Solarpunk Archives - Dragonchasers

Celebrating America’s Birthday with Three Days of Gaming

Posted on July 6, 2026July 6, 2026 by Nimgimli

I really wanted to steal Tipa’s “I Know What I Did Last Weekend” title but that would be gauche.

I have fond memories of quite a few outdoorsy 4th of July celebrations from the days when I lived on Long Island. We’d get up early, set up a water smoker full of savory treats, then head to the beach for beer and surf. Late in the afternoon we’d come home to more beer, slow-cooked barbeque, and croquet matches that lasted until bedtime.

Life in the south is different. It is hot. Hotter than I can take for any length of time. This 4th in particular was brutal (actually more so up north than it was here). So I stayed indoors and played video games for all three days.

See, if AI wrote these posts it wouldn’t add all that superfluous prelminary junk. That’s how you can know I still write my own posts!

Anyway, yeah games. A LOT of games. Neverness to Everness is in a bit of a lull for me until the version 1.2 update (which is out this week). I still logged in and spent my daily ‘pixels’ and such, but with all the quests done and the ‘battle pass’ thingie completed there wasn’t a ton to do. I still had the gacha itch, though, so I patched up Wuthering Waves.

Screenshot for Neverness to Everness showing the main character and Hotori sitting in a movie theater — Having some downtime waiting for version 1.2 means I have time to go on dates with Hotori but… I feel like I should skooch over and get a little closer to her, eh?

Ohhh, they know how to getcha, these gacha folks. Now I have a whole “Returners” event in Wuthering Waves to work on. Daily login rewards and a mini battle pass thingie. It took a while to adjust back to WW after playing NTE. It helped to re-do key bindings to match (something I’m getting better about generally) and then a little help from Gemini to get my bearings, and WW was once more a fun time. Now how on earth can I balance two gachas at once? NTE is still my current darling and I am SUPER pumped for version 1.2 and the game-inside-the-game known as 999 Nights. (Which you’re supposed to verbalize it as “1000 Minus One Nights” for some reason.)

Meanwhile. progress is being made in Octopath Traveller. I beat that boss I had blogged about and found a shrine that lets me stack jobs. Apparently there’s a shrine for each job (each of the 8 characters has their own associated job) and once I started multiclassing everything got MUCH easier (and more interesting…figuring out the best pairings). Now I’ve found 3 shrines so I need to be on the lookout for the other 5. Game is getting more and more interesting though, even though the story beats are still far apart in terms of time played. It’s been a while since I stuck with a turn-based RPG for this long (I guess Persona 4 was the lat time) and its been a nice change.

I recently purchased an Ultimate GeForce Now subscription so I can stream games rather than running them locally. Why? Once again, heat. My office gets so warm and having a PC running hot to play games makes things worse. Plus a side-order of “My hard drives are full of large language models and I have no room for games.” Anyway, fired it up to test and what was the most popular game that I had in my library? Diablo IV. So I started it up. There’s a new expansion and new classes and they were offering a 7 day trial of the new classes. I picked a Warlock and started a new campaign (I TRIED to skip the campaign but my soul just wouldn’t let me.)

Screenshot of combat in Diablo IV, attempting to show the 'giant hand' skill mentioned in the text — I really tried to capture this giant hand skill but it’s fast and my screenshot reflexes are slow…

About 20 minutes later I was redeeming Microsoft Rewards points for a $50 gift card and buying the Diablo IV Expansion, Lord of Hate (or something…everything in Diablo IV seems to be called {something} of Hate which gets confusing). I never stick with D4 very long because the Seasons bug me. Because they exist it seems “wasteful” to play my Eternal (non-seasonal) characters even though I never come CLOSE to completing a season. I’m being my own worst enemy here and should embrace the Eternal since I’m not a die-hard player. With all that said, the Warlock is hella fun so far. GREAT skill effects. My favorite is a giant red etheral hand that comes out of the ground and drags baddies away from you.

Last but not least, I’m still playing Solarpunk. I’ve gone from burning wood to burning wax briquets to using solar power. Now I’m building batteries to store excess power, and I’ve researched windmills though haven’t built any yet. I’ve also unlocked switches and some logic tools which I’m just beginning to experiment with. All these fancy items require silicon and cobalt which are the latest resources to get unlocked and I’m also still working on getting production of those up and running. Solarpunk has been one of the more pleasant gaming surprises I’ve had recently. When I first booted it up I never would’ve dreamed I’d still be playing it weeks later.

