Artistically Gifted

The most recent DLC for Two Point Museum, "Arty-Facts," recently was released.  Being a big Two Point fan, I snapped it right up and returned to the zany world of museum management.  But how does the new DLC stack up?

What is it?

DLC for Two Point Museum that adds in a new art themed vibe.  You get a new museum with its own storyline to run and lots of new items to discover on expedition as well new decorative themes.  It is priced at $10.99.

How much playtime can I expect?

To play your new museum to the four-star/story completion level (because you can keep playing to accomplish additional, more generic goals to get more stars) I would estimate ~10-12 hours.  I completed the story goals and also made it a point to unlock all the new expedition art exhibits, so I played a little bit beyond the story.  Playtime can vary based on your playstyle and goals, of course.

Pros:

The art studio--where masterpieces are made (eventually).

+ Your new art experts don't just go on expeditions, but can create their own unique works of art.  You can build an art studio and direct them to create a variety of artworks.  Similar to expeditions, creating art costs a certain amount and you can specify if you want your artists to spend more time to create a higher quality product.  A higher quality work of art costs more money and means your artist will be busy for a longer period of time, but also yields a perk.

+ Multiple kinds of art talents that can be trained.  All artists can create paintings, but you can also train (or hire) the ability to create 3D art (statues and sculptures) as well as performing arts. 

+ You can also train your artists in emotional intelligence which allows the to learn new emotions that can be added into their artworks.  Emotions impact guest feelings and there are certain guest bonuses related to the emotions that they experience.

+ Lots of fun new art themed decorative items to give your art museum the perfect vibe.

A performance artist puts on a dramatic play.

+ Building a stage allows you to employ performance artists who can put on performances that guests will pay additional money to watch.  You can unlock additional performance styles on expedition and they include themes like miming, martial arts, and music.  Like artworks, the type of performance your expert can put on depends on the emotional range that they are trained in.

+ Tons of funny famous artworks to discover on expedition.  Many are silly mockups of actual famous artwork or have a Two Point twist.

Some of the famous artworks--Cheesy Gothic & the Stinker.

+ New interactive activities to keep guests entertained.  There's an art stations for the kiddies, a fun sketch stage, and a full-body art/catapult activity.

+ To keep your security on their toes, there's also a new guild of thieves to contend with.  These art thieves will steal your valuable work and replace it with a valueless, silly forgery.

+ Making money is a cinch thanks to Snoteby's auctions (love them name).  These monthly auctions seek out specific kinds of artworks (usually a combination of a type of artwork with a specific emotion--statues that express joy, for example) that you can mark for auction.  The amount you get depends on the quality of the artwork.  Auctions are a good option to get rid of lower-quality works, but are a bit of a roll of the dice because the type of art and emotion changes each month.  Creating a range of new artworks is a good way to get your experts some experience but to also make sure you have a range of works to auction.

Interactive art!

+ There's no researching required!  Each famous or created artwork comes with a full amount of knowledge.  This eliminates the need to go on the same expeditions multiple times which can be a bit annoying.

Cons:

- It can be difficult to keep track of the emotions of each artwork and I wish they would add in a special layer on the view option to see emotions.  Instead, you have to click onto each one and find the emotion.  It's a minor annoyance when trying to auction off artwork.

Recommendation:

If you enjoy Two Point Museum you'll want to check out this DLC.  I think I actually liked it better than the wildlife DLC.  I like the ability to have your artists create unique artwork and to make money by auctioning them off.   Having different kinds of artists also adds in some variety--it's not just about paintings.  Give it a whirl!

Finding all the Kitties

I recently stumbled upon a very cute series of hidden object games during Steam's Hidden Object Fest sales event.  If you're a lover of felines and casual, hidden object games, you'll definitely want to check out An Arcade Full of Cats (and potentially the rest of the ...Full of Cats series).  Sometimes it's nice to just kick back with something where there's no pressure and the goal is to just find a bunch of hidden cats.

What is it?

An Arcade Full of Cats is a hidden object game that challenges you to find a specific number of silly felines hidden among the various nooks and crannies of arcades from various periods of gaming history.  As an added challenge there are also extra-hidden cats who are squirrelled away in various cat-friendly nooks on each level.  Aaaaand, there are usually special cats who will ask you to find other objects as well (in a sort of side quest way).  The best part--it's free to play!

How much playtime can you expect?

In the base, free-to-play version of the game you're probably looking 1-1.5 hours-ish (depending on how good you are at finding the cats or how much you want to use hints).  It's not a lot, but it is free.

