PixlBit

It's about all I can do writing a blog in the short time I have, take a shallow dive into games I've sometimes barely played. Here's what:

Microsoft Solitaire (Android): I had like five minutes one morning and decided to play this on my phone once again. I did one of the Events and immediately got an achievement. I love getting achievements through my phone. There are not a whole lot of phone games that do that. I wonder why Microsoft doesn't do more with phone games. Everyone else seems to. 

Kirby Star Allies (Switch): Rented it from the library. I played a few levels just getting a hang of the mechanics. What a cool use of Kirby's ability to swallow anything in his path. You can keep it in your mouth and spit it out or swallow and absorb any special abilities that enemy had and use it yourself. Really cool. Also making friends and having them join you in the adventure. You can then have real friends join in same-screen co-op. I, however, wasn't really up for 2D platforming that day and stopped. I'm more excited for Kirby's first 3D outing in Forgotten Land, which I just got and will try tomorrow. 

Shadowrun Returns (Xbox Series S): I downloaded this from Game Pass and was surprised to get so into it. I played nothing else that particular day. It mixes free-roaming exploration with turn-based battles ala Xcom seemlessly. There is a lot of dialog but it doesn't occupy you exclusively for so long that you get impatient for gameplay.

The story is really well written. It's a murder mystery set in a dystopian future urban environment full of characters that spout cyberpunk slang. High tech and magic coexist and neither seems to contradict the other.

The character customization is pretty deep. I made a Troll character that specializes in melee combat. I basically drive right into enemies and let my teammates back me up. Oh yeah, so you run with four players most of the time. Sometimes you are just two players and have to hire experts for different missions. There are a lot of different classes of characters like ones that hack computers, others use magic, others shoot guns, my melee guy, a stealth class and another one that I think specializes in robotics or vehicles, I'm not sure. Anyway, this is a very cool game that, now that I've taked a break from it, hope to return to. Sometimes I find that leaving a game mid-story sometimes derails my interest, but we'll see. 

Minecraft (Xbox Series S): Mark and I worked on a known seed world where we know the location of key resources so we can fast track the goal of beating the End Dragon again and getting to the End City for several of the new achievements with Shulker boxes. If you didn't understand any of that, don't worry, just move on. Ha ha. 

I discovered the futility of digging out a large mine shaft. Much better, in this new larger version of the game, is to just find a cave and spelunk it. Most of the resources are seen on the walls all the way down to bedrock, minimal digging necessary. So we both got fully armored and provisioned with magic devices ready to enchant tools for the dragon battle. Next  time we'll put the game on Easy difficulty and go to war. 

Gems of War (Xbox Series S): Finished all the weekly tasks I can do. I had to create a dragon based team and use various banners and classes to do it all. I realized how much changing these things really effects your abilities. I had to seriously downgrade the level of enemies I fought while using banners which weren't tuned to my characters or classes not leveled properly. When I finally got back to my tried-and-true team, I really noticed the boost in power. There are so many small attributes and skills gained by leveling your cities, characters, class, or pet; interacting with your Clan, playing PvP battles, participating in special events, and raids. I only know their affect by trying a different team for a while. It's a bit difficult to find one page that lists all your boosts and buffs. 

Ah well, time to get out of the pool.