Screenshot showing some of the tech I'm using. Solar panels, battery, switch, status panel... — Some of the tech I’ve researched. Solar panels, in the background is a battery. On the right is a switch to turn off the Advanced Dock since there’s no reason to power it while the airship is docked. And finally a panel to monitor power draw.

I ALSO fired up Star Wars Outlaws, liked what I saw, but realized this was NOT the time to add yet another game into my ‘currently playing’ list, so I quickly bailed on it so it would feel ‘fresh’ when I eventually circle back to it.

And now it’s Monday and back to work and no extra time off until Labor Day in September. How am I going to manage to keep up with all these games? Something is going to have to fall away. Probably Wuthering Waves since, again, two gachas is probably one too many.

I guess if nothing else, spending 4th of July weekend playing games in the A/C is better for my waistline and my liver than those lost weekends of beer and barbeque that we used to enjoy. [I DID manage a morning walk each day just to get SOME exercise in.]Cheaper too, come to think of it.

I’m Still a Solarpunk

Posted on June 26, 2026June 26, 2026 by Nimgimli

I’m surprised to be here reporting to you all that I am still playing Solarpunk. It has managed to wriggle its way into my ‘currently playing’ queue somehow.

I can’t even articulate why. It’s in so many ways your standard crafting game. You collect materials, build things, and those things lead to you building better things, or researching better things to build. And that cycle just repeats. There’s no clear goal or anything here, other than ‘advance the tech’.

Solarpunk screenshot showing a small house and a garden with automated sprinklers — First base, first island.

Despite the name of the game, the real hook here is the floating island aspect. You start on an island floating in mid-air. Your first big goal is to build an airship dock, which comes with an airship included. Then you can fly to other islands that are within range of your starter island. One of these islands is actually a hovering air ship inhabited by a robot who will trade you some of your crafted items for either blueprints or airship upgrades.

Solarpunk screenshot showing a bridge suspended in mid-air — Physics aren’t a major concern when building in Solarpunk

Blueprints are used to unlock new tech, and the airship upgrades expand the range of your ship. This is the gating system. Your first island has Iron Ore. Once you get your airship you can fly to another island that has Copper. With the next airship you can reach an island that has Quartz, and so on. The range you can cover seems to be based on some arbitrary point on the map (it might be the robot’s airship/shop). In other words the gate is a ‘hard’ gate; you can’t, for example, build a second airship dock on the peripherary of your current range and then extend the range from that dock. It’s a very videogame system but I get it…

Solarpunk screenshot of a bridge — Same bridge, different point of view. Whats a little jank as long as it gets you across the chasm!

At this point I’m 10 hours in, or thereabouts. I have researched solar panels, sprinklers to keep the crops going, automated drills for bringing up ores, and so forth. I’ve start caring for animals (chickens only, so far). My most recent ship upgrade required me to trade 6 eggs so I had to find a chicken, plop down a house for it, and a water and food bin. Once the chicken was happy it conveniently started placing eggs in a basket outside its house. Then it vanished, but eggs keep appearing so I dunno if that’s a bug or what.

Solarpunk screenshot showing a chicken coop, a water trough and a feed trough — This is where Swoosh lives. I never see Swoosh these days, but eggs still appear in the basket.

On my ‘home island’ I plopped down a chicken coop in a random spot and it had a nametag on it, but there’s no chicken that I can see. I’ve put down food and water and I’ll see if I get phantom chicken eggs here, too.

This is not a game I play for hours. It’s like a mellow 20-30 minutes then I start getting a little bored. Flying between islands is fun at first but after a bit it becomes a dull routine. Imagine I need glass, iron and copper to build something (a solar panel, for example). I have to fly to the island with the copper mine, then fly to the island with the sand ‘mine’, then fly home to the island with the iron mine. Between the limited capacity of the drills and your limited inventory space, you’re not hauling huge amounts or ore. Generally it feels like enough for one project or so. I’ve been working on doubling the drills at each location, but it takes 2 solar powers to power a drill. In other words installing a 2nd drill in a mining spot requires the drill itself, two solar panels, and two cables to connect them. So it’s taking a while.

