Saturday Casual Gaming

 

In Which I'm Gaming Again!!!

It's a hot and hazy summer's day, and I have not had the guts to go outside. My father has been burning our wood pile down slowly because it was starting to put off its own heat waves and we do not want it to spontaneously combust. My mother has been gardening. We entertained the idea of taking the cat to the beach for the first time, but she has been hiding in her blanket fort all day after she had a brief outing this morning.

Instead of being active (beyond my usual squats and self-soothing rocking lol), I've been starting an indoor garden!

Oh, not a real one. I have a black thumb, not a green one lol.

But as I may have mentioned on Tuesday, I have found itch.io and been able to start playing new games!

And today's title is "Plant Daddy" by Brady Soglin.

In this game, you're the eponymous Plant Daddy - a lonely college grad who has just moved into their first apartment with nothing and no one. You buy your first plant - a "garden plant" - and start caring for it. As your plant grows, it will give you Leaves, which are your first currency, and after it fully matures, it gives you Blossoms, which act as a second currency. As you gain these Leaves and Blossoms, you can spend them in the store tab for such niceties as places to sit (or set plants on), artificial lighting, and even room expansions. Mostly, though, you'll be using your currencies to buy new plants.

Sometimes, you'll get special traits on your plants like variegated leaves and fancy stem colors! You can get special pots for those plants with the Nursery item, and you can even develop seeds from them, so if you want an army of variegated Tiny Trees named David, you absolutely can. Yes, you can name your plants. I am naming all of mine.

You can also buy decorations and more places to set plants down, which the game strongly encourages you to do.

Yes, that's a plant next to a candle on top of a cardboard box, and yes its name is Dan.

Zoomed out to show that to-do list on the wall above the shelf
It's how you find your objectives!

How's Annie?

Anywho, this game is really fun! It's relaxing and quiet and cute and you can easily lose a few days just trying to work your way through your To-Do List and raise an exceptionally cool plant or three. Currently I'm about 50 blossoms away from unlocking the next room - the bathroom - where I can then proceed to grow mushrooms on the back of my purchasable toilet lol!

There doesn't seem to be any way to pay-to-win in this, either! No "pay 99 cents to speed up" or "buy x amount of currency for 3 bucks of real money" stuff that I'm used to from generator-based idle games like this. It's refreshing and pleasant and as long as you don't turn the sound effects up too much while watering, you're not going to have to go to the bathroom a bunch of times.

In short, this is a perfect game with a deceptively simple interface that leads to fabulously deep gameplay. It looks cute, the "story" is adorable and relatable even if you're a plant-killer like me, and sometimes it's nice to just look at a room full of potted plants named things like "Leroy" or "Chad" and think "yeah, this is exactly what I wanted this to look like". 

All in all, this is a game that is absolutely worth a playthrough!

So Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming - Two Eyes Nonogram

 

Hey Haven't Done One of These In A While!

Once upon a time, I had a new game on her every week. I'd play the game and then review it and I'd let you all know what I thought. Mobile games, PC games, even the occasional console game... I'd cover what I loved (or didn't) about a game every week.

Except I'd never finish the games. Well... except one or two.

I Finished Two Eyes - Nonogram.

This game is lovely and a perfect time-sink. Free to play from start to finish with an option to pay for zero ads (which, admittedly, could improve your experience), and with gorgeous art and lovely music, this game was well worth a download - especially since I love nonogram-style gameplay!

For those not in the know, a Nonogram game involves you filling in squares of a grid to make an image, guided only by some numbers. The games usually have a tutorial (sometimes unskippable) which teaches you how to use those numbers to figure out what you're drawing. They're also often story-based, where the pictures you're filling in are the illustrations. These tend towards the fairytale side of fiction, so if that's not your cup of tea, you may find yourself simply in it for the gameplay, which is still quite rewarding!

Two Eyes, which is published by GAMEFOX (I've played other games of theirs!) and is available on ios and android, tells the story of a wolf and a deer slowly coming to terms with the fact that they are reincarnations of a deeply loving couple. It's very Greek Tragedy and well-told, though you can kind of tell it's a translation (sometimes the sentence structures are a bit rigid and unnatural, for instance), but in the end, it's a sweet little story, and I was, as the kids say, there for it.

The art, as you can tell, is spectacular, but I will not spoil you for the pixel art aspect - that would be cheating, since the pixel art is the gameplay!

I will, however, tell you that the story is broken into which character you're following (Wolf puzzles or Deer puzzles), and every story is broken down further into chapters. There are story-advancing puzzles and non-story-advancing puzzles, and both are fun! The story-advancing puzzles are arranged in a large 36 puzzle grid and range from 10x10 to 30x30. After you complete one character's story, you can finish the other character's story to see it from their perspective (the titular Two Eyes), or you can skip to the bittersweet finale.

The finale is the hardest part to get through with a triad of brutal 6x6 grids of 30x30 puzzles to get through. Your reward, however, is seeing the end of this lovely little story of enduring love.

Now, I mentioned the ad-free purchase option earlier. In my opinion, having an ad after ever two or three puzzles is a very fair tradeoff. For me, these ads were always easy to exit out of after about five or ten seconds, and I only accidentally fatfingered them once or twice. It was not economical or necessary for me to pay the oh-so-steep (sarcasm there, friend) price of two whole American dollars for the luxury of not seeing ads for a local guy who fixes basements for a decent price. Definitely pay for the ad-free version if you find the ads obnoxious, though, because the money goes towards making a bunch of beautifully drawn nonogram games like this one!

