Video Games

What I’ve Been Playing – Mobile Pixel Games Edition

Things have been really heavily mobile gaming focused lately. I suppose its also worth mentioning, sometimes, often times, there are games that I don’t mention at all. Like when I spent ten minutes on some Steam game that was meh. Or the CAT CEO game I played for like, a day.

Games I am omitting this week because I barely played them…

A Godzilla Racing game.
Oregon Trail
Infinity Nikki
Unreal Life
Fortnite
That Cat CEO game
LinkedIn’s Daily Puzzle games
Sky: CotL

Loop Hero

I decided to dig a bit into what was available on Play Pass, since I pay for it, and use it, but could use it more. This is one I picked up there.

Its sort of an, auto playing RPG, though you do have to manage gear and planning out the map. Your character just walks around a looped path, and every round the enemies get harder. But you also get cards that you can play across the map to add power ups and harder enemies for better drops. Each loop you have the option to return to camp with your loot, though each loop resets everything.

Hence, Loop, Hero.

Its fun, I am starting to get some better strategies going for item placement and which stats are the best.

Balatro

I actually just bought this one, after a friend recommended it. It actually kind of reminds me of the sort of, gradual, subtle strategy, of Loop Hero, though way more cards.

You get dealt a number of cards (8 I think by default) and have to make Poker hands from them to tey to score points and beat the blind everytime. The trick is, the blind keeps going up and you need to upgrade points for hand types (Flush, Full House, etc), and use an assortment of Joker cards to beef up your combos and points.

I have a few good strategies but I have yet to make it past round 6/8, yet.

Like Loop Hero, every round you gain a few new unlocks, but everything resets otherwise.

Pokemon TCG Pocket

I am still… Diligently opening packs twice a day. I don’t like playing against people and the Expert AI opponents are cheap as hell impossible.

I kind of want to finish the set of cards, but I am not sure I will bother.

Throne and Liberty

I have almost completely stopped playing T&L. I could feel it coming, and it followed the usual pattern of, “I feel my interest waning” followed by “Lets push and play extra” after. Then Thanksgiving week was busy and I just sort of, stopped. I did all the available dungeons, I did all the quests, now its just, a repetitive gear grind. I can’t even transmog items to play dress up like in WoW, not without paying money. I feel like I have worn the same armor for 90% of the game now.

Beatstar

Another, “I can tell I am losing interest. I want to enjoy it more but its just, very repetitious. And I either instantly ace new song unlocks, or its an extreme tier track that I lose in Stage 2 at 10,000 points because hit detection on swipes is pretty ass for a game entirely built around hit detection.

Seriously though, look at these, they are cluttering things up and wrecking my “% Completed” on my profile.

What I’m Playing – Not Dead Yet Edition

Nov 23rd, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

1 comment

I’m gonna be straight up here. I just have not really been much in the mood for writing and blogging lately.

In addition to just being busy lately, the latest news developments are just, very very depressing, to put it mildly.

Fortnite

I have not been really playing a lot of variety lately either. I have no interest in Fortnite OG 2, I didn’t care for OG1 either. The Music pass was… Weirdly easy to complete, because they changed how you gain pass tiers. I finished it in days and barely played. I didn’t get premium. I am not real big on Snoop or rap/hip hop. This also kind of killed any interest in playing because all of the featured tracks are basically 7+ difficulty on vocals and 1-2 difficulty on every other part.

I don’t like playing vocals.

Beatstar

I am also rapidly losing interest in Beatstar, the other rhythm game I have been playing on my phone. Its still enjoyable, but the replayability of tracks is kind of meh. I also can basically Gold most normal tracks in one play through. Platinum is less easy, and I have no double platinum tracks. Both of those feel like blind luck though. There isn’t really a good strategy for increasing how many Perfect+ vs Perfect hits you get.

Or the songs fall to the other end of the spectrum, which currently is 3 tracks for my 100 or so songs available. They are “Extreme” tier and I lose it randomly on stage 2 somewhere, usually because it doesn’t properly register a swipe arrow.

More irritating is that all of my unlocks now require like, 50 cards per genre. And card cases have 2-4 cards in them. This drip feed of content is excruciatingly annoying. They added in some ways to unlock more by watching ads but I have too many layers of blocking going on the ad mechanism barely works even after I opened a few pinholes for it.

The mobile ads are horrifically awful and weird too. And they are just for more games centered around shoving ads at you. How does this model even fucking work?

I would give them money to try to get some songs I want but the only way to get songs is a slot machine pull and I have no real interest in that crap.

Pokemon TCG Pocket

Though speaking of slot machine pulls, I decided to give the new Pokemon TCG Pocket a go. I can already tell its not going to last. Between in game tasks and general new game push, it really showers you with things early on. I have mostly been playing the vs AI battles, but not really playing a lot. Mostly just collecting up the cards.

I feel like I am pretty close to having the set despite not spending a dime, but also, I know this is how this crap works. That last basic Golbat card will have a .0000000005% chance of dropping ever. That sort of nonsense. You think its the fancy colored ones with strong legendary Pokemon, but its not. They give you those to keep the dopamine hits flowing while you chase the completionism of every trash Pokemon.

