...Know When to Fold 'Em

I'm only halfway through my first official week of summer break and I've already lost track of what day it is (I forgot to post yesterday...my bad for all the AI bots who missed out).  Anyway...I thought I would highlight one of the difficult decisions that we sometimes have to make in gaming--should I stop playing?  For some people, this choice can be tough and we often force ourselves to knuckle through something that we're not enjoying.  It has been one of my personal goals to stop doing that and I've had a bit of minor success this week(ish).

Last week I wrote up my feelings/impressions around Graveyard Keeper.  I was feeling a bit mixed about it but would estimate that I'm probably about 75-80% through the main storyline.  Generally when I'm that far along and struggling with enjoyment I will just grind it out.  This time around though, I decided that I was done.  The gameplay was feeling far too grind-y, like I wasn't making much progress, and I was constantly having to look things up (annoying).  Does that mean it's a bad game?  Not necessarily (although apparently there were a lot of issues when it originally came out--like the fact that the game wasn't ever officially "finished" and things like gamebreaking bugs...but I didn't encounter many issues and just found it a bit cumbersome)--I think there are things to enjoy, but for me personally, I lost patience and interest.  Forcing myself to play felt like clocking in to work...and that's not a great feeling.

Why is it so hard to quit when we aren't enjoying something?  I think part of it is about time and money.  I invested 45.2 hours into the story so felt a bit obligated to see it out to the end.  There's also typically the money factor--if you paid for a game you want to get your moneys worth out of it.  (*Here's where I will remind you that I did not pay for this game and received it free as part of a giveaway)  Those two factors make it tough to simply put something down (...and maybe secretly know that it's going to land firmly into your pile/mountain of shame).

Then I made the curious decision to stumble directly into that pile of shame and try to pick up another (beloved by many) title that I had struggled with in the past.  Shovel Knight is a game that I originally bought a long time ago.  I apparently played it for about 1 hour before uninstalling.  I couldn't really remember what the issue was (and thought that maybe it was just that I forgot about it) and that I should give it another chance.  Well, I did that and discovered that, in the words of the great Taylor Swift, "I'm the problem, it's me."  I am so horrible at Shovel Knight that it is demoralizing--I am constantly dying in sad and pathetic ways.  This time I gave up after about 2 hours.  That's progress!

So here's my advice--if you're not enjoying something, just let it slowly slide back into your library.  Don't force yourself to struggle through something.  You can always go back to it later--and, I suppose there's some kind of chance that you might enjoy it at a different point in your life.  In my case, that didn't really shake out, but I tried.

I've been trying to spend more time outside in the glorious summer weather.  Now's the time to be touching the grass, my gaming folks.  Happy summer to all (and hopefully next week I'll remember what day it is).

Corpse Abuse...for Profits!

I picked up a couple of free games as part of random giveaways and have been spending quite a bit of time with Graveyard Keeper.  It's not a new game and definitely is a product of the post-Stardew Valley craze that saw a glut of pixelated games in that vein.  It's no Stardew and I've been feeling a bit divided with my level of enjoyment.  I haven't completed it yet (and probably will), so this isn't my full review, but just some thoughts.

Likes:

+ Easy to pick up.  There's a bit of tutorial but it's pretty basic--you gather materials, you build various crafting objects, you craft items, and you try to complete tasks to further the main storyline.

My growing graveyard.

+ Like the name suggests, a big part of your tasks is to maintain/improve the local graveyard.  A communist-leaning talking donkey periodically delivers new corpses for burial.  Each body has a sort of (unexplained...) quality level and you can decide if you want to alter that level by performing some....unlicensed surgery.  With a bit of training (via a sort of talent point-like system) you can remove various parts such as bones, blood, or skin.  These parts are used in various other applications but will change the quality of the body/grave when buried.  The quality of a grave is determined by the quality of the body and the decorations you place on the grave.  Part of the storyline hinges on improving the quality of the graveyard to a certain level.  You can opt to invest talent points in burial skills (such as embalming) and in crafting fancier grave decorations.  Oh, and you can also carve off some chunks of flesh to sell as "meat" to the proprietor of the local tavern.  There's a meat shortage and he'll buy any "meat" as long as it has the royal stamp (something that you can purchase/obtain from both legitimate or shady sources).

+ If you want to be busy, there's about a million different things going on at a time.  This is both good and bad.  The main storyline branches out into having to complete tasks for a number of different characters.  Plus, you have to keep dealing with graveyard matters--those bodies keep rolling in (at least for awhile--then that punk donkey starts demanding pay in the form of carrots or else he won't deliver any more bodies).

