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Games Played in 2021

Since 2014 I've been documenting every time I play a game and what I thought about it during that session. You can see all the previous lists here.

A session can be anywhere from a few minutes to many hours. Sessions that last longer than one block of time (illustrated below) are counted for each block individually. Sessions that cross over a block (like from 2:30 to 4) count towards the one that more time was spent in.

This will be unedited and likely full of typos and misspellings. The descriptions of my sessions may include story spoilers. Any spoilers will NOT be marked.

Here's the break down of the time of day:

Time	Term	Time	Term
12am to 3am	Midnight	Noon to 3pm	Afternoon
3am to 6am	Early Morning	3pm to 6pm	Early Evening
6am to 9am	Morning	6pm to 9pm	Evening
9am to Noon	Late Morning	9pm to 12am	Late Evening

List items

Ara Fell

Played: 1/2. Late Morning. PC Itch. Enjoyed.
~~~
Played: 1/2. Afternoon.
Continuing my playthrough from last year. Got through the Cave of Life and some other side quest stuff. Now all the characters have their upgraded classes.
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Played: 1/3. Early Evening.
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Played: 1/3. Late Evening.
In the Holy Land now and I think the last few areas haven't been as good as the early parts of the game. I'm basically maxed out on my equipment and skills but they just keep presenting me with more items to enhance that stuff (except that danged blessed dust!).
I'm suspecting this game was balanced around it's harder difficulties because I'm having a breeze on normal right now. It's not even a thing.
~~~
Played: 1/4. Early Evening.
In the final area. I missed the 3rd bounty, but I'm not that interested in going back a looking for it. Sometimes the writing in this game could have really used an editor. There's a lot of lines that just draw stuff out.
~~~
Finished: 1/6. Early Evening.
Finished up this game. It's was OK. Good enough to hold my interest but not especially amazing. It has a lot of good ideas that didn't all quite come together in the end.
~~~
Disco Elysium

Played: 1/1. Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
~~~
Played: 1/1. Late Evening.
Continued our playthrough from last year. We're still early in Day 2.
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Played: 1/23. Evening.
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Played: 1/23. Late Evening.
We found out about the 8th Hardie boy and mostly just talked with them. Also got some sweet shades for cool dude who do drugs.
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Played: 2/14. Early Evening.
We gave the body to Kim and explored the Doom Commercial Area.
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Played: 2/18. Evening.
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Played: 2/18. Late Evening.
We explored the apartments mostly.
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Played: 3/7. Late Evening.
We finished up Day 2.
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Played: 3/19. Evening.
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Played: 3/19. Late Evening.
Did everything involving Kalessje and the Hardie Boys. We chose to arrest her.
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Played: 3/25. Evening.
We started to explore the coast.
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Played: 4/10. Late Evening.
We talked to the cryptozooligists. Apparently you can't do the dead boardwalk guy without Kim and that's unfortunate. Ah well...
~~~
Played: 4/13. Late Evening.
We did most of the church stuff.
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Played: 4/16. Late Evening.
We're still on day 3 doing as much as we can. Just finished up the Cryptozooligists and are going to go finish up the church.
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Played: 4/30. Late Evening.
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Played: 6/8. Late Evening.
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Played: 6/11. Evening.
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Played: 7/10. Late Evening.
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Played: 7/11. Midnight.
We're off to see Ruby.
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Played: 8/3. Late Evening.
We scurried passed the tribunal since it did not go well.
~~~
Finished: 8/23. Late Evening.
Finally finished up our second run.
~~~
Final Fantasy V

Started: 1/7. Evening. PC Emulator. Enjoyed.
So This is actually the Career Day randomizer hack. It's really cool, but I don't quite get it. It uses the SNES version and I'm so used to the small QOL stuff in the GBA version. It is pretty wild so far. I set it up so all the shops are free and added some randomized weapons.
~~~
Played: 1/7. Evening.
I found a lot of jobs I've used but not a lot of armor for them in World 1. I did pretty much all I could dungeon-wise in World 1 before realizing I could teleport to World 2 at any point and get access to more shops.
I think I should probably have done this with the 4 job mode, but it's cool. I'm really enjoying it.
~~~
Played: 1/8. Early Evening.
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Played: 1/8. Late Evening.
Got to World 3. Not really sure where to go, but I have two of the 4 tablets.
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Played: 1/9. Early Evening.
I feel like I've checked everything I can except the Void. I guess its time to jump in there.
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Played: 1/9. Evening.
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Finished: 1/9. Late Evening.
I had to check the spoiler log. The last two tablets were at Odin and, of all places, the Antlion location.
~~~
Started: 1/10. Midnight.
I may have started a new run. Already about 2 hours in and two tablets down.
~~~
Played: 1/10. Afternoon.
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Abandoned: 1/10. Early Evening.
This seed had a really rude thing set on another flag I didn't know exist and I spent a long time in areas that were not necessary. Ah well. I had a good team too. My next seed is going to be with the normal racing rules.
~~~
Started: 1/11. Midnight.
Started and then restarted a handful of race seeds. These are already a lot tougher since the shop isn't free. I got screwed by pretty much all of them, but I think I'll stay on my current one. Also I thought you needed the Canal Key to do the ship graveyard, but apparently you don't.
I also have some trouble getting the tracker to work. Had to add it as a legit file in my virus protection.
~~~
Played: 1/16. Early Evening.
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Played: 1/16. Evening.
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Played: 1/16. Late Evening.
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Played: 1/17. Midnight.
Hot Tip: Don't accidentally open the Shinryu box because "yay! Treasure!" after doing most of the void without saving.
~~~
Finished: 1/17. Afternoon.
Beat this run! Took about 4 and half hours and some save stating, but I was able to complete it. I had some good stuff going at the end with X-magic Bahumat then Mimic. Mixing to boost levels then Gil Toss. Made for a pretty easy Ted/Ned fight. I was pretty resources slim though.
~~~
Started: 1/20. Evening.
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Played: 1/20. Late Evening.
Played about two hours into the seed of the week and it was rude. I don't think I'll finish this one since it's got jobs that I'm just not familiar with.
~~~
Slay the Spire

Played: 1/23. Afternoon. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 1/23. Evening.
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Played: 1/23. Late Evening.
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Played: 1/24. Midnight.
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Played: 1/24. Afternoon.
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Played: 1/23. Early Evening.
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Played: 1/28. Midnight.
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Played: 1/30. Afternoon.
Tried the daily and got destroyed by the act 3 boss.
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Played: 1/30. Early Evening.
I BEAT THE DANG HEART!!! with the Ironclad using a block and anger/rage focused deck.
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Played: 2/2. Evening.
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Played: 2/15. Late Evening.
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Played: 2/16. Evening.
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Played: 2/20. Evening.
Trying to beat the heart with the Silent and keep getting like half way through the fight.
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Played: 2/20. Late Evening.
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Played: 2/21. Late Morning.
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Played: 2/21. Afternoon.
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Played: 2/21. Evening.
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Played: 2/28. Morning.
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Played: 2/28. Late Evening.
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Played: 3/6. Late Morning.
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Played: 3/7. Late Morning.
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Played: 3/7. Late Evening.
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Played: 3/13. Early Evening.
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Played: 3/14. Evening.
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Played: 4/11. Midnight.
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Played: 4/11. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/16. Afternoon.
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Played: 4/16. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/17. Evening.
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Played: 4/17. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/18. Evening.
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Played: 4/19. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/20. Afternoon.
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Played: 4/20. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/20. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/21. Afternoon.
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Played: 4/21. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/25. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/26. Morning.
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Played: 5/27. Afternoon.
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Played: 5/29. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/29. Afternoon.
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Played: 5/30. Late Morning.
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Played: 5/30. Evening.
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Played: 5/31. Late Morning.
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Played: 6/2. Afternoon.
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Played: 6/3. Late Morning.
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Played: 6/6. Afternoon.
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Played: 6/11. Late Evening.
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Played: 6/15. Early Morning.
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Played: 6/21. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/13. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/13. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/13. Midnight.
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Played: 11/14. Midnight.
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Played: 11/14. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/23. Evening.
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Played: 11/23. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/24. Midnight.
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Played: 11/24. Midnight.
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Played: 11/25. Midnight.
~~~
Monster Sanctuary

