapter "The Submarine in the Night" is particularly admirable. In the eyes of a child, every drop of rain can be the beginning of a great adventure, every rainbow is a gateway to another world, and every word is full of magic and power.
Like a painting that can never be finished, a story that can never be written, an endless blue sky that is difficult to exhaust.
However, in the end, only a thin imagination remains, unable to support the operation of the submarine.
If the night still remembers that the submarine once sailed on the sea.
If dusk still remembers that the aircraft carrier once galloped in the ocean.
If the starry night still remembers that the UFO once battled in space.
"There are no dense branches, soft mud, colorful parrots, and spitting snakes here, only solid ground and hurried people."
🕹️ Games#
I have regained my love for games! The reasons are written in this article: "How to Overcome Electronic Erectile Dysfunction"
"Hifi Rush" is probably the highest-rated game from Microsoft this year (I'm so disappointed, "Starfield" really let me down), although it was released at the beginning of the year and I got it through Xbox Game Pass, I only played the first few chapters and then stopped. This time, I played through it in an afternoon.
This rhythm game is now ranked number one in my heart. All the objects in the game move to the beat, and with cool combos, ultimate moves, and finishing effects, combined with the silly Xbox controller that can make your hands numb from the vibrations...
This picture made me laugh so hard:
I also finally defeated the boss in Okumura's palace in Persona 5 Royal. And the student council president finally has a mask! She's really beautiful!
"Star Ocean" is a JRPG game that was released recently. It can be compared to "Octopath Traveler" in terms of puzzle-solving, battles, music, and overall experience.
I'm disappointed with "Starfield". It really hurts. I was hoping that Microsoft would bring something amazing to the players, but in the end, it's the same old taste.
So I decided to buy a PS5, and with PDD's 10 billion subsidy, it's really worth it. At the same time, I thought the Nintendo Switch was also very cheap, so I bought it and also got the cartridge for "Tears of the Kingdom".
🎧 Podcasts#
The latest episode of "Except for Your Weapon" gave me a lot of food for thought.
Sometimes, it's important to shift our focus and not put too much pressure on ourselves. In the hustle and bustle of life, sometimes what we need is to do nothing, to have a period of wasted time that tells us that it's okay not to study, not to work, not to think about anything related to cause and effect, and to cherish our own moments of tranquility. This may sound like internal conflict or an extension of internal conflict, which is implicit internal conflict. Explicit internal conflict refers to things like social anxiety and worrying about what others think, while implicit internal conflict refers to the struggle within oneself, such as being afraid of not being able to concentrate, being afraid of wasting time, and so on.
In the past, whenever I was working, even if I just looked at a message or replied to a message, I would feel that my focus was being disturbed. In severe cases, even when I fell asleep at night, as long as I was slightly awake, I would doubt whether I could fall asleep, whether it would affect my work later, and so on.
I might write an article on how to rest and explore suitable ways of resting. I am also actively exploring ways that work for me (I'm starting to dig a hole again).
💭 Random Thoughts#
The latest video from Lao Jiang about Deng Ai corrected my misconception about playing the game "Three Kingdoms Kill".
【Three Kingdoms Kill: Why I've Never Liked Deng Ai? | Jiang Shu】https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1DF411677q/?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=eb74eb1e105cb306ab17818712e795b8
The most important thing to avoid as an ordinary player is lack of ability and too many ideas.
Execution is more important than decision-making.
The execution of a third-rate decision with first-rate execution is always greater than the execution of a first-rate decision with third-rate execution.
If you are a loyal subject and the lord blindly targets the role you think is most likely to be a loyal subject and traitor at the beginning of the game, what can you do?
The answer is that you can only follow along:
- If the lord is wrong, you can explain, but your hesitation won't help.
- If the lord is right, if you don't follow along, you will bear the responsibility.
📮 Newsletter#
From now on, all my records will be automatically synchronized to my personal channel: https://t.me/RayeJourney
But I will also excerpt some of them and put them on my blog:
- Play with Myself at 23
- When She Set Her Age on a Social App to 14
- Five Years of an Independent Creator
- Magic vs. High-Speed Camera: Can Magic Tricks Be Captured?
- IKGN: 11 Points, "Starfield" Review: Out of This World!
- Professor Bi: Everything in This Video Is True, But You Can Never Prove It
- Building Cities Based on Real Chinese History on a Huge Map in Civilization 6 (High Definition)