Garraka, the frosty ghost from the new film, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, has been added to Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed. I haven’t played since the Samhain update in October, but I had to check it out!
The first thing I noticed was that the Ecto-1 was frozen, and there’s ice in the firehouse. I’m not sure how long this will last, but it’s a nice touch.
I included a video with some clips of Garraka that’s under 3 minutes. To unlock the new Overlord class ghost, you have to catch Garraka in a Ghost Bounty. Once you do that, you can play as him.
I’ve been on a Jurassic Park kick lately, re-watching the four films I’d seen and moving on to the latest two. (I haven’t watched the most recent one yet.) It put me in the mood to play some of the old games; I picked up Jurassic Park for Game Gear, which I played on my Analogue Pocket.
It’s not terribly long or very difficult, but I enjoyed it. I think the Game Gear has a weaker library than the Game Boy or Lynx and never gave them much love. This one surprised me! You can choose to play the levels in any order, but in order to access the final level and get the good ending, you can’t use any continues. It doesn’t tell you this, so I found out the hard way and had to play through it twice.
Each level starts with driving portion in which you must shoot the dinosaurs chasing your jeep. Losing this part doesn’t matter, but doing well can earn you more life.
After the driving part, the majority of the game consists of platforming and shooting dinosaurs with your three weapons.
The graphics are pretty incredible for Game Gear, and I think the darkness in some of them, especially scenes with carnivores, really highlights the horror aspect of the Jurassic Park series.
If you get the bad ending, the opening of the park is delayed indefinitely, and you get the credits with dinosaurs instead of people!
But if you get to the end without using continues, you help Dr. Grant save the day! In the good ending, the park opens… which probably isn’t a good thing!
Ghostbusters for Master System might be an old game, but it’s still fun. I first played it near the end of 2022, so while I’m certainly fond of Ghostbusters the franchise, I didn’t have any nostalgia for this game. I’d meaning to post about it for a while (over a year I suppose). With Frozen Empire releasing next week, it seemed like a good time!
There are a ton of versions of this game for various consoles, so I tried to do research and pick the best one. I think the NES version is more common, and I even tried it, but I found the Master System version to be better.
You can equip your car with various tools, which you’ll use when driving around the city. Each stage first involves you driving to the haunted building, where you’ll try to catch ghosts on the way. The money is sort of score, but you can also start the game over with your current amount of money, allowing you to get more powerful.
Obviously this is New York City. It’s photorealistic. You can see the Keymaster and Gatekeeper walking around the city!
I liked the simple yet recognizable graphics during the driving portions of the game. This is one aspect of the game that looked significantly worse on most other platforms.
There are different cars you can choose and various upgrades for the car. Better equipment costs more money but allows you to earn more money. You’ll need to reach a certain threshold to be able to enter the final level.
At a job site, you control two Ghostbusters and try to herd the ghosts into the trap. It might not be as exciting as Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed – Ecto Edition or the Ghostbusters 2009 game, but it got the point across.
Stay Puft will begin to manifest around the city, and at the end of the game, you’ll need to run past him, dodging his attack, to get into the Zuul building. That part isn’t too bad, but climbing the stairs of the Zuul building is very difficult.
I abused save states from this point forward to beat the game. I hated this part. However, at least there’s only one Ghostbusters. In some versions of the game, there’s a trail of Ghostbusters like a snake, and if any of them touch a ghost, you lose a life.
At the top of the stairs, you face off against Gorza, which is I guess the name for Gozer. One hit and you go down, so this can be a bit challenging too!
The whole game probably takes 15 minutes, but it has some replay value in trying different equipment. It might not be a huge game, but I still found it pretty fun up against modern games. Plus, I enjoy games that aren’t huge, 100+ hour campaigns sometimes.
This is a cool video I found comparing the different versions of the game. It’s pretty neat to see similar yet different they are, and you’ll probably see why I chose the Master System version.
The latest DLC for Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, Ecto Edition, released recently and continued the campaign for the first time since the base game. It was perfect for Halloween, and I enjoyed jumping back into the game.
The video above shows all the cutscenes along with the cutscenes. The gameplay itself starts at 9:03 in the video. The update brings Samhain, the Ghost of Halloween to the game. He was first introduced in the 1986 The Real Ghostbusters cartoon.
I never did talk about this game on here previously despite really enjoying it. It’s a 4v1 shooter pitting the four Ghostbusters against a ghost. The goal for the Ghostbusters is to trap the ghost after destroying their rifts, which allows them to respawn if left intact. The goal of the ghost is to fully haunt the building before getting caught. It’s designed to be a multiplayer game, although you can play with bots just fine.
While the story is minimal, especially compared to 2009’s Ghostbusters: The Video Game, no game has made me feel like a Ghostbuster more than this one. Hunting the ghost with my PKE meter, chasing the ghost, tethering it, sliding a trap out, and wrangling the ghost into the trap – it all feels great!
Panzer Dragoon was a North American launch title for the Sega Saturn. Despite hearing good things, I’d never played it until recently when I saw the remake on sale as a downloadable title on Switch. It’s a rail shooter, meaning that the game follows a particular route while you can move around the screen – think Star Fox, for example.
This game features two weapons – you can hold the attack button and pass the reticle over enemies to lock onto them. After locking onto one or more enemies, letting go will shoot each of them. You can also tap the attack button to shoot a bullet without any tracking or locking onto enemies. At first I was almost using the charge attack, but I realized that you can’t lock onto enemy attacks, but you can shoot them down with your simple attack. Besides attacking, you can move around the screen as you fly forward as well as turn the camera to the sides or backwards to shoot enemies coming from any direction.
