Tag: Video Games

Good Games with Easy, Quick Platinum Trophies

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Platinum trophy hunting (or if you play on X-Box or Steam, achievement hunting) doesn’t appeal to every gamer, but it does to me. My goal is to earn as many platinum PlayStation trophies as my age eventually. I have some work to do. More than I’d care to admit. Easy platinums tend to come from bad games, but some exceptions exist. That made me wonder which good video games have easy and quick platinum trophies.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. This post has been a long time coming. A video game can’t just have an easy-to-earn platinum trophy. We want quick platinum trophies. This eliminates a heap of video games. I just finished The Survivalists, and while it has an easy-to-earn platinum trophy, it’ll take well over thirty hours. Quick feels more like less than twenty hours. This might still be too long for some, but twenty hours is a dedicated weekend of gaming. We must pick a number.

Most gamers can find twenty hours for an enjoyable experience. That leads us to defining an “easy” platinum trophy. The trophy should be attainable through a single play-through or the game should allow players to play little of a second play-through to make this list. Finally, the game needs to be “good,” but gamers desire different things. Let’s split these games into story and gameplay buckets. I’ll do my best to explain why I included each game or game series. And this leads to the final clarification. I’ll include a game series for story and gameplay and then a few single games. Without further ado, let’s jump into the games.

Game Series

Top 5 Video Games For Couples Cat Quest 2

Cat Quest Series

We’ll start with a game series with little story but a fun gameplay loop. Cat Quest doesn’t have much of a story. It’s an excuse to have cute kitties battling beasties in an old-fashioned beat-‘em-up video game. The game has some gameplay alternatives, especially with the sequels, but Cat Quest sticks to a simple but fun formula. Cast magic with magic points. Replenish your magic points by landing weapon attacks.

Cat Quest 2 does a great job of incorporating ranged attacks. The first Cat Quest only offered melee attack weapons. As I’m writing this post, I have yet to play Cat Quest 3. It looks as if it builds off the second game in the series. The first game took me 10 hours to earn the platinum. The second game took around 15 hours. Even if Cat Quest 3 mimics Cat Quest 2 and expands the map and side quests further, it should clock in around 20 hours for the platinum and still be worthy of a spot on this list.

Telltale Games

The Telltale Games studio features story-driven games that take around 15-20 hours to complete. Most of these games were well-received at the time of their release and worth a play if you enjoy the intellectual property the game is set. I have fond memories of 2012’s The Walking Dead. This game announced Telltale Games to the video game community. Many of The Walking Dead’s moments live rent-free in my head. “Did you lick the saltlick, Clementine?” “I don’t know.” Clementine was adorable.

The Wolf Among Us was another hit and well worth a playthrough. This title also illustrates how easy it is to obtain a platinum trophy in a Telltale Game. Most Telltale Games, like The Walking Dead or the Batman series, will grant players a platinum trophy for completing the story. Super easy! Barely an inconvenience. Thank you for that phrase, “Pitch Meeting.” The Wolf Among Us requires players to make a different choice during a chapter to get its platinum trophy, but all you need to do is reload the one chapter in question and pick a different option. Even when Telltale Games makes a platinum trophy more difficult to obtain, they don’t make it that difficult.

Most Telltale Games I’ve played are a good time. I will admit that the company became risk-averse after their hit The Walking Dead. I haven’t played too many of their most recent titles. I may log a few more soon for a platinum or two.

Single Games

Nubla

A child visits an art museum and falls into the paintings. The kid must save the residents of these paintings by solving art-themed puzzles. While dated (Nubla celebrated its tenth-anniversary last year), Nubla has a great aesthetic, above-average graphics for the time, and an intriguing premise. Nubla also happens to be the quickest platinum trophy to obtain on this list, and it’s not even that close. YouTubers have speed-run completing the platinum trophy in twenty minutes. I don’t suggest watching these videos while playing the game. The puzzles aren’t that difficult to solve. I was able to finish the game in under three hours without help. Even so, you could finish Nubla in under an hour if you load a how-to video and all you want is speed.

Nubla 2 was released in late 2022. I have yet to play it. From what I’ve heard, the original cast of characters returns and again, you must rescue citizens of paintings. This may be another game I’ll need to consider, inching me closer to my platinum trophy goal.

