July 2019 Progress Report

I am very grateful to get recently added to the BLAEO Steam group. There’s two things I’ve wanted to contribute to it: A link to my 100+ Steam Reviews that I’ve posted here (I wish there were an easy way to extract the name of all the games I’ve reviewed) and a first giveaway to create for the group sometime soon :)
EDIT: Here and here are my group giveaways

Compared to the prior month, I didn’t beat or complete as many games but I am just as satisfied with the quality of the games I played. So I’m happy with my selections for July :)

For the new month, I’m trying to focus a bit more on games that I’ve won on SG or that seem to have an active multiplayer player base (according to SteamDB) before they dwindle down. See my August queue at the bottom of the page.

End of July stats:

618 games (+30)
73% never played (-0%, -4 games)
9% unfinished (+0%, +1 game)
12% beaten (+0%, +3 games)
2% completed
4% won’t play

Click a game’s bar to see its short review.

Games I Beat or Completed:

Riff Racer – Race Your Music!

7 hours playtime, 11 of 38 achievements (28.95%)

I recommend Audiosurf 2 or Distance INSTEAD of this game unless you really want to race against friends’ ghosts or want something mindless to play while listening to music, as those two games have more varied visualizations and modes.
This is a game that visualizes beats and procedurally creates tracks based on the music, which allows for two people to play the same exact race for the same song, but beats are the only thing it appears to account for. Its beat visualizations don’t “pop” as much as other games I’ve mentioned, and it doesn’t do anything different for low/mid/high frequency sounds. The “sync” to music system makes ghost racing work, but its somewhat confusing exactly how to get multipliers other than keep up to the racing lines that designate the current beat. Losing multipliers is clear: Don’t fall behind, don’t hit barriers, don’t fall off the track. XP seems useless except for maybe achievements?



Train Valley

26 hours playtime, 19 of 39 achievements (48.72%)

A polished semi-simple train & track puzzle-type game which is relatively relaxing and I recommend on deep sale to fans of puzzle & strategy games. Its a micromanagement puzzle: You build tracks, control track switches, choose when a train leaves a station, and can stop or reverse a train. The latter may be limited with certain train types or levels, but that was never explained in-game. There are no notable differences between trains of different eras, nor can you choose between train types to deploy. You can only choose whether a train deploys early, which costs money because the sooner a train reaches its destination the more money you get.



Robot Squad Simulator 2017

8 hours playtime, 9 of 12 achievements (75%)

Its an okay but seems legit simulator. The bots wouldnt be fast & super responsive as things in other games, as I expected. Keyboard controls are awkward but get the job done. Music is decent, but graphics are meh, with occasional pop in when turning fast. I like playing with robots, so I thought playing through the missions was worth it.

For the Train Valley review click here because my HTML skills are too rusty for fixing a panel and its a pain to re-generate 3 panels with reviews.

Re-beat with newly purchased DLC:

Turmoil

47 hours playtime, 20 of 31 achievements (64.52%)

Heat is On is a great DLC which is basically a different campaign that has more tech, more gameplay options (like using magma), more artifacts to discover, and a different auction system for buying town shares. It’s kinda easy to beat as long as you consistently use gas to boost profits for part of you oil haul, but still rewarding and maintains its partially relaxing western vibe. There is a New Game+ mode available after beating it though, but I’m not so hooked on the DLC or base game for me to play it again.

Games I didn’t finish, but will keep playing (including any DLC):

Quantum Break

4 hours playtime, 8 of 42 achievements (19.05%)

Loving the story & game so far. I made it to Act 2 and finally got from Scene 1 to Scene 2 - I just needed to use time power better to stun & damage big enemies. Now I just need to be more strategic when taking on bigger groups of enemies.



911 Operator

17 hours playtime, 9 of 18 achievements (50%)

I recommend the game on sale with all DLC if you who wants basic simulation of 911 calls and are ok with micromanaging location/dispatch of emergency vehicles. If you expect an RTS game or advanced simulation, you might have a bad time. I only used “Unique Stories” and custom cities mode since Unique Stories was recommended for a first playthrough and progresses through the different cities. It does some things well and others I wish it did better but nothing that breaks gameplay for me, on Hard difficulty. That doesn’t make me eager to play it much more.

Games I marked as Stuck:

Knights of Pen and Paper 2: Free Edition

5 minutes playtime, 13 of 33 achievements (39.39%)

I reached the point where gaining gems (in game currency is too slow after reaching the end of the mid-game quest pack I unlocked. I can only get 5 gems per day through an ad, then maybe get 5 per level up, and I need like ~150 gems to buy the next quest pack. I could tap a 5th character slot to aid in this, but I dont want to grind lower level enemies to catch them up to my other characters at level 20+, and I already have a ninja with low threat so I’d have a hard time making another low threat character suited for leveling up against higher levels. I’m not uninstalling it from my phone just yet, as I might play it when I’m waiting in a line or something boring, but I’m not optimistic that I will get unstuck. It was otherwise a decent well balanced game better than I expected for F2P except for the “level 15” daily challenge dungeon that has many higher level monsters in it, and the literal dungeon of the unbalanced.



Card City Nights

3 hours playtime, 1 of 8 achievements (12.5%)

A cute animated CCG sim that I recommend to hardcore CCG players, but the deck building is too complicated for me: Cards have a variety of abilities, but cards can only be chained with other cards based on the arrow(s) printed on their sides, and chaining cards to do attacks or heal is critical to the game. There is no tutorial, aid, or more meaningful groupings of cards in deck building. So I’m putting this in the “stuck” pile and might pick it up again after I get some other card games under my belt, if that can even give me the experience or knowledge I need to build better decks in games like this.



FORCED SHOWDOWN

29 hours playtime, 28 of 81 achievements (34.57%)

I recommend this game on sale to people who enjoy twin stick shooters & card elements while comfortable with roguelite elements. I wanted to love this game more, but I feel kinda friendzoned by it because of how slow card-earning progression feels at random times. I do NOT recommend DLC unless you can beat the first two regular “shows”. I’m having a hard time beating the second show.

August 2019 queue

• Road Redemption
  

  6 hours playtime

  9 of 55 achievements
• Quantum Break
  

  4 hours playtime

  8 of 42 achievements
• Mercenary Kings
  

  4 hours playtime

  0 of 26 achievements
• 911 Operator
  

  17 hours playtime

  9 of 18 achievements
• Human: Fall Flat
  

  6 hours playtime

  0 of 55 achievements
• Aporia: Beyond The Valley
  

  6 hours playtime

  0 of 41 achievements