I am completely in love with this game, and the game is still in Alpha. How is this possible? Oh yeah, a combination of things I’ve always loved, a concept that’s always worked and the fact that the dev/devs are seriously putting in a lot of effort into the game. This game certainly enters my top 10 of games that I’ve received from Keymailer, and it’s not every halfway finished yet due to it being in Alpha stage of all things, not even Beta!
Alchemy garden is a game where you, a budding alchemist, move into a shack outside of town and do it up enough to where not only can you live in it but sell from it too. Like Potion Craft, you go through the day picking your plants and herbs, create potions to your heart’s whim and proceed to sell them to the random members of the public that wander in. Unlike Potion Craft, however, doing everything by hand, picking every flower and mushroom, and running around the entire outside area. It’s so… tranquil. Not only this, but you can also head into town and interact with the townspeople, not that they have much to say yet. There are two shops within the town, one is a seed vendor who sells 3 different types of seeds with varying rarities every day, and a carpenter who sells tools and furniture.
This game is currently in Alpha stage as I mentioned before, so there are a few things I could pick up on that would make the game better, but nothing too game-breaking. The recipe book that you note all the potions you made in is not very user-friendly, putting the potions that you make in the book in the order that you found them. This makes looking for the recipe for potions really tedious, as you have to flip through every other potion before/after it to find it again for a customer. Another thing is that when I was placing furniture outside (I’m not sure if it’s after I slept, or after I saved, quit and played the game a day later) on returning to where the furniture should’ve been, it’d vanished!
There’s another few things with objects like flowers spawning on top of each other, the inside of the cave taking half of your stamina to traverse because you have to jump all the time, and the general finickiness of putting ingredients in the cauldron… but aside from that, this game has the makings of something great, and I genuinely can’t wait until the full release.
Price: £7.99 (Update 10.99 now) Time To Complete: N/A. However, with the limited potions right now, it took me around 2 hours to get all the plants to create every potion craftable. Achievements: N/A (Yet) (update 44) Cards: N/A (Yet) Worth The Money: For most games in Alpha, I’d usually tell you to steer clear of any that cost money, as you’re “paying to test the game”. In Alchemy Garden’s case, I see this as an investment into what the game can become. So definitely, yes.
I can’t write much more about Alchemy Garden, because there’s not that much more to the game. It still has taken 5 hours out of my life and will continue to do so when I feel I need a little of that cutesy, free will, potion maker and sell ’em game. With that 5 hours, I did the same thing over and over again, reminiscent of my very much enjoyed 400+ hours of Stardew Valley, and not one time was I bored. If you’re a person who likes the potion making and selling aspect of Potion Craft, the free will and no clear direction of Minecraft and the endless, enjoyable farming routines of Stardew, then £7.99 shouldn’t be too much for you. Even so, this game goes on sale more often than I stream. So if you’re still not too sure, you can always pick it up for a steal at some point.
Zesty Rating 4 Out Of 5. That first little pip of pomegranate that’s so full of flavour. And because it tastes so good, you know the rest of its insides will taste the same. A richly colourful and cute game. Harness nature and pick up countless flowers and herbs to make a vast array of potions. Despite being in Alpha, it shows great promise for a full and addicting shopkeeping game which allows you to go at your own pace.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
DISCLAIMER: While this in my perspective is a “repost” of sorts, this review was never published on my previous place of writing. This is due to the owner of the website refraining from supporting any Russian developers because of the Russia/Ukraine war. I, myself, am making the executive decision to post this despite the war, as not “all publicity is good publicity”.
The next couple of reviews will be shovelware from (more than likely) Russian developers. These reviews are not positive, and I do not expect the negative things I say to prompt people to support these developers. Likewise, I'm aware that Russian game developers are not who are waging war on Ukraine, and countless people don't want this conflict.
Okay, so you’re probably wondering what I’m doing, reviewing a game like this. The answer is simple. The game is simple. I’ve played the game. I can make a review, so I will.
Bang Bang Fruit 2 is the sequel in a line of physics based, 2D, puzzle games, where the aim of the game is to shoot a fruit (strawberry) through the level and have it land on top of the cake. A basic premise, which as usual, is horribly implemented with very little effort.
Quantity over quality is how developers like these operate who create games like this.
This game is an extension of the sequel, which has the same concept. I’d even go as far to say that they’re probably just the same game, but I don’t think these developers would sink that low. (fingers-crossed they’re not like the devs of Abscond) However, they do jump on the all popular train of churning out easy-made games, quick throw-togethers to follow popular online memes, and hentai. Now, there’s nothing especially wrong with hentai, but when you’re able to throw out one a month, I start to wonder about the content.
Ah, battleship where if the opponent loses then they strip? Or maybe for each hit, a layer disappears. And the game previously?
*Shudder* One of those tile slider games…
Okay, so the developer of Bang Bang Fruit 2 mass produce things, but it’s not plagiarism, despite being blatant shovelware. Still not completely good, but at least the game is legitimate.
The game itself is a sound concept as far as simple puzzle games go, if it were not for the failing of multiple things. Firstly, the game in itself is not the most challenging. With about 30 levels in the game, the levels are altered in different ways to produce new experiences, new obstacles and new ways of trying to think out the puzzle. All of these things, however, can be completely voided by the fact that I can just shoot for trial and error, over and over again, with no downside. You aren’t concerned with the puzzles after a while, but it probably takes the same amount of time to shoot the fruit at the cake with this random chance. Things are altered, but not in such a way that continues to make it interesting. Colours are changed, backgrounds are different and that’s about it, asides from the new obstacles. The new obstacles being few and far between and not really engaging in raising the difficulty at all. I’ve actually found, myself, that on a few of the maps that encourage you to use the new mechanisms added, you can actually just fire the fruit regularly and pass the level.
Any difficulty experienced in the game is down to the horrible level design and weird physics.
So, how are the physics odd? They are not entirely. The fruit uses generic (non-bouncy)ball physics for the most part, acting like a lead sphere most of the time. Fruit does not bounce, but I’m sure at the velocity that it would achieve after being shot out of a cannon would give it enough energy to not act as flat as Amber Heard’s acting.
Once you have wrapped your head round that part of the physics, the cake itself is an entirely different demon. It has its own peculiar sense of gravity that is made so that when your fruit hits the cake, the fruit stays on the cake. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to be. One of the biggest problems I had with the game was getting the god-damn fruit to stay on the god-damn cake. It sounds like a cakewalk, it was not, even with the odd gravity applied to the cake. Every so often, the unusual gravity was not enough, and I had to watch the fruit slowly roll off the cake. Why did it not stop? No one knows! But on the other hand, at times the stopping mechanism for the cake was just too good! A shot that may have been a bit risky, but would’ve completely paid off, is your worst enemy. Your fruit landing on the corner of the cake, going in the direction where if it hits the cake it would roll to the centre… Cake-Gravity says no. In fact, the cake gravity is made in the way that regardless of what direction you hit the cake from, the fruit is programmed to only roll in the one direction. Which, in the risky case, is right off the cake.