Solarpunk screenshot showing two drills working side by side — Two drills gets you ore twice as fast, of course but….

Solarpunk screenshot showing the 2 drill set up and an array of solar panels powering them — Two drills also means twice as many solar panels and connectors

I will be very surprised if I don’t eventually research a way to do automated mining runs or something, but until then it’s lots of flying back and forth. There’s also no fast travel. I did upgrade one of my airship docks which lets me ‘boost’ to it, assuming it is powered. I haven’t quite figured that process out yet and I’m afraid of crashing into the dock and damaging/destroying my ship.

Solarpunk is the ideal game to play after work and before dinner. I have a small-ish segment of free time and a load of stress on my shoulders from work. Piddling around in my Solarpunk world, gathering some crops, building a couple items, building houses and bridges and such…it’s a really relaxing way to transition out of work mode. As I mentioned in my first post, I am playing it via Game Pass but I almost wish I’d bought it on the Switch 2 as it feels like something that would just fit really well on that platform.

Punk As Heck! A Few Hours With Solarpunk

Posted on June 20, 2026 by Nimgimli

I probably wouldn’t have bothered with Solarpunk if it hadn’t been for my buddy Scopique talking about his low-key annoyance with -punk being added to the end of random words these days. It became a kind of running joke. So when Solarpunk hit Game Pass I knew I had to take it for a spin.

A screenshot of a bunch of flat rocks — Took me longer than it should have to realize this was iron ore.

Solarpunk is a survivalbox-like [how’s that for convoluted] game that is about as un-punk as a game can get. It’s a “cozy” game with (as far as I know) no combat and not even a narrative, really. The first 1 to 2 hours is bog-standard crafting game. Find sticks and rocks to make rudimentary tools. Use them to harvest more sticks and rocks and make a workbench. Use the workbench to make more complicated things. We’ve done it a thousand times. Solarpunk handles this fine; in particular I like that you don’t have to pick stuff up. You chop down a tree and it falls over then poofs into wood that teleports into your inventory. Makes harvesting quick and easy.

The hook in Solarpunk is that you’re on a floating island and ‘your’ island doesn’t have all the materials you’ll need. So you build a Research table and start researching new technologies and pretty soon you’ll have an air ship that you can fly to other floating islands to collect different resources. The range of your first air ship is pretty limited but presumably you’ll expand that over time, or maybe build a series of “Air Ship Docks” on islands that you can then hop across.

Screenshot showing a gardening setup with crops, a well, sprinkler and bee hive — The backyard: plots of berries, cotton and watermelons. A well to fill my watering can. My first sprinkler system (traded it for some watermelons at a robot’s trading post) and finally a beehive. Which gives me wax but I like to pretend their polinating my crops. And finally 2 rain catchers for my potable water supply

There’s also, apparently, a heavy emphasis on automation as you get a little further in. There are drills to bring up ore, sprinklers to water crops and… I dunno what else. Watering crops is a major hassle until you get that sprinkler, but on the other hand they grow really quickly. Every time you harvest you get seeds so you can replant. Similarly felled trees yield saplings that you can (and should) replant.

There’a a food and water system and the game throws a lot of hints at you early to start growing berries, which I did. Berries fill your food meter and a little of your thirst meter. Water comes from rain catchers that you build. There’s a pond on my starting island but the water isn’t safe to drink. I dug a well but it, too, yielded water not save to drink. Eventually I think I’ll learn how to boil water (why would I have to LEARN that? I have fires!) to make it safe, but so far rainwater and berry hydration has been plenty for me. I honestly don’t know what happens if your food or water runs out since it hasn’t happened to me yet.

There’s also a nice building system so you can build yourself a house and all that, and there are lots of decorating blueprints and such. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Screenshot of the inside of a small cottage — Crafting table, research table, bed, storage chest and a torch. What more does a Solarpunk like me need?

I’ve only put maybe three hours into Solarpunk so far. I have done nothing solar-related, punk or otherwise, so far. I’ve been burning wood for energy. Is that punk?

But so far, I’m enjoying it as a chill crafting game. I guess I need to start calling these crafting/building games instead of survivalboxes since there’re no enemies and no combat. Solarpunk is available pretty much everywhere, I think. It’s $22.99 on Steam and on the Playstation, Switch 2 and Xbox stores. On Steam it is sitting at Very Positive with almost 1,900 reviews.