Touch Type Tale and Super Space Club

Games that combine strange things.

Touch Type Tale

Playing as a boy who happens to find a wizard's magical typewriter this game is a blend of both a typing game and a fantasy RTS like the original Warcraft games, but instead of having a mouse to select anything - you have to use the randomly generated word provided! This is for EVERYTHING: selecting the mine, harvesting from the mine, select the town hall, hire peasants to collect mined stuff, build new structure, farm fields, train units, move units across the map, split units, cast spells etc. 

There's a LOT of typing, but that's not even the hard part. Most of the difficulty comes from the RTS side in getting units out fast enough to defend! Definitely a challenging game and a strange combo one at that. As such its audience might be a pretty small set of people.

Super Space Club

This is simply "Asteroids" set to some rap music tracks and waves of endless enemies. Sure you can grind points to unlock new weapons and other pilots (rather, their special abilities) but that doesn't really do it for me - especially as the music isn't really my cup of tea. That said maybe the newer generation haven't ever played asteroids and enjoy rap? For everyone else, not recommended. 

GTFO (Early Access)

Silly title. Amazing game.

This first person horror survival game is best played cooperatively with up to three allies. Set in some horrible and dark facility crawling with ugly monsters who are for the most part, asleep - you are tasked with various jobs such as lugging heavy objects past doors with alarms, turning on reactors and other very loud objectives.

Before dropping into a level you are free to select your load out to whatever suits you. Just know there are no other weapons to pick up during a level and there are no special skills to unlock. There is no character progression, and you can't buy better ways or unlock skills to finish missions. Everything relies on player cooperation, coordination and ultimately skill.

Watch those corners...

The levels don't even scale. They are balanced for a party of four, but you can still beat them solo if you have the patience, the talent and the balls to do so. Everyone always starts with a heavy hammer too, which is really useful for bopping heads while the monsters sleep. And these are truly monsters. If just eight of the weakest ones come for you at the same time, you will already be in big trouble unless you are skilled. Some maps send these in clusters of thirty plus.

Now this game is not for everyone and plays best if you have friends to go in with you, and more importantly, all of you must have the patience to keep retrying missions because you will fail. A lot. In my current 37 hours of play time, my group of three have only beaten one map. If that scares you then stay away from this game. For everyone else, I give this five giants out of five.

Insight: Stop moving/killing when things flash red if you want to maintain stealth, unless you are sure you can wipe them out before they scream.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What type of content do you feel is severely underrated?" -Roger Edwards

Games like this, where there is no progression at all outside story/map advancement. No "better" armor. No "better" weapons than whatever you pick to start with. No better skills to earn or unlock. No different classes, no different "roles". I've always disliked "roles" anyway. With enough effort, everyone should be able to do everything just like in real life. No wussy wallet warrior methods to help. Everyone is given equal footing, and everything depends on your own mastery of the game.

I'd like to mention that in the earlier story arcs, the combat in Mabinogi was much like this as well. A level 1 character controlled by a competent player could absolutely win against "overpowered" foes which is why I really enjoyed it back then.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Way more than twice.

Made by the same people who made Dark Souls, this is almost just Dark Souls in Japan. In it you play as a ninja protecting a special kid with powers from people that want to abuse said powers. You are also terrible at this, as babysitting was not a quality or talent you have learned.

Instead you'll be spending most of the time exploring, killing and looting while learning skills and earning gear to do the same thing more efficiently. The environments are gorgeous, and the bosses are deadly. As a ninja, you'll need to evade and parry since armor isn't really their thing.

There's also a lot of fire.

Is it a hard game? Yes, and there is no difficulty option. Is it harder than Dark Souls? I'll say ... no. Especially not Dark Souls 3. Why? Many reasons:

1) You are faster than anything else in the game and can literally run or grapple past everything bar the mandatory bosses.

2) Bosses have two "health" gauges. One is life, one is posture. End either and you get a kill shot. Some have more in one than the other, so that comes with the learning.

3) It's strictly single player. There are no enemy players who will ever invade you. In the same token there are no mandatory bosses that you need allies to help with (I needed a lot of help with a few Dark Souls ones).

4) Dark Souls bosses have killed me more than the ones in Sekiro. Sister Friede in particular.

That's not really the question you should be asking though. What you should be asking is, "is it fun?" and the answer to that is hell yes! Highly recommended - I give it 4 artificial arms out of 5.

NWO: Everyone should be Equal... Equally Crap

While the full version can be found here, this is the short version:

Players - Hey, we noticed that 3 of the available classes are much weaker than the others and much less fun to play probably due to some math bug. Can you please fix them so they match the others?

Cryptic - Oh yes, there is a math bug! We will fix it by making all the other classes weaker and as much less fun to play too!