Another point to stay away from this game is the lack of save function. Any progress you make, up to any level, of any stage is not saved. If you exit this game, even after completing 90% of this game, despite there being solid level structure with definite ends and beginnings, you’ll have to play the entire thing again from scratch. This is an absolute pain in the arse, specifically to those people who bought this game to reap the achievements from them. Why are the achievements relevant? They always are, but in this context, the previous game was one of those which gave you all the achievements as soon as you opened the game. Essentially purchasing a bundle of achievements and a completed game for money, without having to put in any skill or labour into earning anything. I don’t agree with the people that support this, who actively go out and purchase games like these, just to make their perfect game / completed game count higher. There’s no merit to it besides making yourself look like a huge “sadd-o”.
Example of said person I found making a “review” for either this game or another game. With 459,245 hours playing, which equates to 52 years. This person I doubt is even in their mid-30’s. 1332 Perfect Games with a 98% completion rate. Nah.
Continuing to lead players on in the false promise of steam trading cards, targetting another gullible audience (not all steam trading card hunters are gullible) which will scoop up any game with cards or the promise of cards. Cards for this game initially were promised via the tag system that devs can use after publishing the game, and at one point had even a dialogue that hinted/alluded to cards. These were eventually taken away, but the irritation by older buyers of the game is still seen in old reviews and discussions complaining about the blatant false advertising.
Developers had later informed those asking about cards that it was no longer possible due to the actions that Steam has taken to reduce the amount of money made by fake developers by introducing a “confidence metric”.
Instead of starting to drop Trading Cards the moment they arrive on Steam, we’re going to move to a system where games don’t start to drop cards until the game has reached a confidence metric that makes it clear it’s actually being bought and played by genuine users. Once a game reaches that metric, cards will drop to all users, including all the users who’ve played the game prior to that point. So going forward, even if you play a game before it has Trading Cards, you’ll receive cards for your playtime when the developer adds cards and reaches the confidence metric.
This is a great metric, while it does nothing to stop fake developers and Steam’s quality control continues to be at an all-time low, it’s guaranteed that fake developers are making less money than what they would.
Otherwise, a few last points for this game:
The music is abysmal. It’s the same thing over and over again for the whole 20 – 30 minutes you spend playing the game.
There is only one sound (which I heard) that is when you fire the fruit from the cannon, no contact noises and no noise for when the fruit hits the cake.
The level designs are really lazy, consisting of copy-paste elements of the same standard shapes, over and over again.
What’s even more lazy is that the only thing you need to do is time your left-click right. There is no finesse to the game or requirement for any brain strain. No changing the pitch of the cannon, no adjusting the strength of the blast, no factors that you can alter at all.
The game description on the store page is “Just make a cake.” The cake is already made! You’re just putting the strawberry on top! Also, shouldn’t it be a cherry? Cherries don’t go on cakes, but the phrase is “the cherry on top”, or “the cherry on the cake”, why is it a strawberry?
Price: £0.79 Time To Complete: 38 Minutes – One Full Sitting Achievements: 36 Cards: No. Worth The Money: It’s not even worth the time I spent writing this.
Zest Rating 2 Out Of 10. As Sweet As Out-Of-Season Fruit. A cheap, nothing-more-than-template game, which adds to the clogged and oversaturated market which is Steam. Bright colours, but generally tacky. Works as a game, but that’s about it. A full 38 minutes in one sitting of your life that you’ll never get back, and you ask yourself, “Were the achievements really worth it?”
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
Unturned is a game that I’ve spent countless hours in. Excluding the games that I used to play on my Xbox back in the day, when hours weren’t counted, and you couldn’t see how addicted to a game you really were. It goes as far to say that after a year of playing Unturned, I was already satisfied with the product. Having downloaded it back in 2013/2014, (ass-end of 2013 or early 2014) by the time that 2015 rolled around I had already bought the “Supporter Pack”, or whatever it’s called (Permanent Gold Upgrade).
The Permanent Gold Upgrade was a $5 pack that was purely cosmetics (at the time) and the key purpose was to show your support to the lone, Canadian developer. I’m pretty sure I jumped on that about 3 months into the game.
Along comes 2015, and my first-ever review was for this game:
~“Unturned is an excellent game with great potential. With the latest updates, the games mechanics run much smoother and the crafting mechanics are much easier than first off. Servers are easy to access and a little less glitchy than before when hosting numerous players, but overall a brilliant game in the making, would’ve expected a game like this to cost money. I’m still playing this game after a good 2 years. It’s got better and worse in many ways. *cough cough* nerfing. But I still love the game.”~
I’ll leave in all the horrendous spelling mistakes and horrible grammar, as much as it kills me to look at it. That salt is hilarious, though. This wasn’t actually my first review, as I believe that I’d made one before that, which was similar to, “its a good game :)”. Steam, however, didn’t have the function at that point where if you edited your review, you could quote the previous version.
After 7 consecutive years of playing Unturned, I am revisiting this review, and the game itself. For the first year solid, I played entirely single-player, like the little idiot I was. Being 12/13/14, I had the most limited grasp on online lobbies and how it worked for PC. I was a console pleb and the only multiplayer I knew of, I only had to press one button to be opposite hordes of squeaky, screaming, cat-calling pre-teens and teens (If you guessed Call of Duty then you’re correct).
After that year, an update caught my attention, and for some reason I pressed multiplayer. Four years of my life, and it was the only game I played after pressing that damn button. I found a clan of people that I got along really well with, who in turn really enjoyed the fact I was female, which in turn always got me staff in servers in less than 7 days. And for the last 2 years playing, once the clan had disbanded as everyone had to go off and be adults, I played on and off after I got my orange beret (which you received after two thousand hours in-game).
This game is worth money, but it doesn’t cost money.
If you’ve not had a chance to play this game before, the best thing I’ve heard it be called is Roblox zombies. Which is somewhat of a compli-sult, really, but I’ll take it. After playing many more games since then, I can tell you that it merely has the graphics of Roblox/Minecraft, but with that come the endless capabilities that these games ensue, with full moon mechanics like 7 Days to Die. The zombies raid your base, but at a less startling rate than what those of 7D2D do. They are, however, empowered by the moon and have glow-y red eyes, which for a newbie player and people easily startled can give them a startle. The game is experience-based, and nearly everything gives you experience; from chopping trees, to mining to killing zombies, each gives a varying amount. The experience you then get, you can spend on levelling up skills and abilities, which makes traversing and surviving a lot easier, not only that but attacking, gun accuracy and damage output. The game also comes with different levels of playing, easy, normal, hard, custom. Which not only alters physical difficulty but the scarcity of food, item drops, the condition of food and items and so on.
Of course, the game does have its issues as well, like any other game. The fact that the game is free means that the game will always be populated to a certain extent. However, the numbers have been dropping for a good while. In my opinion, it’s been dropping the entire time, but the biggest drop was when the “special” zombies were added and several names for zombies, map areas and guns changed. At the time of the changes, there were a fair number of maps out, and the player-base was split across them in terms of favourites. There was one map; however, that was the least played on. The original map called PEI. There were major changes to this map, as well as most people’s favourite part of the map (a hidden bunker that everyone used to fight over) being completely deleted. The special zombies that were added were different to the regular zombies. Regular zombies had 3 different types, standing, on all fours and crawling. Except for the “Mega Zombie” who was a massive zombie that could one-hit you with a punch or through a boulder in your general direction. The special zombies, however, were weird. Introducing zombies that spit acidic goo as they walk, zombies that are coated in fire and explode in flames if you shoot them, and electric zombies that can zap you from afar. Most players at the time were more or less thinking “What the heck is that?” rather than “This is precisely what we need, fantastical fantasy-esque powers for the zombies that were already bordering on perfection.”. What was messed with was an already fantastic formula of zombie-making, those bland and “usual” zombie designs were all that the games needed, no fantastical elements.
