I'm not the biggest gamer, but I love my Switch so so much and have discovered some really cool games despite how rarely I play. Hopefully this'll be a nice break from my usual kdrama and book posts — and hopefully it'll help you discover some wonderful games to check out!

Night in the Woods is the second game I bought for my Switch, and probably my favorite one, to be honest. The premise is that the main character Mae - your avatar - has returned home halfway through college, and nobody understands why. This means living back in your parents' home, meeting up with old friends, and so many curious people wondering why you're doing what you're doing. It's a very chill game for the most part, and although it's essentially a story, you're living it through the actions of your character, moving around the town, and talking to different people. The friendships built feel genuine, and many of the scenes are extremely relatable, especially if you're a university student. I also love that this game isn't just reading dialogue like many story-driven games; it's actually moving your character around, solving puzzles and figuring things out, while also giving you the freedom to explore and play music with your bandmates, for example, if you want a break from the main storyline. Also, the story itself, when the game is all said and done, is actually pretty crazy — and I mean that in the best way possible. There are some very unexpected plot twists toward the end, and I may or may not have cried at all the love.

Have I played Broken Sword 1-4? Unfortunately not. Do I still adore The Serpent's Curse despite that? Absolutely.

I adore solving fictional mysteries - when I was younger, my favorite game on the Leapfrog Didj (actually a very cool system, despite what you'd think) was Nancy Drew: The Mystery in the Hollywood Hills - and so of course this game was right up my alley. It's a point-and-click style game, which is new to me on a console like the Switch, considering I usually play action games such as Mario and Spongebob on consoles and typically think of point-and-click games as something seen more on phones and PC games. But this game works beautifully on the Switch, and I am still blown away by how intricate the story was and how much fun it was to play! The game starts out with a simple murder in an art gallery, but the more you dig into the murder, the crazier things become. I don't want to spoil anything because the mystery is so cool, but suffice it to say that everything eventually boils down to an epic fight between good and evil. The art is gorgeous, and the characters are very interesting and actually quite memorable. I also love how there's so much backstory alluded to between several of the characters — if the first four games were available on Switch as well, you know I'd play them immediately.

This one will come as a surprise to absolutely no one (except myself). I have never played Animal Crossing before in my life, and honestly, wasn't even sure I'd get the game when it came out. And then, of course, they came out with the ridiculously pretty Animal Crossing edition Nintendo Switch, which is why I'm sitting here in quarantine with two Switches under my roof. At that point, yeah, I was pretty on board with getting the game as well the day it came out.

Now, Animal Crossing is definitely not my usual sort of game, and I did not expect to love it. So color me surprised when it's all I did for the first two weeks after it came out. To this date, I have played it longer than I have played any other game on my system (and maybe more than I've played all of them combined as well). It's a tad difficult to describe the game, but basically, you have decided to live on a deserted island (this is the New Horizons edition), only to find out later that this costs money, and now you're in debt to a Mr. Tom Nook. So you have to earn money to pay it off, and then you can upgrade your tent to a small house, but now you're in debt again so you repeat the cycle. This basically happens over and over again throughout the course of the game, which is nice because it provides some simple but necessary goals to keep the game entertaining. While this cycle continues, you invite neighbors to your island, decorate the rooms in your house, and also decorate the island and turn it into your perfect, aesthetic utopia. There's so much more to it - seasonal activities; donating to and expanding your museum; visiting other islands, including those of your real life friends, creating outfits and art, etc. - but that's the game in a (very small) nutshell. It's actually crazy addicting — if I sit down to play, I'm probably going to stay for at least 2-4 hours, if not more (which is why I began listening to audiobooks while playing after a certain point). It's also especially nice during quarantine because it kind of feels like you're outside even when you can't go outside.

Social media low key ruined the game for me though — when other people's islands are so pretty and organized in a way that mine will never be, what even is the point of playing? That plus my short attention span meant I took a couple months break from the game, but I went back in the other day and was surprised to find that it's still fun to visit my island! My favorite thing about this game is probably that you can play it at your own pace, and that it never ends — you can take however many breaks you want because your island will always be there. You just have to stomp on all the cockroaches that have decided to take over your home in your absence. Re-visiting Sanditon (that's my island!) last week truly did feel a bit like coming back home.

Lately I have been having the hardest time finding backlist dramas to binge and love. I feel like I'm running out of good dramas to watch! While this is a pity for me, it means I have tons of dramas to shout at you lot about. Of course, I've been thinking about some dramas more than others lately, so those are the ones I'm going to talk about. If you want any other recommendations, feel free to let me know what kind of drama you're looking for down in the comments!

