birdwrong

17th October, 2024 - Collecting Pixels in Colors TCG

As our lives have been turned upside down due to our imminent move to the UK, I've been feeling a bit frazzled! I suppose that's entirely to be expected, as many routines and familiar comforts have slipped away.

I finished my job at the library last week, and have been spending a lot of time finding new homes for objects we won't be bringing with us. Just today, our pallet of belongings started its long journey across the ocean!

While everything has been feeling so crazy and out-of-control, I have enjoyed some peaceful time in the evenings playing Colors TCG - a trading card game hosted over on Dreamwidth. I learned about the game while browsing Neocities websites, when I stumbled upon Cloudcover's Colors TCG page. The sight of all those little pixel cards organised so neatly was immediately appealing!

I enjoyed learning about how the game works and setting up my own page for a few evenings after that. It's really cool how this game exists because of the community that engages with it. Seeing people swapping cards and helping each other towards their goals reminded me of collecting Pokemon cards as a child, or of collecting pixel items on Gaia Online as a teen.

While there is some fancy code available that automates a lot of the process, I opted to engage with the game manually, meaning lots of saving files, and writing them into my website manually. It's certainly more time consuming, but during this chaotic time in life I am really appreciating the opportunity to engage with something like this. Something that is nothing more than organising nice things into nice places. While everything is crazy, this is neat, orderly, and within my control. Seeing a collection of cards grow feels very rewarding, and after playing it for a few weeks I have a nice little routine going with note-taking and code-writing.

There are reasons to enjoy the game outside of the card collecting, too! The community is really lovely and welcoming, and there are other ways to engage such as "donating" decks to be added each month! I've enjoyed sourcing images to donate for decks related to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Maison Ikkoku, and Rilakkuma and Kaoru this month! It's fun to think that people might seek to collect cards that I helped to introduce to the game.

Time will tell how much I will stick with Colors TCG when my life eventually resumes its usual flow. Typically I like to spend my "gaming time" on games with stories and complex mechanics to dive into. Colors TCG is very much not that, but I think as a slow-paced alternative that feels oddly meditative, it will continue to have a presence in my quiet time.

Anyway, there's my ramble about Colors TCG! If you think it sounds kinda cool, I encourage you to take a look. If you do - let's trade!

The next time I write a blog post here... We'll have finally moved to Wales! How crazy!!!!!