I can strongly recommend Two Eyes Nonogram to anyone who loves casual, untimed puzzle games.

That's all from me today!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming: Leaf Blower Revolution

 

In Which I Play A Game About Leaves

If you know me, you know Fall is my favorite season. I didn't find this game until November, however, so you're getting a review of Leaf Blower Revolution - Idle Game by Humble North now. In January. Because I'm lazy and I've been playing a lot of Stardew Valley.

But yeah! Leaf Blower Revolution! Available on Steam! Free to play!

A simple, leafy game

I'm a lazy player. That's why I like idle games so much - you start it up and half pay attention to it. You don't need sound. You don't need it to be flashy. This game is a relaxing time-sink, and I've really enjoyed playing around with it.

You are a dude (or lady, or Santa...) who has a bunch of leaves on his lawn. You move your mouse/touchpad around to make the leaves go off screen and get points. You spend your points on things to move the leaves faster, including lil leaf Roombas which toodle around until they stop dead, recharge, then toodle off to move more leaves.

There are multiple menus of upgrades. There's multiple currencies. There's multiple kinds of upgrades. Do you want better skins for your tiny lil pixel person? Spend red coins (which you can earn several ways, but mostly through daily play and soft resets). Do you want a better leaf blower? Spend leaves. Do you want a change of scenery? There's a currency for that!

Basically, it's a very simple game with a lot of customization and such. I'm currently dressed as Santa and hunting down Void Leaves and Apples with my army of red-nosed Leaf Roombas and armed with a frickin Lazer. Life is pretty good.

There's no heavy clicking to be done - all of the effort is put in by just moving your cursor (which is your lil avatar dude) around. You only click on menu buttons. Which is actually a problem, because if I have one complaint it's that most of the menus with scroll bars are very hard to get to cooperate. Sometimes I'll try clicking the down arrow and nothing happens. Sometimes I try to drag the scroll bar and nothing happens. Sometimes neither approach works for a few minutes.

Admittedly, this could just be a problem with my computer - my laptop is getting pretty old and I'm resisting an upgrade because I hate that new laptops don't have any dvd/cd tray :|

What can I say, I'm an internet oldie.

And yes, this game is 100% free on Steam, though you can give the developers money for DLC packs. If you really love simple games about shuffling leaves back into the forest from whence they came in all their 8-bit glory, then by all means, financially support the devs!

If you want to download this game from Steam, it's here. I'd recommend it :)

That will do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 320

In Which I Have Been Gaming!

So, this month, I've been gaming a lot! It's just... not free stuff :| Mostly.

Here's a list of games I've played this month and some notes on said games:

• Resident Evil 2 (N64)
• I am so glad I used Infinite Health and Infinite Ammo, because I couldn't figure out how to walk, much less run, away from the zimzams, resulting in my just... slowly circling as zombies chewed on me for about ten minutes
• Graphics? Not great, but holy crap I'm impressed at what they crammed onto an N64 cartridge, since... uh... it was not designed for a cartridge-based system but a cd-based one!!!
• Music: Gorgeous, eerie, some of my fav music.
• This was especially poignant due to Paul Haddad, voice of Leon S Kennedy, unfortunately passing away. Yes, he had cancer, but his surgery had to be postponed because of COVID, so we can thank the 21st century plague for us not having this absolute treasure of a man any longer :(
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)
• I love this game, even though it kicks my ass.
• Seriously, this game is kicking my ass.
• Maybe I overestimated my abilities with Master Mode?
• Yet! I totally killed three Hinox yesterday, a feat that was... much harder in the regular mode, especially with Black Hinox...
• I'm using way more two-handed weapons this go-round, but I haven't yet mastered the dodges.
• I... think I'm experiencing some pretty annoying Drift, because sometimes, my POV will just shoot straight down, so I'm in a top-down view, and sometimes I can't look up.
• I think I have more Star Fragments in this run than in my previous three regular modes combined...
• Watching so many speedruns has made me... not better at the game, but perhaps a little braver. But I still hate any of the falling hazard shrines (like the Synced Swing shrine - ugh)
• DOGS!
• My horses are murder machines in this runthrough - they won't stop running over all of the wildlife. On the plus side, I have so much food.
• I am hoarding arrows like a madbeast because I desire vast quantities of Ancient Arrows in the future...
• Coloring Pixels (Steam)
• What can I say? I like filling in boxes, and that's all this game is.
• Seriously, it's a paint-by-number.
• I like it. It's free.
• Escape Room Computer Office Escape (Kongregate)
• This game was fun!
• It was short, but only once I figured out the logic behind the puzzles. At first I was in chicken-with-no-head mode, running around and clicking everything. Thankfully, if you keep a level head, all of the puzzles give you their solutions... eventually.
• You should give it a go if you like escape room puzzles!

And that's my gaming updates for this week :)

Go Enjoy Something, guys!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 314: Uhhhhhh......

Besides being my current gaming logo, this is an accurate representation of me today...

I am aware that Saturday is almost over in the EST Zone, but I also am aware that I spent all day playing video games and napping like a child.

It rocked.

I mean, yeah, my eyes are gummy from all the napping, and I feel like I want to take a run around the block (I'll do some pushups instead), but actually, today was pretty great.

I just... uh...

I don't have a game to tell you about.

Because I was literally just testing possibilities.

I mean, I could tell you all about Conceptis Games, but I'm pretty sure I did that at some point in 2018... Long story short, they're all logic games, they're heckin fun, and I'm pretty sure you can find them on app stores as well as Kongregate or just their own website.

