Hi everyone,

Since I last posted, I’ve been through quite a lot. Back in September, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had the surgery about a week later to remove the lump. I was told that it was a stage 0 DCIS. However, the pathology revealed that the cancer was indeed invasive (stage 1) so I had to go back for more surgery a few weeks ago to remove some lymph nodes for biopsy. Thankfully, the results of the biopsy were negative. After Christmas, I will have radiation therapy. It’s been an absolute roller coaster of emotional crap, but when I have the radiation therapy over with, I’ll at least get to relax a lot more.

Here are some of the games I’ve played over the past while. The pattern is… card games. I’ve haven’t been playing anything too difficult or frustrating as I just wanted to chill out, but some of them require a lot of hours to complete. =)

Solitairica
I absolutely love this game. At first glance, it looks like “just another solitaire game” but it really isn’t. It’s a rogue-like card game with RPG elements, along the same vein as something like Slay the Spire. It’s also deceptively difficult. RNG might play a role in the difficulty level, but heck if I don’t keep coming back for more punishment as I try to beat all classes. I’m about 50 hours in with 6 achievements left to get. I don’t want to grow to hate the game, so just playing it every once and a while now and will hopefully grab the last 6 along the way. (Oh, and it’s in Tier One of a current Humble Bundle if any other rogue-like card game fans wants to give it a bash)

Ascension
I’ve been enjoying this game a lot. I don’t have anyone to play board/card games with, so buying them on Steam is like the next best thing. Got it during their Tabletop sale and I’m so glad I did. You get all of the expansions included except for the most recent two that are available as DLC. The bot is actually fun to play against on the harder setting. It provides some level of challenge at least.

Reigns: Her Majesty
(won on Steamgifts)
This game is super weird, but it’s kinda fun haha. You have to get all of the endings to get all of the achievements. It’s a simple concept, but getting them all is hard. I don’t follow guides because where’s the fun in that. =)

Some regular old solitaire games. I just play them to de-stress more than anything:


Snow White Solitaire. Charmed Kingdom

Snow White Solitaire. Legacy of Dwarves

Solitaire. Dragon Light

Solitaire Call of Honor
This game is a bit of a bugfest. Twice at different points, the game froze and wouldn’t let me click on anything, so I had to force quit out. The game didn’t crash, it was still running. Also, there was a weird bug on one level where the top card was actually under the second card of the pile. Had to buy and use a joker on that stack just to get past that level. The other few games here didn’t have any bugs like this and they are from the same dev. Avoid this one.

Nonogram games all by same dev, so they all follow the exact same basic design, but the puzzles are all different.

Riddles of the Owls Kingdom
As a nonogram game, it’s fun and it has an interesting mechanic where each colour is on a different layer. You have to switch between colours to solve the overall puzzle. I like that about it, it’s different. It’s a bit of a grind though. I bought their second game in this series and very much enjoyed it, but this free version has ridiculous micro transactions, so you are expected to pay, or grind puzzles you’ve already played over and over to access the next “world.” Nope, not doing either. I uninstalled and will play it again when I forget the solution. Magic wings below was basically the exact same game with different puzzles and no micro-transactions.

Riddles of the Owls’ Kingdom. Magic Wings
I completed all conditions for the achievements, they didn’t “pop” on OSX.

Adventure mosaics. Forest spirits

Adventure mosaics. Small Islanders