Failure and OST's from Weird Games I Like

Sadly I have to report that my efforts to "git gud" at the ARPG Grim Dawn have failed.  I resigned myself to failure in the last couple of days.  It's kind of weird because when I played Diablo III things usually went pretty well.  I wasn't playing on Torment 89 or anything, but I wasn't getting constantly one-shot by every heroic mob that I met.  I am trying to figure out where I went wrong--is it my gear?  Unlike D3, Grim Dawn doesn't have a system that gears loot drops toward the class you are playing.  I've had a really difficult time getting armor drops for my class.  I've gotten a literal crap-ton of caster stuff...a billion pieces of plate armor...but almost no good demolitionist items.  I've questioned if I should spend more time grinding out faction rep to unlock some items.  The answer to that is "probably."  The other possibility leading to my failure is the allocation of my talent points.  I have no idea if I am putting them in the right place.  I feel sad and pitiful when I look up builds on the interwebs, but it would undoubtedly help.  So, for now at least, I'm taking a little break from the frustrations in the land of Cairn.

My demolitionist...is now retired.

Much of my struggle now involves trying to figure out what I want to play.  I'm bouncing back and forth between a bunch of games and feeling listless about what exactly I want to do.  I started a men's prison in Prison Architect and have been spending some time trying to make it into a rehabilitation paradise.  I learned much from my first sandbox prison and things have gone relatively smoothly.  Not as smoothly as I would like as my report card shows an 8 for punishment and a 5 for rehabilitation..oh, and a -2 for health.  This time around I decided to up the difficulty and add in random events and guard needs.  Random events can vary from a burst water pipe, to random fires, or to my personal favorite, neighboring prison overload.  When other prisons are overloaded they will send you a large contingent of new prisoners--and, for some diabolical reason, they are always maximum security.  It was in one of the two times I pulled this event that I landed a legendary prisoner who enjoyed riling up everyone in max. sec. and liked to attack and slaughter my guards.  He was good at attacking and overpowering the armed guards that I set up on constant patrol around him and then using their own shotguns to kill them and any prisoners around.  I moved him into his own "supermax" wing and set up guard towers, armed patrols, and multiple guards around him.  That slightly helped...  The story ended when he somehow ended up being temporarily stored in the holding cell and then managed to escape.  I actually cheered when he was gone even though it was a failure.

Apparently you do poop and eat in the same room.

Guard needs also adds in a new twist if you choose to go that route.  Like the prisoners, the guards also have specific food and bathroom needs.  When building a breakroom it should now include serving stations for staff meals and toilets so that your guards have a place to take care of their bathroom business.  If you don't meet the needs of your staff they will perform their duties in a less than satisfactory manner--they move cripplingly slowly while performing their tasks--and if they are angry for long enough they will eventually demand a pay raise.  If you don't meet their pay demands they will go on strike.  This means no guards, no cooks...no staff in your prison--a catastrophe in the making.  I would recommend that more experienced players turn on this option as it does add some challenge.

Part visual novel, part drink mixing simulation.  100% awesome.

One of my favorite things to do while playing certain games is to listen to music.  Generally the music I prefer to listen to is music from other games.  Ironic, yes?  I very much enjoyed the quirky game VA-11 HALL-A:  Cyberpunk Bartender Action and was floored when I discovered the soundtrack available for purchase.  All those sweet, sweet, electronic hits from the jukebox are available to download on Bandcamp.  Just listening to the music has gotten me in the mood for another round of dishing up drinks to the assorted characters in Valhalla.  I really hope another game is in the works!

From Nothing to Something

After having accomplished the tasks that I had originally set out to I felt that old familiar feeling of "what do I play now?"  Luckily for me that feeling was short lived and a couple of new opportunities fell squarely into my lap.  Oddly enough these two choices couldn't be any less like each other.

Back on the ol' slime ranch.
I didn't think I'd be playing the very enjoyable Slime Rancher anytime soon.  I had captured every possible type of slime, unlocked many (but not all!) of the hidden treasure pods, unlocked all the 7Zee fan club items, decorated my ranch into a stylish retreat, aaaand discovered all three of the hidden treasure vaults.  Fortunately a new update arrived this week and I now have a reason to be vacc-ing up plorts.