Currently, I'm testing out an idle game that is turning out to be fun, though it has 0 tutorial and is basically trial and error.

I'm sorry this is up so late, and I'll try to do better tomorrow. I actually have something Viral to show you!!!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 313: Whiling Away The Hours

In Which I'm Wasting Time

Let's face it, if Lazy Game Reviews wasn't already a fantastic long-running channel on YouTube, that's who I'd be. I'm lazy, and sometimes I review games.

I didn't play anything new this week, guys.

I was just playing Idle Pins the whole time.

Because of the Valentine's Day event.

And because I'm lazy.

But now I'm trying out Defender Idle 2, and that's quite fun.

Unfortunately, I've only just started playing it, so I have no opinions besides "yes, I'm enjoying learning this game". I'm so early on that I haven't even figured out how to play 100% of the way :|

Meanwhile, I'm still playing PokefarmQ, Pokemon Go, and several stupid apps on my phone. I haven't picked up my Switch in a week because I've been grinding through Idle Pins, and... well...

I'm lazy.

And I'm wasting what time I'm not writing, crocheting, or microwaving leftovers.

I'm in a very low-motivation state, which can be bad, but mostly, I'm just going with it and enjoying the rest.

So if you don't feel particularly motivated to play video games, despite possibly having more time on your hands than you're used to, then don't fret. It's okay to not want to do things. It's okay to want to do different things. And it's okay to spend a few hours watching other people play games if you want the gaming ambiance without the carpal tunnel syndrome.

I'd like to suggest several people to follow:

• Lazy Game Reviews
• Cyborcat
• Peanut Butter Gamer
• Lucahjin
• Space Hamster
• Pushing Up Roses (though she's not doing as much gaming these days, her other reviews are just as great)
• The Completionist
• Robot Co-Op
• Brutal Moose

There are infinite options online, so go seek out some likeminded gamers.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 312: Chatting About Games

In Which I Discuss My Recent Gaming Habits

I talk a lot about games I'm trying out on here, but sometimes, I'm not venturing out in to the Great Kongregate/Steam Beyond. Sometimes, I'm just bumming around, playing games I've played a thousand times. That's what this week has been like.

I've been mostly sticking with a few oldies-but-goodies, and it feels pretty good to be so utterly familiar with a game that I don't have to worry about any surprises!

I've been fiddling around with PokefarmQ on a daily basis since May of 2018, and it's just as pleasant today as it was then - moreso, even, because now I can do a lot more on the site, since I've been progressing along :) I have a few shiny Pokemon, now, multiple Legendaries, Event Pokemon, and yes, I am loaded with Credits because of the Mass Click Weekends. If you're a fan of Pokemon and you just want to collect thousands of monsters, some of which are original to this site, like the adorable little Ghost-Dragon Gragon, then check it out for yourself (and hit me up - I'm called Tenleybean).

I also have been keeping up with my Pokemon Go addiction, and that's, of course, available for free on the app stores on most mobile phones now. If you're looking for a new Friend on there, hmu at 7089 7612 1171

Speaking of Mobile games, I'm still playing around with Merge Magic, which is still plenty of fun.

Back on PC, I've been playing some more of Coloring Pixels from ToastieLabs on Steam, so if you're looking for some mindless coloring fun, you can check that out!

I'm also playing some more Idle Pins on Kongregate, because it's still the Valentine's Event somehow and ding dong dangit I want to get 100% of powerups purchased before I soft reset lol.

Finally, in console gaming, I've been blundering around in Hero Mode on Breath of the Wild, because sometimes you just need to ride a horse around a barren landscape while pursued by octopus-urn robots intent on your epic destruction.

What are you guys up to with gaming? Any fun new games you're trying out?

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 311: Terrarium Garden Idle

In Which I Grow Plants

I will be honest: I have a brown thumb. I do not grow things well. I want to have plants, but I've actually killed fake plants before (you pick em up the wrong way and suddenly the inside wire snaps and you have a very crummy plantlike object).

Now I can have nice, healthy plants in my pocket without having to worry about them being dead!

Because they were never alive to begin with.

They're pixels.

Green Panda Games made a game for mobile called Terrarium Garden Idle, and it's pretty darn fun!

It's also a very attractive game!

So you start out with some weird greenish orbs and buy yourself a lil plant. Then you just tap the crap out of it to get more green orbs. Eventually you level up. The more you tap and level up, the more plants you can unlock. Every 20 levels or so, you can open a new shelf to give yourself room for your obsessive plant habit.

And once you run out of space/make enough orbs, you can literally jump to a new world.

There's a lot of plants.

This is a great little time-waster app, and despite Green Panda's affiliation with Ubisoft (gag), this game is somehow not pay-to-win. Yeah, you can buy pink diamonds for special stuff, but if you're like me and you don't care how fast this goes, you can just... chill. Yeah, you can watch ads for powerups, yeah you can buy them with green orbs, but I've never needed them.

Then again, I'm not a high enough level where the wait time for a plant to grow becomes an issue.

So yeah, this is a fun game on the app store, and you should probably go play it if you need something to do at, say, the DMV or something.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 308: Epic Battle Fantasy 5

In Which I Talk About A New Entry In A Fun Series

I'm pretty sure I've talked about Kupo707 and their Epic Battle Fantasy series before on here - I'm too lazy to check, but it's a fair bet that I have. I really like this series, too,and their latest offering on Kongregate and Steam, Epic Battle Fantasy 5, is a really great addition!