Life Is Strange Video Game

Life Is Strange

I like to get lost in Life Is Strange’s world and characters. Set in 1990s Oregon (in the fictional town of Arcadia Bay), Life Is Strange centers on teenagers Max Caulfield and Chloe Price. Life Is Strange has an earnest quality to it that few games have. The two main characters are teenage girls and while the story can dabble in the melodramatic, it works. The world feels lived in. Steeping Arcadia Bay in a nostalgic, autumnal lens is deliberate. Even the story’s supernatural elements are designed as a metaphor for the character’s inner conflicts and there are plenty. The DontNod (design) team consulted experts to tackle difficult subjects like teen suicide.

Like the TellTale Games above, Life Is Strange was released episodically. The story goes astray a little bit toward the end but not enough to tarnish the overall experience. Life Is Strange is worth your time. It takes around 20 hours to complete the game, and you will most likely need to replay a scene or two after you finish to get the platinum trophy, but I can’t recommend the original Life Is Strange enough. And the original Life Is Strange received a remaster a couple of years ago. Yay! I may have another game to replay.

Donut County

Donut County challenges Nubla for the shortest game on this list. Again, you can find YouTube speed-runs that last an hour or two, and again, I suggest you try it on your own first. Donut County is like Katamari Damacy. Players control a hole (or donut) in the world and try to drop things into the hole. With each object that falls inside the hole, the hole gets bigger until nothing remains. Numerous mobile games have copied Donut County after its original 2018 release. It has a fun, addictive gameplay loop, and more importantly for this list, a quick and easy-to-obtain platinum trophy.

If anything, I’m disappointed that Donut County doesn’t have a longer run-time. The trophy was great to achieve, but I wanted more Donut County to play. Perhaps indie game publisher Annapurna Interactive will release a Donut County sequel. Like I need another game to play on this list.

What Remains of Edith Finch

What Remains of Edith Finch

I’ve mentioned What Remains of Edith Finch more than once on Geekly, but until this year, I had only played the demo. What Remains of Edith Finch received a remaster a few years ago and the remastered What Remains of Edith Finch has a platinum trophy. For the most part, you only need to complete the game’s six-hour story to earn the trophy. And What Remains of Edith Finch has an amazing story. What Remains of Edith Finch even manages to weave in unique gameplay elements.

The player character takes a ferry to Orcas Island, Washington carrying the journal of Edith Finch. Edith writes about her experience when she returns to her ancestral home on the island for the first time in seven years. Edith says that she’s the last surviving member of her family. The player then takes the perspective of Edith as she reexplores her family’s home and discovers the circumstances of each relative’s death. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but What Remains of Edith Finch contains innovative gameplay that matches the stories of each Finch family member. What Remains of Edith Finch shows the depth video game storytelling can achieve.

And that’s our list. The games on this list are by no means the only good video games with quick and easy platinum trophies. Let us know which games you’d include. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

5 Famous LGBT Characters in Video Games

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Happy Pride Month, Geekly Gang! Since it’s June, we’ll be celebrating with a list of famous LGBT characters in video games. JK Geekly is about to get a lot more rainbow.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We’ll be sticking to our usual format of five items to one of these lists, but make no mistake, countless other LGBT characters from video games could’ve made this list. So let’s take a look at which LGBT video game characters made this colorful list.

5) Alexios and Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey)

Alexios and Kassandra are the two main protagonists of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Alexios is male, while Kassandra is female. Both are siblings, and you can choose to play as either of them. Assassin’s Creed chose to use gender neutral terms for both characters (calling them the Greek word for mercenary), and both characters may romance any of 14 characters (male or female), but Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey goes deeper than that. Players don’t need to romance anyone. You may choose to shoot down all advances and claim that you’re aromantic or asexual, which is rare for video games that include romantic options.

Yep. We’re starting this list off strong with a seldom-represented group within the larger LGBT community. Everyone is valid.

4) Krem (Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Even though Krem was a minor character in Dragon Age: Inquisition, he received significant media coverage from gaming journalists and LGBT-centric media for his positive depiction of a transgender character in a AAA video game, and for good reason. He’s a proud member of Iron Bull’s team, named the Bull’s Chargers. Krem’s teammates accept him for who he is, and Iron Bull himself treats him like an equal.

Dragon Age creator Trick Weekes received repeated requests from fans for a respectful representation of transgender and/or genderqueer characters, without resorting to stereotypes or tokenism. Krem is the best kind of transgender representation. Honest.