Started: 1/30. Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
So this game is one part SMT/pokemon styled jRPG and one part metroidvania. It seems pretty cool so far. Reminds me of a DS game that had a similar concept minus the turn based combat. I love my blob called Robert The Slim due to character limitations.
~~~
Played: 1/31. Late Morning.
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Played: 1/31. Afternoon.
Beat the blue caves area and got double jump, but lost against the other trainer guy. He just had so much DOT.
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Played: 1/31. Afternoon.
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Played: 1/31. Early Evening.
Part of me feels like I should be grinding more, but maybe that's just my natural RPG tendencies.
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Played: 1/31. Late Evening.
Looks like the evolution stuff in this game requires looking stuff up if you don't want to try to figure it out on your own. That kinda sucks.
~~~
Played: 2/6. Evening.
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Played: 2/6. Late Evening.
Exploring the snowy area. Some of the platforming in this game is rude in a way that it shouldn't be. There was a vertical hallway with a Mega Man styled blind fall with a bunch of spikes on the walls in the sewer and that sucks.
The combat is really cool though. I really like the battle system a lot.
~~~
Played: 2/7. Late Morning.
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Played: 2/7. Afternoon.
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Played: 2/7. Early Evening.
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Played: 2/7. Late Evening.
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Played: 2/13. Late Morning.
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Played: 2/13. Afternoon.
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Played: 2/13. Early Evening.
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Played: 2/14. Late Morning.
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Played: 2/14. Evening.
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Nioh 2

Started: 2/5. Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 2/5. Late Evening.
For some reason I thought this game would be much less technical than it is. Something more like Code Vein. But that's not the case. There's so much and it's quite overwhelming, but I spent a good hour in the character creator and am poking around the first area. It seems cool. I don't know how much I'll play, but I'm liking what I played so far.
~~~
Loop Hero

Started: 3/21. Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 3/21. Late Evening.
Lots of folks were talking about this game and it's alright. It doesn't explain itself but I was able to figure out most of it well enough to beat the first act.
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Played: 3/27. Afternoon.
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Played: 3/27. Early Evening.
Unlocked the Nercomancer and they seem like way better than the other two jobs. Way more interesting anyway.
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Played: 3/27. Early Evening.
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Played: 3/27. Evening.
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Played: 3/27. Late Evening.
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Played: 3/28. Midnight.
I think I might be done with this game. The main loop is not really very interesting.
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Played: 3/28. Afternoon.
Tried a bit as the Rogue and it was OK. I don't know. I was just bored. I did unlock crafting and junk, but the trickle of new mechanics is tooooooo sloooooooow.
~~~
Final Fantasy IV

Started: 3/28. Early Evening. PC Emulator (GBA). Enjoyed.
I was watching a lot of FF4 Free Enterprise rando streams and decided to play through it. I don't know why but I chose the GBA version. It's awkward. Especially compared to the FFV GBA version which is great.
~~~
Played: 3/28. Evening.
Played up til Paladin Cecil.
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Played: 3/29. Evening.
Played up to getting into Baron.
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Played: 3/30. Evening.
Playing a tiny bit at a time. Just got the Enterprise.
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Played: 4/2. Evening.
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Played: 4/2. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/3. Early Evening.
Got up to where I have Edge now and basically the final party. I know that Kain leaves at some point and I'll get FuSoYa briefly, but whatever.
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Played: 4/4. Late Morning.
Back in the underworld.
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Played: 4/4. Evening.
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Played: 4/17. Late Evening.
I think I don't like this game actually haha.
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Played: 4/27. Late Evening.
Ok. I went back to this and did the two underground dungeons. I still need to go and smack yang with the frying pan. Then make the Excalibur. Then raise the whale. I'm about 15 hours into it and like, wow, this game is short and that's good.
~~~
Played: 4/30. Midnight.
Now in the Giant of Babel after doing all the stuff on the moon. Wasn't able to heal beforehand so that's great. Guess I should have read ahead. Ah well.
~~~
Played: 5/5. Midnight.
~~~
Trials of Fire

Played: 4/14. Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
Heard about this game on the Waypoint podcast. Seems cool so far. The UI graphics could use some work though.
~~~
Played: 4/14. Late Evening.
Ok I beat it on easy and ooooh man that final battle came down to the wire. I was just barely able to beat the monster. This game is cool, but it's very complex. A bit more complex than what I am typically looking for from a game like this. It's good though. I don't think it will replace StS as my "I just want to focus on something while I listen to a podcast" game though.
~~~
Played: 4/17. Late Evening.
Did the water gem quest on easy. Easy is probably a bit too easy for me as I'm not having much trouble at all, but it's been good to learn the mechanics and terms of the game.
~~~
Mixolumia

