What Did We Play Yesterday?

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.

I love digging mechanics, so it seemed like a no-brainer.

The funniest thing about this one is it actually has a setup. You buy a house that is advertised as having treasure in the back yard. You buy an automatic shovel to aid in this. If your battery runs out, the shovel blows up (meaning you lose your ore).

As ores are gathered and sold on the internet, you gain money to upgrade your shovel size, inventory size, battery life, and jet pack ability. You have treasure detecting equipment that goes off if you get near an object of interest, guiding you to it.

A Game About Digging a Hole doesn't really get satisfying until you unlock the larger shovels. My first hole was such a sprawling mess I decided to start over and focus on building a very tidy, organized hole, and I've only just gotten to the point where my shovel is big enough to be fun. I needed a game I could mindlessly play to blow off steam, and if you're into games like Powerwasher Simulator you'd probably enjoy it, since it is essentially that with some exploration mechanics. As time wasters go, I like it okay. I'm generally going to prefer a survivors like or puzzle game to eat up my time, but once you get some upgrades under your belt and the digging opens up it can be satisfying.

Took a stab at a re-translated version of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest that offers better hint transparency and a map (Bisqwit's Castlevania II English Re-translation (+Map)). I played this on NES back in the day, and still have the cart, but got nowhere near beating it. I've always really liked the graphics in this game, so for now I'm content to scamper around grinding for hearts and dying. I did manage to snag the white crystal, thorn whip, and holy water in the first town.

This game handles object collision differently than Castlevania III and I've got a post about it somewhere but basically, you can bang your read on platforms in this game, which leads to jumps that are trickier than they should be, but so far it hasn't been too much of a problem.

Unlocked another captain, Rosanova, who specializes in the super nova. I've found this weapon to be extremely useful overall, and use it in almost every build because it's such a reliable long-range weapon. I need to achieve champion with each captain to unlock the last one, so I'll let this one rest for a bit. I've enjoyed about 10 hours and have only hit 33% of the cheevs, so I am sure there will be more Time Wasters in my future.

Juste's adventure continues. The Merman boss is pretty straightforward. I was killing the mermen he summons until I realized if you back off, they will attack and move offscreen. The Max Slimer is truly the most boring boss I have ever encountered in my entire life. It is basically, "Here, hit a sponge for three minutes."

I'm at 82% and have met Death again, but I've also completely finished exploring the area I opened up after beating the Devil. I keep teetering on the edge of shelving this game. I want to play a Castlevania game but this one is pretty damn mid, so I may switch over to one of the other handheld games for a bit.

I figured out I missed this bastard, so I went back for him. The bosses have been straightforward to this point, but Devil has a few extra moves and is spongier. He wasn't particularly difficult to beat, but the battle took a while. Beating him leads to the night goggles, which means I can now explore pitch-black areas.