The art is pretty simple, which you can see in the above launch trailer. What I really enjoyed about the game was that it was short – less than an hour to beat it my first time. I enjoy a game that I can beat but then spend more time improving my run or playing on a harder difficulty, and Panzer Dragoon allows for both.
Checking the Switch store right now, it’s base price is $24.99 but is on sale for $2.49. It was also on sale when I bought it, and that sale was allegedly ending. I bet it’s almost always on sale. I wouldn’t pay $24.99 for it, but it’s definitely worth the reduced price. The Panzer Dragoon series also includes another Saturn rail shooter, a Saturn RPG, two handheld titles, and an Xbox rail shooter. All three rail shooters and the RPG are critically acclaimed, so I might just need to continue the series with the next one!
Hades is a rogue-like in which you control Zagreus, son of Hades, as he attempts to escape the Underworld. As someone who loves Greek mythology, I was thoroughly impressed with all the references and story in the game. In fact, Hades was the first video game to ever win a Hugo Award, the annual awards for science fiction and fantasy, first awarded in 1953. I’ve been playing Hades on and off for a while now, and I’ve certainly been making slow progress as I pause to look up myths and figure out references. I won’t say what the epilogue is so that we avoid the spoiler, but I recently finished the epilogue and maxed everyone’s affinity, which makes it a good time to blog about the game.
I won’t spoil any major story beats in this post; I will be showing a couple screenshots with some funny dialogue, and I’ll be mentioning the boss of the third area. This doesn’t reveal any twists or anything like that, but I don’t want someone to be disappointed they read it.
The trailer linked at the top gives a great overview of what the game is like. I was going to embed a clip of my own gameplay, but I figured using the official trailer would summarize nicely and not give away anything that wasn’t intended to be known right off the bat. Hades features fast-paced action with a ton of different character builds that will be different each escape attempt. You have some permanent upgrades to your character as well as abilities that you gain during a run but reset when you die. You also have affinity, relationships with the various other characters that can you improve through particular actions in the game.
The dialogue and lore in the game is just fantastic. In this screenshot, Dionysus mentions how he doesn’t like Theseus. “There’s this nice lass helped him out one time, and he just dumped her rotten, I don’t like that, man!” In one Greek myth, Ariadne helps Theseus defeat the minotaur and then fled with him on his ship. He leaves her behind on an island, where Dionysus later finds her before marrying her. This isn’t explicitly called out in the game, likely because it wouldn’t really further the plot, but this type of detail and reference make it even cooler for people who know the mythology.
In another part of the game, Zeus says “Ah, most splendid of an offering, young man. And while we’ve yet to even meet in person, I already feel as though the two of us are close, why, closer than you must be even with your father! Oh, hahaha! Perhaps we ought to go telling everybody I’m your real father, am I right?” In some myths of Zagreus, he is indeed the son of Zeus. The game really works in these contradicting myths in fun ways.
The other bit about contradictions that I loved was this message from Dionysus. “That chap comes up with the most smashing songs, so I was thinking, maybe we could spin him a tall tale, something like how maybe you and I, like, we’re connected or something?” In Orphism, the set of ancient beliefs based on the poet Orpheus, Dionysus is Zagreus reincarnated. It’s really cool to me how this game creates a cohesive, internally-consistent lore while still acknowledging the real-world myths that conflict with each other.
As a side note, they really downplay how all the gods are basically related to each other a hundred different ways! But I suppose that takes some of the awkwardness out of it.
There’s still a lot I could do in the game. Hades has a “heat” system in which higher heat values introduce changes to make it more difficult. I haven’t pushed past 2 or 3 heat, and I don’t have all the hidden aspects or even all the normal aspects. There are still a few prophecies (achievements) to fulfill. However, my main goal was to finish the story, earn the epilogue, and max my affinity with all the characters. I’ll likely play it a little in the future, but I met my goal. Now I’m itching to reread Homer or maybe look for another Greek mythology game. Is the God of War series fun?
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is easily one of the best games I’ve played recently and now one of my favorite platformers. You can probably guess that I wanted to explore it fully by that 100% clear screenshot. It’s fun and challenging while also being welcoming to less skilled gamers, which I think is fantastic. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start by talking about an event before the game launched.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land 3D Walkthrough was a fun little pop-up back in March at Universal CityWalk Hollywood, the shops outside Universal Studios Hollywood. They had these various photo-ops with Kirby characters and gave attendees small draw-string bags and lanyards. My friend gem came with me, and I’m glad she asked about fun poses because someone working there suggested posing as if my foot was getting stomped by the hammer! I also love the photo implying I got hit by Car Mouth Kirby!
I brought my backlit Game Boy Pocket so I could play a little classic Kirby Pinball Land too! Or maybe I didn’t really play it at all and just recorded it for the Internet. I’ll never tell.
I wasn’t done looking for Kirby in the real world, because I also heard that Target had these Kirby covers on their red ball bollards. I definitely had to go hunting for them! I think I probably checked close to 10 Targets before finding one that had them. Then I had to ask gem to come out again to take photos of me with them. Tangentially related, multiple people commented on my Aquabats t-shirt that day!
