Smythe
May
I usually keep a note of games I’ve played and bought during to help me write this, but was a bit disorganized this month. I think I managed to work out the games I beat/completed though. A few days late with this update too as I was close to beating Death’s Door.
Aside from gaming, what did I do? Hmm….I started Japanese lessons again, online this time. I’ve dipped into them over the years I’ve lived in Tokyo but not been very consistent. My Japanese is ok but not as good as it should be for the amount of time I’ve been here, so this is another attempt to improve a little!
I also signed myself up for some additional health insurance. Coming from the UK, paying for healthcare is always a bit strange (basically it’s free there and paid for by your taxes. While there may be a waiting list for some things, overall it’s pretty amazing). Here I’m in a policy with work where I only have to pay about 30% of treatment costs, which is fine for most things, but if there’s ever something big (touch wood it won’t happen!) then it can get very expensive. As I’m getting on a bit, I thought I should probably be sensible and sort that out. Anyway, that was pretty difficult in Japanese and kind of pushed me back into the lessons a bit too.
The final bit of news, I joined a kickboxing gym again. I’ve been doing it on and off for about 18 years. Most recently, I spent about 2 years just practicing myself with a sandbag in a regular gym. I moved to a different area of Tokyo earlier this year though and Couldn’t get there very easily, so after about 6 months off I’ve joined a place with instructors again. I’m not competing anymore (had an eye operation a few years back, may have partly been down to getting punched for years but can’t say for sure) but I missed it enough to search out a gym and am trying to go at least once a week. Aside from that, busy at work but that’s not new, so onto the games!
Steam
Not the kind of game I'd normally go for just reading the description on the Steam store and the preview videos, but I read a lot of good things about this.
The story did feel a little..how can I put this, cute and kid-friendly... kind of like it was trying too hard to teach you about the environment. Aside from that, I really liked it. Taking photos was a fun change to catching or shooting things and the story was kind of fun. Pretty relaxed game and something that most ages could enjoy. Pretty short game and easy to get all achievements, so this one goes into the completed pile.
City building, but without the management aspects, hours of gameplay or stress! Basically removing all the things I can't deal with very well in regular management games.
I guess this was more like a puzzle game. Find the best position for different parts of the city based on how close you put them in relation to other elements. It felt like there was a little bit of luck involved in getting a good island layout, but not too bad. Nice relaxing game to dip into and I managed to 100% it, so another 'completed' game!
I should really play this more, but getting the achievements seems to require a lot of playthroughs and the game doesn't really change much. There's quite a lot of reading on your first couple of playthroughs, but in most subsequent games it feels like you're just clicking through to get to certain points where you can make a particular choice that will affect the story.
I guess it's a kind of political choose your own adventure kind of game. Whenever you play the game there's an 'ending' to the story, so it's difficult to know when you have 'beaten' it. I got 3-4 endings, but every time I played after that I seemed to get the same ones even though I made different choices. There are a lot more achievements available, but I'm not keen on going through the same story again and again to get them. There are guides that give you general advice on what kind of options to choose for specific endings, but I didn't find any specific playthroughs. Probably because there are so many choices in the game. Anyway, kind of fun but it gets old after a couple of runs as it's the same basic story each time. So, a pretty low 36% and into the beaten pile for this one.
I'd been after this for a while but it hadn't turned up in any bundles or possible trades. I finally just bought it when there was a decent sale this month. Glad I did. It's a great game!
The art, music, gameplay all worked well to create a really nice game overall. It was just about the right difficulty for me too. Some parts were tough, but I felt like I was making just enough progress each time to come back again and again until I got past that particular section. I picked up quite a few achievements, but there are at least 2 that require me to do another run through. No matter how much I like a game, that's pretty unlikely. So, 'beaten' for now. There's a chance I might come back to it but so long as I have a backlog it's pretty unlikely.
Backlog Additions
After a bad couple of months where I added a lot of games to my library, I was more restrained in May. I only picked up two games, Death’s Door which I’ve already beaten, and Outer Wilds.
Thank you for the report. I added Alba to my daughter’s wishlist, Death’s Door to my son’s wishlist, and Islanders to my alt’s wishlist. :D
Glad you found some interesting games! :)