So far, in the series, we've been introduced to the five main characters: Matt the strength-focused swordsman, Natalie the sexy mage, No-Legs the legless cat who may or may not be a demigod, Lance the gunman who may or may not be a straight-up fascist, and Anna the tough and awesome ranger. They've fought dragons, monsters, gods, cats, and each other, many many times. It's been pretty... well... epic!

Every game is basically a soft reset of their universe, with none of them remembering each other (despite the quintet being in every game!) and with the world not really remembering their past exploits. It's kinda like in Legend of Zelda where there's always a hero named Link and a Princess named Zelda but the maps and everything else are pretty varied. And that's true of EBF5, too - combat and travel and locations are all just a little different.

There's teleportation via a few different cat-slimes throughout the world, and when you interact with them, you're taken to a screen between realities where you can warp out to other cat slimes you've already seen. It's useful, but they're not marked on your map, so you kind of have to remember where you saw the cat slime with the tophat and its relation to the cat slime with the skulls behind it...

Teleportation is fairly important because of the gathering quests you encounter in the world. Someone in the tundra wants new socks? You have to go find those socks (which might be dropped by enemies or discovered in random chests), then you have to come back to the tundra and find the guy you got the quest from to return it. This can be a pain (especially before you have all of your mobility items) but it's worth it for the extra skills and goodies they can give you!

Speaking of mobility items, there seems to be one item per area. Ice is slippery, but with the right item, you can walk right across it. There are booster tiles that send you speeding in one direction until halted by a wall or zoomed away in a different direction, but there are boots that let you stop on certain magnetic tiles! There are lily pads and clouds to walk on, and there are gaps to fill with ladders, and there's water to raft across, and it's all very complicated until you realize that you're probably going to find those items in a similar area to the one you're struggling with - probably from the area boss!

And the bosses are pretty darn fun! Mammoths, trees full of mind-controlled cats, alien artifacts, dragons, mechs... the list goes on! In a browser-based Flash game that lasts at least 30 hours, you're going to have a lot of bosses to kill!

But you don't have to just kill - you can also capture underlings and random monsters like in Pokemon - but by dropping a box on their heads instead! That part can be fun, but it can also be frustrating. Some of the monsters just do not want to get in the box (dragons and monoliths, I'm lookin at you...). Some of these captives can even be useful for upgrading your weapons or armor or they might be required for a quest!

And there are tons of weapons and armors for every single character.

Ever wanted to see a cat dressed like a samurai? How about a mage with an elephant on her head? Or a swordsman dressed like a pirate? You can do it! And they can wield weird weapons, too - swords made of ice, guns made of wood, bows made of pipes, and even a skewered hot dog as a weapon! Then there's the Flair - random accessories to boost various stats on your characters!

The battle system is pretty straightforward: You have a team of three with your two other characters in reserve, when it's your turn, you choose whether to attack, use a skill, change your tactics, change your gear, or use an item or run away. It's pretty easy to figure out what's what, since it's all clearly labeled, and the ability to switch gear in combat has saved my butt more than once. It's fun to bash up your enemies or to land that Area Of Effect spell to blast a whole mob, but sometimes I forget to pay attention to which wave I'm on and use a spell with a longer cooldown too early in the fight.

But enough about the mechanics of this game - what's it like?

Well, it's pretty darn fun, to be honest. You control whoever you've put down as your leader while you're walking around the world using either the arrow keys and spacebar on your keyboard or the mouse and right-click. Some things you can interact with will just give you some flavor (like a book telling you more about the ancient cat religion the world is obsessed with), whereas others will be hidden items (yay more snow I totally needed more snow thanks).

The art is lovely and colorful, the combat is fun, the movement is responsive, and the story is engaging, yet silly. Somehow they make the rise of fascism and eugenics funny? It's pretty great.

My only complaint is that it's really, really easy to accidentally start a new game after dying. For some reason, every time I get killed (usually in the Glitch World segments), I end up accidentally clicking "New Game" instead of "Continue" and when you're 20 hours in, that hurts.

I can't even complain about the paywall(s), guys. There are a few areas in the Kongregate version you cannot access without paying for it, but they're optional areas, and you still get some of the optional areas for free! Yeah, it's about twenty bucks to buy the game on Steam, but the free Kongregate version is still hella fun and you can still access everything you need in order to progress. The money helps Kupo707/Matt Roszak keep making these wacky fun games, and I'm all for paying the creators of video games when I can, so I might start buying some of these on Steam as I go along...

I think that'll about do it for me today, guys.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 307: AdventureQuest

In Which I Talk About One Of My Old Favorites

Real Talk, guys, I don't like MMORPGs. I'm only slightly (and begrudgingly) social, so I don't really want to spend 90% of my gaming time being bombarded by gold-sellers, whiney teenagers, and human trolls. I don't want to be constantly ganked. I don't want to be hassled. I just... want to hit the bad-bads with my pointy stick in peace.

So imagine my joy when I discovered browser-based Single-Player RPGs!

And imagine my exultation when I discovered Adventure Quest?!

But what is AdventureQuest?

Well, it's a browser-based single-player RPG made by Artix Entertainment and based in a world called Lore. You're an adventurer, and you're basically just... free to do whatever! You can click on the hills behind the town of BattleOn (yes, that's the town name) and just roam around, hitting the bad-bads with your pointy stick. Or you can just click on random buildings and take on quests! Or you can get hopelessly lost in menus while you try to find a sword you want to drop your hard-earned gold on! Or you can pay real money to become a Guardian (big bonuses, cool armor, you help the game exist, etc)! There's even housing, now!