Played: 4/20. Late Evening. PC Itch. Enjoyed.
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Played: 4/21. Midnight.
Was looking for something to get back into and didn't want to start something new. Gosh I love this game. I didn't beat any of my high scores but that feeling of intense focus was there and wonderful.
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Played: 4/21. Early Evening.
Played some new songs I found in the community. They were very good.
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Played: 4/21. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/22. Midnight.
I got so close to unlocking Impossible mode by getting 3,998,669 points of the 4million that I needed!! I love this game.
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Played: 4/22. Early Morning.
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Played: 4/22. Afternoon.
New Endless high score!!
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Played: 4/22. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/23. Midnight.
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Played: 4/23. Afternoon.
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Played: 4/23. Evening.
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Played: 4/23. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/24. Midnight.
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Played: 4/24. Midnight.
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Played: 4/24. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/25. Evening.
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Played: 4/25. Late Evening.
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Played: 4/26. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/27. Midnight.
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Played: 4/27. Evening.
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Played: 4/28. Early Evening.
UNLOCKED IMPOSSIBLE MODE! It's very hard haha. I had to change my controls a bit.
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Played: 4/28. Evening.
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Played: 4/29. Midnight.
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Played: 4/29. Midnight.
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Played: 4/29. Afternoon.
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Played: 4/29. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/30. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/30. Early Evening.
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Played: 4/30. Evening.
New Endless High Score!! Just over 9 Mill. Trying to break 10 mil. That's my Endless Goal. I want to break 5 Mill in Intense.
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Played: 4/30. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/2. Midnight.
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Played: 5/2. Early Evening.
BROKE TEN MILLION IN ENDLESS! woooo!
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Played: 5/2. Evening.
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Played: 5/2. Late Evening.
This is such a good podcast game.
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Played: 5/3. Midnight.
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Played: 5/4. Midnight.
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Played: 5/4. Midnight.
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Played: 5/4. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/4. Early Evening.
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Played: 5/5. Midnight.
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Played: 5/5. Early Evening.
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Played: 5/6. Midnight.
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Played: 5/6. Afternoon.
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Played: 5/6. Evening.
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Played: 5/6. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/7. Early Morning.
Slowly crawling my endless high score up. Got something like 100k more than my previous one.
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Played: 5/8. Midnight.
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Played: 5/9. Midnight.
Broke 12 mill in Endless.
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Played: 5/9. Midnight.
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Played: 5/9. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/9. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/10. Midnight.
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Played: 5/10. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/11. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/12. Midnight.
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Played: 5/12. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/12. Early Evening.
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Played: 5/12. Early Evening.
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Played: 5/13. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/13. Morning.
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Played: 5/13. Late Morning.
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Played: 5/14. Afternoon.
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Played: 5/14. Early Evening.
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Played: 5/15. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/15. Morning.
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Played: 5/15. Early Evening.
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Played: 5/15. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/15. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/16. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/16. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/16. Morning.
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Played: 5/16. Evening.
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Played: 5/16. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/18. Midnight.
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Played: 5/18. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/19. Morning.
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Played: 5/20. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/20. Morning.
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Played: 5/21. Midnight.
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Played: 5/21. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/22. Midnight.
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Played: 5/22. Morning.
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Played: 5/22. Evening.
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Played: 5/23. Late Morning.
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Played: 5/23. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/24. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/24. Morning.
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Played: 5/24. Late Evening.
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Played: 5/25. Midnight.
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Played: 5/25. Late Morning.
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Played: 5/26. Early Morning.
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Played: 5/29. Midnight.
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Played: 11/27. Early Morning.
Coming back to this after months of not playing it and getting 12 million in Endless feels good.
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Played: 11/27. Early Morning.
was grinding out Intense. Trying to break 5 million there.
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Played: 11/27. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/28. Late Morning.
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Played: 11/28. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/29. Midnight.
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Played: 11/29. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/30. Morning.
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Played: 11/30. Late Morning.
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Played: 11/30. Afternoon.
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Played: 11/30. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/2. Morning.
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Played: 12/2. Late Morning.
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Played: 12/2. Afternoon.
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Played: 12/3. Midnight.
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Played: 12/3. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/3. Early Evening.
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Played: 12/7. Afternoon.
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Played: 12/7. Evening.
I think I missed recording some sessions here. Whoops.
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Played: 12/7. Evening.
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Played: 12/7. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/9. Late Evening.
NEW ENDLESS PB!! over 23mil. Totally choked once I realized it.
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Played: 12/10. Midnight.
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Played: 12/10. Late Morning.
NEW ENDLESS PB!!! over 39 mil!
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Played: 12/10. Early Evening.
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Played: 12/10. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/11. Afternoon.
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Played: 12/13. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/14. Midnight.
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Played: 12/15. Midnight.
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Played: 12/15. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/15. Evening.
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Played: 12/16. Morning.
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Played: 12/16. Afternoon.
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Played: 12/16. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/22. Midnight.
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Played: 12/23. Midnight.
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Played: 12/25. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/26. Midnight.
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Played: 12/26. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/27. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/27. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/28. Midnight.
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Played: 12/28. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/29. Midnight.
Trying to get 5 mil in Intense. Could not even break 3.5 mil. Dang.
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Played: 12/29. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/31. Midnight.
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Played: 12/31. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/31. Morning.
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Star Traders: Frontiers

Started: 6/9. Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
I was reminded this game exists and has been out of early access for quite some time so I decided to check it out. It still seems cool, but oh man is there no real tutorial.
~~~
Played: 6/13. Early Evening.
This game can just really go once you get into it. It's cool though. I am a little lost on some of the missions unfortunately. I think they could be better about that stuff.
~~
Played: 6/13. Evening.
~~~
Played: 6/13. Late Evening.
So I restarted to just sort of learn the mechanics better and it was going extremely well. However, I got a mission that seemed to end if the ship I need to blockade escaped and it did... I have very little money too.
My crew on this game is VERY loyal though. Extremely. They almost all have a trait where if there's a mutiny then they're on my side.
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Played: 6/14. Evening.
I'm not doing the story. I'm just doing missions for one guy mostly and it was going extremely well for the most part. Unfortunately the faction I'm allied with is small and spread out to the point where I can't really travel between their stars without going through territory of factions that HATE me. I may restart again, but this was good as it let me figure out the game more.
~~~
Played: 6/17. Late Evening.
~~~
Wildermyth

Started: 6/23. Early Morning. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
Watched a stream or two of this and decided to pick it up. It's pretty cool. My warrior turned into a wolfman. I also appreciate that you can savescum.
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Played: 6/24. Midnight.
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Played: 6/24. Early Morning.
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Played: 6/24. Morning.
Opps played this game for like 6 hours. I finished the first campaign and started the second. My party is extreme cool and all about getting bonuses to damage when they're near stuff. I have a mage who is basically all about melee attacks instead and can deal 15+ damage when she attacks. She's also a crow lady now.
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Played: 6/28. Midnight.
Getting through my 2nd campaign. My one really good character is about to retire, ah well. I can't seem to figure out my objective though.
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Played: 8/21. Early Morning.
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Played: 8/21. Morning.
Was bored and looking for something to do, so I decide restart the second campaign of this. It's going extremely well.
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Played: 8/21. Late Evening.
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Played: 8/22. Midnight.
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Played: 8/22. Early Morning.
Finished up the second campaign and had a lot of fun. By the end I had three generations in the final mission. That was super cool.
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Played: 8/22. Early Morning.
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Played: 8/22. Morning.
Started the third campaign and found it really hard at the start, but now it's going pretty well. It certainly tougher than the other two.
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Played: 8/22. Late Morning.
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Played: 8/25. Morning.
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Played: 8/25. Morning.
Finished the 3rd campaign. It was alright, but the last two chapters were basically just "here's the mission, do it when you'd like to!!" and that wasn't super interesting. I guess I could have used that to level up my characters, but I didn't need to.
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Played: 10/18. Morning.
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Played: 10/18. Late Morning.
Started the 4th campaign. It seems really cool so far. Got 2 chapters in.
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Played: 10/19. Early Morning.
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Played: 10/19. Morning.
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Played: 10/19. Late Morning.
Played this game until it started to slow down and have trouble running haha. I got a character to max level and he's a beast. I can just set him some where he'll take out like 20 guys. It's great. Right now I'm lacking good AOE but it's ok. My teams are all pretty strong. All I need to do is finish the last mission (I think) in the chapter.
~~~
Played: 10/19. Early Evening.
Finished up the fourth campaign and, it was so good!! I may bump up the difficulty because by the end it was really easy to the point I was playing very sloppy, but I had a lot of very strong and well built characters,
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Played: 10/20. Early Morning.
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Played: 10/20. Morning.
Started the fifth campaign and it seems really cool so far. I also changed the difficulty settings to easy on the overworld and hard in combat. Seems pretty good so far.
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Played: 10/23. Early Evening.
~~~
Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth-

Started: 7/4. Late Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
This game seems cool so far. Really pretty art, interesting mechanics. The story so far is whatever though.
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Played: 7/5. Midnight.
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Played: 7/5. Early Morning.
I don't have much to say about this game. It's seems solid so far. The switching mechanic is fine. I don't think it's particularly interesting as of yet, but it's cool that you can make yourself invincible to certain attacks/etc. This is a game that punishes you for getting hit even once which is a bit annoying. I'm doing fine though. I like the hover jump and the way the bow is used. The story is pretty much nothing. I'm fairly certain I know where it is heading. Which is fine. That's not what I'm hear for.
~~~
Played: 7/5. Early Evening.
I think I'm pretty far into this game now. I just beat a big dark dragon. This game absolutely does the Castlevania hallway where it's just a large long mostly empty hallway with the same two enemies pasted every so often.
I wish there was more variety in the weapons. So far the best thing I picked up was a boomerang and a bow that shoots three shots instead of one. I just now got a short sword that is strong and a bow that shoots 5 though.
So far my opinion of this game is "it's solid, but kinda expected." I don't know there's just so many of these styled games that it doesn't really stand out other than it's art. I really wish there were more Metroid styled rather than Castlevania styled games.
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Finished: 7/5. Late Evening.
This game is fairly short, but it was pretty good all around. Nothing super amazing outside of it's art and music. The story was pretty much what I expected.
~~~
Vigil: The Longest Night