Now let’s talk about the game itself. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the first main series Kirby game to be fully explorable in 3D. Like most Kirby games, it’s bright, colorful, and fun – at least at first. It does get darker at the end, but it’s nothing that would be bad for children. The world shown in the above screenshot of the game was one of my favorites because I absolutely loved the bright colors and amusement park setting.
gem was playing the game at the same time as me, so it was fun to talk about it and compare what we were doing and what we thought. At first, I was trying to 100% each level as I went, but later I decided to just try to beat the game and then come back to 100% each part. The final boss was quite challenging, and then there was a whole additional post-game world to master!
The game features “mouth full mode” for the first time. Rather than just sucking up enemies to gain abilities based on them, Kirby can stretch around large objects to control them. In this video, Coaster Mouth Kirby rides the rollercoaster!
The levels feature gorgeous cinematic intros as well that I thoroughly enjoyed.
What I love most about the game is its variable difficulty with so many optional goals. You can choose between Wild Mode and Spring-Breeze Mode at any time. In Wild Mode, enemies are tougher and you have less health, but you earn bonus coins that are used for upgrades and power-ups. You can change difficulties at any time, but you’ll need to restart the current level to do so. I played in Wild Mode, but I’m glad the easier option was available too.
More important than that in my opinion is all the side goals. Like most platformers, the goal of most levels is simply to get to the end of the stage. But each level also has a number of other tasks that reward additional Waddle Dees to be saved, a way of marking progress in the game, as well as other collectibles. A younger or less experienced player might choose to blow through each level and ignore all the extra collectibles and goals. By doing this, the game can feel much easier than it would if the player wanted the additional challenge. I think it’s fantastic that I can truly challenge myself to 100% the game and feel accomplished by doing so, but I can also let my friend’s young son borrow the game and watch as he enjoys it too. A game that I can 100%, that I can give to my friend’s son to enjoy, and that I can give to a different friend as one of a few wedding presents? Love it!
Like I said at the top, this is one of the best games I’ve played in a while, and I’m surprised it’s not getting a bit more attention. I highly recommend it anyone who loves platformers or for kids who want to have some fun in the beautiful levels!
Back in October and November, I put about ten hours in Valheim with some friends. It’s a survival RPG in an open-world that requires crafting, building shelter, and upgrading skills. Here you can see nine of us or so on a ship one of us built.
Here six of us sit outside “RAPPRAPP ABODE” by the fire.
Skorn was telling us a story in this shelter.
The server is offline now. The group as a whole defeated all the bosses, but I had quit playing before that point. I didn’t have time to keep up.
This is my home! It wasn’t much compared to the ones others made, but it was fun and satisfying to make.
gem domesticated some boars and named them after us.
There are various events that can happen, such as the forest trolls attacking, which I didn’t know it until it happened to me. I was happily picking flowers near my home when this guy came and clubbed me over the head.
This is the first boss in the game, Eikthyr. I died the first time we fought him but survived for the second!
The second boss is the Elder. This time I managed to stay alive for the group’s first kill!
That’s as far as I got in the game, but I had a lot of fun. I’d like to return to it and play it slowly, at my own pace.
Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. released back in November to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Super Mario and the 40th anniversary of Game & Watch. It contained Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, and Ball, and I definitely had to pick one up.
The packaging was fantastic. It comes in a cardboard box with a clear plastic sleeve. At the top of the post, you can see how it arrives in packaging. Directly above this paragraph, you can see it without the plastic sleeve. The cardboard box is the classic design for Ball, but the sleeve transforms it into Super Mario Bros. Pretty cool!
The screen is bright and beautiful. You can swap between the three games at any time, and you pick up right where you left off. It also keeps your high scores of course. I played through Super Mario Bros. both normal and hard modes because I just had to play it again. I’m still working on The Lost Levels. I’m avoiding warp pipes so I can unlock World 9. I’ve never seen the Worlds A through D either!
And you know what else I see? There’s a Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda coming in November! Anyone else going to pick that one up like I am?
Bowser’s Fury is the new game added to the rerelease of Super Mario 3D World in the aptly named Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury for Switch. Super Mario 3D World was absolutely terrific on Wii U, and Bowser’s Fury was a wonderful addition.
Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World are now some of my favorite Mario games. I realize they don’t have the nostalgia that the earlier games do, but I enjoy the more abstract 3D levels over the world design of the other 3D titles. And while I know the Galaxy games are also abstract, I prefer the 3D Land and 3D World design. With four player local co-op in 3D World, it’s really great fun.
Bowser’s Fury plays with the 3D World engine but adds a different spin. It’s an open world with areas that change and unlock as you unlock more cat shines. You play as Mario who helps Bowser Jr. calm/fight his dad, now known as Fury Bowser after being corrupted by goop. He’s a giant kaiju-like Bowser that Mario fights as Giga Cat Mario, which also makes him kaiju-sized. I had a blast with Bowser’s Fury, and while it’s short compared to full Mario games, the price of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury was definitely worth it just to play Bowser’s Fury.
I beat the game in May after collecting 50/100 cat shines. I embedded a video at the top with some clips of the ending stitched together. I haven’t had time to go after the remaining cat shines, but I plan to get back to it soon!
Lost Ark has officially been announced for localization in the West! I won’t say too much about it other than that it’s a free-to-play MMO-ARPG, and I’m very excited for it. You can check out a press release at amazongames.com.
This post was originally posted to my WoW blog, Kor’kron 501st, which also covers other Blizzard games and MMOs.
