Tag: Survivor Incognito

Super Mario 64 Randomizer – Log 9: Penguins, Battlefield, and Missing Wings


Progress: Stars Increasing | Lives Intact (Somehow)
Platform: Steam Deck
Settings: Vanilla Mario & Music

“Sometimes progress is skill. Sometimes it’s guessing the right penguin and hoping for the best.”

With only four stars left in Cool, Cool Mountain, I decided to finish the job before the seed could get any funny ideas.

Cool, Cool Mountain: Cleanup Duty

First target: the Red Coin Star. I knew where six coins were. The last two? Found them easily enough. Getting them was another matter.

That’s when I remembered an old trick. The first attempt failed — badly — but that was fine. Sometimes a failed run resets the rhythm. The second attempt clicked. Clean movement. No panic. Star secured.

Next problem: the baby penguin.

A straight 50/50 guess. I picked one. It was the right one. No skill involved. I’ll take it.

Big Penguin Race and Snowman’s Lost His Head followed without drama. Just solid execution. One course fully cleared and crossed off the list.

YouTube – Log 9 Video

Red coins, penguin roulette, and a continued refusal by the Wing Cap to reveal itself.

Secret Slide Surprise: Not What I Expected

With CCM done, I checked what was hiding behind the Secret Slide entrance.

The answer: Bob-Omb Battlefield.

Still no Wing Cap switch. That’s becoming a theme.

I handled King Bob-omb first and grabbed his star. While scouting the rest of the level, it became clear that full completion here absolutely requires the Wing Cap.

Rather than force it, I settled for Koopa the Quick, grabbed the star, and called it. No point bleeding lives for stubborn pride.

Log 9 Summary

Course Cleared Cool, Cool Mountain
Risk Taken Red Coins via old-school trick
Luck Factor Correct baby penguin (first try)
Wing Cap Status Still missing
Bob-Omb Battlefield Partially cleared

One full course done. One classic stage half-finished. The Wing Cap continues to dodge me.

Continue the Journey

Previous Log | Next Log

Super Mario 64 Randomizer Hub

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The Year Can Wait

New Year’s Day has a habit of arriving with expectations attached.

Start fresh. Make plans. Fix things. Become something new. The noise tends to show up early, whether you asked for it or not.

But today doesn’t need momentum.

I don’t have a clear picture of what this year will bring for me, and I’m okay with that. Not everything needs to be mapped out before it begins. Uncertainty doesn’t mean failure — it just means the story hasn’t unfolded yet.

There’s no rule that says the year has to begin at full speed. You don’t need goals, resolutions, or a clear direction before lunch. You don’t even need a plan yet.

It’s fine to let the day stay quiet. To rest. To do very little. To treat today as a soft landing rather than a starting line.

The year will still be there tomorrow. And the day after that. It doesn’t need to be rushed into.

If all you do today is exist, recover, or reset in small ways, that’s enough.

The year can wait.

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Survivors Log: Year End

Status: Still standing
Theme: Survival over spectacle

The year ends the same way most of these runs do: not with a clean win, but with something still breathing.

Some worlds were conquered. Some were abandoned. A few are still waiting patiently, half-built, half-haunting, exactly where I left them.

That’s survival.

What Held

  • The rule sets worked. Fewer restarts. More stories.
  • Lower difficulty didn’t weaken the experience — it strengthened it.
  • Permadeath stayed meaningful without becoming punishment.
  • Writing stayed honest, even when progress slowed.

What Fell Apart (As Intended)

  • Runs that stopped being fun were ended.
  • Ideas that existed only on paper stayed there.
  • Perfection was ignored.

No apologies. Survival means knowing when to walk away.

The Ongoing Truth

This site isn’t about mastery.

It’s about learning a system, bending it slightly, and seeing how long you last.

This site began by pushing back against the idea that easier difficulties don’t count.

It’s evolved into something simpler: difficulty isn’t the point — survival is.

