This little RTS-like isn’t totally new to me, but it has been years since I last played it. It reminds me of Age of Empires since it is all about building up an empire of tech and units to slowly take over the whole map. There are enemy tribes along the way to conquer, though my strategy usually came down to having the most units to toss at them. The tech tree is nicely varied for getting new units and abilities, but some options were definitely far more useful than others. Starting with the tribe that could ride horses without needing to unlock the skill definitely helped me get across the map faster compared to the ones that start by being to farm. I like the simplicity and stayed up far too late playing a round, purposefully not ending it since I wanted to keep building out units and tech. A bit more than a time waster though, since a round could eat up 30 minutes quickly if I wasn’t paying attention. Definite recommend beyond the first hour.

Maybe this whole trying new games all the time thing isn’t good for my long term attention span, since I grew tired of this one due to repetition, wander around, get jumped by ghosts, ghouls, and beholders, use the same tactics to dispatch them. The only things breaking up the encounters were getting new upgrades to make the combat easier and occasionally getting ahold of an item to hand in to a character to unlock a new area. Samey-ness of the objectives and gameplay and the similarity of all the locations means I got lost easily and tired of doing the same thing over and over again for little reward. The game isn't bad for what it is, but besides being a Halloween skin over a common gameplay system I didn't find much appeal. 

On the other hands, the janky-ness made the game very endearing. Made by one person, I could see all the effort they put in and what the goal the game set out to achieve. The music was also very nice, even if it was likely as free as the rest of the assets. Story-wise the game was nothing new with fairly typical coming-of-age story that many have felt the story beats personally, but the ending was quite unexpected. Believable, but not where I thought the story would go, and I count that as a plus. In all it took me about an hour and ten minutes to play through this one, and I am glad I went just a bit over time to finish it in one go.

A straightforward little puzzle game. The premise revolves around the life of a cat parent and their cat child going through life and the former making lunch for the latter as they grow. The difficulty comes from the ingenuity of the puzzles, and the game has the excellent property that sometimes something would be seemingly impossible, but then the solution always made perfect simple sense when I did find it. Allowing for blocks to cover/remove other blocks was the most unique aspect and actually added a degree of depth, since removing and adding to the total possible in the container resulted in some interesting combinations alongside other movement options. Rotate, slide, pull out parts and replace them, cover options and any combination of the above to get the requested pattern on the right. Having to think about the blocks not just where they are but also how they could be removed or temporarily held out of the box was a neat difference to other block-moving puzzle games. The nice art, cute story and graphics, and interesting puzzle movement make this game one I could easily lose hours into, but unfortunately I have to leave it after it’s hour.

Controlling the game quickly grew as a frustration as I got through the hour and I am disappointed I don't want to keep going with it. Most of the gameplay centered around jumping, either around the levels or onto enemies. Random placement of enemies and level design meant that precision jumping or trying the same section multiple times would not happen. Skills for success were not being honed, since the randomness meant that parts might not have a solution to be found in practice, but instead having to wait for enemies to randomly change position to provide an actual possibility for success. Even when the opportunity appeared, there was no guarantee that inputs would consistently produce the desired results. Pulling off a series of jumps onto enemies and taking out a whole group of without ever touching the floor was amazing, but something that seemed to come from a lucky set of jumps that made contact than my precise landing. More often than not I had to tediously pull out enemies from a group one at a time and pick them off, since entering a group was almost guarantied death. Attacks would miss even when the placement of sprites didn't seem different from attacks that successfully landed. Jumps did not always go the same distance, or were suddenly further than expected. When I did try to jump on an enemy there was little obvious clarity of where the hitbox was or was not, so touching the edge of an enemy was a toss up of which of us would take damage. When hit by an enemy, it was anyone’s guess if recovery would send me to a clear space or right into another enemy or three that would instantly kill me again since there is no controlling the player character after they are hit. The movement is fun, taking out enemies is fun, constantly having new obstacles and level design kept me on my toes, but the inability to control my character consistently and take on the challenges with confidence killed any interest I have in playing more.

