Acquisitions

• Nothing...? But only because I haven't had the heart to go through a Humble Monthly I accidentally bought a couple of months ago.

All links should open in a new tab besides the category tags. I might add that I've finished categorizing my unfinished games by length, and in the process I found around 20 games to delete (looked like crap or abandoned and not even any trading cards).

• Mountain
  

  8.4 hours playtime

  21 of 31 achievements

• Dark Fall: The Journal
  

  15.1 hours playtime

  0 of 0 achievements

• Rock of Ages
  

  6.8 hours playtime

  9 of 19 achievements

• Staxel
  

  43.9 hours playtime

  10 of 23 achievements

Mountain

Quirky Short

This isn't really a game, so there's not much to say. I played it because I was categorizing my games by length and figured I'd let it run while doing that and reading Le comte de Monte-Cristo. I have more to say about what I was doing while the game ran than the "game" itself. So, I categorized all my unfinished games over like a 3-day grind. I rediscovered a lot of stuff I've already forgotten, much like the objects on my mountain. I've also been reading, as I said, Le comte de Monte-Cristo in the original French for the year-long reddit read along.

Dark Fall 1: The Journal

At Least Somewhat Historic Detectives! Mystery! Murder! England, My Lionheart Ghosts Halloween and Horror Short World Wars Era

I recommend this to anyone who likes point and clicks and ghosts. It's sad to think this game from 2002 with the crappiest save system ever felt innovative, but it did. You go to a hotel and old station in a town in Dorset, England after getting a strange message from your brother. It is reputed to be haunted and is associated with several disappearances. Like any point and click, you'll explore the area. You'll also be able to make use of ghost-hunting equipment, as well as sound files, images, etc. that have been captured.

It felt more like a Nancy Drew game to me than most other point and clicks, which is a good thing. But what I really liked was the inclusion of ways to communicate with ghosts. You can type out questions to ask via a ouija board, and the ghost will move the planchette around in response. You can even speak to some more directly, still by typing out questions or responses to them. While most of the game was spent doing other things, I thought that felt really immersive, and I'm interested to see if they develop that more in later games. They will mostly only respond to relevant topics, but I was able to ask some things that weren't directly relevant ("What year is it?" "How old are you?").

"Are you dead?" "Yes."

There are a couple of annoyances: low resolution and the save system. Saving and loading brings the Windows file system up. You are literally naming and saving a text file in whatever place you choose. The problem is that your screen will likely be too huge to view the files. I was relying on pressing the enter key to save since I couldn't see the button and seeing the file name as a contextual suggestion after I started typing it. I'm on Windows 7. It has no Steam overly integration, either, while I'm at it being critical, so I had to manually save the screenshots under these crappy conditions.

Rock of Ages

Ancient World (Greece, Rome, Persia, etc.) At Least Somewhat Historic Cool-looking Folklore & Mythology LMAO Medieval Quirky Renaissance Short

I usually don't like puzzle games or anything that is divided into repetitive levels very much. Nor have I ever had much desire to play anoter tower defense game after playing one. But for some reason Rock of Ages was fun, even though it was basically a puzzle game with elements similar to tower defense. On the contrary, this was fun, quirky, and just the right length. Thanks to one of my Play or Pay pickers for recommending it.

You're Sisyphus, rolling it out against various historical figures through time. The idea is to roll a ball and hit your opponent's door/gate at the end of the path with as much force as possible. That means you need to be going quickly and to have taken as little damage as possible on the way down. You get a bit of time in between rolls to set up obstacles for your opponent, aimed at slowing them down and destroying their ball. The game's tone is in the same vein as the Lego games or Stacking--silly, physical humor.

Staxel

Crafting Dress Up Halloween and Horror Kitty Cats Make Believe - Simulated Lives Next Up Player Homes Winter Won on SteamGifts

3rd Staxel update (see 1 & 2 if interested).

I'm working on a house for a new resident (she already moved in--it doesn't require a complete roof) based on the fairy castle from the Spring event. That was motivated, in part, by the source of free furniture from the event castle.

The last screenshot shows something I started building as a loft, but to be honest it kind of sucks like that because you can barely see below. I'm thinking of just roofing off the exposed part of the lower floor and keeping this "loft"as an outdoor (windowless) window.

That's about it. I've started digging out a spot for the foundation of the next person's house. I believe/hope this is the person who will finally sell me chocolate chip cookies so I can finish the quest to get a different person to join the town.