+ Zombie workers!  You can unlock technology that allows you to turn bodies into zombies.  Once you've also unlocked and constructed the requisite work location and porter stations you can set up a nice network or zombies who will gather basic materials for you.  No one in town seems to notice this ominous behavior.

Dislikes:

- My biggest gripe has been the number of totally unexplained parts of the game.  For example, each body has a quality level based on a number of red or white skulls displayed.  The best corpses have none or few red skulls (this can be altered through embalming/application of fluids or removing specific parts) and they're the ones you want to keep in your graveyard.  Other than reading descriptions of talents this aspect of the game is not explained.  There's also an alchemy crafting system that is highly reliant on experimentation--basically you have to combine random stuff until you stumble upon the correct combo.  When you do stumble onto a workable combo it's not saved anywhere.  It would be nice to have a journal/logbook where this info gets saved.

- There's tons to do, but that can feel a bit overwhelming.  I have found that it's best to try to focus on one task at a time (like improving the church/graveyard or specific character tasks).

I'm about 30+ hours in and feeling pretty mixed about my experience.  I'm still entertained enough that I'll probably finish it (especially with summer break looming in my near future), but I've had moments of putting it down and playing something else.  We'll see.

If you're a teacher--wishing you a great summer break!  I get done on Wednesday and it has been a trying school year so I'm very much looking forward to less stress and more relaxation.  If you're not done yet, keep holding on--you're getting closer (I know there are some places that don't get out until the end of June).  Happy summer and happy gaming!

Semi-Unexpected Surprise

I tend to ignore a lot of the internet related gaming rumors--especially the ones that seem a bit unbelievable.  Even though I kept seeing some reports that there was new content for the now 11-year old The Witcher 3 in the works, it seemed downright goofy.  Who makes new content for an 11-year old game?!?  (*Okay, there are obviously some exceptions like games that have multi-player/online content like GTA V or maybe the oddity that is No Man's Sky).  It turns out that these rumors were true--The Witcher 3 will be getting new content as part of the "Songs of the Past" expansion that currently has a very vague 2027 release date.

The Witcher 3 is definitely one of my all time favorites, so yeah, I'm definitely going to play anything related to it.  So far the details about the new content have been very sparse and a bit cryptic.  They released a graphic promoting the new content that shows Geralt (in his very traditional gear) holding an interesting new sword with a giant, crazy tentacled monster lurking in the background (*included below in case you haven't seen it in a billion other places).

What details can we glean from this image--honestly, not much.  We can safely assume (based on previous DLC) that there will be new gear and some sort of big, bad monster that Geralt will ultimately face off against.  The title also hints that it might take place in the past OR potentially involve some sort of event from Geralt's past that has come back.  I'm curious if there will be some sort of tie-in with the upcoming The Witcher 4.  It sounds more likely though that it will reference the OG The Witcher since it is being co-developed between CD Projekt and the devs of the upcoming Witcher remaster.  I had completely forgotten about that project because there has been so little news about it.

There are a few confirmed details--CD Projekt made it a point to emphasize that "Songs of the Past" isn't a DLC but a full expansion similar to "Hearts of Stone" and "Blood and Wine."  Based on that, we'll likely see a new zone, new enemy types, new abilities, and maybe even some new gwent cards!  In a video yesterday they also dropped some hints that there are clues in a graphic related to the in-game holiday known as Belleteyn.  (See below)

So we have Geralt hanging out with the same sword that we see in the other image and Dandelion strumming his lute in the midst of a fun belleteyn celebration.  There's apparently also a poem that accompanies this image:

On Belleteyn night, when tall fires rise,
Whispered wishes go through the quiet skies.
A lion cub’s fate is penned in the stars,
And lilac and gooseberries are never too far.
Tonight, there are no monsters to kill, no roads to roam,
Just quiet thoughts and wishes that try to find a home.
The White Wolf sits still, mesmerized by the dancing flame,
While Dandelion strums his lute and hums Geralt’s name.

The poem hints at Ciri (the lion cub) and Yennefer (good ol' lilac and gooseberries), so there's probably a good chance we'll see involvement or a storyline involving them.  Oh, and Dandelion too.  But other than that, there's not much to glean--a party atmosphere?  Maybe some magical nonsense related to the festival of Belleteyn itself?

I felt like "Blood and Wine" ended in such a great way that I'm a bit surprised at this new content.  Geralt has just settled into Corvo Bianco and he's venturing out again?  I guess he's not actually retired...maybe he has one more adventure in him.