All in a brightly-colored Flash-animated wonderland!
This is what it looked like for Halloween one year.

 The game does a pretty good job of explaining itself once you get playing, but it can be overwhelming. I know I was a little overwhelmed after going back for the first time in years. My old account was deactivated because that email address doesn't even exist anymore, but once upon a time, I was pretty good at the game.

You can even buy special armors that level up with you and give you special abilities!

Like this Vampire Slayer armor, which lets you have extra bonuses vs Vampires and Werewolves

The game has changed a lot since I started playing, I have to say. The art has evolved a lot, though... Character heads seem to be about the same. Also, there's no body difference between masculine/feminine armors, which is pretty fun, because you don't have to play a girl in a chainmail bikini!

You can play a girl in heavy robes beating the crud out of a sea dragon, instead!

Sometimes I get nostalgic for the old art, but... well...

The redesigns were a vast improvement...

All told, however, I have to say that I still love AdventureQuest/BattleOn. It was my first positive online RPG experience, and it let me play a blue-skinned, lime green-haired murder machine in Digimon goggles, so I can't help but love it. I also love that it's not afraid to grow and change with the times. There's a 3D version of the game now, too, but I haven't played that yet. Maybe some day...

What about you guys? Do you have any odd games you fell in love with long ago that you're craving a return to?

Go Enjoy Something,
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 305: Defender Idle: New Beginning

In Which I Actually Enjoy A Tower Defense Game

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a naturally high-stress person. I know, I tout myself as being chill, but the fact is, I'm an inert ball of anxiety 90% of the time - physically chill, mentally freaking out. I don't usually like games where it's possible to lose. I don't like my characters dying. I don't like losing progress. I hate screwing up and not being able to fix things. Life doesn't have an "Undo" button, but video games (newsflash) aren't real life, and I'm not looking for them to be.

So I usually hate Tower Defense games, because you go on for a bit, then it's game over because you didn't put your points into whatever arbitrary loadout the level wanted from you. And you take a penalty. Because you didn't know the first time you played what it was the game was looking for. Ugh.

Don't like that at all.

But that's where Idle Games creep in. See, in an Idle Tower Defense game? The goal is to die. You're not punished for dying. Dying is how you learn. Dying is how you progress.

And Defender Idle: New Beginning, from Barbasu, is a great example of how to make an engaging Idle Tower Defense Game.

This game has only existed since the end of December, 2019, so it's a little over a month old now, and I have to say - having started to play it over two weeks ago, I'm nowhere near even the mid-game. It's a very long game - especially if you're bad at paying attention like I am.

See, this game isn't gonna hold your hand from start to finish, but it also doesn't punish you. If you're confused, click around for a bit - you'll figure it out. That's good game design, folks. I like that.

Your goal is to beat various waves of enemies in several game modes while building up your base. Simple enough, right? Right! There's no twist. There's no surprises. You just. play. the game.

I'm still early enough in the gameplay that I have no idea what half of the currencies are used for, I've barely leveled up my base, and I only have three kinds of turrets, but I still feel like I'm having fun. I rarely ever devote this much time to a game where I make so little apparent progress. The secret, my friends, is that you're never actually stuck. Bored? Surrender. Take a lower prize than you would if you played to the inevitable outcome of your enemies overwhelming you, and go level up some random stuff in your base. I've literally only surrendered once, and that was because I'd put some turrets in the wrong place and completely missed that you can sell turrets because I have the eyesight of a very myopic newt.

DI:NB is not a graphics-intensive game. It has a comfortably nostalgic Atari-vibe to it (some of the enemies vaguely resemble the spaceship from the OG Galaga, for instance), but it has its own flavor. I like that the colors, while bright, aren't obnoxious, they mostly make sense - green buttons can be clicked, red ones are locked, and yellow ones are close to being unlocked (except in the Masonry building - why are the purchasable upgrades red, but the maxed-out ones yellow? That makes no sense...)

Yes, keeping track of no less than 11 different currencies/substances can be confusing, but thankfully, there's not any real crossover. You'll always use gold for tower-defense upgrades, you'll always use RP (Rebirth Points) for percentage-based upgrades (like what % of a chance you have to find a specific substance/currency when killing enemies, boost your health by x%, etc), and you'll always use "Esoteric Substance" (lol nice name) to boost your Masonry projects.

Music and gun sounds are fun, with some chiptune aspects as well as some more modern effects. It's fairly repetitive, but it's also exactly what you want from a game like DI:NB. The gun sounds are fairly standard crunchy lasergun sounds not a pewpew, but also not a bangbang, more like small, satisfying explosions.

Overall, I'd have to say that Barbasu has a real winner on their hands with DI:NB, and if you want to check it out on Kongregate, you should. The developer has indicated that the game is now in its final form, barring any unforseen bugs. My only suggestion is that you keep it opened in a separate window, rather than a separate tag, as it doesn't always run very well when you aren't actively watching it, and it doesn't seem to do much while your computer is in standby or sleep mode. If that's not the purpose of the design, then it's a bit annoying. If it is the purpose, then well played - you're demanding attention for your game.

So yeah, go play this game!

And Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 303: Idle Pins on Kongregate

In Which I Am Very Sleepy

I'm typing this up at midnight because I'm 99% sure I'm going to either sleep in like a fool or wake up early to get things done, but either way, I am a sleepy birb.

When I'm tired but cannot sleep, I do one of two things: I watch videos on YouTube or I play idle games.