Pokemon Sleep

On a Pokemon Note, I also have spun up Pokemon Sleep again. It added support for 3rd party watches (Fitbit) and well, it works, but I really do not get the point of this thing. I may have already uninstalled it.

Throne and Liberty

Look at that, I said I had not been playing things and here I am, not even touching on what I have been playing yet. I have made it to the max level, I have started running some dungeons. I still have not tried all of the dungeons yet. Almost every boss has some point where they have a 1 hit KO mechanic. I have only played some of the easier to manage bosses, and even then I still die half the time.

I have gotten some good gear though. Though I need to figure out a better way to beef up my stamina/MP. I keep running out.

Just recently I also started doing some open world dungeons. I have all this weird currency and it keeps telling me “X currency is full so these new ones have been destroyed”. One of these currencies affects drops in open world dungeons. So I figured it was time to use some of it.

On regular currency though, I finally went broke. I kept feeling super rich, but recently found where to craft upgrade books for my high level gear. And I blew through several million in regular gold using up my crafting mats.

Easy come easy go I guess.

What I’ve Been Playing – Mobile Edition

Sep 25th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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One day I will get some sort of actual cadence going on these. I promise 🤞. Anyway, For whatever reason, I kind of dipped in and out of a few mobile card games recently. I came to a universal conclusion, I really don’t care for mobile card games.

Pokemon TCG Live

I don’t know what the actual name for this is, I think it’s rebranded a few times too. I came across some codes for this game that were unredeemed so I loaded it up. After playing the tutorial and playing a few rounds and trying to spiffy up my deck so it wasn’t so shitty, I uninstalled it.

Of the card games I have been playing, I wanted to like this one the most. And I hated it, the most.

I am sorry Pikachu, I tried, I wanted this to be a go-to game. I really love Pokemon in general, as a sort of underlying always there enjoyment. But I hate playing against human opponents and you have to proper vs AI mode.

Magic The Gathering

Like Pokemon, I had some codes to redeem. On Prime Day, I bought an actual set of M:tG cards in a two player starter set. It came with digital versions of both decks.

I enjoyed playing this one probably the most. Especially because it has a way to play vs AI, which I prefer. It’s not souch I dislike playing against people, it’s that I have no desire to play against people who are making out perfect strategies while I am just here being my casual ass self. Like in Pokemon, I had a game where every round my opponent was throwing out like 10+ cards and there was all this in and out of the discord pile and damage counters flying everywhere and I could not even manage to draw any damn energy.

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I actually used to vaguely play Magic like, 20 years ago. I thought I hady cards still but a coworker and I were talking about it and I went to find my cards and they don’t seem to be there anymore. I want to say a lot of them were from an early set, maybe even the original sets. Frozen Realms or Forgotten Realms or something. It was “Ice themed”.

Hearthstone

I have tried a few times to get into Hearthstone. I like the multiple minions aspect like Magic has, but I am not sure I like the hero aspects of the way energy/land/resources works.

Part of why I have been playing this one lately is that my Google Play Pass subscription includes a $5 off coupon all the time, so I have been building up a ton of “free currency”. (Roblox has the same thing, and sometimes PokemonGo).

Pokemon Go

I have finally made it to Level 40 in Pokemon Go. This was the original highest level. There is a bunch of task based stuff that is needed to get to level 50, the current highest, but at this point it’s all “end game” style play.

I am kind of considering stopping again. The experience needs feel huge and like most games, I have never been super into End Game Min/Maxing. I kind of got into that for a bit in World of Warcraft ages ago, around Pandaria, but they kicked it all up and I stopped caring.

Anyway, Pokemon Go recently added this Dynamax gimmick, which I guess is from one of the game I never really played. It seemed like a cool idea, you actually fight to capture Pokemon, but it’s not quite a raid, but then battles are stupidly boring. Plus to actually get anywhere on the Dynamax mechanics you need like a zillion candies.

Hard pass.

It seemed cool, it just… Too tedious.

Also, stop spawning Kanto Pokemon damnit. I need Sinnoh Pokemon fory research task.

Sky: CotL

There are like, 3 “events” happening at the moment, and it feels like 2 at any given time. I kind of like that the game is trying to be a bit more actually interactive. For a long while it was just starting to get dull and repetitious. I may or may not have allegedly been using tools to assist with that tedium, but have since stopped because many people were … having “issues” with it.

I never had any “issues” but I figured it’s better to stop while I was ahead and I was at least caught up on a bunch of traveling spirits.

I picked a heck of a time to stop though, one of the current events is the return of the Shattering Season spirits, and they need like 800 candles to finish out. I have decided to accept that I don’t need everything.

There has also been a new event centered around Riddles and the Moon. Usually these are based around holidays, but I am not sure what holiday this one is for. It’s a neat sort of event where you can leave and answer riddles, but it’s not great since, the riddle lanterns never seem to refresh each day, and half of them are not in a language I can read (well enough).

