What Did We Play Yesterday?

When I picked up Voids Vigil the other day, I'd forgotten it was by the same developer as Boneraiser Minions. It's more than "Boneraisers but space" and I'm still working out my thoughts, but overall it's enjoyable. It's a lot to process on the smaller Steamdeck screen, so I'll probably have to switch to desktop until I have a bit more familiarity.

I've been playing Slay the Spire near daily, trying to beat the game with Silent, to no avail. My strategy is generally to get as many relics as possible by gong after ?s, and to focus on debuffs and shivs. I think I probably relied too much on debuffs like weak and I should have been adding more blocking cards to my decks. I like the unpredictability of relics, but I'm starting to wonder if I wouldn't be better served angling for more elites so I can get relics and cards.

I got close a winning with Silent a few times, but decided to take a break and switch to Defect. I'm still familiarizing myself with the different orbs, but I like how they change things up. This round, I had a card that channels 2 lightning orbs every time I received unblocked damage, and it was extremely satisfying to watch that thing go crazy when I was fielding 5 x 1 type attacks. So I will probably work on this character for a while.

It's always interesting when I bounce off a game, but come back later and really get into it. I've put 35 hours into Slay the Spire this go, last time I wandered off after around 10 I think. I'm not sure what made it click this time, but I'll continue to work on it (my kid keeps saying, "You're playing that AGAIN?" lol).

Continuing to be haunted by Beltmatic. Every now and then I'll pick it up and attempt a new number. I'm not sure where this road leads me but I know it's nowhere good.

I can't tell if these chains I'm making are good or terrible. Everything blurs together. I unlocked the subtractor and immediately figured out I could create negative numbers, so orientation will matter more on those machines than the multipliers and addition(ers) or whatever we're calling them. I'm starting to get into the 3 digit number goals, which is requiring bigger and weirder machines.

This game is brilliant.

IT'S TIME FOR NUMBERWAAAANG

I decided to torture myself with this Shapez-But-Numbers factory game. You do math. It is awful. I'm still getting the hang of the thing, but it burns nice.

I beat Slay the Spire the first time! This time, it's getting its hooks into me. I've been focusing on snapping up as many relics as possible, which means hitting all the ? and elites I can. I've had one or two runs where I picked up a relic early that I thought would sink me (for instance, extra energy but can't rest at rest areas) but was able to navigate the handicap by changing up my play style. I just unlocked ascension the first time, as well as a new character, so we'll see how long it keeps my interest.

The game is slightly janky on Steam Deck, and I've had a few times where controls became unresponsive. One time, I couldn't play attack cards for some reason. Fortunately, the touch screen has let me work around the occasional control issue. I think there's something going on with the game's modal screens if you navigate the menus in a way the devs weren't expecting.

I picked up Slay the Spire for Switch years ago and had an ok time with it, but got bored after a bit. Returning to it on Steamdeck, I'm actually getting kind of into it? And part of it is I'm breaking the game into smaller play sessions.

As you play you unlock characters with unique starting relics, or starting powers, and new sets of cards to find. I try to be as adventurous as possible and hit all the ? markers I can, which has led to some strange and interesting buffs. My favorite was when I sacrificed maximum HP to pick up cards that would reduce all incoming damage to 1, and I also had a relic that reduced all damage by 1, meaning I could go rounds with zero damage. But I found myself in a situation where I didn't have any mitigation cards and the boss hit me for more HP than I had.

I finally pulled the trigger on Sun Haven and have been goofing around with it but keep forgetting to take screenshots. So far, I like it! The graphics are cute and everything is visually interesting. You can play as all kinds of characters and there's lots of customization there.

It's like Fantasy Stardew Valley But More, and it has a few different features that keep things fresh. There is no energy in this game, for example. Mines are traversed by using copper keys, rather than having to dig for the exit. The town is freaking huge and I've barely explored it.

I've mostly been running around doing random things and barely farming at all. There's just a lot of EVERYTHING right out the gate. The museum is huge, there's crap tons of recipes, etc.

There are some neat unique touches. Eating different items can give small permanent upgrades (diminishing with quantity). A recurring thing is a monster will come to my farm and threaten harm unless I get rid of it, and it has a ridiculous amount of HP. You can recruit up to 2 villagers to help, but as you can see from the screenshot, they barely leave a dent in the thing. The "bad things" aren't really that bad. Weeds clutter up the farm, but you get quick XP for cutting them down. Rocks clutter the farm, but many have copper which is convenient. And so on. Eventually the baddie gets bored and wanders off.

After I bought the game, I figured out the developer has labor issues and maybe some other stuff. I haven't fully delved into that yet so I'm not sure what's going on.

I've only got 1 achievement and kept getting lost in my own tunnel system, so I decided to dig out everything. So far, I have dug out what appears to be 2/3 without encountering anything of interest, but the process has been oddly satisfying.

I've been meaning to return to Disco Elysium for ages, and now that I can play it curled up on the couch, I think I'll finally make the time. My new game started off with a number of missed rolls, so my empathetic Harry is even more pathetic than usual (no shoe, no tie). I've been walking around without a shoe for a while and no one has questioned it. I previously played the game about 10 hours, and it's been long enough I'd forgotten a lot of the details, so there's a lot to discover.

I've been bouncing around a bit over the weekend, poking at various games and digging holes. I finally picked up a copy of Monster Train at steep discount. I played this on Game Pass a while back and it didn't grab me, but I've been meaning to revisit. I'm on the cusp of accepting I'm not a digital deckbuilder player. Deckbuilding is my favorite mechanic in physical games, but in digital form it often feels more like going through motions than actually playing a game. These games always end up being in a weird place between "video game" and "board game" that I don't like. I also dislike the art style and presentation, but for $2.50 I can see if it grows on me.