I have elected to play idle games, since for some reason (which I can't figure out) my computer has decided that a fairly good internet connection be damned, it's going to refuse to load YouTube videos. At all. It's horrifying. We're talking 144p.

Thankfully, you don't need a whole lot of crazy internet speeds or whatever to play a sweet little idle game like Idle Pins.

Idle Pins is a fairly new idle game on Kongregate. Made by publisher Arkshija and published on December 17, 2019, this game is a fun combination of RPG, idle game, sci-fi, and blatant copyright flummery. Seriously. There are a lot of references to other video games which the publisher is unlikely to have had a hand in. I'm not gonna complain about having my pins in the "Charmander" formation... or the one that looks like Sonic... or the one that looks like a Koopatroopa...

What I'm saying is that this game is very tongue-in-cheek. The story is pretty upfront about the fact that it doesn't really matter, but that's one of my big problems with it. When I logged on at the start of January, I had no idea what any of the mechanics were. You're given walls of text that make little to no sense and are left to do just... wait around and hope that something good happens. I'm still not 100% sure what pins go where in a formation!

You have pins, which are little buttons, and you're sending them to kill bad guys. You do this by loading them in formations (you start with "Noob", and it's trash, but you'll need it anyway) and hoping they don't die. Pins are... basically idle Pokemon. Except instead of kidnapping them and forcing them into combat, you either find or create them. This is also a little confusing at first, but here is my advice for if you're going to start playing this game:

1. If you have two pins that are the same (such as, a pair of "Alpha" pins), drag one on top of the other in your inventory. This will fuse them and make them stronger (two "Alpha" make one "Beta" for instance).
2. If it seems like you should be able to do something (crafting, tuning, etc) but you can't figure out how, just chill. You haven't found that ability yet.
3. Don't freak out about Tuning or the SynthLab. Tuning is a way to improve your pins with extra stats. SynthLab adds batteries to your pins and levels them up. You'll find batteries eventually, or you can deconstruct the higher tier pins you have (Gamma and up) for energy. Again, don't worry about this.
4. Bosses will kill you a lot early on.
5. You're not gonna keep the cool pins when you soft reset after Area 4 on the game map, so don't invest too heavily in them.

While the game did frontload a lot of conflicting or confusing info early on, I found that after I started to accumulate Formations and Unlockables (and even Event Items!), the game was better able to explain itself.

If you're looking for an idle game that asks you to practice some basic logic and reading comprehension, then definitely give Idle Pins a try. Now that I kind of understand what I'm doing, it's a lot of fun!!! Arkshija has done a great job here, and the fact that they're continually updating and tweaking the game tells me that they care about the game itself and how much fun you'll have playing it.

I'm going to bed now :)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 302: Merge Flowers vs Zombies

In Which I May Have Been Duped

If, like me, you've been a PC gamer most of your life, you've likely come across a game called Plants Vs Zombies, a strategic tower defense game by PopCap. If you've played it, you'll know it's both ridiculous and addictive, so imagine if you saw something that had a shockingly similar name but a slightly different gameplay style on Google Play for free? You'd probably check it out, right?

Well, I did.

I legit thought it was an offshoot for about... five minutes.

Similar style to Plants vs Zombies, too...

Within a few minutes, I realized that, despite the cosmetic similarities, and the fact that both games have you defending your home from hordes of the undead using only horticulture, they're not actually from the same company.

For one, Crazy Dave never shows up, and he's maybe the best part of Plants Vs Zombies, so I was very disappoint.

Still, Merge Flowers vs Zombies is a pretty decent game, and it's forgiving enough that I can play it distracted.

It's also bananas

You have a lawn with limited space. You know how to instantly crossbreed two plants to make a new kind of plant. You have a ton of ads to watch for bonuses and extra plants.

Yeah, this game is basically just a blatant cash-grab. As fun as it is, it has a new ad for you to watch every five seconds (maximum!) and you can't get too far too quickly without sinking in hours watching the same six ads over and over and over and over and over.... and over again.

You can ignore the ads, of course, and just wait for new plants to auto-spawn, but that takes a lot longer than watching a 15-30 second ad.

It's merge-style gameplay, so you drag and drop a plant on top of its double (if you have one) on your board to upgrade it to the next level of plant. Different plants have different abilities (massive damage, freezing, slowing, poison, etc). The more merges you make the more damage your plants do, and so on and so forth. It's an incredibly basic game with no surprises.

The lack of surprises is this game's strength - you don't have to do some clever combination of things to unlock the next part of the game, it's straightforward and tells you what you need to do to win from the very beginning. When you fail a level, you still get a (small) reward for trying. There are drones carrying extra plants that you can click on and watch an ad to get those plants on your grid (they seem to buffer, so if you're out of room but want the extra plants, go for it). The hordes of zombies are consistent and simple.

Basically, this is an excellent waiting-room or airport game - something to play if you've got time but need your attention elsewhere.

As a standalone "I want to play video games" kind of game, however, it's not quite like Plants vs Zombies, and I'm surprised they haven't been sued.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 301: Gaming Goals 2020

In Which I Discuss Gaming

Yesterday, I mentioned 10 movies I'd like to see this year - some were old, some were new. Some were series!

I'd like to take a moment to discuss a few games I'd like to review this year on Saturday Casual Gaming.

Some will be newer, some will be older, and some will have even cost money, but I assure you: all will be fun!

