And with that, this very long 4-day weekend comes to a close, and the usual daily grind returns once more in about ten or so hours.
Was it a ``productive'' break? Depends on what it means by ``productive''---if it is referring to getting work done, then hell no because I refuse to work over non-working hours if I can help it for the two simple reasons that 1. life is too short to be spent on working for not my owned business and 2. I'm not paid for over-time anyway. Moreover, work is never-ending---if work truly ends, then either one is finally made irrelevant at the job that one was working in, or the company/business is at a dead end and have literally nothing else to do.
Now, if ``productive'' was meant in a way that is more tailor-made to the fact that it was a break, then in some ways, it had been quite productive. I completed Psychonauts 2, and by ``complete'' I do mean 100%-ing it too, collecting all that is collectible and maxing out all my character upgrades.
I like Psychonauts 2. It's a 3D platformer with RPG elements, a genre that I honestly don't play much of due to the general requirement of using a controller [with twin analogue sticks] to operate. The closest in genre to it is those third-person action RPGs (think The Witcher 3, something from the Batman/Arkham series), but those I tended to play with keyboard and mouse... just because. 3D platformers with controllers are something of a recent thing for me, with the latest prior to Psychonauts 2 being Bayonetta for the PC, which I abandoned about half-way through due to some serious input lag issues.
I enjoyed the exploratory aspects of Psychonauts 2. The combat mechanics were a little clunky at times since certain enemies could only be dealt with using one of the eight skills (that were mapped to the four shoulder buttons/triggers for activation). Most of the time though, three of the four PSI-based weapons (or skills) are more or less permanently assigned---one for the AOE fire damage, one for effectively ``fast move'', and one for medium range shooting, leaving only one button for whatever ``special'' skill needed. I usually assign the slow-time skill to that button---that slowing of time allows a higher relative DPS to be applied to the enemies, which is always great and is a more general but effective tactic.
I'm bad at the actual platforming though, mostly because judging distances are hard even when one has control over the camera---this was made particularly worse with moving platforms over void with collectibles (that cast no shadow) overhead. Thankfully, there was an option in the game menu that allowed the negation of fall damage from failed platforming, and that made the gameplay smoother than it should, given my not-so-great 3D platforming capabilities.
It was a fun game, and I definitely enjoyed the 40+ hours that I had spent in it.
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In other news, Vampire Survivors introduced a new mechanic called ``Arcana'' to their basic gameplay loop. At this point, I'm not really sure what to feel about it---it does add a little variety to the builds, but it is starting to feel like it may reach Binding of Isaac levels of randomised gameplay, which sort of defeats the quick fun that is the draw of Vampire Survivors? It's related to the issue I have with the cross-game skills meta---there is really no reason why the order of purchase of a skill upgrade should matter in the cost of getting the next available level. What I mean is, there should be no difference in the overall cost of (say) upgrading in the order ``ABC'' as opposed to ``BCA'', or any other order, for that matter, for the three cross-game skills of A, B, and C.
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On a separate note, Ghostlore is finally in Early Access stage on Steam. Ghostlore is a game made in SIN city, and is based on the mythology of the SEA region. It's a hack-and-slash built along the same vein as ye olde Diablo, but with some interesting mechanics that differ from the regular skill tree. I tried their demo some time back and found it interesting enough to keep an eye out on, and when they finally released their Early Access a few days ago, I just snapped it.
There are some instabilities at the moment, and I will probably play a bit more on it in a few days once the more obvious bugs are fixed. I think this might be a cool game to look forward to, if the developers keep up what they have done so far.
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Okay, game-related stuff aside, there is little else to talk about over the four-day long weekend. I mean, okay I attended church service for Good Friday in person, and the Easter service this morning via live-stream, but those aren't exactly things that I generally write about here anyway. I mean, it's a worship service to God... the general contents are more or less the same, and while there is definitely reflection involved with the message that was preached, much of it probably falls into the ``better to put them into the paper journal instead'' category.
I think that's about it for now. Till the next update.
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