(Editing notes: Going back on this, the supernatural way that these zombies seemed to have these “powers” was what made them ridiculous. Fire Zombies: Make sense if you’re in a burning building or near one a la 7 Days To Die style, different zombies, different biomes. Fire zombies in fire environments, burning cars, burning buildings, forests engulfed with fire. And would also make more sense as to the firefighter equipment being added. Being in a fire environment depleting the oxygen bar, but slower than when you’re underwater. Also adding to your disease meter, but slower than when you’re in a deadzone. Electric Zombies: can’t find any reason for them to exist, honestly, but I’d honestly nerf them as they were perfectly capable of sniping you last time I checked. Acid Zombies: Slightly alter them, instead of having a spitting attack, replace with a “semi-ground pound”. When a zombie falls from a height, have it splodge out “toxic goo” instead. Being in proximity of them causes disease to decrease slightly slower than being in a deadzone. Being touched by them not only taking the regular chunk out of your health but an even bigger chunk out of your disease, leaving also a residual timed effect of slow disease increase.)
If you’ve played a free game before, you’ll be aware of what comes with a free game is no pay-wall. Absolutely no filter to the type of people you come across in the game. This is good and bad in and of itself, but it means you have no idea the age or temperament of someone until their gun is up your arse, cursing, swearing, profanities and the occasional racial slurs.
In terms of bad things about the game itself, there’s not much. There are plenty of things that will be subjective, like the art style and the mechanics; like bullet drop and things. Things that are considered “controversial” within the game’s community. However, there are certain problems when faced with multiplayer, as a lot of the maps used for single-player. While these maps great for multiplayer, they can’t cope with the number of people building things at the one time (aka Washington, and it’s Lag Wall). There are unplayed maps like the barren, snow map called Yukon. Which I know many people like, but just not enough people like it for it to be used for any of the multiplayer servers.
Price: Free To Play (Can Buy £3.99 upgrade) Time To Complete: N/A endless survival game. Achievements: 63 Cards: 13 Worth The Money: It’s free…. Yes. If they charged the £3.99 for the game instead of an optional extra, it would still be worth it 100%.
Genuinely, if you’re looking at this and considering it, you should definitely pick it up and play it. I made some of the best friends and memories within this game, and I do not regret playing it one bit. I’m always looking forward to the next big thing from the developer of this game (and still waiting for Unturned 2 despite the fact it was supposed to be being released years ago) and cherish it with all my heart.
Zesty Rating 9 Out Of 10. A free to play, open world survival, zombie game. Created by a lone developer and built with a lot of love and devotion, and it shows. One of the main reasons it’s still a very highly played game today, and has been for a long time. It sustained my interest for over two thousand hours, and if I got other people into it with me, I could probably play two thousand more.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
ARIDA: Backland’s Awakening is an open world game that I was really looking forward to, I saw on Keymailer and immediately requested it. It’s a desert/backlands survival game where you have to keep tabs of your food and hunger while trying to reach a specific place, also picking up side-quests along the way. (Reminding me a tad of the vibe of The Flame in the Flood) It’s definitely not a catfish game, where it misleads me into thinking something it isn’t or saying that it’s something or not, but I still feel a little empty playing it.
ARIDA: Backlands Awakening starts off really well, having a good starting story and nice little picture by picture cutscenes, representing their situation really well. The town that the main character lives in, used to be a lush, bountiful town, producing lots in terms of cattle and food produce (as it would not make much sense to make a town in a barren wasteland). At some point, the town was engulfed with a drought which severely affected everything within the town. With limited water supply, they could no longer grow enough food, support the cattle they had, and everything eventually started withering and dying.
The town was, however, considered a holy town, and leaving it was taboo, until pilgrimages to a new town where it rained every other day started, splitting the community in two. Those who saw it taboo to leave the holy town, and those who saw the pilgrimage to the new town as a new holy journey and the drought a message from their belief to leave.
After being served the harsh truth about the world a few quests in, you’re also handed your situation, the pilgrimage that you were supposed to join already happened. Something else shit happens, which I’m not going to spoil, and you’re forced to make this pilgrimage all by yourself and leave the stupid priest to preach to an empty town. (sorry, but I think the priest is a bloody idiot, the town is dire, and he still wants to stay despite the conditions. I get being determined, but this is just blind stubbornness due to being overly invested in their religion and sacrificing themselves to trying to prove a point that will eventually kill them.)
So from here you mostly already know what you need to do, you can gather water, make campfires and cook food with the campfire to fill both your food and water bars. The game also has a “heat” meters (I forget what it’s actually called), so in areas where the heat is intense, your meters deplete faster.
As much as I love the absolutely dire depiction of this landscape, barns full of the corpses of dead cows and the horrid sound of swarms of flies in that area, this game “runs like an indie game”. Of course, we need to break the stigma of indie = bad, but when I say that “it runs like an indie game”, people know what I mean. It’s clunky, unresponsive and when walking over objects you can pick up, or being next to them, the prompt to interact with them doesn’t always pop up. Failing that, the crafting is a little weird, and using things from your inventory. I made sure to double-check it wasn’t my mouse being fuck-y (I’ve had mouse problems in the past from my Razor Deathadder, despite my Logitech G502 being a sexy fuck, I’d never question your loyalty to me my sexy, sexy computer mouse.) When trying to craft things, the crafting inventory was stubborn to come up, I had to trick it into thinking I wasn’t going to click it to sneakily click it and make it open. When using items in my inventory, for example the drinking water, I had 3 stacks, I clicked to consume 1, and usually, I’d consume 2, sometimes I’d consume them all?
Nevertheless, I feel that this would be a good game to continue and actually go back to if the potentially game-ruining kinks were ironed out. Maybe a solid 6 or 7 out of 10 if it worked the way it should. Currently, with this, and also being another game that kind of bores me after a great initial plot then suddenly bland side-quests and not a lot of urgency, it’s looking about as dry as the drought they’re having.
List, please!
Pros:
The game works, it doesn’t crash and has no audio or graphical issues. (As far as I saw)
The game is survival, crafting, which is a genre I really enjoy. It focuses on food and drink and not much else, which keeps it nice and simple. The type of crafting that happens is similar to Raft in the sense that there is not a lot that you can craft, but everything that you do craft is almost essential to the plot/survival of your character.
Things that can be picked up that are necessary for survival sometimes require an additional tool to harvest them, adding another layer to the game focusing on maintaining and crafting tools to aid in your survival.
There are two strong emotional elements at the start of the game involving goats and your grandpa, both really set the tone for the game very well, and just how dire the atmosphere is. For a family friendly tagged game, this game is super bleak, and I love it.