• Final Fantasy Adventure (Switch)
• Peace Island (Steam)
• Secret of Mana (Switch)
• Merge Magic (Mobile)
• Trials of Mana (Switch)
• Idle Pins (Kongregate)
• At Least One Platformer
• At Least One Escape Room Game
• A Fighting Game
• At Least One Coloring Game

I know that not everyone is an Idle Game junkie like me, so I'm going to try and expand to more games this year. My biggest problems are that I:

a) suck at platformers

and

b) suck at fighting games

Maybe this will be the year I find some of these kinds of games that I don't suck at and can actually enjoy?

To be perfectly clear: I'm the problem with games I'm bad at. It's not the game design - other people have a wonderful time playing fighting games and platformers, after all! It's just my bad reflexes and poor eyesight working together with my limited attention span to baffle me and leave me with abysmal capabilities.

Also, a lot of these kinds of games require a fairly hefty monetary commitment, which I'm unprepared to make.

As for the Switch games I've listed...

Guess who had enough Amazon cards to buy The Collection of Mana when it came out?

This doofus. That's who.

So that's my gameplan (lol) for 2020! I plan to expand my gaming horizons, talk about some games that cost me money, and share my undying love for the Mana franchise. I also want to share some of my experiences with you, so I'll be trying to figure out this "streaming" thing all the kids are doing these days...

What are your guys' gaming goals for the new decade?

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 252: Gaming When You're Sick

In Which I hate this cold so much

As so often happens after Christmas, I have caught the Crud. My head is full of gross, my lungs are full of gross, my mouth tastes like despair, and my eyes feel like they're slathered with grease and sandpaper at the same time.

Perfect time to game, right? lol.

Not exactly.

In this state I can't focus or concentrate, so no strategy, puzzle, or Sim games. My reaction times are garbage, so fighting and platformer games are out of the question. Visual Novel? Nah, can't focus. Hidden Object? No way - eyes too blurry.

And so we're left with RPGs and Idle Games. Huh. My jams.

Except most RPGs have an awful lot of decision making involved...

Idle games it is, then.

Thankfully, both Kongregate and Steam abound with idle games for free, and Android/Google are nigh-bursting at the seams with them, so I'm well covered.

I'll be placidly tapping away on NGU Idle or Clicker Heroes or Trimps or something today for sure. It's that kind of day. I had been planning to tell you about an RPG I've been dabbling in, but... man, I'm so tired.

At least with Trimps I can just let them kill themselves for me instead of making choices and doing things lol

But tomorrow, I hope I'm well enough to talk to you about noodles and other things that make me happy.

Because I'm 100% done with this cold, and I hope it's nearly done with me.

Go Enjoy Something
(Eat some soup, take care of yourself!)
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 251: Starlight XMas

In Which I Play A Very Sweet Game

Back in the earliest days of my being an internet gamer, I discovered a little studio called Armor Games. Of course, within a year, Armor Games became a massive publisher, but back when I first encountered them, they had a few lil Flash games under their belt and hadn't yet seen massive success. Through Armor Games, I found a lot of RPGs and weird action puzzlers that I loved, but then Christmas rolled around, and I found Starlight Xmas.

A fun, clever puzzle game by Zedarus on Kongregate

The goal of the Starlight series is to use your mouse to guide a field of stars into position. You're rotating a 3D field until you form a constellation, at which point you have beaten the level! This mechanic is so clever it's no wonder that there's at least two main games at this point, and to top it all off, the music is gorgeous (if a bit loud at times).

It's perhaps a one-trick pony, but when your trick is this cool, you don't really need more.

This is not a game for the adrenaline junkie. It's not intense in any way shape or form. It's peaceful. It's tranquil. It's occasionally frustrating as you search for just the right position to make the reindeer appear... In short, this is a borderline Grandma Game, and I love it even more for it. With its simple, elegant art style and its easy-to-learn-lifetime-to-master gameplay, it's the perfect thing to curl up with a cup of cocoa and play through.

If you're looking for a sweet, simple game to put you in a holiday mood, why not give it a look-see? I mean, you're probably gonna need to activate Flash or install a substitute in order to play it, but it's so great that I'm down with that. It's one of those games where I replay it every year to see if I can beat my old high scores, and every year, I remember why I love it.

Happy Holidays,
Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 250: Silver and Gold

In Which Christmas is Very, Very Commercial

My earliest memories of gambling come from my cousin's copy of Pokemon: Red for the GameBoy. The Celadon Game Center was a great place to just kick back and spam the slot machines. It was the only way to get Porygon without trading with someone, and if you lived in the middle of nowhere like I did, trading was going to be a problem.

Point is, I kinda developed a bit of a habit where I would just... play the slots until the batteries ran out or someone wanted their GameBoy back. When I got my GameBoy Color, all bets were off and I became obsessed with timing and hot machines and... I basically became a 12 year old gambling addict.

So Slot machines and I have a bit of a bad history.

That don't mean I hate 'em, though...

Thankfully, I managed to cut things a bit close this year and just played a day or so of Holiday Slots Inc by Makopaz on Kongregate.

It's a pretty easy game, too

So basically, you're trying to win gifts, which you then spend on upgrades before delivering them to children around the world. The more gifts you deliver, the more people believe in you! The more people believe in you, the more clout you have, and you can open your own toy store! The more money you earn from that, the more upgrades you can get and then...

You infiltrate Hanukkah?

Yeah. You start taking over the entire holiday season, in fact, and eventually, you become so beloved by everyone, you earn money while waiting for the holidays to roll back around.

It's a very weird game with bizarre implications, but I kinda like it lol.

I should mention that I had the Goldenrod Game Center's music playing in my head the whole time I played...