Started: 7/16. Midnight. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
~~~
Played: 7/16. Early Morning.
This game was sitting in my library for a while. Decided to finally give it a shot. It seems like a really cool 2D soulsike. I think the bosses are a little tough, but I like the moving around. I do wish it had the more typical souls style death mechanic. Having to just reload your last save kinda sucks. I also haven't found any magic yet though it says it exists. That's a big unfortunate.
I got to a boss that did not have a save point before it in an area that was pretty large. It does have consumable save anywhere items. I should have probably used one. Ah well.
~~~
Played: 7/16. Morning.
The boss I was at was some kinda of end of act 1 boss. I had to refight it after I realized I failed some side quests. I went back and did them all. Then beat the boss and then... I guess was transported like 100 years? The town is a lot bigger/different now and that's cool.
~~~
Played: 7/16. Late Evening.
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Played: 7/17. Midnight.
This game feels massive at the moment. I'm probably over exploring, but that's my nature. I'm trying to do all the side quests I can. I also realized that I could switch to dpad movement, which, thank god! Especially since now I have the dash ability and it's basically impossible for me to do it on an analog stick.
~~~
Played: 7/17. Early Morning.
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Played: 7/17. Evening.
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Played: 7/17. Late Evening.
This game feels extremely massive, but I must be at least 2/3rd through it by now. I think I found my build of heavy axe and magic. I got one that synergizes well with that and has a really cool special attack. Previously I was using the scythe from the Act 1 boss and then I got a rad hammer, but the axe I got now just lets me boost all the spells I've found. I further boosted the arcane stat on it.
This game does commit one major sin. You double tap to dash and now that I"m playing with the d-pad, I find myself dashing when I don't want to and not dashing when I do want to.
I also found a secret boss that destroyed me, by dash jumping on to a ledge, but I couldn't pull it off a second time no matter how many times I tried.
~~~
Played: 7/18. Late Morning.
~~~
Played: 7/18. Afternoon.
Basically at the end of Act 2. I got an airdash. There's still ALOT of the map I have yet to explore and I think I will do that before going on.
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Played: 7/18. Evening.
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Played: 7/20. Early Morning.
I cleared out most of Act 2. Still cleaning up some side quest stuff. I really don't like the ocarina zones.
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Played: 7/24. Early Evening.
In the final act. Apparently there is a beta branch of this game with more content but I didn't download it. Ah well. I'm satisfied. The last few bosses have been extremely rude though, I gotta say. I got up to the Bird Boss, which I assume is the 2nd to last. And it looks like this guy had instant death in their arena so that's great. My main strat has been using the bird magic.
~~~
Finished: 7/25. Morning.
I only had two bosses left when I played last. So I beat it! It was pretty good over all. The Final Boss was super easy though. Like I killed it off screen without ever seeing it attack. Whoops.
~~~
Ghost Song: A Journey of Hope

Played: 7/24. Morning. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
The dev asked folks on twitter for feedback on a recent demo. This game is extremely cool, but still a little rough. I'm excited for when it actually comes out. It's a rare mix of Dark Souls and Actually Metroid.
~~~
Orcs Must Die! 3

Started: 7/25. Afternoon. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 7/25. Early Evening.
WHoooopps played this for 6 HOURS straight. It's extremely good so far. Feels like putting on a familiar glove.
~~~
Played: 7/25. Late Evening.
The larger levels are TOUGH. The new dynamite crossbow orcs are RUDE.
~~~
Played: 7/26. Morning.
Destroyed the 2nd War map by making an incredibly tiny killbox plus the new turret. Very satisfying. The next level I had a really good kill box, but it took a little too long booo.
~~~
Played: 7/26. Afternoon.
Oh this game gets really brutal as it goes on, huh? I got to a level where I don't even know what to do to survive the first wave.
~~~
Played: 7/26. Early Evening.
I did the tower war map and had an incredible set up, but the boss ran up the opposite side then the one I was using. Geez! I think I can do the same on the other side but it needs to be higher up and that's not great.
~~~
Played: 7/27. Morning.
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Played: 7/27. Afternoon.
Only got two more levels in the main campaign. Games tough! I suspect once you beat it you can play as more characters and I suspect I will like them more. Right now I've been using the girl and she's fine, but I did a weekly as Max and I think his double jump is more useful.
~~~
Played: 7/27. Early Evening.
I'm on the 2nd to last campaign level and OH boy is it tough.
~~~
Played: 7/28. Afternoon.
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Played: 7/28. Evening.
Tried the final level and it is rough! I would have done it but I messed up reading the map in Wave 4 and didn't see that all the rifts would be open. WHOOPS.
Then I tried the Scramble mode and it seems cool... to do with multiple people. It was a little too hectic.
~~~
Played: 7/29. Morning.
Messed up late into the final level again. Yeesh. I think I have a better idea for a strategy though.
~~~
Played: 7/29. Early Evening.
Finished up the main campaign! It was pretty good. I'm surprised there were no boss units at the end though. Now I'm focusing on just unlocking everything in spell book then going to do the second campaign and then I don't know. I guess endless and high scores. Maybe I'll see if I could find a co-op partner.
~~~
Played: 7/31. Late Morning.
I did the first level of the 2nd campaign and realized I didn't have any of my dang traps upgraded. No wonder it was so hard. haha.
Then I did the weekly map and it was a lot fun.
~~~
Played: 7/31. Early Evening.
The 2nd campaign is extremely hard geeez.
~~~
Played: 8/1. Late Morning.
Tried the 2nd endless level and I thought I was doing really well until I wasn't hahaha.
~~~
Played: 10/5. Early Morning.
Jumped back into this after watching the Waypoint streams. I was able to finish the third level of the 2nd campaign, but it was ROUGH. The 4th is absurd. haha. I have no idea way to do there. I did get some wonky pathing issues with it though. Maybe I could try flip traps...
~~~
Played: 10/5. Morning.
Decided to go back to get 5 skulls on a level I didn't while listening to a podcast. Didn't have the bandwidth to do it for multiple levels though.
~~~
Indie

