Why would July to me?
But the truth hurts
Beaten in July 6 Games
A fun and rather silly little story about a raccoon who wants to suck the whole world up with an increasingly bigger hole and all his friends. It was certainly not a challenging game, but it made me smile for a while, and for that I appreciated it. I guess it’s another one of those where the devs had an idea for a silly mechanic and framed it with a funny story, elevating it and disguising the one trick pony that it really is.
Well it was very cheap and seemed like a good way to waste those trading card cents, so I bought it. It’s a bit of a hidden object type game, and the drawings and animations are cute enough, but I guess I expected a bit… more? I don’t know, maybe a few more levels, or a bit more to do in those levels. Any way I won’t begrudge it as I guess for the money I paid for it, it was still ok value.
Wow. This was unexpectedly good. I wanted to play it because it boasted local co-op and I am always looking for games to play with the wife. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going in, but the puzzles and level of co-operation was perfect. Each chapter uses a new mechanic and there are so many creative uses of the mechanic throughout all the solutions. A lot of co-op games add co-op as an added bonus, to play with a friend, but this was one where I don’t think playing it single player would do it justice.
Ahh the spirit of Super Hexagon lives on, in this rather frustrating form. Simple mechanics but made so much more difficult by the speed at which everything plays out. I don’t think I would have been able to complete it without a bit of help from one tip I read online which suggested playing on two player mode all the time, just to remove some of the obstacles. Whilst super hexagon at least limited the torment to only 60 seconds, some of these achievements require much longer stretches of perfection, and I think it’s a bit unfair. To make matter worse, the hit detection would sometimes go crazy and reset me even when I hadn’t touched anything. Not recommended unless you are up for a world of pain
Steam sale means a chance to pick up some little puzzle games, and so of course I did just that. This was the first I played. It’s a pretty clever minimalistic puzzler where the goal is to get all the board to one colour. And different blocks do different actions. Some of the puzzles were really tricky as well. Recommended for lovers of little puzzle games
Another one of those little puzzle games I picked up. This takes the sokoban style of puzzler and turns it into a bit of a chemistry lesson. Interesting idea, but I will admit having to use a guide for some of the solutions, especially when some of the puzzles have multiple solutions and only 1 unlocks one of the mysterious sigals. But overall a pretty well executed mini puzzler that introduces enough new ideas to keep the puzzles interesting
Wow this is certainly a bit later then I would have liked but sometimes life gets a bit busy? So July we obviously had the tail end of the great steam sale, and I certainly got a lot of little games. So most of the games I beat this month came from those and all of these completions were done in the first third of the month. Which means, at the time of writing this, it's been nearly a month since I beat a game to completion. Which is probably the longest I've gone without a completion in a long time. And the reasons for that come down predominantly to two games, both sharing the word 'Odyssey' in their title.
First of all, in the steam sale I bought Assassin's creed odyssey, and have been loving it. The richly detailed world and mechanics have sucked me in, just at a time I was feeling a bit tired of 'big' games. I know not everyone loves the AC series, but I personally think this is the best one since black flag, and may even be better than black flag in my opinion. Origins was nice, but the setting and the increased player agency just elevate this above that. So yes I have now lost nearly 100 hours in this world, and with it a large portion of game beating time.
And secondly, we finally got a Nintendo switch this month and with it the one game I'd been longing to play since it was announced. Super Mario Odyssey of course. And this is absolutely deserving of the praise it received. I loved the Galaxy games on the Wii, but always had a soft spot for Super Mario Sunshine and it's more open ended exploration. And odyssey takes that and ramps it up to crazy levels. Just about everywhere you look in a world there is a moon to be found and pulling off moves you think will 'break' the level, instead reward you with coins or something, like the devs knew you'd be trying that. All in all it just cements for me that I will always be a PC and Nintendo gamer. The other consoles have some great exclusives sure, but those games often have third party equivalents on PC. I've yet to find any other game series that does a 3d platformer like Mario.
So yeah a lot of time has been going into chasing moons and conquering the ancient greek world for the glory of Sparta, but honestly I've been enjoying myself more than I have in a long time. I'm sure you all know how gaming burnout goes sometimes, where you have all these games to play but the spark is just not there, and it becomes a chore. Until you find a game that reminds you why you enjoy gaming so much. Lucky me, I guess, finding two at the same time. I might sink into a bit of depression once I beat these two
Other stats
Achievements Gained 148Most difficult (according to TSA) 'Party Pooper' in S.W.I.N.E HD
Games added 23
Number of different games played16
Achievement streak 1559 days
Average Game completion 77%
Total number of completed games 507
Games completed in 2020 54
Yeah we did have fun with it, as we both enjoy a puzzle game. The puzzles are not so difficult that you need a guide to solve them, but some of them, you’ll play around with for a while, and then one of you will have a ‘eureka’ moment and you’ll get to feel clever, which is perfect for a game two people are playing. The levels are quite big but the puzzle themselves are all fairly short and self contained, so you can move on when one is frustrating and come back to it later. So it might well work for kids as well, especially if they are familiar with platform game mechanics. And there’s no violence or scary parts, just a bit of fairy tale fantasy. I should remember this game when my kids are a bit older, might teach them some co-operation.
Your wife sounds a bit like mine. She enjoys playing together with me, but for herself, it’s either on the phone, or some form of Animal crossing. Now that we finally have a switch, I just know that she will be wanting Animal crossing, and I better make sure I have beaten the games I want to play before then, because it will probably no longer be available once she gets hold of it.
Degrees of Separation looks really nice…I picked it up on my alt when it got bundled. I haven’t decided if I’m going to try playing it with my kids or with the wife, who doesn’t tend to play games other than Super Mario on our ancient original Wii, or iPad games. I’ll probably try it with her, and let the kids play the game with each other.