Cons:
While the game technically works, it has a few bugs as mentioned. Double-using items in your inventory when you only wanted to use one, being really tricky to operate menus, and being generally tedious in terms of the UI.
While the game is a survival game, and elements that are used to make the game harder in some aspects are great, the use of the heat to make things degrade faster is a little too strong (in my opinion). In comparison to the resources that you’re given to survive, I really don’t feel that it’s too balanced.
Things being picked up for intended use when crafting would be nice if the option to do so came up when it’s supposed to and not on your 5th attempt rubbing your crotch against it. The action buttons for the game aren’t very responsive, in the way that they don’t always appear where they’re supposed to. Me being a person who loves to pick everything up, this is both annoying, frustrating and tedious.
Price: £5.19 Time To Complete: 2.5 hours Achievements: 26 Cards: 5 Worth The Money: Honestly, for about £5, yeah, go for it. It’s only a 2-3 hour experience and while it has its bugs, it’s still a reasonable game.
In conclusion, this game is a game that I want, but it’s missing a lot of the polish that I would’ve hoped it came with before being released. If the game was Early Access, then I could forgive it a little more, but due to being a full release, it’s a little more inexcusable. Sure, patches can come for games regardless of EA state, but purchasing a game that still is wonky enough to impact on a player’s experience isn’t something you should expect of a final product. It’s gritty and realistic, while also being a bit unrealistic in some parts. Somewhat aimed towards a younger audience, with character design and simplicity of playing and language, but somewhat not with its realistic portrayal of death and what comes with drought.
Hands down, a game that should be experienced, but with a fair mind that it is wonky as shit.
Zest Rating 4.5 Out Of 10. It looks delicious on the outside, but disappointing on the inside. Like a white dragon fruit.
The type of game that I love and wished to see in this new, unique setting, let down by a handful of experience hindering bugs and slow pacing after the initial deaths. Bugs making me consume all my water instead of just one canister really hinder gameplay, as the character has sloshing sounds coming from their stomach as they walkdue to water overindulgence.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
Dark Dragonkin is one of the first games that I have had the pleasure of redeeming from Lurkit. Being one of only 4 games that I was eligible to redeem, I poured all my hope into the one and only Lurkit games available to me that didn’t look like a mobile game port.
This description does, however, come with my personal acknowledgement that, as a brand, Lurkit is better than Keymailer in terms of interactivity and user engagement. However, on the other hand, for smaller channels like myself, in comparison to bigger streamers, have such a limited choice on Lurkit due to access to games being behind an “Avg Viewer” wall. On Keymailer I can walk up to any brand, developer, or publisher and slap a request on their game, believing that I compared to anyone else, will have a “good chance” of redeeming a game. Although this is the case, a lot of the time I will be “left on read” by the places I request from. Lurkit on the other hand, pretty much has a 100% chance of being accepted if I meet the criteria, if I can actually find anything I want to review in the small pool I’m limited to. Although I appreciate Lurkit’s approach to allowing developers to choose their audience, I find that, given my smaller size, I am severely disadvantaged and limited.
Dark Dragonkin is a weird little game, top down, JRPG-like game that’s more about solving room puzzles endlessly than any actual RPG features. You go room by room, level by level, using 4 different characters with 4 different abilities. You have the Tank character (who is assumably female, love that) who can kick boulders out of the way and smash things, and the ability to use her shield to block attacks. Not only that, but you have the ninja guy who is great for backstabbing people and can jump over large gaps. Next is the druid-type who has the ability to turn into a fairy and fly through cracks in the walls, also having the ability to heal your team. And lastly, you have the mage who shoots fireballs which can light torches and kill enemies as well.
As said before, there is not really much of a story to this game, there is a little starting story to give your characters reason to exist and reason to be doing what they’re doing, but that’s about it. From the start, what you do is go level by level, learning the mechanics of each individual and continue on through each dungeon. I did play this game for roughly 50 minutes, so I almost met my hour quota. It’s not unbearable. It’s a basic game with an interesting premise which I’ve seen similar things done before by Elmarion: the Lost Temple (but that was in 1st person, and you simultaneously controlled 4 characters with the numbers 1-4), and it’s not completely lost on me, it’s just a bit boring. It’s a puzzle game and there’s not much else to it. There’s no fear aspect, tension, excitement, or anything of that nature, it’s completely about solving puzzles in an RPG-like fantasy environment.
Pros:
The game works, and has no audio or visual bugs.
The game provides a unique and intriguing mechanic to managing 4 people at one time. Making solving puzzles more appealing due to having to control more than one element within the puzzle-dungeon.
All the mechanics of each character are explained to the player, on how to use them and when is best to use them. Not much room is left for mistakes made via the game being stingy with its hints.
Despite the game being simple, a few puzzles did stump me a few times, but that was partially down to me having trouble keeping track of who can do what.
Cons:
While the mechanic is interesting, there’s not much else that really draws the player to stay for a while. The games’ music is repetitive and monotonous, and the control of four players is limited to singular, slow movement. I’m aware that this is a puzzle game, and I can appreciate that, but it’s RPG styled, surely that warrants a bit of excitement?
The game is a little weird with the walking and placement of things. It would’ve been better if the movement was gridded, or on rails. Walking forward moves the character forward 1 square at a time, leaning towards a more move-based puzzle game. This is due to the difficulty of aiming things correctly, the rock being kicked 2 pixels too far, the fairy getting KO’ed because I couldn’t fit her in the hole… I could go on.
Looping back to uninteresting, the game is nothing to look at visually. The characters are nice enough and are unique looking, but looking at the game itself as a whole, it does nothing to maintain my interest visually either. There’s a lot of empty space, both in the map and the black void outside the map.
Price: £11.39 Time To Complete: N/A (The only entry is me LMAO) Achievements: 14 Cards: No Worth The Money: IMO, not really. It does have 80ish levels, but there is no way I could withstand the game for that long to get my money’s worth.
In conclusion, this game is something that I’d like to see more of, just with more “umphf” or however you spell it. It is an interesting concept to have a puzzle game like this use 4 different characters that you can control separately. But as much as they spent a lot of time on making an insane number of levels, I think more should’ve gone into making it a fun-er experience.
Zesty Rating 4 Out Of 10. There’s a hint of flavour, but it’s gone before I can enjoy it. A genuinely appealing concept for a game, let down by boring level design and no real excitement, tension, or fun really. It is a puzzle game, but due to the RPG skin, it’s misleading to those who think they’re here for an “adventure”.80+ levels of the same song on loop, barren hallways and the call of the black void behind the dungeon map.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again. Not only that, but being more Lurkit-focused in my new era of streaming.
NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
For those of you that know me, most of you will not know when my birthday is. You may have an inkling, but asides from that, you won’t know the date or probably even the rough week that it is. Those of you will this lack of knowledge will, however, have knowledge of why there’s this tiny, tiny, insignificant space in your brain’s spreadsheet of birthdays. I severely dislike birthdays.
Birthdays are a celebration of your age, up until a certain point in your life you’re edging that “one year older, I need to be older” until you hit that limit, but you keep getting older regardless.
Mum says I won’t know these things ’til I’m older, I need to get older.
I can’t get on this super fun looking ride at the fair, when I get older I get taller, I need to get older.