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Skippy The Robot
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Played: 8/6. Afternoon. PC Browser. Enjoyed.
This was a little game made for the 5 year anniversary of AM2R. It was a cute little physics platformer. Nothing much to write home about it. I bet the speedruns will be fun to watch though.
~~~
~~~~~~~
Ruin Valley
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Played: 8/17. Early Morning. PC Itch. Enjoyed.
This was a demo for a very pretty looking precision platformer styled metroidvania. I liked what was there. I'll keep an eye out for it.
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~~~~~~~
Psycron
~~~~~~~
Started: 8/19. Late Evening. PC Steam. Mixed.
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Played: 8/20. Midnight.
I saw this retweeted by the dev of AM2R and it was cheap so I decided to pick it up. It's not that great unfortunately. The main issue I'm having with it is the boss battles. The first one was particularly bad. Mostly because it was very heavily RNG but also didn't drop much health. The 2nd wasn't nearly as bad and was a lot better of a fight overall. It did have an annoying chase sequence after it though, but it wasn't too hard.
The level design is quite good. It loops around and gives you multiple routes to places. It'll also do the thing where it introduces a concept in a harmless spot before putting it in a more challenging area much of the time. Which is nice.
~~~
Played: 8/20. Early Morning.
Mixed is very apt for this game. It's just ok, nothing special. In some ways kinda bad. I'm very close to the end I think. There was a massive room I found in the 3rd area but it required some really demanding platforming that reset you if you failed and I'm just not interested in that stuff at all.
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~~~~~~~~
Cute Bite
~~~~~~~~
Started: 9/5. Morning. PC Itch. Enjoyed
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Played: 9/5. Late Morning.
This game is rad. I loved the handful of other games I've played by this dev and this one is no different. Maybe a little on the easy side. The start was pretty rough and I had to restart a whole bunch, but once I got into the rhythm of things and boosted my stats enough I've been having a pretty easy time of it. It's very much a "one more turn" sort of game. I've gotten a handful of endings, but am still about 50 days away from the time limit.
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Finished: 9/5. Early Evening.
Hrmm I thought there would be a special thing that happens once you get to the end of the days, but no, not really. It's the same cutscene. The time limit is just there to pressure you to do stuff. That's a little disappointing, but ah well.
~~~
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Zelda Randomizer Sudoko
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Started: 9/10. Early Evening. PC Browser. Enjoyed.
This one is absolutely bonkers. It's sudoku but also Zelda: OoT. When you complete a square (3x3 cells) you unlock a chest which can have random items such as bombs, bow and arrow, etc. OR songs that unlock dungeons. The dungeons are whole new sudoku puzzles that then have they're own rules and gimmicks. Also there are cells around the board that are blocked. You use items you get from chests to unblock them. You can still solve the puzzle though, but they're missing information.
The two places I've unlocked are the Shadow and Water Temple. The Water temple isn't so bad. It's gimmick is pretty easy to understand. The Shadow Temple, on the other hand, is wild. The numbers that are displayed are LIES. You have to figure out what each are by turning them on and off. I cannot wrap my head around it.
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Played: 9/10. Evening.
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Played: 9/10. Late Evening.
Accidentally restarted thinking it would give me a brand new puzzle. It didn't. So I had to redo things. I misread how the Shadow Temple works and was actually able to figure it out and unlocked two more temples, the fire temple which I haven't touched and the Spirit temple which... I think my puzzle might be broken? Unless the puzzle that was generated happened to make two solvable puzzles that don't take the gimmick into account.
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Finished: 9/11. Late Morning.
I solved the puzzle! It was pretty cool. It seems there's just the one puzzle though and that's a bit disappointing. I could definitely see myself doing this regularly.
~~~
~~~~~~
Boreal Tenebrae
~~~~~~
Started: 10/6. Evening. PC Itch. Enjoyed.
Was looking for a game to play with my partner and this was on the list. It was a bit too visual busy for her motion sickness so it is unfortunately not a good pick, but it seems interesting. I may play through it on my own.
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~~~~~~
Stake or Don't
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Played: 11/15. Afternoon. PC Standalone. Neutral.
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Played: 11/16. Midnight.
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Played: 11/16. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/16. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/16. Morning.
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Played: 11/16. Evening.
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Played: 11/16. Evening.
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Played: 11/16. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/17. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/17. Early Evening.
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Played: 11/17. Evening.
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Played: 11/17. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/18. Late Morning.
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Played: 11/18. Afternoon.
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Played: 11/18. Early Evening.
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Played: 11/19. Midnight.
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Played: 11/19. Evening.
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Played: 11/21. Early Morning.
I'm finally getting better at this game.
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Played: 11/21. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/22. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/23. Midnight.
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Played: 11/23. Evening.
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Played: 11/25. Midnight.
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Played: 11/25. Morning.
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Played: 11/26. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/26. Late Morning.
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Axiom Verge 2

Started: 8/11. Late Evening. PC EGS. Enjoyed.
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Played: 8/12. Midnight.
I was pretty mixed overall on the first game. It looked cool, but I didn't like the way it controlled or the obtuseness of the secrets. So far AV2 seems much of the same, especially where the controls come in. That's a bit disappointing, but I am enjoying what I've played so far. I will say that the focus on melee combat is a bit surprising. It's sort of sold that you can largely avoid combat, but enemies chase you down for a VERY long time and you often have to travel multiple rooms for them to reset. Not exactly a game about pacifism. I have avoided killing bosses largely because the upgrade points you get from them seem so incremental that I do not notice their benefit yet. Maybe I should have just saved them for health upgrades.
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Played: 8/12. Early Morning.
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Played: 8/12. Morning.
So I discovered something annoying about this game and then discovered a solution. You can rebind ability slots to different buttons, however, certain ability slots are tied to certain UI functions such as fast traveling on the map. However there is another way to set different abilities on different buttons. You can just change what ability is in what slot. I didn't realize I could do that until I had the situation above.
Outside of that annoyance, I am enjoying the game. It's really opened up and I have a lot of areas I can explore. The multi-layer map idea is interesting even if it's just the light/dark world from LttP. It's cool. I'm assuming there will be more than just the 4 worlds to explore (even though I can only really explore 2 right now).
The fact that you can just avoid boss battles and the fact that they just give you upgrade points makes me feel like they're just not necessary at all. None of them have been particularly difficult or interesting (outside of their appearance). It's kind of a shame such good art is under-utilized on that mechanic.
A lot of the normal enemies are really annoying to fight. Especially with the focus on short range/melee. The boomerrang doesn't really cut it. I assume there will be some sort of cool moment when you get a more traditional weapon, but who knows.
So far I think the story has been a bit easier to follow, even though I'm not paying super close attention to it. I have kinda stopped reading all the notes I've been picking up. Mostly because I'm sleepy, but also I was listening to podcasts and didn't want to pause them.
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Played: 8/12. Early Evening.
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"Finished": 8/12. Evening.
Ok I got an ending, but it was very much not a true ending. I'm going to have to look up what that is. I did end up with 94% of the map and 80% of the items though, so not too bad on my casual play though. I did enjoy it a lot more than the first game.
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Played: 8/12. Late Evening.
Did some secret hunting and was able to find a lot of other stuff. Apparently the npcs turn into monsters if you exhaust their dialogue I guess. What I have left seems to be mostly just health pieces and upgrade points. Maybe a few weapon upgrades. I have a lot of areas where the map is full but I haven't found all the items.
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Played: 8/13. Midnight.
OK. I think I am done done. I went over a lot of the map and found almost everything. I'm at 99% map, 94% items. There does not seem to be super obtuse secrets in this one like the first had. Or if there is then it's just upgrades and health pieces. I do gotta imagine there's a better ending though.
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Played: 8/13. Early Morning.
...I just need two more items for 100% items... I know what zones they're in, but I can't seem to pin down where they are. I just need 1 upgrade point and 1 small health piece.
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Finished: 8/13. Morning.
I just asked how to get those two items on reddit and now got them and got 100% on everything. There is an extra scene for getting everything and it's a much better ending with that extra scene. I think the story is better than the first games. Indra is a shitty CEO and it's reflected in her choices. The twist where the her body double still seems to have her in it actually is a lot better than "oh you're just a clone of the original Trace" (especially since that particular twist was done a lot and in multiple games when AV1 had come out).
Still a little disappointed by the final boss fight. It's just so simple and uninteresting. I do like that you can't lose it though.
Super Metroid

Started: 8/18. Early Morning. PC Emulator. Enjoyed.
OK I have a lot of feelings about this game that I can't put into this tiny textbox. The reason I'm replaying it is because Waypoint is starting their Waypoint 101 on it and I wanted to get ahead of them. I know this game toooooo well, but can't actually pull off many of the sequence breaks/tricks. I did try some. I can't do the mach ball to get supers early or anything like that. But I was able to get Spazer and Wave early. I played until I got Speedbooster here but will likely play it more today.
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Played: 8/18. Morning.
I'm through the Wrecked Ship now and I gotta say I think this game is even better designed than I realized. Getting the Wave beam early meant I didn't need to get power bombs, so I could get the grapple beam earlier. Probably is you need power bombs to get to the grapple beam at the very end. But they cleverly put some in the area above where you get that. Now, normally you would need the grapple beam to get those power bombs, but they also cleverly put an enemy spawner so you could refill your resources after the miniboss. You can use those enemies to make a platform with the ice beam and jump up to the door. I don't know if that was an intended alternative but they had to know about what sort of sequence breaking you could do with the wall jump. It's still an amazingly good bit of a design regardless.
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Played: 8/18. Late Morning.
So the grapple beam feels terrible and sucks a whole bunch. Like I hate that it gets completely replace by space jump, but it feels so bad to use. Like the swinging does not transfer momentum in the way you think it should. So you'll let go and just drop some times. Also the quicksand feels wonky too. I love the atmosphere of Maridia but the zone is a lot more forced and wonky then I remember it. At least I have space jump now and can go anywhere. Just need SPRING BALL. I've not been getting 100%. Not really interested in that, but I'll collect what I want too.
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Played: 8/18. Evening.
I remember as a kid that the space jump felt awkward, but, maybe it's the version I'm playing, it feels extremely bad. The "spin jump" or "not spin jump" condition is super unclear to me and is something they fixed in the later metroid games. I remember Maridia feeling much more open than it actually is. It's actually very linear.
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Finished: 8/18. Late Evening.
My opinion has cooled on this game considerably, mostly due to the controls being wonky. Of course it was a game from 94 and that stuff hadn't really been figured out. This game is still super important and I still think that the GBA games are not as good for a number of reason I will not get into here.
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Metroid II: Return of Samus

AM2R
Started: 8/29. Early Morning. PC Standalone. Enjoyed.
I found out this game has a randomizer but you have to beat it in under 4 hours. There's no way I could do that yet, so I decided to do a causal play through instead. It's so good!! There's been a lot of post launch work done to it by other people and there seems to be some new content that I don't remember.
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Played: 8/29. Late Morning.
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Played: 8/29. Afternoon.
Got pretty far into it. Got powerbombs and am now in the water area. I love that each area has it's own unique theme but are also connected to other areas narratively. Like the water in area 2 is used to cool the power plant in the area below it.
Also the fact that the powerbomb escape is fake is good actually.
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Played: 8/29. Early Evening.
I got basically everything that I can get outside of one pack of supers that's really annoying to get.
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Played: 8/30. Morning.
Got to the Queen Metroid and UHHHH this fight is extremely difficult haha.
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Finished: 8/31. Early Morning.
Beat the Queen Metroid. The fight is very intense, but actually pretty simple. I was able to do it in one.
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Played: 8/31. Afternoon.
Decided to play some of the Randomizer while listening to a podcast just to see how it was. It's pretty cool. I got basically every item in the first area. haha. Gravity Suit, supers, bombs, power bombs, every beam but spazer (which I got in area 2). I guess the goal is still to kill all the metroids, but I just wanted to check it out.
Final Fantasy VI

Started: 9/11. Evening. PC Emulator. Neutral.
I was watching World Collides races and decided I should play this game again for myself. Didn't do much this session.
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Played: 9/12. Afternoon. Enjoyed.
So I played for a little bit. Up to having Edgar, Locke, and Terra and then decided I would stop there and went to save it in my emulator only to hit load instead and that put me all the way back at mog cave. Not really a major lost I guess, but enough for me to likely stop playing, at least for now.
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Played: 9/12. Afternoon.
Played back up to where I was.
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Played: 9/14. Midnight.
Got Sabin.
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Deathloop

Started: 9/14. Late Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 9/15. Midnight.
I'm usually not interested in this sort of game, but something about the concept and my current mood attracted me to it. I played it for 5 hours straight and enjoyed my time with it. I have a tendency to explore a lot in these sorts of games and that's basically what I did. I found two purple guns in the Complex area.
So far my favorite weapon in the nail gun. Though I do have a purple pepper gun and it seems pretty good.
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Played: 9/15. Afternoon.
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Played: 9/15. Early Evening.
This game is cool. I don't have a lot to say about it.
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Played: 9/15. Evening.
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Played: 9/15. Late Evening.
Still don't have much to say about it. It's good. I wish it gave me 1 hard save each level.
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Played: 9/16. Midnight.
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Played: 9/16. Early Morning.
Had my first crash. Shame. Ah well!
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Played: 9/16. Early Evening.
Found a purple nail gun. Basically running with a silence SMG, nail gun, and the auto shotgun.
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Played: 9/17. Early Morning.
I think I'm about half way through this game at the moment. There's a lot of little side puzzles that I'm getting distracted by but I think I'll switch to just mainlining the plot missions
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Played: 9/17. Late Evening.
The game is not really much of the clockwork world it bills itself as. It's actually pretty simple.
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Played: 9/18. Late Evening. Mixed.
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Played: 9/19. Midnight.
I think this game is kinda middling to be honest. It's just OK. Not super great or interesting. Doesn't really do what it claims. I think I will just look up a guide to finish it because that's where I am at this point.
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Played: 9/19. Late Evening.
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Finished: 9/20. Midnight.
Beat it. It's OK. A solid 3/5. The last loop was such a check list and I wish there were multiple ways to take out all the targets, but that's not what the game is. It sort of billed itself as that and that would have been really cool, but that's not what it is. The game has some cool polish here and there and is far from the worst game I've played. On the evening I even took out the three targets in a kinda fun but very easy way. I happened to trigger the alarm that caused Akelsis to roam and I got him withe Nexus. Then the other two I got with a prox mine and sent Wenji off the roof.
The ending itself is whatever. It's what I expected. No real closure and they had to do the "kill yourself to progress" cliche because of course.
~~~
Get in the Car, Loser!

