Procrastination is a bitch.

Anyways, I don’t think I can recap well all activity since that post back in 2022, but here’s a short recap of April so far an maybe we’ll go backwards from that.

Finally beat *Kingdom Shell, which is a good game. I wanted it to be a great game, but even as a Metroidvania fan I must admit it’s relatively limited. Five hours this month, but that was mainly mucking about a bit trying to get stronger for the final boss, gitting good at it with those limitations, and then doing a grand tour of the map to get all the final secrets. Thanks to a helpful “this is what you’re missing” inspiration (the game’s equippable upgrade system, think Hollow Knight charms) I only had to look at the guide for a final object which was in a room I had forgotten to revisit in a particularly dense section of the map. After that, one final bonus boss and a few minutes of farming were all that were required to 100% the game.

I’d beaten iZBOT last month and while I briefly booted it up in order to get one final gem from a particularly pesky level, quickly chose something else. I did play and beat IZBOT 2, which is… also okay. It’s mechanically better and the layouts aren’t as barebones as some of those in the first game, but it also lacks that spark the best platformers have and some of the levels felt like they were long due to busywork rather than challenge. That one I did complete with all achievements, even though the last one was kinda bad since all it took was replaying old levels to increase the enemy kill count.

After long procrastinating (sorry Nikola), finally grabbed myself Goblin and Coins II. The first one was charming but suffered from various design problems, but this is a significantly better experience. Still one mainly for existing platforming fans, but for that subset it’s a lovely experience that devliers beyond it’s cheap price. Plus the game kept my progress from the demo which I played a long time ago, which is cool. I’m about one third in and I am quite enjoying each level. Some more than others, though.

Won and started Evan’s Remains. The puzzles are good (even if I often just wing it rather than fully thinking them through), but the reviews weren’t kidding about how plot heavy it is. I’ve played visual novels which move dialogue along at a brisker pace. That’s not inherently bad, but it can get on your nerves (even if the overall plot is good and has me invested in the characters). It also runs slightly slow on my poor potato due to some graphical touchups it uses.

Picked up again The Almost Gone and had to restart due to accidentally brute forcing a puzzle (I must have been very distracted the last time given how obvious the intended solution was - literally just placing an item on another), and then advanced to about halfway through the second chapter where I’m stuck. I’m probably still missing something obvious, as the puzzles are pretty logical.

Finished Space Pilgrim Episode II: Epsilon Indi. The puzzle on which I was stuck just required me to re-examine an old piece of the scenery to be able to access a particular set of information. That questionable piece of design aside, this was fun. Good (albeit somewhat snarky) dialogue with characters that are pretty well characterised even with the relatively short screentime they get, and the ending does have me hooked enough to buy the other episodes of this tetralogy on the next sale.

After semi-impulsively buying it as a thank you for answering my regional price request, finally started HAAK. It’s a bit breakable wall/secret passage heavy even for genre standards (partially compensated by the map), but at the same time it does make your exploration feel rather well rewarded. I have been rather inconsistent this month, but I will pick it up soon enough, as I haven’t even left the first major area yet.

I bought Mr. Pumpkin Adventure and other adventure games ultra cheap on a recent-ish Chinese games sale. If this game is indicative of the overall quality of the games in the bundle, it seem like I’ll have a pretty good time. I did the first three chapters yesterday, and while one of the moments that had me stuck was due to not clicking in a not particularly obvious interaction (not a pixel hunt, but you thought you were done with that particular thing), the rest of the puzzles were either adequate or straight up ingenious.

Did a bit of redundant exploration in Haiku, the Robot trying to get a few of the missing achievements. The big ones are still gonna take more time (finding all the chips), but I had fun. Also, just for the challenge, there’s both completing the boss rushes (I was rather rusty so even the basic boss one destroyed me in my first attempt after picking the game back up) and the one hit per life special mode, but those won’t be done soon. Too many games need to be played.

Advanced a bunch on Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, though the final puzzle of this section stumped me. The game has a moon phase tied aspect, and while the game suggests you can cheat, I decided to wait it out to get here. I wonder if next time I boot up I’ll still be there due to how this area works or if I’ll need to wait for another new moon.

Started a long time ago win, Marvin’s Mittens. Very whimsical and the core mechanic of your double jump getting more powerful the more stars you find scattered across the map does slightly scratch a long dormand collect-a-thon itch. It’s not particularly challenging, but it doesn’t try to be. Or maybe that’s just the early game experience.

Did another run of Demented Pixie. It was nice, even if at first I forgot it you could aim with the mouse, amking things needlessly more complicated than what they needed to be for myself.

Did a few more Trip to Vinelands attempts. Didn’t go as well as an uncharacteristically good one last month, but arcade games do trigger a Pavlovian enjoyment of seeing numbers grow bigger. Same with THOTH, where the randomly generated levels kicked my ass some more.

Booted up Hollow Knight to go fight one of the Dream rematches (I’m slowly inching myself to fully completing it), but my build resulted in me accidentally killing an enemy I didn’t want to kill, so I quit to desktop and haven’t retried again.

Played a short amount of Dungeon Escape, the precision platformer with which I have a love/hate reltionship. Got slightly more consistent at the level on which I’m currently stuck, but grew bored and found something else to do.

Finally, I got a reminder in Subject A-119 that my computer is woefully underpowered for the average Unreal Engine game, Literally didn’t load the first level. Maybe if I turn everything to low I’ll be able to play, but I wasn’t particularly curious about it. Some other time, maybe?