Me - Way to remove fun and add more artificial challenge. Also, don't you guys ever test stuff before going live? -_-

I like challenging games but only if they are that from the outset. If a game starts out as easy, light, and fun then extremely ramps up the difficulty or has a clear design shift to just make things harder I get very annoyed.

Blaugust Prep Week: Build Bridges

Most blogs have some sort of number tracker on the back end that give bloggers an indication of how many readers their site is getting, but more inspiring is getting comments from readers on your posts. That's a much better sign that you aren't just shouting into the void.

Today's advice can be taken as a mini-challenge for this Blaugust: Everyday, comment on someone else's blog. It doesn't have to be the same one constantly, it doesn't have to be super long, and it doesn't have to always be positive or agreeable (but try not to be a douchebag).

Not only do you make someone else's day better, you will also make connections with other people who share your blogging hobby. Reciprocated or not, this will help you get your name out there and more importantly builds up your community with which you can share ideas, dreams, thoughts. After all, a conversation is usually better than a soliloquy.

I think that's a pretty big part of Blaugust is and it should be something that continues well after.

Neverwinter Online: Arcane Reservoir Challenge

For those who want quests that aren't in the game. :P

It's been awhile since I made a challenge post, but I thought I'd do one for the Sharandar Weekly in Neverwinter Online. Most people fly through it these days (myself included), literally just running past everything to murder the boss and leave. Well, if you want to mix things up here's the task for you:

Get all four of the NPC Reservoir Guards to the final room.
 

This is the finish line.

Note that they will vanish when you hit the boss cut scene but that's fine, if all four of them made it there alive you win. As your gear score improves you also might want to add a few extra options like:

Complete the quest solo
Complete the quest in under 3 minutes

Shouldn't be that tough and if at first you don't succeed, don't worry too much since you'll probably be doing this quest every week at some point. :)

Blaugust Approaches

Belghast has set a big challenge to the blogging community to complete 31 days of blogging next month and for people to share more about their personal lives throughout. I know I've been a bit slack this month with my own posting so I thought I'd participate and see how it goes. Obviously there will be a bit of post spamming going on during this from many other bloggers so I can only imagine how much reading material is going to be popping up.

Honestly I'm not sure if I have the endurance for this task but what worries me more is the sharing part. I'm not so good with that but I suppose you will be learning a thing or two about me during the course of the event and that kinda scares me! Eep! >.<

In any case... you have been warned!

Today I Smiled: Wizardry and talking Dogs

Okay, this is my first attempt at my Today I Smiled Challenge so hopefully you all like it!

There are those times when your game of choice simply frustrates you into table flipping moments. You aren't alone. I know most of my readers don't play (or have even heard of) Wizardry Online, but here's a nice (oldish) clip by Dremlock to cheer you up.

It just puts a smile on my face everytime I watch it... until I remember I have to get past that dungeon too. As a bonus, here's a funny Japanese Ad by Softbank (they have a whole series) that also gave me the giggles.

Hope you enjoyed those. Just one last note: It's going to be a bit quiet on this site for the next few days so savour the sillyness, and if you want more extra reading material (by me) please browse the Library links in the top right hand corner for organized links or scroll down as per usual to find stuff chronologically.

Doing the Hard Yards

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Decided to continue training using some of the challenges found on the Skyrim Blog. For obvious reasons, some of these had to be reloaded either because I died, killed someone I didn't want to, or temporarily paid my bounty to run the challenge.

Challenge: Salmon Catching (success I think)
Go to where the river has rapids near Whiterun. You have two minutes to catch as many salmon as possible.
On my best attempt (3rd try) I got 12. First one was 4. :P

Challenge: Wheel Riding (success)
Ride a paddlewheel up from the water and get off on the landing above.
Went to Riverwood for this one, and it was not as easy as I had thought. Still managed to get up there on my 4th attempt though.

Challenge: Chicken Cart (success)
Your goal is to kill a chicken using only a wooden cart.
Took a moment before I realized I had to jump at the cart rather than walking into it. Dead chicken indeed. :)

Challenge: Giant Boxing (death! Lots of it! :P)
Go to Talking Stone Camp and find a lone giant. With no armor or weapons your goal is to punch it as many times as you can. You are not allowed to leave the camp's perimitter.
Best run I punched the guy 4 times. He kept sending me flying though!

Challenge: Torch Run (success)
With no armor and only carrying a torch - run on foot from the gates of whiterun to the Jarl's house in Morthal in under 5 minutes.
After death by sabrecat and death by bandit arrow, I managed to reach the dang place with a time of 4:53.4.

Challenge: Dovah-Sprint (fail)
Run from the gates of Whiterun to the chest outside High Hrothgar in under 7 minutes.
Massive fail for me here - only reached it at 9:42.8.

