July 2023 - Time Away and Time to Play

Games played this month

• Gunfire Reborn
  

  12 hours playtime

  26 of 120 achievements

• Size Matters
  

  81 minutes playtime

  22 of 57 achievements

• Beat Saber
  

  15 hours playtime

  16 of 26 achievements

• Bloons TD 6
  

  12 hours playtime

  21 of 146 achievements

• LEGO® Batman™: The Videogame
  

  3 hours playtime

  no achievements

Gameplay Summary

This month I started with a plan. I took a week off from work to recharge, and I wanted to knock out some longer games. Sadly, that did not happen. Ironically, I spent over two weeks not playing any games for a variety of reasons, and when I did play games it was at most an hour or two with several days gap, more so than my usual pattern of limited game time. However, I did manage to get some good wins in place, and I have goals next month to knock out even more.

Beaten: Gunfire Reborn

A continuation from previous months, I finally worked with my friend to beat the game for the first time. Although there is plenty of replay value left (and I intend to continue playing next month), I was able to squeeze in a beaten status. There are more bosses to beat, more difficulties to play, and more characters to master. With persistence, I will continue to play through and attempt to complete this fun title. Given the time zone differences, I actually managed to beat this game for the August PAGYWOSG event, which is nice since I don’t have to rush now to do something for August.

Beaten: Size Matters

This game is a fun mind bender when I need something that is both relaxing and challenging at the same time. I have so far beaten the first three main difficulties and earned many of the side achievements. I will continue to work towards completing the other difficulties and achievements as I play some more. The next level of difficulty has proven much more challenging than the first three, but it gives me something to work towards. I beat this early on as part of the July PAGYWOSG event and double dipped for PoP.

In Progress: Beat Saber

At long last, I spent a little time on this title again! I finally got to try out some tracks from the new music packs (Queen, added Panic! At the Disco songs) and get some exercise in. I only played once and made myself super sore, but I did find my limit to avoid going too high on my heart rate until I work up. I plan to get some more regular exercise starting next month, so expect to see some more progress as I build up my heart health and endurance.

In Progress: Bloons TD 6

Here is a title that I have not played in a long time, but set aside a little time to play with my friend. The classic bloon popping game continues to be a fun puzzle to solve, especially with some of the newer challenges. My friend and I spent time trying (and miserably failing) to defeat the boss bloon for the current event, but I cut us some slack given the difficulty of the map.

In Progress: LEGO Batman: The Videogame

I actually bought and played this as part of the PAGYWOSG/PoP Discord Monthly Game event. The theme was to play a Batman game from select titles, so I started off with the first entry of LEGO Batman. It took a bit to figure out the crashing issues, but after figuring out how to get my Windows 11 laptop to run the game in Windows Vista compatibility mode, it has worked almost flawlessly. Although I only beat the first of three episodes, I had a great time playing for the event, and I expect to continue working to beat it given how fun and light-hearted it is.