Super Mario 35, the 35-player, competitive, last-person-standing Mario game, is set to go offline at the end of this month. It was introduced for the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. I thought it was pretty fun, although really it was just nice to have another reason to revisit Super Mario Bros. Besides the goal in each round of bring the last person alive, you also have to unlock levels. To start the round, you select a level you have unlocked to throw into the mix of levels playable that round. At first, you can only select 1-1. You unlock the next available level by beating all levels before it. (Beat 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3 to unlock 1-4.) You can also unlock a level by beating a level thrown into the mix by someone else. Unlocking and beating all the levels took longer than getting a first place win by a wide margin. Often times I’d add the level I need to beat to the mix, but the round would end before I could get to that level.
It was pretty easy to get in the last 2 or 3 people, but getting first was a bit harder. I only had 3 first-place wins.
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to check my stats once the game goes offline, so I decided to save them… not that I’d expect to need them either, but I’m obsessive. I bet we’ll see the game again in the future for limited events. I had fun with it!
I celebrated Mar10 day with the newest Mario game – Bowser’s Fury! I even felt like his fury was after all evening. It rained so hard while I was driving that I could barely see. It started with a definite fury and then died down to a light rain within 10 minutes.
I’m really enjoying the game so far. As much as I loved Super Mario 64 when it released, I find that now I prefer more linear levels to open-world. This is why I loved Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World so much, the best Mario games in the last 15 years to me. Bowser’s Fury provides a bit of a hybrid. The “levels,” or rather, the tasks to obtain specific Cat Shines, are rather abstract in design and linear (at least in the sense of having a forward direction), yet they exist in an open, although not too big, world. It’s pretty great.
Plus, I love becoming a giant cat Mario to fight Fury Bowser!
Happy Halloween! I know it’s nearly Thanksgiving, but let’s go on a tour of Luna, my island, from Halloween! This is me in my steampunk costume looking quite scary in front of my house. My house is surrounded by a river on three sides, which I find really cute. I decorated the outside a bit for the holiday.
Nook’s Cranny is looking spooky under the full moon.
From left to right, there’s Stitches, gem, Ribbot, me, and Marina in front of Resident Services. I love gem’s costume!
Stitches said he was scarier than me, so we had a scare-off.
Here’s my little pumpkin patch!
Is it spookier in black and white?
I visited gem on her island, calamansi, too! Check out her pumpkin patch. SpooOooOky! Is that a mad scientist on the ledge? A crazy doctor? gem?!
Die, zombie!
I tried to kill the zombie, but my axe wasn’t strong enough! And yeah, we decided to come take this video after Halloween had ended, haha!
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!
I wanted to scare Aurora, the cutest penguin, but her house was freezing!
Kody is so cute in his little costume!
Raymond seemed unimpressed by my attempt to scare him. For those of you don’t follow Animal Crossing info online, people kind of went crazy over Raymond. I’m not super sure why he’s so popular. He’s not even a bear or a penguin!
I’ll take a nap in Cherry’s bed while gem asks politely for candy.
Beau was definitely scared!
Come back and get scared, Boomer!
Hippeux, you look silly!
I even scared Snake before he moved out!
When I came to calamansi to trick or treat with gem’s villagers, she immediately tried to scare me!
A bunch of bears hanging out on Halloween at Poncho’s house.
I love you, Sprinkle! Come move to my island!
Merengue is one my favorite villagers of course.
Spookin’ it up wth Antonio, Kid Cat, Murphy, and Jack.
Tough cub Murphy wasn’t scared at all.
Come back, Fauna! I’m trying to scare you!
Klaus was too cool to pay attention to us.
Hanging out with Antonio in front of the museum. Not the spookiest picture, but too cute!
Patty spend Halloween walking on the beach.
Papi seemed scared, but only because he thought we were Jack.
I really like that you can trick villagers out of candy if they think you’re Jack!
Happy Halloween! (…in November. Yeah, I’m terrible at this.)
New World had a preview week back in August, and I’ve been meaning to share this gem (pun intended) of a clip that features a nude rock thief stealing gem’s rocks. (That’s less confusing when you know that ‘gem’ is the name of someone who prefers it lowercase.)
This post was originally posted to my WoW blog, Kor’kron 501st, which also covers other Blizzard games and MMOs.
Unfortunately, I only recorded her microphone and not mine because, well, I make mistakes. But somehow I think it makes it more hilarious.
In this clip, you can see me go through some of the introduction area. You can see a bit of the combat mechanics and skills as well as a gorgeous look at the island.
Last week, Amazon announced that Crucible is shutting down in a month. That’s really too bad, because I definitely enjoyed it personally. Most of all, I’ll miss Bugg, my favorite character. He’s a gardener robot who once grew food on Crucible. He was happy that everyone loved his food. But once the fighting started, he had to grow weapons (plant-based turrets) and fight even though he didn’t want to fight. I decided to capture Bugg’s lore before the servers go offline.
Here’s his War Machine skin, which I unlocked by completing the pre-season (and only) battle pass.
This video shows Bugg’s biography and all of his unlockable audio file logs, which gives a full view of his lore. I love Bugg’s voice-acting!
This second video shows all of Bugg’s customization – mostly his awesome skins. I prefer Ladybug!
Lastly, this video shows some extra dialogue that can be heard if Bugg is clicked repeatedly on the character select screen.
Whenever there’s a special item you can give to a single villager in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, I always give it to Stitches. Now I’ve given my Friendship Sparkler to him! I also reviewed all the past special items he’s given back to me as a thank you.