I don’t have enough money, and my parents won’t buy me this. I need to get older, so I can get a job.
I need to get older, so I’m legally allowed to have sex, learn to drive, get married or buy my own pet.
I need to be older, so I can buy my own alcohol, own my own property and leave home without parental consent, vote, get tattoos…
Everything that we want out of life is goal orientated towards getting older, it gamifies the system. That integral part of ageing is akin to levelling up and the only thing you need to do is sit back, keep your hands inside the boat and just stay afloat. But after that, there’s nothing else. Levelling up in a game that boasts no benefits to the player for doing so. Some players have friendships and clan members who recognise this occasion and give what they can out of their already limited inventory to “celebrate”, moreso this is just more things that you don’t need or things that will be consumed quickly. Even worse if it’s an event consumable that is useless until after the event is finished, specifically celebratory greetings cards. These either clog inventory, or get thrown out or destroyed, serving no purpose other than to be thrown away.
Maybe it’s just me, but it’s useless. Most I know treat it this same way, and once they realise the futility of it, the celebratory nature evolves into one of them drowning their sorrows in alcohol, pretending that it’s the night of their lives. “It wasn’t a fun night, unless you don’t remember what happened. That’s how you know it was fun.”
Playing a game that you’re already tired of, which has no benefit as you’ve already reaped the best awards, those awards now meaningless as most only further your degradation into debt or emotional debt. Like any other Online MMO, essentially.
This is also where the other side of things slow down too. If you’re using your birthday to celebrate your life and accomplishments, what have you even done within the past year to celebrate? To some, living is enough, and they would be right, honestly. The trivial pursuit of life itself is worth the celebration, but do they dignify themselves with those same standards?
This sort of line of thinking that reminds me of that ADHDinos comic. Or at least I’m sure it’s that comic.
Are you celebrating your birthday? No, I did fuck all this year and thus have nothing to celebrate. My birthday is coming up soon, and I did fuck all too, so I shouldn’t celebrate mine either? NO! You did lots this year! Even if you think it was shit or not a lot, you kept yourself alive blah blah blah… Double standards everywhere.
It even comes down to the point that I’ve literally bought a house and, despite cutting it super fucking close, I’m going to have moved in before my birthday. I have about 3 weeks to do so, but y’know, almost there. I still want nothing to do will celebrating my life, my brain makes every excuse under the sun to deny my own celebrations, and when it can’t find a “good reason”, yuck, celebrating my birthday? How self-centred.
Celebrating someone else’s birthday, on the other hand? LET’S FUCKING GO. What do you like? What do you like to eat? Where do you like to go? What do you like to play? What do you play it on? Do you use Amazon? Would you use a gift card if I gave you one? I sent a box of chocolates to your address. I bought a redeemable code for Hogwarts University for you, and you can’t just tell me to use it because I don’t have a PlayStation/ I already have the game. And I can’t refund it. I know you wanted these things because despite what I say about forgetting everything that anyone ever says, when it comes to someone wanting something, I somehow can materialise an extensive library of what everyone I love wants that not even I knew of until this precise moment, then will systematically forget about it until someone else’s birthday. I made a reservation at your favourite restaurant, and don’t worry, I know you’ll probably be busy on the day, that’s why I’m ready to change the reservation date at a moment’s notice.
Honestly, once again, double standards start to show, but this time I have an ace up my sleeve.
Is it because I’m unhappy? Is it because I have ADHD? Is it because I’ve had a mentally and emotionally traumatising childhood? Or is it because I’m just a miserable bastard?
I like to believe that it’s all of the above.
I genuinely hate it when anyone decides to celebrate my birthday. — The focus is on me, ew. — Someone is trying to take my wants/needs into account when I’m not used to that, ew. — Someone who is usually never taking my wants/needs into account when they should is feigning responsibility and pretending they care for a day, so they can keep an emotional hold on me using guilt, ew. — People I don’t know that well know my birthday, ew. — People that I don’t want to inconvenience in any way, fret and pressure themselves to get me something for my birthday, mega ew.
Yeah, there’s just so much and I want none of it. So many people hate being reminded of their birthday because after a certain point age becomes insulting in a way. “Happy 30 Birthday!” It is one that makes people lose their shit.
Birthdays are for me, what Christmas is for kids who’ve just been told Santa isn’t real.
Do I require money? Yes, I do. Do I like “things”? Yes I do. But it gives me nothing when it’s from someone else. The best form of gifts are the ones you give, not the ones that are received. Awkward concept if everyone is like me, but they’re not. There are people who love gifts and people who like gifts, you figure out who those people are, and you give gifts to them. The people who do not like receiving gifts? Don’t give them gifts. Actually, idea. Wait a month or two, and invite them out to lunch and pay for it. They’ll still dislike that, but they’ll dislike it a lot less than being given a gift. Or, if you really, REALLY, want to give them a gift, there are two options. Give them either the gift of advice/help or the gift of food. Ask them if there’s anything they need help with; laundry, decorating, finding a specific brand of snacks that are out of stock in their local store, helping them understand what the heck solicitors are saying when they’re moving house, sign up to that stupid phone game they play and use the referral code. That helps our small, simple minds out a lot. And in regard to food, go with them on their grocery trip, pay for a few things, or ask them what they usually buy and when they buy it. Things that last a long time go well, tinned goods, microwave rice. Nothing that is expensive or that they’ll know is expensive.
Basically, treat them like your little end-of-the-world, doom-hoarder buddy, stocking the pantry of their bomb shelter.
By the time this posts I’ll be days away or days past being 25, and honestly, I consider this “halfway” through my life. Currently listening to Pokémon Diamond, Pearl & Platinum – Champion Cynthia Battle Music, is this the appropriate time to consolidate on how far I’ve come?
I honestly don’t intend on living past 50, so shouldn’t this space of my life be where I take off? Or should that have been the previous 25 years?
It matters now, it won’t matter in a few hours once I’ve forgotten. I’ll continue to live life playing frogger on the many trains of thought running through my mind at once.
Everything has really picked up within the last 2 years. I’ve gone from living comfortably with emotional and mental abuse at home, with a LDR girlfriend who would not only empower me to fight against it (building me up), to gaslight me over her substance abuse and my mental illness (to tear me down). I’ve been through a lot for me, if anyone else was in my position, I don’t doubt they would’ve handled it a lot better than me. So many people with “just do this” and “I would personally…”. I honestly don’t doubt that everything everyone says is as easy as they say it is but, my green on button to make my brain do things requires a virgin sacrifice, and it’s hard to find those these days.
From the breakup I started branching out, dating and breaking, dating and breaking kinda turned me into something else. I’m very broken, but in this weird broken state I’m able to do a lot more than what I could before. 1 break up and I could date someone else, 2 break-ups, and I was okay travelling hours by myself to meet people. 3 and I gained a lot more confidence with people and discovered peculiar personality traits about myself.
I started looking for a flat, then I stopped, then I started again, viewed one, didn’t get it, stopped. Started looking again, viewed a bunch and managed to purchase one.
My habits concerning doing and experiencing new things all have a pattern. I’m extremely malleable, but to stretch I need to be put to my current limit then left to rest, I return to resting form. The next time I’m put to my limit, the limit is further than previous, kinda like fitness.
