The Queue: Dole Whip

The Georgia Renaissance Festival has a huge booth right inside the front gate selling Dole Whip. We took the kids as a pre-school-end fun outing, and that’s all my son can talk about now. Not the acrobats, not the live music, not the glass blowing, not even the beignets and cotton candy. He wants to go back and pay admission solely for more Dole Whip. And as summer starts, oh man do I get it.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions and we’ll answer next to a big bowl of ice cream and pineapple.

On the one hand, yes. Gaming is such an absorbing pastime it’s very easy to get wrapped up in it, and a clock would help.

On the other, this is part of why I’m glad I have a second monitor — there’s always a clock open somewhere. And yet somehow I’ll still accidentally spend far more time than I realized doing game things. In particular, I tend to get time blind around thinking-related games. Blue Prince has captured my attention so hard that I always spend far more time than I realize or anticipate flipping levers (as it were). I tend to have an easier time breaking out of it in games with a round structure. While “okay, just one more” is an issue, it’s easier for me to use the end of a match as a cue to check the time.

In terms of vibe, I’d say that Rogue and Hunter fit Vulpera particularly well, maybe with a dash of Shaman. That’s not to say other classes don’t fit, but there’s a bit of mental gymnastics at play to get classes like Warlocks or Death Knights to jive with the cute sandy nature aesthetic of Vulpera. It’s not impossible, and personally I tend to focus far more on the classes I find fun than the races, since there’s very little you can’t find a way to justify in WoW.

To me, Morrowind was the gold standard of player housing in single-player RPGs because there was a dash of realism to it that really leaned into the stealthy archer assassin of it all. While there are a handful of houses you can obtain legally with deeds and exchanging currency or joining a faction, if you murder the person who owns the house, it’s literally free real estate (as long as you don’t get caught doing the murder). Decorate, throw your stuff around, whatever you want. Finders keepers, losers… are dead so whatever, their opinion doesn’t matter anymore, now does it. While the containers and then having to fence stuff you got legally can be an issue, anything goes in Morrowind.

And really, while I’d like to quibble a bit on sliders and XYZ options and grid snapping, that’s really the ideal for me in single-player RPGs. It’s bringing the “commit murders, collect loot” ethos to its logical conclusion.

The newly expanded timers are great. I love having multiple pomodoros with smaller short rests, and then a long rest to complete the cycle. I’m also very happy to see the additional color slider options making its way over from the Cozy Kitchen expansion to both the decor options and the wardrobe — I have a few particular clothing cuts I like to use and reuse, but sometimes the colorways are off compared to the room and it bums me out. Though the funny thing is, we’re getting to a point where redecorating is starting to feel a little overwhelming for me as a result of all these options. I think my MO is going to be having one specific look I keep as a permanent-ish vibe — likely the tea rose and cream, since that works with most seasons with minor tweaks — and then play around with the other two options when I want to do that.

Also, I didn’t realize it until I was writing up this post, but there’s also a new springy soundtrack! Love it.