Pros:

+ Detailed, clever level design.  Each "level" has you finding cats scattered throughout various golden era's of arcade gaming starting with the 1980's and going through the 2020's.  There are tons of era-specific references that have been given a clever feline twist--they have a fun, feline specific title or feature a cat as the protagonist.  There are posters with references to pop culture from the era that feature cats rather than the human stars and all the little details will give you a nostalgic chuckle.

An example of one of the levels (from the DLC).

+ It's made by Devcats who have a very pro-cat message.  They've included fun information about how cat owners can "catify" their living spaces that make it more enjoyable for our feline friends.  They also have a very positive "adopt don't shop" message to encourage pet rescue.  The game features the cats of all the developers.

+ Fun, arcade themed hidden object challenges from different periods of history.  There is a hidden cat coin on each level that unlocks a hidden-object arcade game level where you must find different hidden things (it could be bugs, weird fish, newspapers, etc.).  The 90's themed game is a feline-filled riff on Paperboy.

+ If you get stuck you can get a hint.  There's a bit of a cooldown (so you can't just spam it), but it's handy for when you just can't find the last few cats/objects.

+ Great music that matches each era.

+ The era specific references are very clever and fun.  The feline specific twists on games and pop culture references add to the nostalgia and silliness.

 + Once you've finished all the base levels there is a timed challenge where you cannot use hints.

+ It's free-to-play!

Cons:

- It's hard to say anything negative about something that's free-to-play.  I suppose one gripe would be that the ultimate goal of the free-to-play portion is to ultimately get you to pay for the DLC.  The good news though is that the DLC is priced at a mere $2.99 and you can decide whether or not you want to make a purchase.

I did opt to purchase the DLC and enjoyed finding even more cats scattered throughout history.  I wanted to give the dev(cats)'s some money because I enjoyed the game and their positive feline message.  It's definitely worth the meager $2.99.

Recommendation:

If you like cats, gaming, and finding hidden objects, An Arcade Full of Cats should be right up your alley.  Since it's free-to-play you can give it a try with no strings attached to see if you're going to like it.  If you do like it, there's a whole series of hidden object games by the Devcats under the "full of cats" premise.  

Busy Beavers

After I finished up my latest The Witcher 3 playthrough (probably #10-12-ish--I know, I've got a problem, but it's my all time fave) I decided to switch gears and take on my mounting backlog.  In the last sale I decided to grab the city builder Timberborn since it had recently exited early access.  I've been spending my gaming time with my fantastic civilization of busy little beavers and trying desperately to keep them alive.

What is it?

A city builder with elements of survival and automation.  The twist...it's a civilization of beavers!  These aren't your typical beavers though, they are masters of science and engineering who are capable to building very advanced structures.  Like most city builders, your first task is to simply get your city on its feet--gathering and building all the required elements to simply keep everyone alive.  In this case it's housing and timber and berry gathering posts.  You can also build a science station that allows you to generate research points that can be used to unlock new, more advanced structures and features.

The beavers enjoying a dip in the river at the lido deck.

It's not just as simple as making sure your beavers have a food, water, and a roof over their heads.  Beavers are social creatures who want to do more than just gnaw down some lumber and eat berries, so it's important to keep them happy by beautifying their town with shrubs, lamps, and other decorative elements.  They also like to eat a variety of foods, so you definitely want to build a farm to start growing different types of crops as well as a grill, mill, and bakery.  Since they are partially aquatic they also like to keep their fur wet so it's vital to build showers (or the lido deck) so they can periodically take a dip.

Probably the biggest challenge are periods of drought and bad tides.  During droughts the water flow on the map is interrupted for a short period of time and everything dries up--this means all berry bushes AND any farmland.  It's important to plant a variety of crops because some have a limited tolerance to drought and will quickly die.  At first, droughts only last for a short period, but as you survive for longer and longer they will also get longer.  It's important to maintain a good stockpile of food and water to make sure that you have enough to get through these periods.  You can also build a dam which can help keep some water around even during a drought.  Eventually though, most of your crops will die and need to be completely replanted.  Bad tides are the other major disaster element--they start arriving after you've survived several cycles and are more difficult to deal with than droughts.  Bad water is water that is polluted with radiation and will cause decay to spread wherever it touches.  This means that your lands will frequently be spread with corruption which will kill all plants.  It also means that any beaver who spends too much time in the polluted water can also become ill with disease (luckily once the water is contaminated they will automatically stay out--unless they're busy with a task like building or harvesting).  Sick beavers must be treated with antidotes that are crafted by a healer in order to recover.  They won't work until they've fully recovered.  The solution to bad tides seems to be blocking off the water source that leads to your settlement with a sluice gate (or levee) until the bad tide passes.  This event winds up being a lot like a drought because everything dries up (eventually).