Started: 9/23. Evening. PC Itch. Mixed.
I don't think I enjoy this game. The writing is irreverent and sometimes meta in a way I just don't like. The battle music has lyrics that you hear over and over again since the game is pretty much just battles. The music itself is good though. The battle system is pretty uhh... I don't know. It's not very interesting or like communicated very well. I don't know don't where to look and I just want to rush down everything because that seems like the only strategy there is? The loop to doing the big sword attack is kinda repetitive too. I don't see why I would want taunt as a skill at the moment since it just drastically lowers my DPS, but I don't have the equipment to replace it nor have I seen a shop in like 10+ battles.
Maybe it gets better when I have the fourth character or more equipment.
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Played: 9/24. Midnight.
I'm in Act 2 now and have my fourth party member. Some of the writing in this is extremely good and I've laughed out loud, but a lot of it is kinda just tedious flirting. I'm not the target demo for that stuff, so like whatever, but I kinda wish I could just skip it. The Dramatic option for "what do you want to eat" being "Salad" is extremely good. The Act 1 boss when asked what's its name saying "Fuck You" and then that being it's name in battle is Good.
The combat, however, has not improved. I now just hit R1, then all four buttons, then R1, then three buttons and Sam's if I need healing, then R1 for the Sword. Then all four buttons, and repeat. There's no strategy there. Act 2 added elemental resistances and weaknesses but it also added the option to build your party to completely avoid them and that's what I did. Now all the fights are over before the second loop is complete. I don't even have a Ravage equipped! Just Attacks, Destruction, and Slow, with one Heal. I'm also pretty much never looking at anything other than the top right of the screen for cooldowns. Sometimes not even at the enemies at all other than a glance to see who they are (not like that has matted much other than for the guys who call in friends). I don't think I've seen most of the attack animations.
I could try messing with the Devil Clock stuff, but I suspect it will just become fiddly equipment changing at that point which doesn't sound interesting.
I tried the "Wait" battle mode, but it's not really a wait. It just slows down/pauses time when you're selecting targets/healing. Not really what I'm looking for.
The art style is pretty good. Obviously a lot of time was spent making the menus LOOK good, but menu navigation is a bit awkward. There's a bug where the menu move sound plays twice in certain situations.
I don't know how much I will play of this game. Since it's free, I might as well play to the end of Act 2. If it doesn't get more mechanically interesting or something happens in the story then I think I'll put it down. It's a shame when you know the team worked really hard but it just didn't seem to come together.
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Played: 9/26. Early Morning.
I think I just don't like this game very much. It's really poorly paced. I FINALLY GOT to some actual jRPG side story stuff that should have been introduced much earlier. But I stopped there at the moment.
The combat/trinket system is just bad? I think it's just bad. I still haven't tried the devil clock stuff. Partly because I forgot it existed and partly because I don't know how to enable it. I thought it was supposed to be an option before each battle but I don't see it there. I did buy the devil clock I think. Unless it runs out if you don't use it? I don't know.
~~~
Timespinner

Played: 9/27. Midnight. PC Standalone. Enjoyed.
There's a fanmade randomizer of this game and I decided to check it out. It's extremely cool and really well done. Seems like there's a decent little community around it too.
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Played: 9/27. Late Evening.
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Played: 9/28. Midnight.
Did another rando run. This time with the race flags they'll be using for the tournament. Did pretty well! Got done in about an hour 30. Maybe a little more. I wasn't timing myself. The flags are very good. Especially for someone like myself who would not be able to do any execution heavy tricks.
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Played: 9/28. Late Evening.
~~~
Played: 9/29. Midnight.
3rd Rando Run, got under 1:30. Would have been faster but I died a whole lot on the final boss. I think I could definitely do a sub 1 hour on this once I'm more familiar with the logic and game.
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Played: 9/30. Early Evening.
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Played: 9/30. Evening.
Today's run was a rough seed. Longer than my last at 1:38 because all I had was lightwall until I beat the queen and didn't find the final gear until literally the last chest I could open. I guess that's not a bad time for a complete full clear though.
I'm trying to learn to skip items I know are not worth my time (like sand vials) if they're on pedestals or if I die and have to recollect stuff. It can be a hard habit to break. haha.
~~~
Played: 9/30. Late Evening.
Fourth run was similarly cursed because I forget to check one chest. But I actually got it down to an hour 24. so not too bad.
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Played: 10/1. Early Morning.
An hour 30 again. DANG. It was another rough seed. Never found the Sash and didn't get double jump until the lab. ROUGH.
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Played: 10/2. Midnight.
Almost at sub 1 hour! Got an hour 4. Not too bad! It was a very fast seed and I would have had a better time if I didn't die at the final boss so much. I try to exploit the weakness as much as possible but found that I should have just used the big hammer.
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Played: 10/2. Morning.
An hour 23. not too bad. It was a bit of a rude seed and I did some checks that I probably shouldn't have.
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Played: 10/4. Midnight.
1:04:45!! That's pretty good. I got very lucky and my last go mode item was in a pretty close by chest instead of in the rude spider room.
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Played: 10/5. Midnight.
1:06! Would have gotten it faster if I chose to check a place with one chest instead of the place with many chests.
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Played: 10/6. Evening.
NEW PB - 1:03! The seed started as a nightmare but really sped up towards the middle. I didn't even notice I was on PB pace until the pyramid.
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Played: 10/6. Late Evening.
1:06!
~~~
Metroid Dread