3) Bloodhound (Apex Legends)

I bathe in the bloth. That’s the line Bloodhound utters every time they enter “Beast of the Hunt,” tracking down as many enemies and dispatching them as quickly as they can. Bloodhound is one of the first and few non-binary video game characters. Note: Apex Legends characters could overrun this list with Valkyrie (lesbian), Loba (bisexual), Gibraltar (gay), and Catalyst (trans woman), to name a few, so we’ll limit this list to one Apex Legends character. Apex Legends does a great job of giving its characters layers and respecting their identities.

Apex doesn’t miss a beat when referring to Bloodhound in gender neutral terms. The game normalizes it. Even when Bloodhound is young, during one of the trailers, Boone refers to them as “child.” Great representation.

2) Birdo or Birdetta (Super Mario Bros. Series)

Our penultimate entry on this list is none other than the first transgender character in video game history, Birdo. The only concrete link to Birdo’s gender comes from the original Super Mario Bros. 2 guidebook that states “he thinks he’s a girl” and “he’d rather be called ‘Birdetta'” with the implication that Birdo is a mocking term (either dead-naming her or an insult that she isn’t girly enough to pull off the name Birdetta). Let’s do this queen a solid and call her Birdetta.

As you can see, there may have been some confusion as to who Birdetta was. The characters known as Birdo and Ostro became fused into one character well after Super Mario Bros. 2’s original release. After Birdetta’s write-up in the Super Mario Bros. 2 guidebook was rediscovered, she became a trans icon. Put some respect on Birdetta’s name.

1) Ellie Williams (The Last of Us)

Ellie is synonymous with The Last of Us. Whether she’s voiced by Ashley Johnson in the video games or by Bella Ramsey in the television show, Ellie Williams exudes strength against tremendous odds. Slay, queen. Slay!

While other characters on this list may have hit the video game scene far sooner than Ellie, there’s no doubt she’s made an impact. A scene in which Ellie and Riley kiss in Left Behind (The Last of Us’ prequel) drew social commentary and was commended as a leap for LGBT representation in video games. You love to see it. Johnson’s performance in Part II was praised for her vulnerability and suffering. The same can be said of Ramsey’s portrayal in the Max television show. Ellie is a fantastic character. The community needed some great representation, and they got it with Ellie. I can wait to see which barriers this character will shatter.

That’s our list of five famous LGBT characters in video games. There are plenty more that could make their own list. Let us know some of your favorites in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Quirky Video Game Review: Stacklands

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Stacklands merges a survival/civilization game with the skeleton of a collectible card game, and the results are interesting. Developed by indie designer Sokpop Collective, Stacklands takes these disparate themes and mechanisms and makes sense of them. Prepare to drag cards on a board and stack them on top of each other for numerous interactions.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Today, I’m reviewing a quirky video game I’ve meant to cover for a while. Full disclosure: I’ve played a heap of Stacklands on Steam. I purchased all the DLC–we’ll only touch on some of the bonus content–and spent countless hours watching my card-sharped citizens build an empire. But how does Stacklands stack up against our review criteria? Let’s find out.

Mechanisms

Game Mechanisms: 10/10

Quirky indie video games tend to sport fresh game mechanisms, and Stacklands is no different. Stacklands combines a collectible card game and a civ builder into a cohesive whole. The experience is a great loop of exploration and optimization for your villagers. I’ve never had this much fun stacking one card on top of another card and getting something in return. One chicken on top of another chicken yields an egg. Place that egg card on a campfire and produce a cooked egg. Sounds simple, but a multitude of these actions may occur at once. Players must manage the timers for each interaction and generate enough food at the end of the day to feed their civilians. Any items you don’t use or can’t use may be sold for coins that are used to purchase new card packs. Card packs contain new items and ideas.

The gameplay loop and exploration (of what I can put together to make something exciting and new) are addictive. Earlier versions of Stacklands proved difficult to manage some of these elements, but later patches fixed many of these issues. I have as much fun optimizing my little village as I do discovering new ideas. If you were to construct a hotpot, you could place food into the pot that you wish for your villagers to eat first. This way, you can keep more valuable food items. Small upgrades like this add strategy.

And Stacklands is full of small and large upgrades ready to make your village strong enough to fight off invaders. Yes. There will be invaders who will randomly attack your village, but usually after the first five or six moons (or days). Enemy cards are indicated by red backgrounds. You may choose to fight these enemies unarmed (like the picture below) or upgrade your Villagers with weapons that will change their job title from Villager to something fancier, like Warrior or Swordsman.

