What Did We Play Yesterday?

I was kinda in a Suika Game mood, but did NOT want to break out my Switch, so I tried out this free Suika-like where you drop Pusheen-style cats on each other. I really like the special abilities (you can "poison" and remove cats, teleport cats, and remove cats with various fish-shaped items). It scratched the itch (pun not intended but ok!) but I'm still on the lookout for a Suika-like for SteamDeck.

Yesterday I poked at Auto Rogue again. This is a running programming game where you are being chased by Mama and must set up skills and conditions to beat the enemies in your way. I don't generally like programming games (somewhat ironically) but this was a cute impulse purchase. It still hasn't grabbed me; wins feel like black magic, and losses are equally black-magicky. But I may return to it another time.

The carnage continues. I figured out I was underutilizing tractors, which are rechargable actions that can be summoned when the action bar is full. I've been experimenting with using a controller, which makes it easier to shoot and till/plant at the same time since the actions are mapped to triggers, but aiming can be a little wonky.

Sometimes, things just get out of control. I've come to dread the worm boss, who is an absolute bastard, and yesterday I got cooked by these aliens that kept setting my crops on fire. I hesitate to say it was a bad run because I learned the power of parallel planting. Previously, I always opted into the seasonal plant boxes, but I think the option to plant in rows can be more useful.

I've also begun focusing more seriously on trying to plant quadrants of one type, which will merge into a large plant.

Okay, I'm having a lot of fun with this one, so here's a proper post.

Atomicrops is a roguelike post-apocalyptic farming game in which you defend the last garden on earth from various radiated baddies. The loop consists of exploring the wasteland during the daytime, when crops are safe, followed by defending your crops at night. You gather seeds to plant, as well as various upgrades and special times. After a day/night cycle you go back to the town, where you can re-supply, make friends for special bonuses, and go back to do it all again, interspersed with the occasional boss fight.

The flame thrower is EXCEPTIONALLY fun, but the game is just fun in general. The goofy graphics and general chaos keep things interesting, and as you progress you reach a point where you have enough turrets and offensive helpers holding off enemies you can focus more on actually farming. You recruit chickens, pigs, and cows to help with weeding, digging, and watering, which makes the sprawling farm less overwhelming.

I had my first long game last night and unlocked a few extra characters and the ability to have permanent upgrades. I was kinda bummed by the game length until I realized belatedly you can save when you're in town, which means you could potentially play in bursts of several minutes. About 15 minutes tends to be a sweet spot for me in games like this.

Really looking forward to checking out the new characters and upgrades. The devs released several free DLC as well as a few paid ones. It sounds like the paid ones change things up and add some variety.

uhhh I might be getting a little addicted to this one. I quickly learned the squirrel is a terrible weapon so um don't do that.

Like basically everyone, I snagged this at 99c out of curiosity, intrigued by the premise of a walking (crawling?) simulator that goes at a snail's pace. You can also jump infinitely (necessary for finding some secrets), wear hats (2), and say hello and goodbye. You unlock new hats by exploring. You also unlock like 20 achievements within the first few minutes of play, but there are over a hundred so you have a ways to go.

I'm kind of into it, and my kid immediately got into it. The game benefits mightily from coop, as the snails move faster when they're near each other. The devs regularly host snail parties and I'm curious about that, so I'll have to make sure to attend the next one.

Atomicrops is a farming tower defense game. Tower Defense games stress me the eff out and this one is no exception, but I've always been drawn to the graphics and the apocalyptic farming concept. There is definitely a bit of a learning curve. I'm not sure the game ever explicitly tells you how to harvest crops, and I only figured out after I checked the keybindings.

The difficulty ramped up really fast for me, so it will definitely require some experimentation, but I'd like to play around with this one a bit more.

Decided to take a break from Farm Together and explore some of the stuff in my library. This is my second attempt playing Scorchlands and it doesn't grab me. I feel no desire to build, and the PVE seems pointless. Chalk this one up as not for me.

I built a second house. It's HUGE and the game doesn't have enough furniture to furnish it, so I'll stick to the cosy starter house for now.

The mechanical draw of having multiple houses is you can have additional crafting stations going: 2 stoves, an easel, and a piano. I doubt I'll ever get grindy about that but it's good to have options.

I realized I forgot to share Trout Park, which will become Koi Park whenever I unlock koi. Just a fun scenic area that takes advantage of the game's neat waterfall mechanics. The only part I don't like is the different tiers must be harvested independently. I'd like to experiment with higher waterfalls, and see if I can come up with a way to connect tiers though I'm sure I can't..

Last game, I set up a pretty complicated orchard where the seasons flowed into each other, so all the winters were together, etc. But it wasn't perfect because there were a few outlier trees that were hard to fit into the pattern. This time I decided I'd simplify my life and set up 4 seasonal treelines that have an assortment of trees that produce that particular season. This is exclusively so any given season, I can auto tractor down the line and fully harvest everything, and not have to devote so much land to rows and rows of trees.1

Finally organized my mess of animals. As I've mentioned before, I'm not a fan of the sheer volume of animals there are, and I'm still thinking of ways to maintain a decent stock of animals without it completely overwhelming everything. I've started planting feed supply crops just for them in their little areas. I tend to run short of grains, and corn is the cheapest and fastest grain crop, so I've got some nice long fields of corn contained with white fences.

My tree unlocks lag behind everything else, and those are the ones I want to work on. I think I'm gonna set up something similar to my flowers, and have clusters based on what I want to unlock most quickly, but idk. I also started making "type" forests, so for example, near Trout Park there's a pear forest filled with different trees that all produce pear-type resources. It's not as efficient as long ass rows of trees, but I like the way it looks a lot better.

I wish the game had seasonal signs.

I've had a few visitors and everyone has been very nice. I put up a "do whatever you want and have fun" welcome message, but I think having a meticulously organized color coded farm naturally encourages people to keep things tidy, and the guests have maintained my planting patterns.

After a long day of chores I decompressed by spending time arranging my crops by color, as one does. I also set up a color grid for flowers so I can decide what order I want my final flower garden to look like. I've waffled between organizing them by color, because pretteh, versus organizing them by type so it will be convenient to harvest the type I need.

I decided to allow full permissions on my farm, since the only thing I don't want people to grief is holiday crops and those are protected now. One big complaint people had in FT was guests harvesting crops and not re-plowing after, but FT2's auto tractor automatically does that, so I don't think I have to worry too much about finding a bunch of empty, unplanted fields but we'll see. The game has signs that can dictate what crops are planted where, and other things, so you can get pretty granular with permissions if needed. I doubt I'll get any visitors, but if anyone gets on my nerves I can just lock it down again.

Previously, I organized trees by season, so I could harvest an entire section at once, and I had reeeeeaally long rows of each type. I think this time, I'm going to organize by season again, but have them in continuous sections of 27 or 36. I've only unlocked about half of them and they are still adding trees so I'm not to the point where I can really plan it out too well.