Regardless of me, I can’t help but think that other people’s help and other people’s moral support helps me a lot more than I help myself. (Because peer pressure only affects me when it’s guilt induced, therefore I only get stuff done that way because I don’t want people to be disappointed in me.)
I’ve helped a lot of people in the past, financially, emotionally, physically, but I brush it off and forget about it because it doesn’t matter. It’s my time and I, personally, am a waste of time, so it works out at a net gain if I actually help. But when others help me it means so much to me, because you’re wasting your time, helping A waste of time, basically doubling your time wasted. And as much as you’re fucking stupid for helping me, I love you lots and will never forget it.
To those who’ve helped emotionally.
To those who’re there for me.
To those who’re just there and they don’t even really know they’re helping because it’s honestly just their company that keeps me sane.
Thank you.
If you’ve read this far, this post was not done with a clear intention or goal, it was just a rant post. Legacy posts are still happening every Sunday (I almost fell behind, oops.) and new posts will come soon. Thanks again.
The question that’s asked in the title of the game is not expanded on in the way you might think. The game is nothing to do with dreaming in the sense of what happens when you’re asleep, but more to do with hope and aspirations of animals. Even so, that’s not really the main aspect of this game I procured from Keymailer this time.
You start the game as a daddy whale (not an alternate version of a bear daddy) discussing with his whale son about Mother’s Day… Or was it their mother’s birthday? Having a conversation about what to give her when- “WHAM!” harpoon straight into the kid’s head. The son starts crying saying that he’s scared and all you can pick from the dialogue options is super existential dread producing stuff like; “This is the way the world is.” and “It’s okay, it’ll be over soon.” and “We all die in the end.”. Each one of these dialogue options resorting in another harpoon being launched into the whale-kid’s body.
“I’m not going to lie, once two harpoons were in, I skipped through this. All I saw was the horrifying dialogue options that the father was saying in a horrible attempt to comfort his son but was just being very cynical and death-take-me” while the son was begging for help.
I saw the warnings for this game and I, like a dumbass, ignored them, brushed them aside as “Hah, how can a game like this, with these cute avatars, actually fill the boots that the warning it gave provides?”. The game rightfully slapped me around the face right at the start and prepared me for what it held within.
This story is roughly about “you” who happens to be the whale hunter that more than likely killed the whale at the start. Your ship crashed into the island where you find a bunch of talking animals and the main focus is this sleeping lion who is actually poisoned. You set out on a quest to gather the ingredients for the antidote which you somehow know how to make and what to look for, and on your journey meet all the other talking animals of the island.
(I did miss a few animals as it was optional and at the point the game had fucked my brain up that much, I just wanted an ending.)
Through meeting the Chicken who was injected with things to make her legs more plump, but instead ended up falling off. A talking crocodile and a massive pig, you’re not only led to finding the ingredients but also a secret laboratory under a waterfall which hints to animal experimentation gone wrong a la Planet Of The Apes style.
Around halfway through the game I made a cheeky observation of the game, it felt like one of those Vegan Propaganda things that are made every so often. So for the entirety of the rest of the game, I found myself questioning it, is it vegan propaganda? While sadly, I came to the conclusion that it is not, it verges really close to it. This thought of mine may have been because I was viewing the animals as animals, and not “people” with their personalities. Each one is going through something. Most have some amount of existential dread or such a bleak outlook on life, and those that don’t have either of those things are taking “ignorance is bliss” to a level where it’s just sad. The lion is suffering the loss of his son, and because he leads the entirety of who is left, the loss of everyone else along the way too. An owl has been constantly berated and told that their hobbies are rubbish and that they should just give up. The chicken has such an overwhelming hatred for humans that it blinds her to (rightfully so) stereotype every human to just be the same.
(Edit: Conclusion changed. This is a vegan game. Maybe not propaganda, but I’m not entirely sure. However, I found this as this is what changed my mind.)
“You” yourself even have a whole existential crisis on the top of “special goop mountain” at full moon. It transforms into the mirror image of you, and you start going off about how you hate yourself, calling yourself names and just being so derogatory towards yourself. (I have no idea how they managed to steal my inner monologue to create such a convincing “self-hate moment”, but I’m impressed.)
I’m still reeling from this moment. Even looking at it actually makes me really uncomfortable, as it hits really close to home. Regardless, let’s get some pros and cons.
Pros:
The game works well, no graphical errors or audio bugs.
A warning is given for the type of content within the game, a lot of the time, disclaimers are too obscure and don’t really address what is being warned about. This game does a fantastic job of making the player extremely aware of what’s to come, and it lived up to it.
Every single character is believable. Whilst talking animals are not the most realistic thing, the characters are for what they are. A suicidal ant, feeling the pressures of being small and gaining sentience being one of the most compelling parts of the game for such a small moment, yet it’s an ant, can you really draw emotional attachment to an ant? Console it? Encourage it to not give up? Or do you just squish it because it’s an ant?
The choices in this game do not have a big impact on the game at all, in fact, I’d say they’re meaningless. Which is a great thing. In a game like this where you are trying to cause and/or show how shit and meaningless these animals’ lives are, conveying that through the fact that nothing will change, regardless of what you do, is fantastic. Giving you no reward for doing the right thing, except the knowledge that you didn’t squish an ant in the best way.
The game is adorable. I saw in the reviews for this game that it’s like a horror mod for Animal Crossing, and despite never playing Animal Crossing, I couldn’t agree more. The art style and the animations really work lovely together, and makes for an outstanding contrast to the dark and horrible themes within. It was one of the sole reasons this game subverted my expectations.
The game was the perfect length. I don’t say this regularly, as the time of the game is not often a valid point in my reviews. This is maybe one of the few times I will say this, as it’s rare to get something so perfectly neat and tidy as this. The game was possibly about an hour long, yet it didn’t feel like it was an hour, I didn’t feel the time go by. I’d call that a “prefect wee game”.
Cons:
While the story was great, there were times when I did feel it was a bit empty. The entire game is focused around the interaction with the various animals on the island and nothing more. So if you are not a fan of reading dialogue or don’t feel yourself to bond well with video game characters, then this game will bore you to death. Apart from talking, the only other thing to do is to explore the tiny little map of the game.
There were two characters (I’m assuming) that I missed. Somewhere after talking to the “goop-me” there was probably an opportunity to find and talk to both a Turtle and an Angry Monkey. I had no clue where the game ended and as far as I’m aware, the game did not hint me to go and find them. By the time I’d headed back to the village, the game was in its ending phase, and I’d missed my chance to talk to everyone. An audio hint or verbal hint to go and talk to them would’ve been great, keeping it still entirely optional and open to making your own mistakes, but I feel I missed out.
I feel as though the ending was a bit abrupt, or just a little too simply stupid. Not a stupid ending, but the dialogue at this point felt weak and simplified. I understood the Lion’s motives, and the whole plan of luring people to the island, but it wasn’t such a huge, grand reveal as I feel it could’ve been.
Price: £5.79 Time To Complete: 1.5 hours Achievements: 7 Cards: None Worth The Money: Solid, Maybe. The 37% discount it had a while ago which put it to £3.65 was a definite yes. It’s definitely worth a play.