I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more news related to "Songs of the Past."  Happy gaming!

Leave it to the Beavers--Timberborn

I recently spent a bit of time trying to master my city building skills.  Now, I'm absolutely not an expert in city building, but I can usually do decently.  The city builder in question doesn't involve your typical human cities, instead, it's based on a civilization of advanced beavers.

What is it?

A city-builder with a few unique twists that include the aforementioned society of beavers.

How much playtime can I expect?

Honestly...potentially infinite.  Your city can exist as long as you can keep it functioning and survive gradually lengthening periods of crisis (I will explain soon).

Pros:

+ Mostly helpful tutorial that allows you to get a grasp on the basics.  More advanced features do require some searching.

The industrial area of my town.

+ Beavers!  Humans are boring...but beavers are cute, great engineers, and love to socialize.  Beavers have the same basic survival needs as humans--they need food and water--but keeping them truly happy requires making sure that they have a variety of their favorite foods to choose from (there are multiple buildings where you can prepare a wide ranging menu) and plenty of options for ways that they can spend their free time.  Since beavers are very social creatures they like to have cozy places to gather with others--this includes a nice campfire, a rooftop terrace, or a grand amphitheater where they can discuss their favorite task--logging.  They also like to cut loose and have a good time, so building a carousel and a dance hall is a must.  A unique need for the beavers--wet fur.  Building special showers or a lido deck allows your beaver pals to take a quick dip.  They also love an aesthetically pleasant area with plenty of decorations.  Keeping your community of beavers happy will boost their efficiency.

+ Controls are easy to use and understand.  You can easily rotate buildings and place them where you want.

+ Two different factions of beavers with specific perks.  You start off as the Folktails, a faction that specializes in farming and can build beehives that help crops to grow more quickly.  Once you've played the Folktails faction to a certain level you unlock the Iron Teeth.  The Iron Teeth are more focused on technological skills.  Each faction has its own unique buildings, so it's fun to experiment with their strengths and weaknesses.

The beaver fun zone--a carousel and dance hall.

+ Elements of survival.  The game functions on a calendar made up of cycles.  Each cycle is made up of a certain number of days where everything works as normal and then a period of drought or badtide.  During a drought all water on the map stops flowing.  This means that unless you create a reservoir to store water your crops will all dry up and you'll be totally reliant on your stored water supply.  Drought is the lesser of the two evils though, badtide is more challenging to deal with.  A badtide is an event where all the water on the map is replaced by water that is polluted with high levels of radiation.  It cannot be used for farming and will cause corruption to spread to any areas that are close to water.  Corruption will cause any living things it touches to die (this includes trees, crops, and berry bushes).  Learning how to deal with these disasters is a must as your civilization can only last as long as your supplies do.

These periods of disaster throw some additional challenge into the traditional city-builder genre.  They also lengthen/happen more frequently the longer you play.  I managed to get my civilization to cycle 50 but had one very close brush with disaster when I got hit by back-to-back badtides (the type of disaster you experience is random) and didn't have enough time to store up enough water.  Luckily my few surviving beavers managed to chug along and bounce back.

(*I'm also fairly certain that you can turn off disasters if you're looking for a totally chill experience)

+ Advanced features for the leet.  You can unlock a wide variety of switches that allow you to automate exactly how/when certain parts of your city function.  These switches include logic switches (something that exceeds my abilities) but also a number of other types that trigger based off of things like weather or time of day.  I lack the skills to get into this, but if you're the type of person who likes to tinker with all the fancy stuff...it's there for you.

+ A nice soundtrack.  It's mostly piano-based music but it changes based on the weather.  It's slightly more ominous during droughts and badtides.

+ Monuments to build.  Like many other city-builders the ultimate achievement is gathering a massive amount of materials and building an awe inspiring monument in your civilization.  There are several to choose from and also faction specific monuments.  Most of them are beaver themed, which is definitely fun.

+ Speed controls to play at the pace you want.  

+ Many starting maps to choose from with their own unique challenges.

+ Mod support.

Cons:

- More advanced gameplay mechanics do require some research.  That's not terribly abnormal, but I found the tutorial to be unhelpful beyond the basics.  Just expect that there will likely be aspects of gameplay that you'll need to look up.

Recommendation:

If you're looking for a city-build that mostly fits into the shape of the genre, Timberborn will be right up your alley.  The additional survival challenge (and the ability to toggle it on or off) makes the game more fun.  The infinite playability plus features for all skill levels of gamers means that it's great for basically everyone.

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 the 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!