Game review for Octopath Traveller

 I think Octopath Traveller is an excellent RPG. I've been playing it most of this year. The music is similar to Final Fantasy 6 quality, though a little less amazing. The plot is well done and not predictable except for the happy endings. There is some grinding with monsters in order to be strong enough to beat the bosses and some bosses require unusual strategies which forces you to think but you can attempt to brute force them alternatively, its just much harder. I haven't decided who my favorite character is but I really like the secondary job system which lets you customize the character abilities some and get interesting combinations especially with the secondary abilities. One killer combo I found was cleric and dancer since you get constant magic refills after each move. Thief and wizard was another killer combo since thieves can steal SP. I thought that Olfric was probably the most boring character plot but still enjoyable enough. Most of the others are quite good though. I highly recommend trying this game out if you haven't yet.

Cheers!

Game reviews for Moonlighter and Ara Fell

In 2022 I played Ara Fell. A surprising gem made originally with the RPG Maker 2003 and then remade with Unity to give it steam achievements and enhanced combat a bit and other goodies. It has a surprising level of polish and was made by One programmer supported by an army of people doing other things. part of the reason I played it is I'm working on finish my own game with Anton and it is using the same engine so this gave me a lot of ideas for what it can do and what I polished game could look like. I can tell this game has been polished for years. The play balance, the challenging boss fights, they story polish, its all there, better than many final fantasy games really. They have an army of people making them but are not always so polished with love and dedication. In that regard it sort of reminded me of Stardew Valley, also made by one (over?) dedicated guy.
Other things I really enjoyed about this game was how delicately and more realistically it portrayed the heroine and her romance with the main character guy and how funny it was. It didn't try to do too much. It developed the four main characters and kept revealing secrets about them so that you really cared about finding out what happened next.

In 2023 (this year) I played Moonlighter as well as Gloomhaven some and other things. I just finished Moonlighter and I have to say I'm impressed at how it captures the fun of old Zelda 1 or 3 but with a new twist of grinding money and running a shop. The running a shop part isn't that amazing but its a good counter point to relax after a stressful life threatening dungeon run so it works pretty well actually. The only qualm I'd say I have is the bosses are a little under powered except the third and last one, once you grind up the gear. And the mini bosses you just steamroller once you have the right gear. They are a joke. And there are Easter eggs like rooms with infinite spawn or a monster who chases you if you run out of time but they often take a bit too long to find and most people probably finish the game and cease caring before they find many of these things. Still I think it was put together pretty well. My only real ask is for more dungeons and tools like in Zelda to make things a little more interesting but it did quite well for only having block, roll, shoot arrows, and slash.

Giving Thanks

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'd like to give thanks this year for video games. Video games have helped me and my wife and kids endure nearly 9 months of social isolation and being indoors more than preferred due to Covid, as well as helping us play with friends without exposure risk. A couple of games I'd like to be thankful for right now are Oxygen not Included, a colony sim which I'm really enjoying and which has a lot of interesting options and cute funny people running around making funny faces, Rim World, a different colony sim with a bit more fighting and seriousness, and Kingdom which my kids are really enjoying with me and which was coded by three people and has a rather nice feel to it. I'd also like to give thanks for sports which we've done when we can get a few precious moments outside, like playing Soccer with my kiddos.

Rounding a corner

I feel I'm rounding a corner. Its been a lot of time with toddlers and babies in the house but we're nearing the end. My youngest is finally turning four this year. I'm getting more time in the evenings to work on my Rhuidia game and play. I've recently beat the Draco Lich in NWN 2 and he was hard. Apparently Being a Cleric Thief with a Tiefling fighter friend works well against him if I keep casting remove fear and the Heal spell but he's still very tough. I have been playing Icewind Dale with my boys every other Saturday. They are really enjoying it and I might get my brother involved. I'm also occasionally playing D&D with them. Life keeps getting better as kids get older. Less diapers, more board games. I'm going to endeavor to blog a little more, not super regularly, but a little more than before when I was so strapped for time. Another neat thing I read in the news is that they are opening a Studio Ghibli land in Japan. How cool is that?

T Shirts and icons

I've been working hard on icons for my game I'm making with friends. Also I'm enjoying Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition that Anton gave me for my birthday. I haven't really recognized what is enhanced about it except the graphics resolution but that's OK because I never got to play Shadows of Undrentide or Hordes of the Underdark so there's plenty of adventuring to do.

Lastly I am trying my hand at making t-shirts for fun and profit.

Here's my first one I made on Zazzle!

C'mon, buy it. You know you want to! Especially if you have Asian family like me.

You can make one too and share it in the comments :) I'd love to see your creations! I might even buy one, with my spare change...

2019 - Busy busy busy

Sheesh,

One would think I'd dropped off the face of the earth. Instead I'm just really really busy. I'm busy at work making Genetic Sequencers become cheap. I'm busy at home helping my boys learn about dungeons and dragons, and I'm busy with my girls teaching them to read. I'm busy working on my game with Anton and Mordecai. I've got a loot system in place but it needs polishing and basic attack system is working but it also needs polish and lots of more cool moves. I'm busy avoiding listening to Trump on the radio. I'm busy trying to relax sometimes. My wife broke her leg this year and its better now, but that kept me busy being daddy/mommy. So yeah. So busy this year. But fun. Went to Italy with my wife. Played a lot of board games. I highly recommend Lords of Waterdeep, and Asara.

Best,
Thallian

What's going on this year

I've finished the rough draft pictures for all the character classes for my game but my wife has reminded me that someone might steal my art if I share it so I'm not going to share all of them. I'm working on the walking animations now for the warrior class. In the game playing department I've played a bunch of Stardew Valley this year. I highly recommend the game as its very fun and relaxing. I like it more than I liked Rune Factory Frontier which was overly grindy and too hard to marry the girls I was trying to marry, and didn't have the great of a plot either even though its graphics were more polished than Stardew, Stardew has serious charm and cute subplots. The dungeon gets boring pretty quick, though I'm glad its there. And the farming also gets old for me after a year. but the rate at which they give you new things to farm or raise is almost right, and the world is fin to explore and there are enough new things the characters say to keep you entertained for a good long while.