Happy Wednesday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here. Today, our writers share what they’ve been playing over the past month. Feel free to share what you’ve been playing this month, because we’re all part of the Geekly Gang. I’ll get this post started with what I’ve been playing over the past month.
Kyra’s Video Games
Die in the Dungeon is a dice version of Slay the Spire. Die in the Dungeon is a roguelite where players choose a path in a branching dungeon. Instead of building a deck, you’ll build a dice pool. The computer rolls your dice for you–so that’s a tactical goodness you’ll miss with Die in the Dungeon–and die placement on a 9-space grid shaped like a diamond can be the difference between victory and defeat.
Because it uses dice, Die in the Dungeon feels like it has fewer parts than Slay the Spire. I may be wrong. But dice can only do so much, and each die type is color-coded. Red attack. Blue block. Green heal. Purple dice give bonuses. There are more die types (that have various actions), but usually, if a die has a similar hue to the base dice, the die will be a variant of one of those three basic die types. For example, pink dice are typically splash attacks (attack all enemies). I’m just getting started with Die in the Dungeon, but I can see this one as a good candidate for a Quirky Video Game Review sometime next year.
If you like Slay the Spire, you should give Die in the Dungeon a try. A free demo does exist on Steam. You can try before you buy. I can see Die in the Dungeon getting its own tabletop game adaptation. I really like rolling dice, and while you can reroll dice in Die in the Dungeon, it doesn’t hit the same as clicking a button to roll the dice at the beginning of combat. Sure, Die in the Dungeon saves time by autorolling your dice before each round of battle. But I want to roll dice.
I’ve been keeping up with Apex Legends. The new legend, Axle, is fun. Per usual (for skirmisher legends like Axle), she was released in an overpowered state, and Apex Legends has since nerfed her in line with the rest of the roster. With the launch of the E-District map last season, Apex Legends feels like it’s gained some positive momentum. I wouldn’t mind Respawn alternating new legend, new map, new weapon, and new game mode each season (which spans three months), but it’s Respawn, this is a not-so-sudden influx of new content. While some live-service video games flood their games with an abundance of content (ahem, Fortnite), Apex Legends drags its feet. Longtime fans of the game don’t ask for much. They just want consistent new content.
Apex Legends releases a new legend and map every year and a half. I stopped playing the game for three years, and the weapon pool remains the same. Sure, the game has made tweaks like making the RE-45 an energy pistol, and it added akimbo for the Mozambique and P-2020, but Apex Legends has not had a new weapon since the Bocek. The Bocek was released during the pandemic. The pandemic. That feels like a lifetime ago. I’ll admit. New weapons affect Apex Legends’ gameplay the most. Every character can pick up any of the weapons, so you need to get the balance right. But Apex Legends also hasn’t released a new way to play the game since Gun Run in 2022. The game is still fun. Stale but fun.
Kyra’s Board Games
I’ve been playing a bit of solo Vantage. The game plays well as a solo experience, but more players make the game interesting. Like so many board games, the optimal player count rests somewhere in the middle of the lowest and highest player counts. Solo is too lonely. Six players would slow Vantage to a crawl. Three to four players is the happy place.
I may offer to GM Vantage at a future board game convention. If you’re in the Omaha area during Nuke-Con (first weekend in October), stop by and say hi. And if you want to explore a strange and exciting alien planet, we can launch a round of Vantage. I love the game’s system. Vantage’s combination of storybooks and cards makes each session an adventure.
Typically, I don’t mention my games that I’m playtesting, but I will for this month’s post. Monster Chef works as a hand management game. Omitting the card drafting helped. The new ability (Cleaver) allows players to zip through the decks more effectively. Maintaining the same hand helps players plan their next turn. I do wonder if Monster Chef plays better at three players and above. I’ve played plenty of two-player Monster Chef, and it doesn’t have the same pizzazz. It’s still good. But I prefer Monster Chef at 3-5 players. At any player count, Monster Chef doesn’t overstay its welcome. I may have found the right pacing.
Switching Rustbucket Riots from a dice rolling game to a bag building game threw off the game’s balance. At first, I also struggled with the players feeling less powerful. That won’t do. So, I made some crazy rebalancing for the game. Adding minions to player bags is brutal. Players can bust and don’t get what they want. That’s a double whammy. I’m keeping that dynamic–for now–and trying to add fewer minions to the bags each turn. We’ll see where this leads. I love Rustbucket Riots’ bag building. This mechanism allows for quicker onboarding for gamers. Most of an initial teach would be explaining what happens when players roll, lock, place, and spend dice. Now, you grab tokens, place, and spend. Rustbucket Riots is far more streamlined. Now, I just need to finish rebalancing the game.
That’s all I have for this past month. Let’s see what Season and Skye have been playing.
Season’s Video Games
I’ve also been playing Apex Legends recently. I haven’t played in years, so it feels fresher to me than it does for someone who’s played consistently. Normally, I don’t care for FPS games, but Apex Legends is the one exception for me. Seriously, I can’t aim to save my life. I can’t even utilize V.A.T.S well in the Fallout franchise. That’s how bad I am. I like Apex Legends because of the squad element, ping system, and interesting characters.
I’ve been playing Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time for a couple of weeks, and I’ve been having a blast. It’s an adventure, farming simulator, dungeon crawler, has MMO elements for multiplayer, and has Animal Crossing aspects to it. It has so much content that I AP’ed trying to figure out where to start. So far, I’m 71% finished with the main story, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is a lot of fun, and it encourages players to play the game how they’d like.
Skye’s Video Game
I laser-focused on Stardew Valley for weeks. Stardew Valley is a game that’s been in my PlayStation library for years now, but I remembered after coming out of my surgery that I never technically “finished” it. I hadn’t completed all the community center bundles, I hadn’t unlocked all the house upgrades, I hadn’t obtained every variety of livestock, I hadn’t finished the museum collection, and I certainly hadn’t been to every location. After these few weeks, I’ve made it nearly to summer of year 3 and have spent an obscene amount of time managing my farm, building relationships, and desperately trying to renovate the community center. All I have left to do is donate a Fiddlehead Fern and a Pufferfish and it’ll be done, but it’s been more difficult than I expected. Eventually I’ll have the community center back to its former glory. Just you wait.
Hey, hey, Kyra Kyle here again. Those are the games our writers have been playing over the past month. Let us know what you’ve been playing in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.
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