I like bullet-hell shooters for the same reason I like FromSoft games. Carefully learning patterns, overcoming massive challenges, that moment of serenity when I perfectly dodge all of a boss’s attacks, accidentally falling off a cliff because I accidently ran over the wrong bit of world geometry... ok, not that last bit, but the point stands. The great part of a game is getting to the objective as efficiently as possible and against the odds, ridiculous as they may be. That said, I CHOSE to play through FromSoft games. Elden Ring was a commitment when I sat down to it and by golly did I finish it, but it took effort over my 100 hour run. And despite how epic Elden Ring is, I took a week long break from it at the 2/3 complete mark since my interest waned and the frustrations of difficulty outweighed the enjoyment I got out beating its challenges. This leads me into today’s bullet-hell shooter, ZeroRanger. The game is in line with the difficulty of others of its genre and I liked the controller support so my poor fingers could have a slightly easier time controlling. Time between runs was quick and mashing A could quickly get me back in the action between rungs. Enemy variety from the outset was sufficient for interest and forced me to constantly be on the move and learning the patters of the level to best dodge projectiles and return fire. The art scheme was a little tiring to look at since I often lost where my ship was and what was a friendly projectile and what wasn’t. Yet despite all these adequacies, I barely made it to the hour mark and won’t be continuing for the foreseeable future. That is no fault of the game, but my own interest just does not lie with the genre at present. An unexpected obstacle to this series, but a good reminder to mix up the genres I play to prevent having a poorer view due to inundation. The game is fine, I am just not inclined to it at present.

I have actually never been great at Nintendo games, mostly because I grew up with PCs and PlayStations as my main gaming machines. Due to lack of time and exposure, I am not even a fun level of bad to play multiplayer games with since I am usually learning controls while everyone else is drifting corners and skipping parts of the track. Yet, despite my inexperience, I really enjoyed this installment of Mario Kart. I hadn't played any of the Karts since the DS, but all the same ideas were there and I could quickly pick up the basics. Even if I was regularly placing in the middle of the pack, I still felt it was because I just needed more time with the game and courses, not that there was some trick or design that only favored one method of play. Messing around with car parts had a noticeable effect on how I drove and added both variety and a reason to unlock new parts indicating good game design of a positive reinforcement cycle the whole way through. The courses I played only covered 12 or so tracks of the ones on offer with a couple repetitions to replay the classics, but courses each having unique challenges kept the actions of going around a wonky shaped circle feeling new. All of this might be experiencing constant novelty that kept the game interesting and exciting for the first hour, but I would definitely enjoy playing more when friends and family come around to unlick more parts.

Sometimes when I play games I worry they’re destroying my eyes, especially when I try to look in three or more directions to track the flying projectiles onscreen. Stellar Interface has this exact problems as I add guns, upgrades, and other ships to my little fighter and go up against little swarms of enemies, themselves firing their own projectiles. I really like this sort of thing, bullet-hell style shooters that take me back to playing flash games as a kid and refreshingly simple concepts. Maybe I just missed the story, but all I knew was that I was somewhere with a lot of other spaces ships and they needed to all be off screen without me getting blown up to get to the next set. Unfortunately, the controls to get to that point were a bit hard to use, since no space separated my dodge and firing buttons, and it is hard to discern X from C on a keyboard without looking and taking heavy fire. And that mix of incoming fire, outgoing fire, friendly helper ships, my own ship, enemies, bosses, and backgrounds made it difficult at times to know what was what and how worried I should be. Then I died, since I couldn't even see the giant missile headed my way. Frustrating, but I also jumped right back in so the addiction receptors must be receiving the right hits. Overall, a standard flying bullet-hell shooter, but definitely fun enough for the first hour. I can see myself doing a few runs here and there in between larger projects just to wind down.