What I am liking/disliking so far:

Like:

1.) Semi-helpful tutorial that covers the basics well.

2.) Nice music and ambience.  The musical change during droughts and bad tides is fun.

3.) Variable game speed controls that are easy to use.

4.) Ability to prioritize different tasks easily.

5.) The added challenge of droughts and bad tides keep you on your toes.  It is possible to disable them if you're looking to make the game feel like more of a traditional city builder.

Dislike:

1.) Tutorial covers basics but not more advanced elements (at least, not so far).

2.) Slow periods of gameplay where I feel a sense that I should be doing something.

3.) Combining districts/expanding settlement is a bit weird and not explained well (but can be figured out/looked up).

Overall, I'm having a nice time with Timberborn and look forward to diving into some of the more advanced elements (if I can survive that long).  I have more of a feel for the basics and a sort of progression path, so it might be time to switch over to a new settlement.  Next week I should be ready to write up my full review.  Happy gaming!

Artistic Endeavors

I've almost wrapped up my latest The Witcher 3 marathon playthrough so unfortunately I'm not doing anything new (...yet!).  I have managed to prop up my backlog which is something I like to do in anticipation of some enjoyable summer gaming once the school year is over.  I'm likely going to hop into Timberborn (a city-builder set in a civilization of beavers) but have a few casual, good-times kinds of games on deck.  It's always a bit fun to have that anticipation of what to play next!

In current gaming news, it was announced this week that the next DLC for Two Point Museum will be released very soon!  The "Arty-Facts" DLC allows you to run a quirky new art museum.  Give the trailer ye olde gander:

It looks like we'll get a new type of art expert who can also create artworks as well as performers.  I'm curious if you'll be able to hire different kinds of performers since the trailer shows mimes, dancers, and a Shakespearean actor.  There also seems to be some sort of guest emotion element that is tied to the displays.

Overall, I'm very excited for this DLC and love the quirky charm of the entire Two Point series.  The best thing about their DLC announcements is that they usually wait until it's pretty close to release--in this case, it's May 7th, so only a short wait.  It's extra fun to add to my upcoming playlist!

Good Looking Gear

Every time I re-play The Witcher 3 I try to mix it up a little bit with some different choices.  One departure I chose this time around was to opt for some of the non-standard craftable witcher gear sets.  You can purchase fragments of maps from various vendors that unlock the standard gear treasure hunts (your griffin, cat, bear, and wolf sets).  There are a few other gear sets that are separate and I usually don't pay much attention to them, but I decided to give them a go this time around.

The last big patch to the game added in a new story type of quest to investigate The Devil's Pit for a priest of the Eternal Fire whose colleague had gone missing.  There's an entire story that involves a long-lost Wolf School witcher who had been tricked into battling a particularly devious type of monster that had then possessed him.  The boss fight is a bit trickier than other fights because you have to figure out the sequence of skills to free the witcher from parasitic monster that is possessing him (it's not that hard though--just a couple of different signs).  After completing this mission the ghost of the witcher offers to share with Geralt the location of plans for a unique set of gear.  This gear is inspired by Netflix's "The Witcher" series and is called the Forgotten School of the Wolf (I posted pictures of it a couple of weeks ago).  The stats are similar to other gear sets but the level requirements are slightly different and the look of the gear doesn't change depending on the crafting level.

Another set of gear that I never checked out is part of the "Hearts of Stone" expansion. As part of the main story mission Geralt has to steal Horst Borsodi's house for Olgierd von Everec.  Geralt finds himself in the company of Vimme Vivaldi, the dwarven banker/entrepreneur from Novigrad, and is introduced to several of his acquaintances while waiting for an auction to start.  One of those acquaintances is the Countess Mignole, an older, very rich woman who is an avid collector of witcher-related items.  She offers to sell Geralt a set of armor plans (...and Vimme of course gets his cut).  I usually pass on her offer, but this time decided to check it out.  The armor is an upgraded version of the Viper armor from the beginning of the game and has a slightly flashier look.  The swords are found separately in two different main story missions (one as part of the auction house heist and the other in the final mission if you choose to solve Gaunter O' Dimm's riddle).  The silver sword is very easy to miss because it is tucked into a side area during the timed mission to solve the riddle.  Overall, the entire set is very nice looking (it's called Viper Venomous).

