VIDEO GAME: Haven Park (2021)

Haven ParkYear: 2021Rating: ETime Played: 281 minutes / 4.68 hours When I started playing video games with my 3-year-old daughter, I purposely tried to find games that favored exploration. Then I could let her dictate where we would go and what we would do. And while the big empty world of Sable was a good start, I thought Haven Park was cute enough and open-ended enough to fit the Animal Crossing niche. And this way I wouldn't have to restart my Animal Crossing island either. Even if it was a little short, Haven Park gave me some quality time with my daughter. With a story that's closer to A Short Hike, Haven Park allows you to build up campsites based scattered around an island. You get to choose what to put in each site, at which point campers will arrive and demand other amenities. It was difficult to keep track of all the different sites, but repairing the broken bridges, fences, and...
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VIDEO GAME: LEGO Builder’s Journey (2021)

LEGO Builder's JourneyYear: 2021Rating: ETime Played: 133 minutes / 2.22 hours I've played a lot of LEGO games over the years, but none of them quite matched the experience I had when playing through LEGO Builder's Journey. Early LEGO video games hit a lot of different genres until they settled into the "action adaptation" model that most LEGO games occupied in the early 2000s. Builder's Journey felt both classic and new in its minimalist puzzle platformer format. It's only a shame there weren't more levels to explore, but at least it told a tight story in the few hours it takes to get through it. Each level of Builder's Journey conveys a small piece of an overarching narrative that's communicated without a single word. This kind of storytelling is impressive in its own right, but even more so considering LEGO didn't lean on the expressiveness of their iconic minifigs. Instead, the characters are made of simple bricks that hop around the bonsai-like...
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MOVIE: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On Year: 2021 Rating: PG Length: 90 minutes / 1.50 hours The documentary format is so ingrained as a genre of film that it can be quite easy to take the same visual style and plot structure and apply it to something that doesn't actually exist. In the case of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021), the audience gets a glimpse into this peculiar little creature named Marcel (Jenny Slate) who lives in an Airbnb with his grandmother—both of which are shells that have shoes and can talk. Equally charming and meta, this film is a cute piece of fluff. While I never saw the short films this movie was based on, they must have been significant enough at the time (roughly a decade ago) for me to feel like this was a familiar piece of media that I had somehow missed from my childhood. The stop-motion style of these small creatures helps to show the challenges they face...
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VIDEO GAME: Poochy and Yoshi’s Wooly World (2015)

Poochy and Yoshi’s Wooly World Year: 2015 Rating: E Time Played: 11.35 hours It’s weird to think that it has been 20 years since Yoshi split off into its own franchise. The sequel to Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island established the franchise’s game mechanics and the titular character’s movements back in 1995. Since then, there haven’t been too many entries in the core series. Yoshi’s Story rehashed some of the gameplay a little over a decade after Yoshi’s Island, just like Poochy and Yoshi’s Wooly World managed to do a decade after that. Part of the problem with this is that the visuals always get an update, but nothing else changes significantly with each iteration. Somewhat in the same universe as Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Yoshi’s Wooly World has a tactile and charming aesthetic that revolves around yarn and other fabric crafts. While Yoshi can launch balls of yarn—much in the same way that eggs were used in previous iterations of the franchise—one of the goals...
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MOVIE: (500) Days of Summer (2009)

(500) Days of Summer Year: 2009 Rating: PG-13 Length: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours I’ll be the first to admit that I’m biased when it comes to this film. In 2009, I experienced my first ever relationship. I also experienced a breakup from said relationship in the same year. Consequently, I can relate to the main character, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and his rise and fall brought about by Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Like Tom, I too held the romantic belief of “the one,” based mostly on the movies, books, TV shows, and music that touted this magical someone who would fill the hole in our souls. What (500) Days of Summer emphasizes is certainly closer to reality: not every story has a happy ending. As for the way the movie is presented, I must applaud the ingenious and artful direction of Marc Webb, this being his directorial debut after years of working on music videos. His previous experience certainly comes through in the music chosen for...
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BOOK: The Lighthouse Keeper (2017)

The Lighthouse Keeper Year: 2017 Author: Cynthia Ellingsen Length: 380 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** I’d love to call this book “cute,” but I’m afraid Kip would toss me into Lake Michigan. That being said, part of me now wants to go out, get a nautical compass tattoo on my arm and buy a dilapidated lighthouse to restore. I don’t usually read “romance” novels. Of course, I'm not sure I could even consider this book in that genre since it had so many other aspects to it, but I almost immediately fell in love with the characters and the setting. The story came to life in my head, even to the point where I started mentally casting the movie (probably Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Evans, and Reese Witherspoon for starters). While the main premise that started the plot seemed a little unbelievable (why would this insurance company have a lien on a house that isn’t insured by them?), the story has a ton...
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