Started: 10/7. Late Evening. Switch. MIXED
I'm going to link to my twitter thread: https://twitter.com/DWOBoyle/status/1446328772077109250
So far the positives are:
- decent atmospheric music
- way better environmental art and design than Samus Returns.
- Saves frequently, good checkpointing.
Negatives
- Can't rebind the controls + they're awkward
- EMMIs are one hit kill and just annoying. The stealth ability basically does nothing since it doesn't affect their pathing at all.
- the way to deal with them is also annoying.
- missile tanks give 2 max missile, there are heart pieces for some energy tanks. This means a lot of tiny upgrades. Moreso than metroid usually has.
- paradoxically it also does not give out upgrades very frequently early on.
- gates your exploration of the first area once you start getting stuff to explore it!
- beam upgrades seem to each have a door associating them meaning they're functionally just keys.
- ^ is compounded by the fact the parry is back meaning that the easiest way to deal with certain enemies involves a lot of slow waiting around and also making the beam less important, but thankfully it doesn't seem to be as over used as it was in SR.
~~~
Played: 10/8. Midnight. Negative.
The control layout just fucking sucks shit. It's so extremely bad and poorly thought out. The fact that you have to hold both shoulder buttons and then mash attack to use missile is exhausting and hurts my hands. These little joycons are not designed for this. Switching to the holder is not good enough. I don't have pro controller and I don't play enough Switch games to get one. They could have designed a sensible layout or have options and they choose not to. It's so fucking disappointing it is SR again.
Anyway. I'm on Kraid. I explored what I could, even did a tiny sequence break, to get all the items that are available to me. No more e-tanks and that's really all I was looking for. I think I hate this game.
~~~
Played: 10/8. Morning.
Beat Kraid. It would be nice to have another e-tank please.
~~~
Played: 10/9. Midnight. Mixed.
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Played: 10/9. Early Morning.
Ok, now that I'm in deeper and have more abilities I'm enjoying this game a lot more. I stopped in a forest zone that seems pretty cool. Again, great environmental art. For metroidvanias being able to identify a room at a glance or has some other cue is important. This game isn't 100% on that, but it still does a good job.
Still wish it had SOME sort of controller options. I really cannot stand juggling multiple different holds and would rather toggles and rebindable buttons.
~~~
Played: 10/10. Midnight.
Now the game has opened up considerably. I explored a bunch of areas, got plasma beam, got what I assume are powerbombs but I cant' use them yet, and lastly got a double jump ability. It's a bit wonky. You can only double jump when spin jumping and you do not gain height with it while underwater. Made me think I was softlocked.
I am enjoying this game a lot more. I think the story is a lot better than most of the games. I like the way it ties back to them.
Sometimes the abilities feel a bit like "use this for this dungeon and then you don't really need it any more" though. Like I have speedbooster I used it maybe twice for actual progression and then only use it for shortcuts/skips. So much so that I forget I have it.
~~~
Played: 10/10. Morning.
Made a lot of progress, got a lot of major items, but this game sort of went from feeling pretty open to just linear path to boss battle to linear path to boss battle and that's shame.
I have space jump, storm missiles (which are pretty cool), gravity suit, and am facing another big boss (that was hinted at in the background which was also cool). I wish it was paced more around letting me explore with my new powers. But like I said in my last update, many of the abilities just feel like keys. I am using the dash in boss battles more though.
One thing I have to mention 'cause it almost made me have this update be NEGATIVE, is the pre-gravity suit purple emmi section. That fucker killed me like 20 times in the first room alone. It just would not leave and I would run out of stealth juice and die. Worst emmi section so far.
I do gotta say, there's something about this game that reminds me of the plot structure to a PS1 game and that is an extreme positive.
~~~
Played: 10/11. Midnight.
Beat the one boss that I think gave people a lot of trouble. Then it was exploration time! Found Screwattack. There's a lot of extremely rude shinespark stuff that I'm going to completely ignore!
Now I came to a boss that is probably going to give me some sort of power bomb equivalent.
~~~
Played: 10/11. Late Evening.
I'm at the very end of the game for sure. The Wave Beam Emmi is the worst of them all, but it didn't take me too long to beat. It's very very funny to me that the power bomb emmi is destroyed in a cutscene. Like even they were tired of these things. I like the direction of the story regarding Samus's metroid DNA "awakening". There's some interesting stuff they can do with that. I just HOPE that they don't end this game with Ridley showing up somehow. That would be very annoying.
I'm going to do some general clean up, mostly just looking for e-tanks, before heading to the final area. I already found a mini-boss in the water area that just gave me some dang missile (boo).
~~~
Played: 10/12. Midnight.
Couldn't really find any more health upgrades that didn't even absurd shinespark stuff which is unfortunate! So I decided to take on the final boss. (Unless there's a secret boss after this one). The first two phases were pretty cool. That third phase with the sun can fuck right off haha. Apparently you can powerbomb and remove it.
The "twist" with Raven Beak being her "father" is whatever. I don't care. I do like that it wasn't Adam talking to you all this time. That was a nice twist.
~~~
Finished: 10/14. Midnight.
Ok, Got around to actually beating this game. I think the ending is really strong actually. I like the place it leaves off Samus and I think the final boss is probably the best boss in the game. Review incoming, it's like 3k words too. Despite ending strong, this game is still a 3/5.
~~~
Dungeon Encounters