Overall, this game is a great experience for those who like to challenge their morals through talking to sentient animals. It has a great theme, and while the ending (that I got, as I bet there are other endings) was weak and unfulfilling, it was a great ride overall. I strongly recommend this game, whether you wait for a discount or not is up to yourselves.
Zesty Rating 8 Out Of 10 A wonderfully dark and gory story, ending in hardship, should you bring it on yourself. Cute style contrasting the gruesome nature of the game. And despite all your efforts in life, everything eventually dies.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
Amazon Rush is an endless runner game, created at the peak of runner-game-hype, along with games like Subway Surfer and the like. Judging by the game itself, it’s honestly hard to tell whether it was an honest attempt at recreating the magic, or a blatant attempt at grabbing from the pockets of people who wanted to try something new.
This review will be more of an argument with what the developers describe the game as, so I will be listing the pros and cons first.
Pros:
A decent game in itself when it decides to work.
The game is competent enough to have AN objective.
The game provides a singular challenge for a singular cosmetic.
The game is not so lazy that it doesn’t have power ups.
Nice start screen and game over screen.
Cons:
The main character is bland and forgettable. There is nothing unique or interesting about it.
The RNG for which blocks spawn is absolutely atrocious. Blocks can spawn inside each other and make the game freeze because it doesn’t know what’s happening, or they can spawn too far unreachable for you to make it with power ups.
The moving background is only one picture long, so it’s the same image looping over and over again. A second image would’ve been good enough to just give it a bit more sustenance.
Not unique in any way.
Jumping mechanics have you float and then suddenly drop, making it almost impossible to predict where you’re going to land.
Dull with no rewarding aspects.
“Enjoy the Unique World of adventure and challenges”. This game is not unique, the only thing that’s even close to being unique is how bad it is, but since the greenlight is non-existent it’s “unique-ness at failing to be a decent running game” is almost snuffed out. The main character is forgettable. The background is so plain, bland and lazy that you swear you’ve seen it somewhere before. The power ups are indeed somewhat unique, but they’re always just out-of-reach so that if you go for them, there is no way to survive. The “Aboriginal” costume is actually the most unique thing about this, not for the promise of costumes as other games have done it better, but just for its design, which was obviously the “challenges”, the dev was talking about.
“…with lots of thrill and fun.” Fuck off. Thrill and fun are different and are achieved in different ways. This game is in no way thrilling, and it also is in no way fun. The difference between this, is that this game has the potential to be fun and captivating like most runners want to be as runner games are all about replayability. If the only thing you have to offer as a reward is 75,000 coins away and there’s nothing in between and nothing after that, players just don’t latch on.
“This running game is beautifully designed…” There’s no problem with this statement apart from the statement itself. The background design is tolerable, the character design is better than expected along with the costume, and the info screens are a nice touch with the bloody… arrows? Spears? I can’t tell what they are, but they do fit the Amazon theme. However, just all-out claiming that this is beautifully designed is a lot of bullshit, and we can all see that.
“…awesome sound effects.” Yeah, sure. You picked the right ones. All sound effects were appropriate. Congratulations.
Price: £0.79 (believe it or not, its base price used to be £2) Time To Complete: N/A Achievements: 124 Cards: No Worth The Money: No. The game is broken, it can literally crash your Steam Client.
Do not buy this game. If you wish to buy this game, buy it when it’s on sale. 50% or above sale, and even at that it’s still not worth what you’re paying for it. At this point, it’s more beneficial for you if you buy it off a dodgy website, get hacked, have to freeze your account then claim it back again just to get the game.
Zesty Rating 1 Out Of 10. You’re being the victim of that weird trick people can do where they eat a banana, but then put the skin back the way it was to make you think there’s still a banana there. There’s not. Describes itself as unique and beautiful, maybe that’s what it’s mother’s told it. Awful Runner game, no reward aspects, only endless running and no gain. RNG breaks the game and Steam Client. Don’t buy this one.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
On the 14th of December, I got really sick with what I initially thought was the flu. I had shivering, fever-like symptoms. Aching and general fatigue. I had to take the next day off of work. I had 3 regular days off after that, so my timely sick day turned it into a 4 day “holiday” where I managed to recover… or so I thought. Starting around the end of December I started getting what I thought was a cold, it may well still be. One of those ones, complete with all the phlegm in the lungs. Boom, New Year’s Day and those same symptoms came back from the 14th, added on top of whatever cold that I had. Bedridden for most of this, my phlegm bucket (yes I needed that, there was SO MUCH of it) turned into my puke bucket as I was coughing so much I’d throw up. Then, it switched up, I lost my appetite, my abdomen started swelling, and I started throwing up regardless. Now bloated, throwing up from nausea and coughing, cant breathe because of phlegm, can’t breathe through nose, fever-like symptoms, skin sore to touch, aching and general fatigue.
I have Glandular Fever. Nice. I literally had to get blood tests done to find that out. They stole like 15ml of my blood. Me being me, however: “Will this amount of blood being taken make me woozy?” “Can I see the vials?” “Is blood always that dark?” “Should it have all those bubbles?” “I’ve never had this done, does it go in the spinny things?”
I also am getting another blood test done soon, yay. Hopefully it’s just a checkup to see if I still have the G-Fever. And I also have an appointment for an ultrasound too! Maybe they’ll my motivation on the scan and give it back to me.
Right… Reading back the last blog post to see if anything happened between then and when I got sick. Hmmmmmm….. Okay, so I have the Fridge/Freezer. It’s a fucking American one, so of course, it naturally doesn’t fit in the fridge space by about an inch? That’s a DIY project going to happen soon. I still don’t have a washing machine, but that’s the next thing on my list for when I’m no longer physically fucked. I think… the boiler pipes may have cracked, however I’m not sure as I don’t know how to work the damn thing. It may just be that because I wasn’t using it, it was being stubborn.
The last time I went to my flat, I had a little red leaflet on top of the oven outside my flat saying “Move this within 72 hours, or we will remove it!” They were 24 late, and it was still there, so… I moved it into my flat anyway. That and my cubby outside my flat…. I don’t know if I’ve forgotten how to open it, or I’ve lost the key for the padlock, or the same people who saw the oven replaced the lock because they saw I’d been working on it and thought it was someone tampering with it. I am not sure.
The desk is still looking a bit shitty with the strips, but I also got kinda angry at just “life” and started just spraying my gold spray paint everywhere randomly, and it looks pretty cool now, just need to fix the strips.
I also now have a clock, I’m not sure if I mentioned my Pokémon calendar, I have another lamp and I now have one of those generic as fuck, black, glass TV tables. Everything I listed (apart from the calendar) is from my manager. These were extra things from his flat that his previous flatmate left behind. Pretty cool.
I now also have internet. Tempted to call it “Greggs Sex Dungeon” or some stupid shit like that. Just means I don’t need to fuck around with mobile data at the house now.
Oh, and my electricity meter isn’t working with either of my keys… And I’ve not been able to call them up about it because I’ve been away from the flat, and I’ve been sick as all fuck.
March 22nd.
I called my WiFi “I-Can-Smell-Greggs-From-Here” and one customer came up to the counter asking from the password because it had the word Greggs in it. He argued that because it had the word Greggs, it must be the Greggs WiFi. One of my co-workers (BR) went bright fucking red having to answer this, because she knew it was my WiFi.