I lose stamina just looking at the picture. :(

Challenge: Dovah-Descent (success)
Get from High Hrothgar to Riverwood in 2 minutes or less without using Become Ethereal or dying.
After one horrific fall, I managed to get down there in one piece (more or less) in 1:51.9.

Challenge: Cliffside Retreat Archery Test (success)
Put a bucket on the hunter's head. Shoot from 3 marked positions.
Again, archery is my forte. Won on arrow 4.

Challenge: Waterfalling (timed)
Get a corpse from Nilheim Tower down to the shore of Darkwater Crossing as fast as possible.
Using a bandit who "volunteered" this turned out to be really difficult for me, requiring many retries to get her to the bottom lake. Only made it to shore at 6:46.3.

Challenge: Dragon Catching (timed)
Catch as many dartwings as you can, as fast as you can.
Starting near where the hunters are bathing near Darkwater Crossing, I got 10 (and almost killed by a bear) in 5:02.2.

Challenge: Logging Wine (timed)
Drag (not pick up) as many bottles of wine from one end of a fallen log to the other in 2 minutes. The fallen log is West of Knifepoint Lookout.
After running into a hagraven fighting a spriggan (pretty even) and clearing a pair of bandits I tried this and only managed to get 4 across (dropped 1 too). :/

Challenge: Mistwatch Catapult (fail)
Setup some containers at the tower door and use the drawbridge to catapult stuff into them.
Used two small baskets and one large one and for ammo had 12 mugs, 2 slices of cheese, 14 pieces of salmon and some wine. Score - ZERO. Good thing I've never needed to man a catapult! :P

Training Surprise

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Set my new recruits to train under the experienced and watchful eyes of Jordis and Njada, however since I was still quite rusty too I decided to do some training myself and came across these "challenges" on the Skyrim Blog which I thought I'd try out. For obvious reasons, some of these had to be reloaded either because I died, killed someone I didn't want to, or temporarily paid my bounty to run the challenge.

Challenge: Target Practice (success)
At Solitude, stand on the level of Beirand's smithy and shoot five shop signs without moving.
With my archery skill, this was easy. Even bagged two more penticus occultus fools on guard duty without being detected while I was at it.

Challenge: Solitude Tourist (timed)
Starting at the gates, do a set of six tasks in the city and return to the gates.
Pretty poor run I think, finishing only at 6 minutes 02 seconds.

Challenge: Bird Sniping (success)
At Solitude docks, shoot down 5 birds using a maximum of seven arrows.
This one was a little tough but I got lucky and on my 3rd load of 7 arrows killed a 5th bird with my last shot.

Challenge: Arrow Catch (fail)
Fire arrows into the air at any speed. Catch three in a row.
For the life of me I couldn't even catch a single arrow, and I was pretty much standing right underneath them as they fell. Must be doing something wrong. :(

I had as much luck as Adam from Mythbusters.

Challenge: Yelling at Jovasskr (success)
Using one level one "Unrelenting Force", yell everything off a long table.
Needed a few tries at this since those plates were bastards to move. Eventually got it though!

Draugr Interruption:
After that last challenge the old lady who minded the place mentioned something about keeping secrets and with a sly, wrinkled grin descended to the living quarters. Suspicious, I followed her and used Aura Whisper to find that two other people were down here! I went to investigate and found that both Skjor and Aela had come back from the grave! Damn, would-be-draugr! I couldn't let them live. When I asked Skjor how he was still alive (after I saw him butchered by the Silver dudes) he simply said "You've yet to prove yourself, whelp" and tossed me a steel two handed sword.

I punched him a bit to accept his duel and given my unfamiliarity with 2-handers this became a cool and somewhat long fight. Aela kept cheering her wolf-buddy on from the side lines with chants like "kill him!", but it was Skjor who eventually found himself run through as he tried to flee like the coward he was. I tossed the sword aside and then set my sights on the bitch Aela, punching her repeatedly while yelling for her to show her true form. Either she couldn't or wouldn't, but she couldn't even fire an arrow in retaliation and eventually I grappled her and in a wrestling move finish knocked her lights out. Or killed her. Not sure, but if she could no longer wolf out then maybe stabbing her at Boethiah's pillar before actually did something.

I now knew the old maid had known this whole time that she was assisting werewolves and so I had no choice but to beat her to death with my bare hands - smashing her head down on a chair to finish her off. After picking up Skjor's steel two hander again I stalked up to the forge where the smith continued his business. I questioned him and reading between the lines could tell that he had known of the wolf threat the whole time. For his insolence I challenged him to a duel, and much like Skjor - he was cut down where he stood. Then I tossed his worthless carcass into the fire before sneaking out of town.