This week Ogden's Wild update introduced new content into the world of Slime Rancher.  So, what exactly is included in this update?

A feral tabby saber slime in the Wilds.

1.) A new zone--"The Wilds" which has a very ancient ruins/pre-historic slimes type of vibe.  The Wilds are populated by ferociously feral "saber slimes" who are on the prowl for the flesh of young slime ranchers.  All these nasty feral slimes are largos so there is no chance to capture the default saber slime and add it to your menagerie o' slimes.  You can collect saber plorts and sell them at the plort market.

Ogden's ranch exchange.  I'm working toward a ranch upgrade.

2.) New tasks.  Along with the new zone is a new ranch-like area that was owned by Ogden Ortiz.  Ogden tasks you with gathering a new type of fruit, the Kookadoba, which can only be found in The Wilds.  At Ogdens retreat there is a new ranch exchange board where you can deposit the kookadoba fruits that you gather.  For every three fruits Ogden will reward you with a spicy tofu, a type of slime food that you can feed to any slimes.  Spicy tofu will leave those slimes still hungry even after eating.  Extra plorts!

A new ranch area!  It's going to require a mountain of kookadobas to unlock.

Beside just getting some spicy tofu you can opt to grind out many kookadoba fruits for larger rewards.  After gathering 75 kookadobas you unlock an upgrade--the "miracle soil" upgrade allows you to add a special compound to your garden plots that keeps your fruits/veggies from rotting.  This is perfect for ranchers who want to spend some time away from the ranch exploring.  The rewards for gathering kookadoba don't end there though!  You can continue to gather the fruits and unlock a ranch upgrade (not really sure what exactly this is), and eventually you can unlock Ogden's retreat as a nice addition to your own ranch.  It's a little grindy, but hey, it's something to achieve.

3.) New treasure pods with brand new The Wilds themed decorative items.  I'm not really sure how many of these there are.  I think I've found four so far.

4.) New and improved interfaces for the plort market and the ranch exchange missions.  They both look much nicer and exchange missions now have a 24 hour timer on them rather than simply expiring at midnight each night.

Mysteriously enough....there are several blank spaces on the plort market interface.  Maybe this means some additional slimes in the future! 

5.) Bug fixes and minor gameplay changes.  Now your chickens don't get stuck under the stairs in the Overgrowth section of your ranch.  Depositing plorts into the hopper or the market makes a slightly different noise.  Vacs seem to suck things up faster...but that could just be my imagination.

Although Slime Rancher seems a little childish, it's actually a fun and cute little game.  If it has been awhile since you've played this update this might make it worth your time to re-enter the world of bouncing, happy slimes.

Totally worth getting carpal tunnel.
My Steam library is chocked full of gaming goodness and I have a tendency to miss major news about many of those games.  Apparently I missed some big news about Grim Dawn, a Diablo-esque ARPG. getting a brand, spankin' new expansion.  The Ashes of Malmouth expansion came out earlier this week and I've found myself back in the button mashing, carpal tunnel inducing world of Cairn.

The expansion features two brand new classes, the necromancer (deja vu, no?) and the inquisitor, an increase in the level cap to 100, new factions, new items, and two new zones to explore.  All of this for just $17.99!  I didn't balk and added this new content to my library almost immediately.

My mismatched demolitionist.

So I've rolled a brand new character, a demolitionist, and am happily gunning down the undead.  I am liking the demolitionist more than my previous melee shaman.  The ability to attack from afar has been considerably easier than getting stomped into the ground by crowds of bad critters.

I'm looking forward to continuing my loot soaked march across the baddie infested world of Cairn.

Mindless Fun

After finishing up a fairly long Mass Effect:  Andromeda playthrough I felt the soul crushing reality of a game hole--you know, that feeling where you have nothing to play while you are staring at your 149 game Steam library.  Luckily, before the real mania set in, I remembered that I had bought the ARPG Grim Dawn while it was on sale right before Andromeda dropped.  Since most ARPG's share almost identical mechanics and controls it was easy to dive right back in.  There's something highly enjoyable about ARPG's that I don't really understand--maybe it's the concept of effortlessly slaying armies of evil or maybe it's the mountain o' loot that you collect along the way...or possibly the enjoyment of gearing up a character to make them into an almost invincible wrecking ball of destruction--ARPG's are their own special kind of fun.