April 18th.
Today I’ll post this blog.
Promise.
I am teetering on the edge of moving completely. It’s actually getting harder and harder to go “home” now, as I’m just so comfortable in my own space. I’ve just got a washing machines in the last few days and one of me Co-worker’s (DK) husband is coming over to make sure I’ve installed it correctly as he’s some kinda handyman joiner person.
Sleeping on and off in my flat, around 2–3 days out of 7, I’m feeling a lot more at peace. And honestly, I still don’t see the fuss about having your own house being difficult. Hell, I’m still spending stupid money on Pokémon cards, gifts for friends and eating out. I am still occasionally taking train journeys to Glasgow and beyond!
Things are changing a bit, however, I’ve noticed that I’m losing weight at a very slow pace. Trousers specifically showing. Falling down as I walk. Yet the ones on the size smaller are still too tight. I suppose I’ll get there eventually. More people are being hired at my work, so there are fewer hours up for grabs, and I’m limited to my contracted hours. However, I am at a stage where if I asked for more work, anyone would take me. There are 4 Greggs in my area, and that increases to about 6 or 8 when you increase the scope of travel. They always have extra hours going and sometimes not everyone wants to work more, so they go to waste. That’s where I come in.
As of relationships, which I’ve not spoke much of here, I’ve been in and out of them. Making discoveries about myself that I’m not too best pleased with. Reflecting on past relationships and questioning whether I really was “in love” with any of them. I think this however reflects weirdly with my ADHD. Falling hard and fast with my intense emotions, but when relationships are over I find it hard to think about them as “If it’s not in front of me, I can’t see it.”. Should I question my love for my exes if I can’t remember if I did due to my mental differences?
My electricity is fixed. Honestly, I don’t know when that part was that I mentioned, about it not working, but it’s working now. It took months for them to fix it. Even worse that it was during those weeks it suddenly went back to freezing temperatures. (There’s a problem with my gas now, but shhhh.) I’m still yet to receive the compensation due, but I’ll wait a bit before we unleash the Karen, y’know?
I’m so close to streaming again, too. I feel the need and the want to pick it back up. I feel myself getting ready for it. Not only that, but I can’t help the feeling I’m going to have to change my 4pm rule. My work REALLY wants to promote me. Essentially guaranteeing me a promotion by 2024, whether the position is actually available or not. Knowing that being a Senior Team member mostly consists of working from 05:30 to 3pm, or 1:30pm to 9pm, means I’m going to be working long shifts most of the time. If I get the short end of the straw, some weeks I’ll have only a small amount of streams. But, that might be enough.
Anyway, my stupid brain can’t think of anything else significant, and I should really get this blog out. The next time I post, I should’ve fully moved as honestly, I only have shoes left to move. I’ll be posting my letter to my parents here too, because that’s always a fun read.
Another game from Keymailer, this time I was hoping for a good, fun experience, akin to PayDay 2 but a little more lax and a lot more goofy. While I can definitely say that this would’ve been the case if it weren’t for the fact that the game is only suited for multiplayer.
Now, I can’t blame a game for being bad, just because it is dead. There are certain things you just can’t control, nor can you do much about. There is an over-saturation on the market of multiplayer games. So much so that I doubt every single multiplayer game ever made is being played right now, a lot will have dropped out of relevancy and a lot will have never actually been picked up.
When it comes to Perfect Heist 2, I can’t reasonably say that “the reason that I didn’t get to experience this game fully is because there was no one playing at the time”. I was not monitoring the number of people playing the game that day. Looking back on the statistics of gameplay, however, it appears that it would’ve been extremely lucky for me to even consider catching anyone else playing due to the fact there were only 5 other people playing on that day. I could’ve, of course, just assumed that the “Quick Play” button wasn’t working and that’s not how other people were finding each other. That would, however, be rude of me to just assume nothing works, and it’s way more likely that I was just unlucky.
So, generally, what can I say about this game? I wish there was a legitimate Singleplayer mode. What I can do is set up a custom lobby and just fill it full of bots and see how things turn out, which was the majority of what I did when “playing” the game. The A.I. seems to just charge full force in with not a care in the world for anything, regardless of what level I set their difficulty to. This led to a few funny moments where the police officers were emptying full clips into the lifeless bodies of my former comrades over and over again until I was red in the face laughing, only feet away. There’s honestly not much else that I’d like to discuss in great detail, as I don’t think I can get the entire feel of this game without playing with other real people, as it’s intended to be.
Pros:
The game works, with no graphical errors or glitches (as far as I’m aware)
The art style of the game gives off a great vibe, while the styling lets you know that you’re getting into a serious situation (with the colour palette). The chunky, lower poly-count lets you know you’re in for a goof and a good bit of fun.
The amount of selectable characters in the game with different weaponry is refreshing and interesting. I’m sure it’s more than what PayDay has, you can really feel that you’re helping out the team in different ways with all these roles, which all have some things in common too.
The custom mode with bots is essentially what made this review, whoever had the idea to have this in the game needs a pat on the back. The A.I. may be very “special” but it provided countless good laughs.
The U.I. of the game is actually rather decent for an indie game, everything is clear and concise and nothing is obstructing the view of the player.
Cons:
The game does have a GPU issue on the main screen, which is quite weird. Forces my GPU to rise to around 90% only on the main screen, but everywhere else it’s at a reasonable level.
The game relies on the player having someone to play with for the game to function as designed, which in itself isn’t a major flaw. Considering the player-base it has, it fails to provide the desired feel of the game.
The A.I. for the game seems not to change when adding different level custom bots. The robbers, no matter the level, dash straight into the bank and start smashing glass and grabbing necklaces. The police gun down people immediately, even if it’s supposed to be easy. It may just be only damage scaling, which is fine, but I honestly don’t notice much of a difference there either.
When I picked a specific character (possibly called “infiltrator” or something) where you spawn inside the building. The police automatically shot at me, despite my character depicted as wearing the same outfit as the staff, and not holding anything threatening. Not only that, but when I died, my A.I. companions were nowhere to be seen, waiting for a bit, I then flipped the camera to discover they’d spawned outside the map, so that’s fun.
Price: £7.99 Time To Complete: None it’s multiplayer Achievements: 19 Cards: None Worth The Money: Honestly, even if you got a group of friends together to play it often… No, not really.
Overall, I wanted this to be a great game, and fundamentally this is an okay game, or a “more okay than the average shit I get from Keymailer” game. Everything works, a few glitches here and there, but its reliance on solely multiplayer is what lets it down greatly. A hollow version of Payday, which would’ve been super fun if there were other people to play it with.
Zesty Rating 5.5 Out Of 10. With no doubt, it would’ve been higher if I’d had access to a single player of sorts or found a lobby with people. A Payday parody/clone that could’ve been super fun to play, and funny with other people. Looking for a “Quick Game” finds no one, as there’s not many others playing this game at the moment. For a game that is designed to only be played multiplayer, it makes it a tad boring.
Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented. Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
NOTE: This game is flagged as “Retry”.
jinxlgamez
Leighann Paige
Doubtful Player 