Stacklands also has a knack for ramping up the difficulty. Most difficulty spikes happen organically; you won’t face a stronger creature unless you spend money to buy a more expensive pack that may contain the stronger creature. The largest of these difficulty spikes is at the player’s discretion. I don’t know how many times. I’ve accidentally summoned a demon and watched in horror as the demon decimated my villagers.

But I was the one who summoned the Demon. I’ll know for next time not to do the thing that summoned the Demon until after I’m prepared to defeat an enemy with 300 health. Like many survival games, you’ll need to restart your Stacklands village when you have no more living Villagers, but when you do restart your village, you don’t need to relearn skills and ideas. I don’t mind this. It lessens the danger, and often, I’ll have a better item I’ve unlocked and can outfit my villagers with better gear or a more optimized village. Heck. I’ve let a larger enemy torpedo my village, so I could start over.

Gameplay Loop

Above Image from GameDesigning.Org

Gameplay Loop: 10/10

I’ve already mentioned Stacklands’ gameplay loop. Combining collectible card packets with building a civilization of card villagers is fantastic. Stacklands also manages its difficulty spikes well. Players have more control over what they’ll face. Buying more expensive packs could mean stronger enemies appear, but you’ll want to unlock every card in each packet type and as quickly as possible.

Collecting cards like Pokémon mixed with exploration is a potent combination. And since Stacklands has so many hidden tech trees (the game doesn’t spell out its tech trees in a diagram), you’ll find hours of enjoyment reverse engineering a recipe. How do I get a gold bar? I need a smelter and gold ore. How do I make a smelter, and which booster pack contains gold ore? Stacklands has so many rabbit holes to explore.

Story or Narrative

Narrative: 6/10

Stacklands has a few side stories that make up a somewhat larger narrative, but it doesn’t have a traditional storyline. There’s the demon I mentioned earlier. The demon isn’t too difficult to defeat if you have the proper equipment and a large enough army. You’ll also have to challenge a witch who summons monsters from a strange portal. Defeating the witch is the closest thing the base Stacklands game has to a larger story.

Players must construct a stable portal so they can enter the witch’s realm and fight her seemingly endless army of baddies. The army the player sends may choose to return home after each level of witch minions. Defeat the final level and then the witch. Players will receive a “you completed the game” notification, but that’s not the end. You may continue playing Stacklands and its DLC. The only location you can access without buying DLC is the island. This has a “story” similar to the witch on the mainland, but it’s the paid DLC that has fleshed out stories. I’m not including the DLC in this review, but if I did, this score would rise a point or two.

Storytelling

Storytelling: 5/10

Stacklands‘ storytelling is no better than average. I promised I wouldn’t include the paid DLC (which only costs a few dollars) in this score. The base game’s story is okay. The DLC ventures into some interesting territory. I talk briefly about them. One alternate plane deals with waste; you’ll need to optimize your village so you won’t produce too much pollution. Another plane centers around death. A third pivots hard into combat and rage. Stacklands‘ DLC is well worth the price (if you like the base game), but it’s the base game’s storytelling we’re grading here, so it’s average.

User Interface: 9/10

While Stacklands has a lot going on at once, it does a good job of presenting these options to the player. In the top left, you’ll find tabs for Quests and Ideas. The quests are self-explanatory. If you don’t know what to do next, check out your active quests.

Ideas are the recipes you know. Stacklands does a great job of grouping similar recipes into tabs. You may expand these tabs to see individual recipes or collapse them if you’re not looking for that recipe type.

In the far right corner, you’ll find out which day (moon) you’re on, and the symbol on the right of this box lets you dictate how fast time moves. To the left of the moon, you’ll find your village’s vitals (food, coin, and how many cards you may have in your village–booster packs don’t count toward this total). The image above may be from Moon 5, so there aren’t as many cards in play, but Stacklands has so many ways to optimize your village that you can build one that minimizes your number of cards and is almost automatic.

Once you find a consistent source of food, you’ll be able to focus on other things Stacklands offers, and there are plenty of choices. Stacklands rewards trial and error. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Graphics: 6/10

While I enjoy Stacklands‘ graphics, they are minimal. Stacklands chooses legibility over style. Even though that’s the right choice for a game like this, I can’t tell you that Stacklands has amazing graphics. The game’s graphics are crisp, at times adorable, and most importantly, functional.