Bugg, the Crucible hero, is super cute, and I had to record this audio log. In game, he grows little plants that attack enemies. In lore, he used to be a gardening robot who was happy that people liked his vegetables!
This is his Honey Bee skin. I want it!
Here’s a closer look at it even though you can’t see the wings.
I joined Amazon Games a couple weeks ago as a technical writer on the Automation, Tools, and Insights team. I mentioned it on Kor’kron 501st, my other blog, where I talk about World of Warcraft and other MMOs and Blizzard games due to Amazon Games having a new MMO called New World coming out soon. I wanted to mention it here as well because I’ll talk about non-MMOs on this blog.
Crucible is a hero-based shooter released last week developed by Relentless Studios and published by Amazon Games. I don’t have much experience with this genre, but I’ve been playing it a lot this past week and really enjoying it. I included the trailer at the top!
K.K. Slider visited Luna for the first time last week! I’m excited to get him to visit!
I finally spoke to Isabelle because I was curious how my island was doing. I wasn’t focusing on anything in particular to get K.K. Slider to visit. As soon as I checked with her, K.K. Slider wanted to visit!
Now I get my buddy K.K. Slider every Saturday! I love his songs and am glad he’s back again!
Some friends visited Saturday to listen to the concert.
Sunday was supposed to be Dapper Day at Disneyland, but it was cancelled due to COVID-19. They encouraged Dapper Day at Home, so I threw a Dapper Day party on my island, Luna!
From left to right, that’s Jenn, Joe, gem, Duncan, me, Aren, and Haley! While they weren’t shown in this screenshot, Niki and Steph visited as well.
gem from calamansi was looking very dapper on her third day of owning the game!
DrAstroPhD (Joe) from Drapland was quite the striking duck.
Tarok (Aren) from Thighland was oh-so-handsome.
Duncan from Robot Isle was stylish and our second duck.
Jenn from Calico had a variety of cute outfits and was our third duck! I especially liked the outfit you can see her wearing at the top of this post. Disneybound Donald Duck!
HAywinz (Haley) from `meruem` was not only looking good, but she brought me a cherry-blossom wand, and I’m so excited to be able to transform my outfits! Thank you!
Nikē (Niki) from Avalon was fabulous and quite purple.
Stay_Fresh (Steph) from Sty’lnd was indeed looking fresh in her dapper dress!
I hosted a scavenger hut by burying a ton of junk, a few bags of bells, and two pieces of fencing around the island. The fence pieces could be redeemed with me for Nook Miles Tickets! Congratulations to Joe and Duncan (I think)!
At one point Duncan led an assault on me!
Niki, Jenn, gem, and I played in the aquarium a little.
Jenn also shared the pitfall with us so we could all learn the recipe. Plus, somehow a few of us fell in accidentally!
Happy Dapper Day! It’s too bad we didn’t get to have it in person, but I enjoyed playing on Luna with my friends!
I visited Nikē recently, and we spent some time exploring her island. I can’t believe it was our first time playing together!
Okay, I’m dumb and accidentally took a screenshot instead of taking the photo in the game. Oops.
She invited me to her island so she could craft me cherry blossom items that I was missing. Sounds nice of her, right? But deep down, Nikē had scary motives. She came in the bathroom and watched me as I try the bidet! You can already see how alarming it was when the water hit me, but it was so much weirder with her watching.
And then she used the toilet with me! What happens on this island? Why are there side-by-side toilets? Why is the bathroom covered in turnips?! Oh god!
The cherry blossom seasonal event in Animal Crossing: New Horizon was great! I wish we could get a little longer with them, but I guess they want to be true to reality.
This is the side of my house – a little place for a picnic!
As the sun set, the cherry blossoms looked extra beautiful!
I have this nice little swing chair in the back.
Here it is fully-equipped with all the cherry blossom items, which I didn’t have earlier in the day.
After the event ended, the trees outside returned to normal. I moved the cherry blossom items inside with the sakura wood floor and walls.
I like the cherry blossom floor and wall even better! Isn’t that magical?
I decided to make it my bedroom. I think I’ll just stay in this bed all day!
Bunny Day was the first major holiday in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and I’m just glad it’s over. If you didn’t play it, basically everything you do could drop eggs, and those eggs were used as materials to craft items. But there were way, way too many eggs. Nintendo nerfed the drop rates a couple days into the event, which is good, but this is still a bad sign for future events.
That said, it didn’t stop me from collecting everything and creating a Bunny Day room.
Here it is with the lights off. I really like the Bunny Day lamp, which is an egg, and the garlands that can be turned on and off.
You can see a little clip showcasing my Bunny Day room above!
Speed Dating for Ghosts is a dating sim and visual novel in which you’re, as you might guess, a ghost.
I like Spooky Peter because of his name! Unlike most dating sims I’ve played in the past, Speed Dating for Ghosts doesn’t involve a long campaign in which you choose a single partner over the course of the game. In this game, you’ll end up on a date after a few minutes of playing. Afterwards, you can return to the speed dating location and choose to go on another date.
Speed Dating for Ghosts is definitely a little out there compared to similar games. It’s less about romance and more about companionship, loneliness, and self-discovery.
Plus in the DLC, you meet a dog! Oh, and you also meet a demon and the ghost of a vampire. Speed Dating for Ghosts was funny but frank about death, and I really enjoyed it. It’s available on PC, Switch, and iOS, and it was under $10 when I bought it on Switch. It looks like it’ $5.24 right now. I recommend it!