I should also mention that this is a game I'm probably never playing again after this review because I can feel the attachment growing again, and I don't want to be an adult with a gambling habit. That would be bad.

That said, if you can trust yourself with slot simulators, then definitely give this one a try!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 249: Soda Dungeon

In Which I Play A Fun Free Steam Game

I love me some Roguelike Dungeon Crawlers, guys, and Soda Dungeon has been suggested to me pretty much ever since it came out. Since it was free on Steam, I couldn't resist and downloaded it.

It's addicting as heck.

Which is funny, because addiction is kinda a big theme in this game.

Addiction, money, fame, and big scary monsters

You are a hapless, impoverished person with big dreams of bigger wealth, but the best way to get money where you are is to venture into a dungeon of certain death... which you're super not into. Fortunately, while hanging out at the local soda bar, you end up with a grand scheme: con a bunch of soda-addicted crazies into going into the dungeon of death for you.

And thus, your journey as a very messed up kind of adventure pimp begins.

But... money!

Ethical complications aside, this game is fantastic. From the peppy, bullet-hell-style music to the awesome arcade-like graphics to the hilarious story (so far), this game has had me hooked from my first run with a mostly naked Soda Junkie.

You have different choices you can make while your party ventures through the dungeon. Do you choose each move yourself, or do you let the game automatically run your guys through? Which of the three boss chests do you open? Do you take one of the alternate paths that occasionally appear, or do you ignore all possible distractions?

Speaking of bosses...

They can be pretty epic...

Look how tiny you are compared to that behemoth! Your party, which can contain up to five adventurers of varying skills and abilities, is always dwarfed by the bosses (and minibosses) of each section. So far, I've only made it to the fourth zone, the ice levels. I'm sure I'll eventually get further, but I'm having a good time, regardless, and earning tons of money.

But what can you spend that money on?

One of the main features of Soda Dungeon is the Soda Bar, where you hire your adventurers to go make you money. You spend that sweet gold on upgrades to the Soda Bar, which let you buy and sell gear, earn money while offline, invite more and stronger adventurers who get buffs depending on the decor and food qualities, and you even end up with a wizard who can warp you to later levels you've beaten so you don't always have to run the dungeon from level 1! At one point, a faintly creepy gladiator guy shows up to let you know you can send a trio of adventurers to die for you in the arena for money. If you want to see how far your loot can take you, that's a fun challenge!

All in all, Soda Dungeon, from AN Productions and Pox Power via Armor Games is a great game, both on Steam and on Mobile, so if you're looking for a free game fix, this is definitely a fun one to play.

And I'm serious about that music being awesome. It really gets you pumped!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 248: Nonogram Wish Stone

In Which I Play A Story-Heavy Puzzle Game!

The mobile game Wish Stone Nonogram from GameFox is a free-to-play puzzle game where you fill in images based on a set of numbers along a grid. I've covered a Nonogram style game before in Nonograms Katana, but this game is quite different in that it has two modes: Story and Free Play. I have only played the Story Mode, so far, but I understand that the Free Play mode gets quite massive...

Yes, that's a city on the back of a flying whale.
Yes, that's important.

Throughout the Story Mode, there are four major parts, each represented by a different character: A King, A Princess, An Adventurer, and what looks to be An Archaeologist. Each character advances the story along via several 5x5 boards of puzzles (25 puzzles per chapter). I believe there are nine or ten chapters per size of each game (10x10, 15x15, 20x20), and each is incredibly detailed. You're literally building the chapter's image with each puzzle solved!

It would seem that this version of the game had not yet introduced the Archaeologist character I have on mine!
You make the image on the right out of different puzzles you solve. This is the King's first chapter rendered in 10x10 tiles!

The story so far has been a tragedy. I'm nearly at the end of the Princess's part of the story and things have gone horribly wrong. It's a standard Monkey's Paw-style plot, but with a great deal of pathos and madness and love and loss and it's really quite engrossing! Who knew the reader would love a game where you get to read a short story after playing a bunch of fun levels?

Speaking of the levels...

So you start the game with 10 hints. I've only used one and that was absolutely by mistake. You have 10 errors you can make per level, after which you start the level over. Errors are marked with a red X, and you can fill in empty spaces with gray X marks. Interestingly enough, you can place X's in error with impunity. Gray X's also appear, filling in gaps, when you place all of the tiles correctly in a row or column. As you can see from the example above (somewhat), the game is pretty simple. Where you see a black number, that's how many filled-in tiles there are in a row or column. Multiple numbers mean that there are spaces between runs of filled-in tiles. In a 10x10 puzzle, you'll usually be thrilled to see 10s or 9s because they're usually pretty easy to fill in. Especially 10s, which you literally just fill all the way in.

You solve your puzzles and eventually get your next chapter or character, learning more of the story as you go, and it's lovely.

The art is beautiful, the fantasy music that plays in the background is pleasant, and there is something addictive about playing these games! I have enjoyed every GameFox game I've downloaded, and while sometimes the ads, which appear between puzzles, can be annoying, I'm just glad that they get paid for their free game. So much effort goes into these interesting games that it would be awful if they didn't get paid.

Wish Stone is definitely a game I strongly recommend you download and play, if you have some time to sink into a story-driven puzzle game, like fantasy, and your fingers aren't too large. If you have sausage fingers, however, you're going to want to invest in a fine-tipped stylus or something, because 25x25 and 30x30 puzzles are brutal on the ol' fingertips...

Go Enjoy Something!
FC