Noble Gamer

October 2019 Progress Report

Gaming the first half of this month was okay, but I’ve really enjoyed the second half since I dipped into my November queue! Unfortunately I expect to have limited gameplay in the coming month due to travel plans and other IRL stuff that’s come up. This is a weird time in my life to say the least, but its great to have unwavering support of my family and even work.

End of October Stats

708 games (+22)
74% never played (-1%)
9% unfinished (+1%, +5 games)
12% beaten (+2 games)
2% completed (+1%, +1 games)
4% won’t play

Games I Beat

    Shark Attack Deathmatch 2

    Shark Attack Deathmatch 2

    12 hours playtime

    It brings a few additional elements to an FPS death match, but after playing every map its not very polished and seems DOA after leaving Early Access recently. Natural Selection seems to be a better choice for monster vs human death match based on reviews, though I’ve never played it.

Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire

28 hours
10 of 44 achievements

Easily one of the best card-based games I've ever played on PC! It was satisfying to beat the game the first time, and was a big reason why I didn't beat a couple other games this month. Its not perfect, but the game is well balanced and progression feels meaningful even if the number of unlocks per character is fixed. Daily challenges and custom games add great variety to gameplay. The only time I felt like rerolling an instance of RNG was when I was given the opportunity to Transform 3 cards, and I wanted to transform 1-3 curses in a daily challenge that gave me 5 curses by the time I reached the final boss. As long as I didn't progress to the next event, the outcome of the Transform action would not be saved.

Games I Completed!

    Glass Masquerade

    Glass Masquerade

    12 hours playtime

    Glass Masquerade: A chill puzzle game putting together stained glass clocks around the world. A great value for being in $1 bundles. Puzzles took an average of 10-20 minutes each to complete, and I learned that matching shapes (especially outside pieces) seemed to become more important than matching colors. Easy to 100% the achievements, which requires playing the demo DLC levels. If you already have most of the DLC like me, then you have to play the one from each DLC that is actually the demo.

Games I Got Stuck On

    Aporia: Beyond The Valley

    Aporia: Beyond The Valley

    9 hours playtime

    The first Crysis-engine game I’ve played is an FPS puzzle. It looks pretty good visually, but even with fully maxed settings seems not as visually crisp as some other AAA games within the last few years - Perhaps outdoors & nature are tougher to pull off. The “story” which isn’t told through voice or other people in your game world is somewhat interesting. I think I'm more than half way through, and I’ve gotten tired of watching a walkthrough to find other puzzles. The puzzle I’m on with the stone towers seems literally broken despite using techniques in a video and restarting the game & saves multiple times.

Concrete Jungle

Concrete Jungle

28 hours
3 of 23 achievements

A unique deck-building city builder that was engaging to start with. I got through the beginning levels but can't get past the first "versus" match with the AI. The abilities to add cards via "pick 1 from 4" and abilities while playing a match is mostly cool, but I think I'd rather have all the cards up front then unlock abilities as the match progresses. There's already so much strategy to placing buildings and choosing between the 2-3 buildings in your "hand", that having to choose which cards to add borders on overwhelming to me for some reason.

Games I’m Pausing for Now

    EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair

    EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair

    8 hours playtime

    Its a mindless arcade style third person shoot em up that looks like its from the late 1990s to early 2000s. Tons of weapon variety with what’s been unlocked so far, but can seem overwhelming in a way.  I played the first 10 levels, but as soon as I saw that the campaign includes 140+ levels, I was like "there's no way I'm playing all these missions without co-op". I got it from a Humble Monthly but so far it was not worth it for that game alone since I don’t play local co-op and I've had bad luck playing online. I have tried to join online matches on multiple occasions, but the hosts or other people in those matches wouldn't start the game despite me readying up. Its not like I won't play this game ever again, just that I got what I want out of it for now, and may revisit it later.

Pool Panic

Pool Panic

8 hours
5 of 32 achievements

The least realistic pool simulator that in many ways embodies a wild psychedelic trip through personification of billiard balls. There's more levels here than you can shake your pool cue at. I enjoyed the several hours I put into it, but despite the significant environmental mechanics and varied ball types I lost interest in it for now.

Phoning Home

Phoning Home

7 hours
11 of 52 achievements

This is not "Wall-E: The Game" because Wall-E had a lot more wonder & adventure than this survival game that can at times become about preventing rust and staying powered. The first couple of hours it was enjoyable to hear the dialog between the ship, my robot, and the environment. As long as you grab all resources that are near your path the crafting will seem less grindy. However after meeting the second robot (I'm not spoiling it, look at the thumbnail), I can see how many people would feel tied down & held back by the second robot who can slowly accumulate permanent rust if they don't have armor and don't stay in shelter during storms. Another personal annoyance is that I had to look at walkthroughs twice to figure out where to find resources or how to get the second robot to move/follow me initially. The environments are fine but there are some long stretches of "walking" that I think could've been cut in half to appreciate the ambiance instead of resenting how long its taking for you to get to the next waypoint.

Click each panel to see a short impression/review. Please excuse any formatting weirdness, as I’m new to web based BLAEO generators which by default occasionally added a review score that I attempted to remove via HTML. I can automate setup and teardown of enterprise cloud services, but my HTML-fu is weak, lol.

November 2019 Queue

If I play anything, it may be limited to some party games (like Jackbox) and the few cross platform games I have on mobile and PC, so that I can transfer progress between them: Door Kickers, Talisman, maybe Knights of Pen & Paper 2 Free Edition. I may not even do a mid-month update. There’s a laptop I might be able to use, but dunno what it will be capable of running and if it has enough hard drive space.

kubikill

Pool Panic looks unique and fun! It’s going into my wishlist for sure.

Also I’ll add an option to remove the rating in BLAEO Generators’ next update.

Noble Gamer

Pool Panic is totally worth checking out if you like anything from Adult Swim.

To clarify about gemerators - If I made the rating text box blank it will remove it alltogether from the panel, but if I didnt then the default of 8/10 shows up. Thanks!

Traqie

Damn, sorry to hear Aporia refused to work for you :( IMO it’s a hidden indie gem and I wish more people would give it a chance.

Noble Gamer

I recommend it to puzzle fans because its story telling is different. I’m not big on puzzles, so for me some parts of it between story parts were meh. I was just glad as the first Crysis engine game I’ve played that it ran okay on my rig.