Of course I'm going to start with my favorite drama of all time (and that's saying something considering I've watched 235 dramas). I've never watched a drama like this with such stellar writing and banter between its characters, such brilliant character arcs that aren't limited to just the leads, and a hate-to-love romance I cannot stop thinking about despite it being at least half a year since I first watched City Hall. This drama is a delight from episode one, but there's so much growth experienced in each episode that by the end of the series, you won't even recognize the beginning. Cha Seung-won and Kim Sun-a play the main couple in this drama, and I can honestly say that they are perfect. The drama and its bloopers are a delight to behold, but if I had to pick a favorite scene, it would be the tango scene (those who've seen this drama, you know what I'm talking about) — the angst is fiery and I swoon just thinking about it. I'm currently rewatching the drama and I think the next episode is the tango one, so I'm excited!

I discovered this drama exactly one week after finishing City Hall. I started it because I was feeling lost without any more City Hall episodes, and so I started The Greatest Love in a desperate attempt to feel a similar high since it had the same lead actor, Cha Seung-won. Much to my surprise, it really delivered, and I became a huge Cha Seung-won fan! The plot is very different from City Hall - it's entirely rom-com, whereas City Hall is rom-com intertwined with stellar political plot - but the main things to love about City Hall are present in The Greatest Love as well, i.e. wondrous, mature romance based on actual substance, wonderful writing, and of course, weird as heck male lead who has beautiful chemistry with the female lead. I'll say it now: Cha Seung-won is the king of the romantic comedy genre.

In a drama hangover after watching City Hall and The Greatest Love, I spent months scouring recommendation lists, looking for some drama, any drama, to sate my thirst for whatever type of drama these Cha Seung-won gems can be labelled as. I didn't want light, fluffy romance with no texture, I wanted hate-to-love with serious angst and maturity. I didn't just want a rom-com, but also a hefty side of plot to go with it. It took quite a bit of searching, but finally I stumbled upon a recommendation online for The King of Dramas, which apparently featured a wacky male lead who may appeal to those who loved the same in The Greatest Love. This sounded extremely promising, so with high hopes I began watching it...and fell head over heels. The romance here is between a struggling drama writer and a producer, and you get a fair bit of behind the scenes about how a drama actually gets produced. But the best part is probably the slow burn, hate-to-love; the chemistry is there beginning from episode one, but boy did they make us wait (note: I say this with utter glee). It's truly a superb drama, and one I'm so glad I was lucky enough to find.

The odder the couple, I more I adore them. [The King of Dramas]

After you watch City Hall, you'll probably spend a few months in despair over the opinion that no drama will ever live up to that one. While that is true, I can share the happy news that Lawyers of Korea comes pretty darn close. It sounds unbelievable, I know, but Lawyers of Korea features the same odd dynamic between main leads that we all loved so much in City Hall. Once again, the plot is nothing like that of City Hall, but the romance and lead characters are so similar that the dramas themselves feel similar. I only started watching this one because Ryu Soo-young - an actor I've adored since watching Nice Witch - plays a second lead, so imagine my pleasure and surprise when I watched the first episode and just knew I'd found the closest thing to City Hall.

If you know me at all, then you know I'm not one for horror films. I'll concede that being freaked out by a movie is an interesting, exhilarating feeling, but I prefer getting eight hours of peaceful sleep every night and not glancing back at my mirror every five seconds to make sure nothing odd is going on in the reflection, thank you very much. That being said, I've wanted to watch The Closet (2020) ever since I first saw the poster and viewed the trailer — and of course because Kim Nam-gil is such a fun actor and who wouldn't want to watch something he's in? Even so, I put it off for several months, because again, sleep. Eventually I gave in though, and smartly had the new Scooby Doo film lined up to watch afterwards since comedy is a brilliant foil for horror.

The premise of The Closet is a man and his daughter move to a new house in what seems to be the middle of nowhere (nothing new here). He doesn't know how to deal with his daughter without his wife, and so for the most part, the two ignore each other. The father is so uncomfortable with things that he considers sending his daughter off to a boarding school to help her acclimate to, well, her new life. Enter: the freaky closet in the child's room.

I don't typically watch horror without a good reason, and right now that reason for me is Kim Nam-gil (he plays a "ghostbuster" character that has a cool backstory that ties him closely with the main plot). Not only is he brilliant, but also his humor is the main reason I enjoyed this. I was fully prepared to be bored by this movie - I typically go in with low expectations - but to my delight, I loved it! One of my favorite things about Korean horror is that it tends to be less scary than American horror, in my opinion. Additionally, Korean horror often brings the supernatural horror aspect back to the horror that is humanity, which gives a lot more depth to the film and also hopefully means I'm not thinking about ghosts for the next three months after watching the film.

So I watched the film, was a tad scared despite playing it in broad daylight, keeping distance between myself and the screen, and making sure the door of my room was wide open, but everything was fine because I watched Scoob! after and laughed at all the corny jokes. A week passes, and I'm completely okay. Hooray, I think to myself, I watched a wonderful horror movie and survived without side effects. Then day eight comes along...and there's the nightmare. Cue sleeping with the chromecast on and jumping at shadows for the next couple days.

But I call it a success, considering I was only frightened for about three days instead of three months. The movie was such fun that I'd do it all over again too, short-term consequences notwithstanding.