Slay the Spire

December 03, 2019 by Adam in Adam's Games

One of my favorite games is Slay the Spire, which is a card building computer game that has huge amounts of replayability.  It reminds me a little of Magic the Gathering, except cards are assigned randomly as rewards and the things you fight just have powers instead of cards themselves.

I got Emma playing the other day, which made me want to play more, and so I've been going against increasingly difficult challenges.  I usually fail horribly, but occasionally get the right combination of cards.  Today was one of those days and my win against the final boss was especially decisive.

Red Dead Redemption 2

December 02, 2019 by Adam in Adam's Games

I finished my cowboy game yesterday, Red Dead Redemption 2.  It was one of the longest games I've played, a lengthy tale of change, both personal and as a nation.  Pretty much everyone got a redemption arc of some kind, though not everyone made it to the end.  My favorite part about the game was spending time with my gang of outlaws, hunting for meat to throw in the stew, chatting with everyone, and singing songs after our various exploits.

Farewell Lovecraft, Hello Cowboy

October 22, 2019 by Adam in Adam's Games

I finished up Bloodborne last weekend, a gothic Lovecraftian souls game, fighting my way through corrupted townsfolk and horrible monsters.  With Sam's recommendations, I took the steps to get the "good" ending.  Whether or not it was good is somewhat questionable - what I became was certainly not a typical hero's journey.  Sam predicted it would take me a long time to finish and indeed it did.  I beat the last boss weeks after I started the game.

The next morning I picked up Red Dead Redemption 2, which has a great cowboy feel.  I'm riding with a group of outlaws, getting into trouble and trying to keep my gang afloat.  I keep breaking into cowboy twang around my family, which is an added benefit.

Gris, X-Com, and Many More

September 08, 2019 by Adam in Adam's Games

It's been a summer of assorted video games, mostly played with family or in the stolen hours in the morning hours or after dinner when Joanna is getting the kids to bed.  Emma and I will go through the assorted Humble Monthly games, picking out the best ones to play through and uninstalling the others.  It's become a bit of a monthly tradition after the first Friday.

Emma and I played a ton of Regency Solitare, Yoku's Island Express, and strangely Emma got into 911 Operator.  I played Darkest Dungeon a fair amount, then sunk into XCom2: War of the Chosen. 

XCom finally wrapped up, the motley group of soldiers fighting the alien invaders.  I'd named them after my family members - Sadie and Seraph ended up dying horribly in an early mission, though I managed to keep everyone else alive.  For the final battle I took in Joanna, Adam, Sam, Skye, Emma, and Isa.

I picked up Gris a week or so ago, which ended up being a very pretty platformer about dealing with grief.  It was short, bittersweet, and the art style was great.

I've got assorted VR games I want to dig into more.  I played a little Bridge Crew, pretending to fly a starship around in the Star Trek universe.  I managed to save a few crew in the Kobayashi Maru simulator, which is better than most.  I had fun with the VR sailing game, ducking every time I came about so the boom didn't hit me.

Vacation Simulator

June 16, 2019 by Adam in Adam's Games

Duncan wanted to get me a VR game for Father's Day and settled on Vacation Simulator (after a secret query from Joanna).  I fired it up today and it ended up being a pretty fun little game.  Essentially it's a collection on mini-games based around the idea that you're a future human and the robots are trying to give you an experience about what it was like to "vacation" in the old days.

I headed to the beach and after various little minigames ended up finding treasure in a sunken pirate ship.  The game has lots of little entertaining extras, like wearing hats and a camera that lets you take selfies.  Emma was excited to try after me and played for a good long while.

Minecraft - Ten Years Old

May 20, 2019 by Adam in Adam's Games

Back when Minecraft was a new indie game, we all started playing on a shared family server.  Sam was the old pro at that point, convincing the little kids to help mine and build a massive wall around our settlement.  I built infrastructure such as the railroad.  Joanna grew and cooked food.  We all spent quite a bit of time there.

A couple days ago I gave the old world to Duncan, who made a fly through video.  It was quite nostalgic.

PS4!

January 11, 2019 by Adam in Adam's Games

I bought myself a PlayStation 4 for Christmas and have been cheerfully going through the "best of" backlog for the last couple weeks.  I picked up the exclusives that I'd been wanting to play, but couldn't get on PC.

The Last of Us is a gritty post-apocalyptic game with fungal-induced zombies roaming the countryside.  It's also a game about fathers and daughters, and surprisingly touching.

I'm getting towards the end of Horizon Zero Dawn, which is also post-apocalyptic, but set hundreds of years after the fall of civilization.  I play as a semi-primitive person who explores the ruins, fighting giant robotic dinosaurs along the way.

I also picked up Peggle 2 in hopes that Emma would enjoy it, but sadly it's not as cool to her as the original.

I still have a pretty huge backlog to go through, not to mention my other PC games, and VR games I've yet to finish.  Such is the life of a grown-up gamer.