It’s been another beautiful week on Luna in Animal Crossing: New Horizons! I’m loving all the cherry blossoms everywhere right now, but I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.
I built Nook’s Cranny, the new store. It’s great except that it closes at 10.
Luna also now has its first bridge!
Do you ever wake up with Duncan standing over you? How frightening!
While I was hanging out with Duncan, Joe decided to visit! It was pretty unexpected, which was hilarious.
I also visited Joe’s island. He has a pizza oven! I have on in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp but not New Horizons. I need it! I really need it!
I ran into this monstrosity on his island! Ahhh!
I also visited Kristine, and she gave me cherries – the last fruit I needed!
I did a lot of fishing. April has some fish that are only found on the pier.
The stringfish was one of the fish that was going away at the end of March. It was March 31st and approaching midnight, and I still hadn’t caught it. The clocked rolled over into April. And then I saw a shadow of a fish. I ran for it, and I got the stringfish I needed!
Here I am enjoying a nice bamboo island.
When lightning strikes, the sky flashes for a brief moment.
I really love the sky in this game.
Look, a shooting star!
Lastly, my resident services and plaza got upgraded today! Hooray! Now, I need to continue searching for Stitches!
I’ve been exploring Luna, my island more! Isn’t it beautiful?
Gulliver washed up on my shore, and I helped him fix his phone so he could get rescued.
I made a new friend named Wisp who likes to visit at night. He’s a little bit… easily frightened… but if you’re careful around him, he’s quite friendly!
Cherry likes to appreciate the local bugs.
This is my buddy Kody. Sometimes we like to hang out and fish together. I don’t get to see him as often as I’d like because he goes to bed early.
Okay, okay, Kody. I know you like to work out.
We built a new museum near my house, which is great! I love to appreciate the local exhibits!
I decided to venture into parts unknown and visit a mystery island. I love this spiral! I met Marina and asked her to move to my island.
I wasn’t prepared for the rain, but Marina was!
This island beat me up a bit, but I managed to capture tarantulas.
I also visited my friend nil on the island of Avalon.
His neighbor wasn’t around, but she apparently stacks up fish and bugs in her backyard. What a weirdo! Also, I think nil wanted to kill me.
nil came back to Luna with me next. We explored the museum together and had a great time.
Ooo fish!
Look, I’m part of the exhibit!
nil left this nice note on my bulletin board for Kody, who he didn’t have the chance to meet.
Welcome to Luna, my island paradise! I decided to get away from civilization and move far away to a remote island. I’ve set up my tent here next to water where it was so peaceful and serene. I made it perfect with some tiki torches and a little fire so I can step outside and stay toasty.
My time on Luna hasn’t been perfect however. I’ve been attacked by wasps… twice… during the single day of my new life here. But no matter, because I learned how make a medicine from Cherry, one of my neighbors.
I caught this hermit crab friend practically first thing. I think deep down it wants to be friends with me.
So now I have a roommate.
[It’s nice to play such a relaxing game. Even the calm music is nice in the background while I do other things. I have to admit, it juxtaposes Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp so harshly! That phone game is nothing but stress and timed chores! I’m really loving New Horizons though!]
While in New York City recently, I heard there was some trouble with the ghost containment unit down at the Ghostbuster HQ. Everything seemed okay to me at first, so I had fun taking some photos.
And then a Gengar spooked me! The containment unit had failed, and the ghost Pokemon had broken out!
These two bystanders seemed oblivious as they approached the Gastly.
Earthwormgem and I fought the ghost Pokemon, fixed the containment unit, and started trapping the ghosts back inside Ghostbusters HQ.
Shedinja seemed harmless, so Earthwormgem posed with it before we recaptured it.
You’re not scaring her, Haunter!
Ghosts like to haunt places that were significant in their lives. One got away from us, but I knew where it would go. It was time to venture to the New York Public Library.
A free-floating, full-torso, vaporous apparition! It fled inside, but I was in pursuit.
She just wants to be with her books, eh? Maybe I can let this one hang out in the library…
And, uh, here’s some more ghost Pokemon that escaped from HQ:
I had to give my Harvest Fest invitation to Stitches – just like how I gave him the best-friend confection back in February. He’s clearly the best village.
Did you know you could have your own pizza place in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp? You can if you build it! At my Pocket Camp Pizza Place, we can bake two fresh pies for you a time and offer plenty of seating to enjoy the hot slices.
Ready for dessert? A sweet treat is always a good compliment to pizza. Just visit the other side of the campsite to sweet pies, cupcakes, ice cream, or candy!
I hate Boss Challenge events in Dragon Mania Legends. Most events have a refresh period of 6 hours or so – meaning you have certain objectives you have to complete every 6 hour period. That’s nice because even if I have to play 15 minutes, I don’t have to worry about it again for a while.
Boss Challenge has a 2 hour delay delay between each part, which is much more annoying. It’s also hard to know how much of a grace period you have. If you wait three hours, you’ve wasted an hour. If you waste too much time, you probably can’t finish.
Well, I finally finished one. Yes, I had to spend some gems at the end, but I never purchase gems with real money so I’ll consider this a win! I also never needed to interrupt my sleep or anything important during the day. I just tried to be more punctual about checking the event when I was able.
