♠ Update 6 April ♠

Progress on my book-game challenge:

Sword Daughter
0 hours playtime
0 of 15 achievements

No progress so far.

As an FYI: previous months’ book-game wrap-ups are linked on my profile page if you’re interested.

BLAEO Monthly Theme pick:

Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative
1.3 hours playtime
no achievements

I’m not finding this to be as fun as the original Portal games so far, sadly. I know it’s fan made so I’m not expecting perfection, but it’s just not as fun. Hopefully that feeling will change as I get further in.

VN:

Subsurface Circular
1.1 hours playtime
5 of 13 achievements

I was able to play this one a bit and so far I like the setting and style of it. It’s a nice departure from the usual art design of visual novels. I really hope to see more kinds of these pop up.

Otherwise played this week:

Horror Girl Puzzle
1.5 hours playtime
18 of 18 achievements

New artwork was rolled out, so solved the puzzle to view it.

Playne: The Meditation Game
6.5 hours playtime
14 of 40 achievements

I’m still managing my streak with this one, though I nearly lost it this week when I’d completely forgotten about it until midnight. Just barely skated into that session haha. But I’m intending on getting all the unlocks for my environment and I’m still happy enough to keep going with the program.

Borderlands Game of the Year Enhanced
5.6 hours playtime
14 of 80 achievements

This was the biggest time sucker for me this week and foreseeable future (I also have ~4 hours played this week on the original version, not shown here, which was played before the remaster was released). I’m playing co-op and my partner for this game is very excited by the whole franchise and BL3 release thing, so I’m just kind of being swept along with his fanaticism lol.

…. which unfortunately means I’m losing some time to play other time-intensive games. So Rise of the Tomb Raider game has been paused as has my Destiny 2 playthrough with another friend (who has been AFK anyways as she has real world visitors.) And I was just gifted both Bayonetta and Worlds Adrift by various friends too, but who knows when I’ll get around to those… my kingdom for more free hours in the day!

Hope your week is as awesome as you are!

moonie

Finally someone from here who’s playing Subsurface Circular! Wishlisted that one recently, as it just seems weird but cool. It’s definitely a different take on a Visual Novel. Have you felt any parts where it’s been boring/tedious, etc (writing, visuals, or gameplay wise if any) though so far?

I wishlisted PLAYNE too. Saw someone (you? I think) recently suggest it here. I have anxiety & mental health issues, so it was surprising to see the main concept of this. I haven’t had time to watch more videos of it besides what’s on Steam, but is there more to PLAYNE, like gameplay or is it pretty much in the ‘walking simulator/simulation’ genre?

Sorry for the questions, feel free to response or not response! Just curious.

Nice progress btw. :)

Trav

I think I’ve only made it to the second or possibly third chapter of Subsurface Circular so far, but no, it doesn’t seem tedious at this point. There’s certain interaction-puzzles that you have to solve to progress (saying the right thing to characters to get them to open more story) and there’s been a couple characters that I haven’t figured out what to do with yet, if anything (listening to music with headphones on, ignoring you.)

I (think?) I’m the only one here playing Playne, so you probably did scroll across one of my posts mentioning it. :) It’s really sort of a meditation app with some game elements. It does all the things you’d expect an app to: track your progress and numbers, but then lets you unlock new things for your space, like butterflies and birds. Eventually you can unlock a walking simulation that’s set in the Scottish highlands(?) to wander around in and explore, but I haven’t gotten that far yet to know more about it. If you’re interested in reading an interview with the dev, I found one here: Link

Thanks for checking out my post and commenting, my friend. :)

moonie

Appreciate your response about the two games and especially for linking me to that article! I read it and when the dev said this:

“Would I market it as a self help thing? Probably not,” he says. “Purely because it’s got so many connotations. When someone says ‘self help’ they build up so many images around their head: they think of books, the Law of Attraction, the Secret, and all this weird stuff… but self help is a massively untapped market for video games because games can be used to help people.”

I get what he means. Definitely something to think about. Thanks also for the chat, and if you get more farther into PLAYNE, hope you keep us posted on here!