That hasn’t changed.

Looking Forward

  • Fewer series. Better focus.
  • More logs. Less noise.
  • The rules may change.
  • The chaos will stay.

Adaptation is part of survival. Refusal to adapt is how runs end early.

Log Conditions

Log recorded: Final days of the year.
Conditions: Cold outside. Quiet inside.

No deadline pressure. No content calendar panic. Just time enough to take stock before stepping back into whatever comes next.

No Roadmap

There’s no roadmap.

No checklist. No promise that every idea will make it to the end.

That uncertainty is deliberate. Survival doesn’t come with guarantees — just decisions made under pressure.

Rule Reminder

Reminder: These runs aren’t about winning.

They’re about lasting long enough to leave notes behind.

Marks on the map. Lessons learned the hard way. Evidence that someone was here, tried, and didn’t immediately disappear.

A Quiet Thanks

If you’ve stumbled onto this little corner of the internet — intentionally or by accident — thanks for sticking around.

No algorithms to beat. No hype cycle to chase. Just survival logs, written as they happen.

If you’re still reading at this point, you’re already part of the experiment.

End of year status: Alive. Scarred. Still playing.

Next log: When the cold, the dark, or something worse decides to test me again.

Surviving, Not Suffering.

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Before the Year Turns Over

New Year’s Eve has a habit of asking a lot of questions.

Was the year good enough? Did you do enough? Should you have done more, or done things differently? It’s easy to start weighing everything up once the calendar starts getting ready to flip.

Tonight doesn’t need that.

The year doesn’t need a verdict. It doesn’t need to be ranked, scored, or justified. It happened. Some parts worked. Some didn’t. Most of it probably sat somewhere in the middle.

It’s okay to acknowledge what went well without turning it into a highlight reel. It’s also okay to recognise the harder parts without dragging them forward into the next chapter.

For me, tonight is just about stopping for a moment. Letting the noise settle. Letting the year end without rushing to explain it.

Whatever this year was for you — busy, quiet, heavy, light, or something in between — it’s allowed to finish as it is.

No pressure. No promises. Just a pause before the next page.

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Quiet Wins: The Long Dark Map Hub

This isn’t a big announcement, and it’s not a victory lap. It’s just one of those small moments that make the work feel worth it.

While updating my The Long Dark map hub, I noticed it sitting comfortably on the first page of search results — consistently, across different browsers. Not first. Not flashy. Just… there.

What made me smile wasn’t the number. It was why it was there.

The page hasn’t been gamed or stuffed with keywords. It’s static maps, clear layouts, and information that actually works when you’re cold, lost, and trying to remember which rope goes where. I’ve been slowly improving the maps and adding proper coverage for harder difficulties like Interloper and Misery, one region at a time.

No rush. No rebuild. Just making something useful and letting it settle.

If nothing else, it’s a reminder that quiet progress still counts — even when nobody’s clapping.

Related:
The Long Dark – Complete Region & Transition Zone Map Guide

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The Long Dark: Stalker Instinct – Announcement

The Long Dark: Stalker Instinct

Three Chances Before the Dark Wins

I didn’t plan this.

But plans rarely survive contact with Great Bear Island.

In the new year, I’ll be returning to The Long Dark on Stalker difficulty.
Not to prove anything. Not to play perfectly.
Just to see how long I can last when the world decides it’s done being forgiving.

This run will use the Cheat Death mechanic.
Not as an escape hatch, but as a countdown.

Three chances. That’s it.

Each death pushes the run closer to its end.
Each mistake lingers longer.
Each lesson may or may not be learned in time.

This isn’t about winning.
It’s about surviving long enough to leave notes behind.

More details soon.
For now, just know this:

The cold is waiting.


Stalker Instinct: A The Long Dark Stalker Survival Diary →

This also marks the start of a long-overdue update to The Long Dark map hub. Interloper and Misery are finally getting proper coverage, with maps split by difficulty to reflect real loot behaviour rather than false guarantees.