For Valentine’s Day, Nintendo gave each player one best-friend confection to give to their animal of choice in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. When you give it to an animal, that animal gives you a bell-jar bouquet with a note attached. There are three types you can get, but I didn’t think about what reward I wanted. I knew I had to give my best-friend confection to Stitches! He’s the best!
I had two EX Raids to do at the same time and didn’t get a response in the Discord for the second about a later group. I went anyways, and no one was going for a second round. I figured I might as well attempt it despite neither of the two accounts with me being 40. Turns out, this raid is incredibly easy. I had about half the time remaining!
Dragon Mania Legends is a typical phone game in that there are multiple currencies in the game, and one of them is purchased using real money. Their events ramp up in difficulty in what I assume is obviously an attempt to get people to spend money to finish them. And I don’t spend real money on this game.
In this style of events, you go through multiple levels unlocking chests. A chest can contain the key to the next level or a puzzle piece toward unlocking a dragon. (Collecting dragons is the primary goal of the game.) The last level has a chest that will contain the a dragon itself, and this is basically the goal of the event. This event celebrated Chinese New Year, and the final dragon was the Nezha dragon.
For the first time, I was able to get that final dragon! The event ends tonight, and I got it this morning. And yet I did some quick math and found that it would be impossible for me to get the puzzle piece dragon at this point without spending real money. Still, I’m happy I finally got the end dragon in one of these events!
I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp recently. Is it time for a new hat, or can I wear my Happy New Year hat for a little longer? I realize I haven’t blogged here much in a while, and part of that is because I think I need to say something specific. Should I explain what Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is and review it before I start to write about it? No, I don’t want to do that. I just want to talk about the game. But if you want to add me as a friend, my ID is 2604 7697 654!
Also, this amuses me. These are my only two friends in the game that I actually know, and for a moment I wondered how my friend could be in two spots at the same time. It took me a second to realize that they just dressed similarly today. That’s gem on the left and Anela on the right. Nice fashion!
It was quite the slow year for Polygons and Pixels in 2016. I only published 4 articles total. This has been my slowest blog since I created it, but it’s still surprising.
Besides the homepage, the top articles include topics such as Castle Doombad, World of Goo for Android, “bob’s game,” Lifeline, and Papers, Please. I got more visits from the US by far, but following the US are Brazil, UK, Germany, and France. Thanks!
Here are the views by year:
2012: 593 views, 91 visitors (blog started in June)
2013: 6,858 views, 3,933 visitors
2014: 7,891 views, 5,010 visitors
2015: 4,029 views, 3,106 visitors
2016: 2,251 views, 1,690 visitors
I didn’t do much serious gaming in 2016. I played a lot of Hearthstone, Overwatch, and some World of Warcraft: Legion. I tried Lifeline 2 and was disappointed. The only console game I played was BattleBlock Theater, which I finally beat. I also played a couple storylines of Hatoful Boyfriend after my friend, Tram, suggested it. I played a ton of Sailor Moon Drop, Dragon Mania Legends, and Pokemon Go. Super Mario Maker got a little playtime (and blog posts) as well. KOMRAD finally was released for iOS, and I played that. If you count party games, Jackbox got a lot of play. In December, I started playing Ingress at the suggestion of my friend Chuck. Finally, I downloaded Super Mario Run and tried to resist paying for the full game. I lasted two days.
Jean-Jacques Calbayrac posts photos taken with his Game Boy Camera to his interesting themed Instagram account, @gameboycameraman. The earliest photo I see on his account is from May 7, 2016, so it seems like this is a relatively new endeavor despite old hardware. He’s based in London and seems to take photos around his city (despite the recent photos taken of the game No Man’s Sky, which I find to be quite the disappointing subject for a neat experiment). It’s neat to see the world through the more restrictive lens of the Game Boy Camera, an accessory for the original Game Boy first released in 1998. Restriction can lead to beautiful results.
No celebration is complete without some Super Mario Maker! It was my birthday last month, and while I was spending the day with some of my closest friends, I wanted everybody to come together to make a level with me. Our creation was Peter’s 30th Birthday Bash! If you look closely in the screenshot above, you’ll see “Happy birthday Peter” spelled out in the level.
For those interested in playing it, you can find it using the ID BBD9-0000-01E1-1F90.
Anela kicked off the level with some springs, pits, and a number of enemies. She didn’t pull her punches either. Just when you think she might be nice, she has a trick up her sleeve.
Antonio worked on the next section, and his girlfriend Kaleigh contributed as well. His section contain projectiles, fire beams, thwomps, and more. The POW comes in handy though!
You can usually tell gem’s sections because they’re filled with coins. The areas void of coins in her section spelled out “happy birthday.” You have to take your time here or you could fall to your death.
Edward started his section by spelling my name. He also filled it with lakitus. You really need a star to get through this part (which we added when the level was too hard).
This section was also created by Edward. It seems like he likes enemies.
I ended the level with some Bowser, Jr. enemies and one Bowser.
It was a blast making the level with everybody. I love how you don’t have to be super into video games to enjoy Super Mario Maker. Check it out using the ID BBD9-0000-01E1-1F90.
Thank you to everybody who celebrated my birthday and made Peter’s 30th Birthday Bash with me!
Robert Pelloni’s Kickstarter for his game “bob’s game” succeeded back in May of 2014. I wrote about it in a post called “bob’s game” Kickstarter succeeds. Since it succeeded, he made a single Kickstarter update a year late rin May of 2015. Of course, I wrote about that too in post titled bob’s game Kickstarted: one year later. Now we finally have another update. You can check out the update on Kickstarter under the name Small update.
