Blog: Video Games of November 2023

I spent a lot of November down with COVID, so I don't really remember the month and certainly didn't have a lot of energy to play. I'd planned to pick up Sea of Stars around my birthday and that turned out to be a pretty good speed when I had the energy for it.

My top five games (by play time) for November were:

1. Sea of Stars - Sea of Stars is a lot of fun. I think it stands up on its own, but it's also the modern extension of great SNES role playing games. It's certainly made with a lot of Chrono Trigger in it's heart and kind works as the sequel I'd been imagining, rather than Chrono Cross.
   
   
   


2. Dicey Dungeons - Dicy Dungeons has been the thing to play when I don't want to use my brain too much.
   
   
   


3. Tactics Ogre: Reborn - I started a new playthrough to look at the differences of the routes. I'm finding the overall story a little flat, and some of that is due to them trying to keep a dark and gritty tone. The game play in each mission is always fun, so as long as you don't think about the war crimes you keep committing, it's fun.
   
   


4. Stardew Valley - I found it hard to come back to Stardew Valley. It's still a good an enjoyable game and the core farming is enjoyable, but I found having played through all of the story years ago, I just didn't really connect.
   
   
   


5. Mineko's Night Market - I thought I'd try this out as something new in the farming / store management genre. It's fun, but not quite what I'd hoped. It's slow on its own and then has some fairly severe technical issues on the switch that make it frusterating to play.
   
   
   

Here's my total play time for November:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Video Games of October 2023

October was a complicated month, so I wasn't thinking too much about what I really played. I did install steam on my Mac and so that was nice to expand the pool, although there's not a lot that plays nicely on my 2016 mac.

My top five games (by play time) for October were:

1. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - I'm reaching the ending of my first play through. Maybe should have pushed thought quicker, just to let the story go at speed. ToTK has been
   
   


2. Dicey Dungeons - This has been pretty good for quick pick up and play situations. The number of different ways to approach the core concept of role dice and use them to activate cards is fun alghough, I would love a design my own deck and just play with things, even if it would be stupidly imbalanced.
   
   


3. Pikmin 4 - Continues to be solid and I appreciate just how much there is. Have drifted off in the last little bit, but I'm sure I'll be back.
   
   


4. Tactics Ogre: Reborn - It snowed, and just to confuse everyone, rather than playing Ogre Battle, I played Tactics Ogre. It's a little thin for story, but the actual combat in an encounter is always fun.
   
   


5. Hades - Still great. Does not like my Mac's keyboard.
   
   

Here's my total play time for October:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Games of January 2021

January was a transitional month for me, so I had a different month playing games. My days are a little more structured and I'm much more able to take an evening or a day on the weekend to play. I've also been trying to play more intentionally, and focus on a couple of games.

My top five games (by play time) for January were:

1. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - The more I play Age of Calamity, the more interesting I find it. I do find that the musou style of game play doesn't really appeal to me, but with practice I do feel like I'm doing epic things now. The story and especially the cutscenes are really well done and have made it worth playing.
   
   


2. Dicey Dungeons - I needed to find something to enjoy during lunch. Now given that I work, take lunch, play PC games and do my hobbies all at the same desk, maybe I *don't* need something to enjoy during lunch, but I'm still looking. Dicey Dungeons has more-or-less been a good fit for that, but I am finding I'm hitting a bit of a wall as I get to its harder difficulties. It's fun and has a lot of good mechanics, but the pacing is a bit harsh.
   
   


3. Hades - Still totally awesome, but I've been playing a bit less just due to focusing on other things. The one thing I find frustrating is that if I don't play for a few days, my next few runs are really rough.
   
   


4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Uh, I'm sliding out of this. They have announced several updates and events for February, but I'm finding it harder and harder to stay interested. I'd still love to love this, but they're just not really finishing development. I don't know if it was caught in the pandemic, it was just successful enough that Nintendo decided to put resources else where, or this was their original idea of the game, but as anything beyond a doll house it's hollow.
   
   


5. Mario 35 - I suppose Nintendo's gambit that putting a time limit on how long you can play the game worked because I keep choosing to play this over other games because it's going away in March. It's good game and the battle-royal is interesting. 
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for January:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month: