Going MIA. (Again and again and again and…)

Well, hello there,
It’s your old pal or nemesis Jinx, and I’ve come here to say… Sorry for going MIA.

This is not a new thing for me, as it happens fairly regularly, but if you’re new to all of this I can give you a little run-down.

I have ADHD and I also have ASD. Both of these things affect me in different ways, and my ADHD is unmedicated, so we have a lot of fun with that.
The ADHD means that I pick up new things and obsess over them until I burn out on it, and start the vicious cycle again with something new. My ASD then picks that up and beats the shit out of my self-conscious for abandoning something. It makes me continue to think about it for as long as eternity until I double burn out from guilt or drag myself to doing it again.

This is happening right now for a few things:
– My job.
– Certain friends.
– My Twitch
– My website.

I am not done with any of these things, and never will. This website is like… I would’ve said a baby, but if it was, then social services aren’t doing their fucking job. It’s a passion project, just like my Twitch, and I am all out of passion right now.
People who know me, and have already read my old posts on the ShineyCat website, would know that the ones that were posted every week are things that I wrote a year ago. All of it being reposted here.
This is because I lost my passion for it, but also because I’ve not been playing anything new as of late.
On the other hand, I have been playing the absolute shit out of Project Zomboid, on a role-play server called Wasteland Roleplay. This is content I would’ve streamed if it weren’t for some copyrighted music being used by a boombox mod. I have been playing this, day in, day out. I genuinely love the community and the roleplay that Project Zomboid can potentially bring.

On another note, I’ve been going through quite a lot of relationship drama, as usual.
To the point where I had to block someone on all their social accounts as they kept trying to contact me, this lead to them coming to my flat, uninvited. Where they knocked, rung my bell and cried, begged and yelled at me through my letterbox. This situation led me to have a panic attack the entire time they were there. They eventually left after kicking my door. It just goes to show, as much as you love someone, or think you know them, people are capable of doing shit you’d never thought they’d do.

And I went to London. The Scottish bitch went to London, and apparently I was walking about Hackney. I got told off for that when I got back, my co-worker (BR) had apparently been stalking me on Snapchat maps.
Why was I there? London Comicon. Your bitch went to fucking London Comicon and got her picture taken with Samantha Béart. I tried to get my Baldur’s Gate 3 shirt signed as well, but no dice, the line was way to fucking long, and I was only there for the Friday.

It was a shame, but I got a picture with the gorgeous She/Slay Queen Karlach actress, and I couldn’t be more happy with that. Even if she did get distracted talking to me by someone in full Karlach cosplay walking in, don’t worry, next time I’ll be fucking ripped and cosplaying like a fucking god.

Finally, I have still been around. Anyone wanting to contact me can still do so, and I still answer, it’s just that my head is fucking busy doing nothing right now.
And if you’re an avid watcher of TheShmilkyWay, then you’ll hear my stupid ass every Wednesday. If you’re not, then what the fuck are you doing? Follow TheShmilkyWay for fuck’ sake, great content.

Proof I’m not Dead and playing with them:

I hope to write again soon, and not just another apology,
Talk to y’all later.
Jinx out!

[LEGACY] Unturned

Okay, so this game review is a long time coming.

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.

There’s definitely a reason as to why the developer was interviewed countless times for this game.

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.

[LEGACY] Chibi Girl VS Evil Zombie Dead

Surprisingly, this game was not one of those given to me by Keymailer, nor was it one that was sitting around in my Steam account for a thousand years.
Through having a Steam Curator and actually making reviews, myself, on games for longer than I’d known the person I’d previously made review articles for their site, I’ve received games before. This does not mean it’s been at all successful, or I’ve been popular to be given games to. Chibi Girl VS Evil Zombie Dead is the second game I’ve ever been given via the Steam Curator Connect, and was given to me on the 29th of November last year.
(The other one called, Zibbs – Alien Survival, was given to me on 22nd October 2020, and I still haven’t reviewed it yet for reasons, but will actually be doing eventually.)

I’d initially asked my previous reviewing partner if they’d like to review this game (as I essentially shared their reviewing website, they had an equal share of my Steam curator). They probably took one look at it, saying “uhh no, you have it.”. I more than likely promptly laughed afterwards expecting that response and said “Fuck it, it’s a game. It’s not really much of a waste of time.” Accepted, downloaded it and played it about 2 months after receiving it, punctual, I know.