Started: 10/16. Early Morning. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
New podcast game.
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Played: 10/16. Late Morning.
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Played: 10/16. Afternoon.
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Played: 10/17. Early Morning.
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Played: 10/17. Morning.
Getting to the point where I'm getting some really interesting equipment.
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Played: 10/17. Afternoon.
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Played: 10/17. Early Evening.
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Played: 10/24. Morning.
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Played: 10/24. Late Morning.
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Played: 10/27. Late Morning.
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Played: 10/27. Afternoon.
Lost my main party. Whoops.
~~~
Timberborn

Played: 11/5, Evening. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 11/5, Later Evening.
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Played: 11/6, Midnight.
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Played: 11/6, Early Morning.
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Played: 11/6, Morning.
Watched a stream of this game and couldn't get it out of my mind. Decided to pick it up and played it for almost 16 hours straight. Whoops. Don't really do stuff like that anymore. I'm a bit too tired at the moment to go more into detail right now, but sufficed to say, it's enjoyable. Lots of really interesting problems to solve.
~~~
Played: 11/6, Evening.
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Played: 11/6, Later Evening.
I restarted with a new town since my last one was too much of a knot to get untangled and working right. I'm playing on a much smaller map now and I think I'm having an easier time of it. I realize if I want to expand to multiple districts it's actually better to have it sort of like mitosis. Build the new district as an expansion of the other one and then close them off. I haven't done that yet though.
~~~
Played: 11/7, Midnight.
I think I switched to a two districts too early. RIP.
~~~
Played: 11/8, Midnight.
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Played: 11/8, Early Morning.
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Played: 11/8, Morning.
Restarted again. This time on a much bigger map, but I'm actually having an easier time of it.
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Played: 11/8, Early Evening.
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Played: 11/8, Late Evening.
I'm getting to the point where I have tons of food and can start using metal and paper. It's nifty.
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Played: 11/9, Late Evening.
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Played: 11/10, Midnight.
I had a major drought that wiped out nearly all of my population. I got too cocky. But I think I can recover.
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Played: 11/10, Late Evening.
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Played: 11/11, Midnight.
Messed around with the map editor for a few hours. It takes a long time to build a map in it, but it's kinda fun.
~~~
Played: 11/16, Midnight.
Finished working on my first map.
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Played: 12/18, Midnight.
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Played: 12/18, Early Morning.
First major update was released so I decided to check it out. I started on the Lakes map instead of the custom one I made. I had to restart once because I forgot how to play, but now things are progressing pretty well.
~~~
Played: 12/18, Morning.
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Played: 12/18, Late Morning.
Welp, I found out what happens if your entire town dies of thirst and hunger. Turns out the game doesn't end, you just sort of have a ghost town. I think they may have made Normal a bit harder. I might retry that same map, but on Easy.
~~~
Played: 12/18, Early Evening.
Loaded a save and now it's going MUCH better. I was able to dam off all the important water ways so now I have basically complete control of water from the source. My population is stable but I just pushed for a large housing expansion so I have to be careful. I do have good water generation though. I still need to get timber up. I think I'm going to expand to an area for just timber generation.
~~~
Played: 12/18, Late Evening.
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Played: 12/19, Midnight.
This recovery is going quite well. I can survive droughts without much issue. I really wish there was a multi-pause-building option though.
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Played: 12/19, Evening.
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Played: 12/19, Late Evening.
My expansions are going well. So well the game is chugging haha.
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Played: 12/20, Midnight.
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Played: 12/20, Early Morning.
I basically have the whole map under my control now. There are several big lakes that I can control the water levels of and it's great!
~~~
Inscryption

Started: 11/17. Midnight. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 11/17. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/17. Morning.
Finished a run, but now I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Probably something with the clock, but I haven't had any hints on that.
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Played: 11/19. Late Evening.
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Played: 11/20. Midnight.
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Played: 11/20. Early Morning.
Played my way into Act 3 I believe. There's robots now. I liked Act 2's mechanics. To be honest it kinda sucks that such a cool card game is connected to what is basically an escape room. I could easily put in like 100 hours just into the card game. I suspect people have already made a bookleg physical version.
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Played: 11/20. Early Morning.
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Played: 11/20. Morning.
Probably pretty close to the end of the game now, I'd imagine. The story is pretty generic actually. I really hate the whole "She was your dead sister that you forget! also you forgot your mom too I guess!" but maybe it's going to do something else with it? I hope.
~~~
Finished: 11/20. Late Evening. Mixed.
The meta narrative of this game just kinda sucks. It has an interesting premise but it doesn't go anywhere with it. At least in the game. Apparently there's an ARG that's currently active for the "true" ending and I just do not care about that sort of crap at all.
It's a shame because the card game is actually extremely good and I just want to play more of it.
~~~
SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

Started: 12/1. Midnight. PC Steam. Enjoyed.
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Played: 12/1. Early Morning.
After ultimately finding Inscryption kinda disappointing, I was looking for a card game that wasn't a roguelike. This was on sale so I decided to pick it up. Played it for about 4 hours and it seems really cool so far.
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Played: 12/1. Late Morning.
I have 5 characters now and I really like the different ways you can put them together.
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Played: 12/2. Midnight.
Got to Act 3. I wish I could get all the cards and stuff without grinding. I also wish there were more options for healing that did not involve using the frogbot.
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Played: 12/4. Early Morning.
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Played: 12/4. Morning.
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Played: 12/4. Late Morning.
This game has started to really open up and now I can pretty much build any party and have it be good. I'm currently rocking a Fire build. While they're not in my party at the moment, I think the Twins are my favorite character in combat.
The story is whatever.
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Played: 12/5. Morning.
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Played: 12/5. Late Morning.
Went back and found all the chests I had missed using a guide. Nothing too exciting, but definitely stuff that would have been nice to have.
Then I went through the arena a bit a tried some other party builds. Lightning is cool.
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Played: 12/11. Early Evening.
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Played: 12/12. Afternoon.
This game has encounters where enemies are immune to certain types of damage and I really don't think that works for this sort of game.
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Eternal

Played: 12/8. Late Morning. PC Steam. Neutral.
Watching Waypoint's Inscryption streams got me interested in checking out a tgc and of the ones I know about I've heard that Etrernal is pretty good and isn't connected to a shitty company like Wizards of the Coast, Riot, or Blizzard.
I didn't play much. Still in the tutorial. The tutorial isn't very good actually. I don't really understand much of what's going on since I don't know what's in the actual deck or what the gameplan is. They're kinda introducing a lot of concepts and not always explaining them. Like I don't know what Exhaust means in this game but it's come up at least once so far.
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Played: 12/8. Early Evening.
Still doing tutorial stuff.
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Played: 12/8. Evening.
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Played: 12/8. Late Evening.
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Played: 12/9. Midnight.
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Played: 12/9. Afternoon.
Already at the grind it seems. I'm also bad at this game. I would probably need to read a lot and learn how to actually build a deck. I think maybe I should try just using the starting decks a bit more.
~~~