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Super Mario 64 Randomizer – Log 8: Lava Coins & Cold Comfort

Run Type: Mario 64 Randomizer

Controller: Not an N64 controller, and it shows

Log 8 – Video

Bowser in the Fire Sea – Red Coins First, Regret Second

  • Two attempts to collect the red coins
  • Zero elegant jumps
  • One unavoidable lava tax

The star itself was worse than the coins. No safe angle.
A lost life was mandatory. I paid it and moved on.

Upstairs Confusion & Painting Roulette

  • Bob-Omb Battlefield → Bowser in the Dark World
  • Cool, Cool Mountain (allegedly)
  • Secret Slide (already done)
  • Whomp’s Fortress → actually Cool, Cool Mountain

Cool, Cool Mountain – Making It Work

Red coins were half-found and poorly remembered, so I pivoted to the
100 Coin Star. That meant slides, exits, re-entries,
and the game gently mocking me.

After exiting again, the first star appeared right in front of the big penguin,
as if it felt sorry for me.

Session Results

  • Bowser in the Fire Sea – Red Coin Star cleared
  • Cool, Cool Mountain – 3 / 7 stars
  • Lives lost: accepted

Continue the Randomizer

Randomizer Hub |
Log 7: Bowser in the Fire Sea Was Not the Plan |
Log 8 |
Log 9: Coming Soon

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The Outlast Trials Hub Is Live

I’ve added a new hub page to the site for The Outlast Trials.

As the Survivor’s Dread side of the blog continues to grow, it made sense to give Outlast its own space — somewhere that keeps everything organised, easy to navigate, and separate from the calmer survival runs.

The hub brings together all Outlast Trials–related posts in one place, including logs, reflections, and anything else that emerges as the series develops. No hunting through categories. No guessing what order things came in.

You can find the hub here:

The Outlast Trials – Survivor’s Dread Hub

This doesn’t mark a change in tone — Outlast is still intense, uncomfortable, and deliberately unsettling — but it does give it a clearer structure on the site. A dedicated place for controlled panic, bad decisions, and learning the hard way.

As more entries are added, they’ll all live there. One page. One thread. No chaos in the navigation, at least.

If you’ve been following the Outlast content so far, that’s now the best place to keep track of it.

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The Quiet After

Christmas has passed. The noise has faded. The build-up is over.

Today doesn’t need to be productive. It doesn’t need to be exciting. It doesn’t even need to be memorable.

There are sales everywhere. Notifications, emails, countdowns, reminders that you could be doing something. Buying something. Starting something.

But you don’t have to.

It’s okay to move slowly today. To sit in the quiet after the storm. To let things settle before deciding what comes next.

I’ve been making a few small, quiet changes around the site as well — nothing major, just adjusting how things look and feel so they better match where the blog is now. Sometimes a little tidying helps things breathe.

If you’re looking for something familiar and unhurried, the Survivor’s Logs are always there. No rush. No pressure. Just notes taken along the way.

Rest isn’t falling behind. Stepping back isn’t missing out. Sometimes the most sensible thing you can do is nothing at all.

If today is just a calm pause between moments, that’s enough.

We’ll pick things up again when the time feels right.

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A Quiet Reminder for Today

If today feels loud, busy, or overwhelming, that’s okay.

Christmas doesn’t have to be constant noise, forced cheer, or non-stop interaction to count. It’s allowed to be quiet. It’s allowed to be simple. It’s allowed to include stepping away for a bit.

Taking a break isn’t rude. It isn’t ungrateful. It’s just knowing when you need a pause.

Whether that means finding a quiet room, going for a short walk, putting headphones on, or just sitting somewhere calm for a few minutes — that space matters.

The day doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be manageable.

If you need a moment of quiet today, take it. You don’t need permission — but consider this a reminder anyway.

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