The condensed version of his update is that it seemed pretty honest about his troubles. He “set the bar low for the Kickstarter,” but it seems he set it too low. He used the money to get an apartment for eight months but eventually ended up living out of his van for the next six. She pitched the game to invenstors without success. He eventually got another apartment and enrolled in online classes. (It’s unclear if he’s still in school.) He also discussed some issues he had porting “bob’s game.”
It looks like he’s hoping to port the bob’s game puzzle game first to multiple platforms to help give him income to work on “bob’s game” the RPG. (For some context on the name, bob’s game is a puzzle game. It’s a stand-alone game, but it’s also the final game within the RPG “bob’s game.” “bob’s game” is a game about bob’s game.)
The legendary bob’s game is the final game from the infamous homebrew Action-RPG “bob’s game” (a game about the puzzle game- note the double quotes!). You can check out the separate Greenlight entry for that game here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=604630184
bob’s game is a multiplayer puzzle game- but not just any puzzle game, *every* puzzle game! It’s a build-your-own puzzle game with a puzzle game creator where you define all the rules to your own custom game!
More than that, great care has been made to ensure that bob’s game is the *best* version of every puzzle game. I went through every puzzle game forum and wiki I could find and made sure to implement every detail and feature required by tournament level hardcore players. It has wall kicks, floor kicks, spin kicks, T-spins, adjustable timing, powerups, you name it.
The rules of bob’s game change in real time as you play it, morphing from game to game and making every round completely unique. Or you can choose to play just your favorite game type against your friends with fantastic controls, super tight timing, and features and powerups from other games.
bob’s game is completely customizable, allowing the player to create in-depth rulesets to mimic existing puzzle games or create entirely new ones to add to the online library.
Create your own puzzle modes! Invent custom rulesets or challenge your friends to a sequence of all your favorite games. Compete in an online world championship and improve your skills to reach the top of the public leaderboard.
bob’s game is constantly evolving with new theme packs, new rules, and user-designed puzzle packs.
This game is not complete, the Java demo featured in the video is an early alpha “MVP” version and I’d like to add many more features. I am also currently porting it back to C++ from Java so that it runs as smoothly as possible with no garbage collection hiccups and can be ported to any platform.
It will be released and continuously updated for desktop PC both standalone and in browser, and on mobile for Android and iPhone, with the source code available to be ported to any other platform.
I set the bar low for the Kickstarter but I was hoping it would make enough for at least a year or two of development. Unfortunately it barely made the minimum amount, but in my situation I had to take what I could get.
I chose to get an apartment instead of trying to live in a van, thinking I’d be better off with the convenience and hoping that I’d be able to figure out something else in that time. This only gave me an 8 month extension, and I spent most of it still very traumatized and frustrated and I did not find any other solutions.
Once I ran out, I ended up living in my car again for another 6 months until I could find another way to support myself. I tried sending a pitch deck to over 300 investors and even went door to door on Sand Hill Road. I emailed every publisher I could find. I applied for YCombinator and 500 Startups. None of that worked, so I ended up enrolling in online classes and taking out student loans.
So now I’m back in an apartment and I’ve slowly started getting back into development after almost 2 years of sleeping in a car.
I’ve listed both the puzzle game and the RPG on Steam Greenlight, in hopes that I could get on Early Access, which would really be great for my situation since I could possibly make some steady income as I worked on the games.
I’m still moving forward with the games the best I can and I will still fulfill the backer rewards when I am able to do so. I am still living on borrowed time, but I’ll do the best I can with the time that I have.
I’m currently porting the Java puzzle game to C++ so that it runs as smoothly as possible. It will be released and continuously updated for desktop PC both standalone and in browser, and on mobile for Android and iPhone, with the source available to be ported to any other platform.
I am doing this as it is the fastest way that I can possibly gain some reliable income, so that I can work on the RPG without worrying about my situation.
I am not sure what I’m going to do with the RPG. I rewrote it in Java as an MMO so the game world could be continuously updated on the fly. I was successful at doing that but it is very cumbersome to develop on at this point and it needs to be worked on by a team with funding, not one person with no resources.
I had gotten caught up in the Silicon Valley hype and thought it would be possible to get investment for a fairly large existing project with a cool online demo. Unfortunately that was not the case. It would probably have helped to have had some traction and numbers, but maybe it’s just too small of a project for big investors to care, or maybe my background is too risky, or maybe it’s just not good enough.
I’m also unhappy with the state of Java, and the client doesn’t run well enough on mobile which I was really hoping for and one of my deciding factors. I had anticipated that Java would become more popular because of Android and hence also more supported on the desktop, but because of some security issues and the lawsuit between Google and Oracle it became less popular. I would really like to port it back to C++ but that will take a long time, so for now I will stick with Java. I will probably just scale it back to a single player desktop game and release manual updates, or have a good upgrade function built in.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
I would have guessed that most of my traffic was due to bob’s game, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Besides the homepage, “All done with Castle Doombad” got most of my views.
All done with Castle Doombad – 318 views
Backing up Android’s World of Goo saves – 292 views
Energy Drinks – 175 views
Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game sprites – 99 views
The strange tale of “bob’s game” – 81 views
I only made 28 new posts this year. This has always been my slowest blog, and as I find myself not playing games much, it obviously slows down much more.
I thought it’d be neat to show my views per year. I started this blog in June 2012, so let’s start the data with 2013.
Polygons and Pixels 