Chibi Girl VS Evil Zombie Dead is an adventure platformer game where you, an unnamed, un-aged little girl is travelling across the zombie apocalypse ridden city in an effort to find her mother because “waaah where’s my mummy?”
Despite being a child, the main character makes the slightly more logical decision of travelling across the city to find her mother instead of breaking down into floods of tears. Or even screaming and crying for her mummy like any other child would, getting eaten in the process.

She travels through a sort of semi-industrial in-construction downtown area, the introduction area showing you that you can drop boxes on zombies, jump over things and control elevators.
Most of the rest of the game is JUST this, which is not inherently bad. There are a bunch of different environments, such as an actual construction site and a sewer level (because god forbid any zombie game avoid having sewer levels). The game does not get more complex in terms of what you need to do to progress. It does, ultimately, use the same factors to make the game progressively more difficult by stacking them on top of each other or making the puzzle a tad more maze-like, making you think about each situation a bit more.

As said before, there’s not much more to this game, and the only thing that drove me to almost complete it was the fact that it was seemingly easily done. Down to its simplicity, it was and is (up to a particular point where it seems it’s physically impossible by the game’s standards to pass it.) easy enough to finish. The graphics themselves were cute enough in a very amateur way, and the puzzles and things were simple enough but also challenging enough to keep me in it. A few times I did debate throwing up my hands and declaring the game broken, but that was all down to a few things that are actually easily fixed.

Pros:

  • The game has no game breaking bugs or flaws with audio.
  • It’s a simple side-scrolling platformer that’s easy enough to understand, but still provides an element of challenge for the player with it’s limited functions.
  • While the entire game is just platforming, between stages there are mini-games where it turns from a 2D platformer into a few different types of games, switching the flow and maintaining interest.
  • Depending on how much of an “out-of-the-box” thinker you are, it is possible to complete some puzzles a few different ways, which in my opinion makes it that tad bit better.
  • The goal of the protagonist is easy to follow, and what little story the game has is sensible and doesn’t take itself too far with being ridiculous. There are a few things that seem a bit out of the ordinary, but nothing too huge.
  • One of the few games I’m actually okay with the protagonist being unable to swim.

Cons:

  • The major thing with this game that almost had me quit the game was issues with graphics vs hitboxes. A lot of the time, my character would fail to jump at a gap and fall into the fire below. This was due to the hitbox of the ledge being shorter than that of the actual image. My character, while still being on the ledge, visibly was not on the code version of the ledge and would fall through the graphic. This wasn’t a major issue all the way through the game, but led to a few moments that almost stopped the playthrough.
  • There’s only one type of zombie. It’s a bit of a reach of a complaint, but there is no visual variety between any game’s zombies per level. All had the same ruined appearance, no sludge for the sewer zombies and no high vis jackets for the construction zombies. The variation between backdrops was great, but lacked at the forefront of the game.
  • The mini-games were necessary. If there had not been the mini-games, then I would’ve stopped playing the game a lot sooner. Other than the shift change between side-scrolling platforming, there is no other pull to this game apart from the fact I “knew” I could beat it and I enjoy platformers.
  • Another graphical bug that I only experienced a few times with the boxes. When you’re pushing a box, it can sometimes get stuck, on nothing whatsoever. It was prominent in one particular puzzle where you had to move a box to a puddle that was electrified by stray wires, jump on the box and jump over the puddle. That was my first initial thought, but the box stopped randomly, and I could not push it any further. Me thinking in “game logic” I determined that “you may not use the box in this area and must figure out another way around this puzzle”. After attempting another couple of ways, I tried the same way again and the box magically moved further this time, to my disgruntlement.

Price: £7.19
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: 4
Cards: None
Worth The Money: No, only buy at a large discount. 65% or higher.

Overall, this game is actually kind of cute and semi-competent. A little simplistic, and it’s only redeeming features are the mini-game breaks between scenes and the way that it reuses the same mechanics in actually interesting ways to create new puzzles. It can sometimes feel a bit repetitive and broken, but I honestly never expected it to be as good as it was, to only have those flaws. It’s still not worth the price presented as, while the mini-games are great for what they are, the platformer doesn’t have a lot of content to warrant the price.

Zesty Rating
4.5 Out Of 10
Cute and simple platformer with other elements mixed through. Competent enough to hold its own, but not enough to hold it together. A little buggy, a little overpriced, and the only thing keeping me interested is the mini-games. How does this little girl know how to drive a car and a boat?


Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changed 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.

I'm still hoping that the dev of this game is doing alright, they're one of the few that took a positive influence from the review. Once again, if you're still around, I look forward to what you have planned for the future. 

…

Boobie Shaker? [How Do I Verbally Facepalm?]

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