The last event is the regular seasonal event, the Season of Duets. I’ve finished that one off. I have seen a fair amount of people saying the season was lame but I don’t see it. It had several instruments and the music mini game feels like kind of a core part of Sky.

Fortnite Festival

Speaking of music, I have been playing a lot of Fortnite Festival still. The Rhythm game mode that is the spiritual sequel to Guitar Hero/Rock Band. I have backed off on it some since I finished the pass and I don’t super care about the bonus styles for the Keytar.

What I’ve Been Playing – Celeste Edition

Aug 25th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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Been a bit busy lately with other games actually. Part of it is that the Overwatch season ended, and I got frustrated with it again, almost immediately, so I blew some Mythic Currency on the Anubis Reaper then uninstalled and moved on.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

Apparently over seas, this name.was used a lot, but for this moment, I am referring to the US version, I think maybe also called “Final Fantasy US” in some regions. I have had a vague urge to replay this game for a while off and on, and I finally just started doing it. I am up to the second world, I want to say there are 4 worlds and an end zone, it’s not a super long game.

It has a pretty rocking soundtrack too.

Fortnite

The new Marvel season dropped. I am not really pushing myself on this one and I have not even bought the pass, but will once I get closer to level 100+.

I am also doing all Bot matches like I used to do. It’s a lot more enjoyable that way. The new Marvel weapons are pretty neat, but the War Machine auto turret and Captain America Shield are both broken as fuck and seriously overpowered.

There was also a nice little music event for someone named Karol G. It really reminded me of the old ones they used to do when it felt like they gave a shit about these events.

Celeste

The “big one” as far as time spent. I have been meaning to play this game for a while and finally did.

And I finished it.

It was frustrating a bit because personally, I found the controls to be slightly less responsive and a bit more floaty than I would like, but it was fun and difficult in an “I can tell I am improving” way and not a “Ha ha cheap shots all around” way.

The story is 🤌 very nice as well. I have like 200 screenshots of just snarky dialogue options. So good. A nice little morality tale about dealing with self-doubt etc. All buried in this rather brutal platform game.

Alan Wake Remaster

I bought Alan Wake 2 back around the holidays because it was like half price and included the original remaster and some Fortnite skins. It was a super deal.

But I wanted to refamiliarize myself with the first game, which I have previously completed. So I am replaying it with the remaster. I know it’s a different sort of game, but after loving Control, I am really looking forward to AW2.

It’s surprisingly kind of tough, even on easy mode. I actually also may be stuck where I am at the moment because I am limited to flash-bang weapons only, and I kind of used up a lot of them taking a detour that went nowhere.

Fortnite Mobile

Aug 19th, 2024

by Ramen Junkie.

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I’ve shifted back to Fortnite from Overwatch, Maybe. Probably. Anyway, the newest Fortnite Season is a pretty sweet Marvel themed season with a Marvel BP, which is way more exciting than the upcoming Overwatch BP, which is, kind of hodge-podgey, sort of Ancient Egypt?

Also, no Venture Skin for like 3 more seasons. What the fuck Blizzard?

AnywayI’m not really here to discuss Overwatch or the Marvel season of Fortnite. What also dropped this season is the return of Fortnite Mobile. Currently available in the EU on iPhones and on Android Phones anywhere, through the Epic Launcher. This is key, because you have to go get the Epic Launcher from Epic’s website separate from the Play Store.

The question is, is it worth while to do so?

Frankly, probably not. I will say, I did not play a regular BR match at all. I played a few creative maps to test things out and to get the 100,000 experience needed to complete a few quests for items. I started on one I’ve been using as filler on PC for the daily creative XP, Rainbow Run, which is simply, running in a straight line, collecting coins.

I moved on from here to a regular Deathrun map. I have played a ton of Deathruns on PC, and they are definitely my favorite type of custom games. I will say, I managed to finish the 200 level Deathrun I picked. It was definitely one of the easier DR maps I have played, and didn’t have a lot of the more tricky jumps and traps I’ve encountered across a myriad of maps. But they do require some precision in jumping and moving. I also died way more than I normally do on these, something like 60 times in the 200 level map. For comparison, I usually die like 5 times max, even on maps I have never played, and I am pretty sure I have finished this exact same map on PC in like 20 minutes or less with 0 deaths.

I needed a bit more experience for my 100k after finishing this one and moved on to another Dr map. Pretty much the same experience.

Overall though, it kind of felt pretty weird and janky. Framerates and graphics were fine. The controls left something to be desired, and I wasn’t even trying to shoot anything while moving. I had a lot of deaths because there is a sort of, autorun that seems to randomly trigger, and I would run off the edge into a spiked pit a lot.

I also had an issue where I would randomly open the “ping” menu near the controls, which would interrupt other inputs.

It’s less critical, but the quests menu is opened by clicking the mini map, which wasn’t present on one of the map I played, making the menu inaccessible.

It’s also just weird. I’m not a huge fan of 3rd person or FPS games on mobile at all. I can’t see ever using this again unless they offer more drops, or there is a skin I want to log in and get when I otherwise can’t do.