At first glance Grim Dawn felt extremely similar to Diablo III--a great calamity has befallen the world and threatens to destroy it.  You play as the hero who is tasked with figuring out how to prevent the world from being taken over by the forces of evil.  It's a tale as old as time (sorry Beauty and the Beast--you lose).  Now that I've played more than a couple of hours I've realized that even with plot similarities that there are some intriguing mechanics present in Grim Dawn.  I'm positive that I have no idea how these mechanics work and that I am probably stumbling around blindly whacking things with my shaman stick.

My shaman taking on the Cthonian blood cult.

The class system in Grim Dawn offers several standard choices--you can sword and board as a soldier; opt for some dual-wielding stabby action as a nightblade; or fling spells as an arcanist (there are several others too).  Because I am the most boring person on the planet I opted for my standard "carry a big stick and whack things" class, which oddly happens to be a shaman.  The shaman class offers the ability to wield a two-handed weapons and to unleash the powers of nature.  You might be thinking...that doesn't sound like anything special..but, it gets even weirder (or better depending on your perspective).  Somewhere around level 10-15 players are given the ability to pick a second class.  Once you pick that second class you can choose to put talent points in abilities for either class.  This allows for the creation of very unique hybridized classes.  My shaman could feasibly take arcanist talents and not only give a mad beatdown, but fling fireballs at groups of zombies.  Even though I am a coward and haven't been brave enough to put points into the non-shaman trees, the versatility of talents and builds is very unique.

Along with the talent points there is also the "devotion" system which allows players to put points into specific constellations and add damage or stat bonuses.  Scattered around the map are shrines where players can either make offerings of one of the many item enhancements that drop or they can cleanse a desecrated shrine and fight a large group of baddies.  Once those actions have been completed points can be allocated to the deity/constellation of choice.  Completing entire constellations offers larger bonuses than scattering points over many different ones and can also offer unique abilities.  One constellation I picked will randomly pop up a cluster of poisoned spines that can damage clusters of enemies.  I've mainly put my points in the constellations that offer more physical and lightning damage since that is the meat and potatoes of the shaman class.  Like the talent system, the devotion system also gives players the option to create a very unique build for whatever style of play they choose.

One part of Grim Dawn that I am enjoying is the large variety of settings within the game.  My hero has wandered through ruined villages fighting hordes of the undead, traversed across ruined fields infested by giant, poisonous insects; and trekked through the blood-filled corridors of the sinister, Cthonian cult.  At no time have I had the feeling that I had seen a particular area, cave, or pattern before--maybe it's the fact that I've played a boatload of Diablo III, but I am enjoying the fact that things feel fresh and not like cave #43 which is being repopulated with enemies.

A few pointers--#1 Make sure that your hero eats any food or food rations that they find.  I learned the hard way that the transparent yellow bar over the health bar represents how recently you've eaten and is tied to your health regeneration.  If you don't eat and that yellow bar goes away you will find that your health regenerates at a cripplingly slow rate.  Finding food while in the field is not usually difficult--it's when you enter a cave, fort, dungeon, or other blue glowy entranced place that food can be scarce.

#2--There's no shame in running away and letting your health regenerate.  Many of the bosses you find around the map hit like Mack trucks.  Rather than just stepping up and getting whacked around, try to plan out attacks where you can dart in, land a few blows, and then dart out to let your health regen or to pop a health potion.  Unless you're playing on veteran or elite difficulty, bosses won't regenerate health.

#3--It's a good idea to pop a rift every few minutes.  I'm really bad about doing this and as a result I've had to run the equivalent of a video game marathon to get my character back to where I died.  Opening rifts when you are in the aforementioned blue glowy places is a must.  I would also recommend popping a rift whenever you see an enemy boss.  This is me admitting that I die all the time.

Even though every ARPG feels a little familiar I still love the accompanying carpal tunnel from mindless button mashing.  Grim Dawn adds some new elements and mechanics to the genre while maintaining the recognizable features that we all know and love.  Keep on mashin'.