Since I had opted for these non-traditional armor sets I didn't feel like having to go through crafting all the lower-level versions of the more standard witcher sets once I was ready for the grandmaster level.  Instead, I decided I would check out the one grandmaster set that stands on its own--the manticore gear.  It's definitely a bit more of a hunt to cobble together the entire set--rather than finding all the plans in one place, Geralt must explore multiple locations related to the witcher Merten.  Merten apparently found religion and decided to join the followers of the prophet Lebioda in Toussaint.  As a result, the plans are scattered among the locations related to the prophet.  It turns out that the manticore set is some very handsome gear.  I really like the look.

Geralt in full Manticore glory.

 Like Geralt, we should all be enjoying the fine weather of sunny Toussaint.  I'm planning on enjoying the few days of nice, sunny weather where I live.  Have a sunny, beautiful weekend!
 

The Best Price is Free

Nope, I'm actually not talking about an Epic giveaway (shockingly).  I grabbed a couple of free titles from Steam this week.  And before you think it, yes, I will most likely play them!  You too should grab them if you feel somewhat interested.  What exactly did I snatch for the magical cost of $0?

The first title is a bit of a niche genre that I enjoy, so it might not be everyone's cup o' tea.  Steam has a fairly consistent rolling calendar of genre-specific events/sales and this week happened to be Hidden Object Fest.  I'll admit that I enjoy a light, hidden-object game from time to time (my personal favorite is the classic Hidden Folks).  I decided to check out some of the sale titles that are part of this event and stumbled upon an entire series of cat-themed games that involve locating hidden cats in a number of very artistic environments.  One entry in the series is free to play--An Arcade Full of Cats.  I happily added it to my library and am looking forward to giving it a try (the series seems to have a pretty avid fanbase).

The other game I grabbed is a bit of a classic but has positive reviews.  Graveyard Keeper has been around since 2018, but it's one of those pixel games, so it's not like age is going to make a huge difference.  I had checked it out in the past but never pulled the trigger, so it's something nice to have in my back log (not my pile of shame...hopefully!).

If you're looking to flesh out your back log (...and not your pile of shame!) give these titles a gander.  There's no better price than $0, so what's there to lose?  

One Decision I Won't Change

Unsurprisingly, I'm still playing through The Witcher 3--and I have both "Hearts of Stone" and "Blood and Wine" left too, so it's going to be awhile.  Last week I wrote about a few new quest experiences that I encountered, but this week I had the realization that there's one side decision that I've never ventured away from.  I just can't do it...and that's saying a lot because I have even made choices that have led to the "bad" ending (which sucks and is sad).

Geralt in the Netflix series inspired gear set.

I'm talking about the mission to participate in the assassination of Radovid, but more so the end of that mission.  I've experienced both outcomes of Geralt either refusing to participate in the mission or completing it, but there's another decision after the main event (Philippa Eilhart emerging to get her revenge on the psychopath that is the King of Redania).  After Radovid's demise, Geralt and crew flee to the abandoned theater to meet up with their other co-consiprators (one Sigismund Djikstra and Thaler) under the guise of celebrating their victory and cementing their post-assassination plans.  It's here that a side-plot is revealed--Roche, Ves, and Thaler have negotiated a deal with Emhyr that Temeria will stop resisting Nilfgaardian rule in exchange for becoming an independent vassal state.  It's not exactly the free Temeria that Roche and Ves seem to be fighting for, but it's basically the lesser of two evils.

I particularly like the swords for this set.

It's here the Djikstra emerges from backstage and reveals that he actually has his own plan--he will replace Radovid as the new king of Redania (umm, ok?) and will continue the fight against Nilfgaard.  A pack of his minions emerges and Geralt can make the decision to either leave Roche and Ves to their fate (will they be able to fight off all of Djikstra's goons?) or to defend them.  I've never chosen to leave--it just feels wrong abandoning Roche and Ves given that they helped fight off the Wild Hunt at Kaer Morhen.  I am a bit curious about how things would differ if Djikstra was in charge--maybe a decision for next playthrough.

It's a beautiful day where I live, so I'll likely do some adventuring away from the ol' PC.  I hope everyone has a nice weekend either spent outdoors on a lovely spring day or inside with a nice, cozy game.