Audio: 7/10

You like lo-fi chill jams, don’t you? Who am I kidding? Of course you do. Stacklands’ soundtrack makes great background music. To be honest, I hardly notice it while I’m playing. Where this score gets a bump is when considering Stacklands’ sound effects: card shuffling, ripping open a booster pack, the little bloopy combat noises, and adorable animal calls. Sokpop Collective took time and care with Stacklands’ sound effects, and it shows.

Replay Factor: 9/10

Stacklands has plenty of DLC, and that DLC has its own puzzles for you to solve. The DLC adds a good ten to twenty gameplay hours. But the base game has tons of replay value in its own right. Even if you defeat the witch and the demon, you may want to beat the time it took you to defeat the witch and the demon. I’ve also discovered numerous recipes after beating these two, which then prompted another playthrough. Sure, I beat the game, but I figured out how to make a resource magnet. That would optimize my village to the fullest.

Again, I may be biased. I put a heap of time into Stacklands, but it has a fair amount of replay value. Each new play can lead to a different path to success.

Aggregated Score: 6.9

Geekly News: May 11 2025, World Video Game Hall of Fame Inductees

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Happy Mother’s Day, Geekly Gang. We wish all the mothers out there a great day. Since today is Mother’s Day, we may go a little light on Geekly News. We may have some events we’ll have to do today.

World Video Game Hall of Fame inducts Defender, Tamagotchi, GoldenEye 007, and Quake

The World Video Game Hall of Fame inducted four games this past week. All four video games are worthy additions. Defender raised the bar on difficulty in video games. The game might be too difficult for some people; I remember avoiding Defender while in the arcade. GoldenEye 007 was one of the best multiplayer first-person shooters. I would lose even while playing Odd Job. I’m sensing a pattern with these games. I stink at them. 🤪Quake ushered in a new generation of graphics, while Tamagotchi marked the first pet simulator. This list is impressive.

But so are the video games that didn’t quite make the cut. The World Video Game Hall of Fame competition was fierce. Finalist games included Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Frogger, Golden Tee, Harvest Moon, Mattel Football, and NBA 2K. Some of these games should enter the hall next year.

Bumfuzzled Set to Launch Early Next Week on Gamefound

We’re doing something a little different today. Bumfuzzled is a set of wooden puzzles that feature unusual piece shapes. It should launch some time next Tuesday (May 13, 2025), and I’m excited for these. The puzzles look amazing. And look at the piece shapes.

If you’re tired of the same old puzzles, give Bumfuzzled a try in a few days.

Allplay Announces Another Round of Kickstarter Games

Allplay produces a lot of great games of various shapes and sizes. I mentioned Allplay as one of the board game companies that produces stocking stuffer games. Allplay also releases waves of these games on Kickstarter, and they just announced another nine games for a future Kickstarter campaign. Nine games! Wow! Seven of these nine games will be of the small box variety (great stocking stuffers). As of writing this post, there are no details about when these games will ship, but Allplay tends to ship bundles like these within a year. We only know of four games for sure: Alibis, High Rise, Wordsy, and Piñatas.

All of these games look promising. Alibis is designed by Don’t Mess With Cthulhu’s Yusuke Sato. Sato has done a great job with social deduction in the past, and Alibis appears to be a cooperative deduction game. Interesting. Allplay is reprinting two fantastic Gil Hova designs Wordsy (which is a well-regarded word game) and High Rise (a strategic city-building game with a touch of corruption). The final game is a new design by Reiner Knizia, Piñatas. Piñatas is another trick-taking game by the board game legend. I’ve been playing a lot of Knizia’s most recent trick-taking game, Don’t LLAMA. It’s a good bet that Piñatas will be excellent.

We’re keeping today’s Geek News brief. Happy Mother’s Day again. Thank you for reading, and whether you’re a mother or not, wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Potion Craft Review

Quirky Video Game Review: Potion Craft

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Potion Craft by indie game developer niceplay games created a craft system you want to play. Visuals inspired by medieval manuscripts blend with unique gameplay for concocting potions to form a singular video game experience.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We’ll get back to another free-to-play game soon enough, but in the meantime, let’s cover another paid game. You can get a good deal on the game through sites like Steam or the PlayStation store (PS4/PS5). Usually, Potion Craft sells for around $20, even without a sale. Potion Craft’s unique graphics drew me in, but its stellar gameplay kept me engaged for hours. Let’s see how well Potion Craft stands up to our rating system.

Mechanisms: 10/10

Potion Craft innovates on the tried and tired crafting game. The video game scene has seen an influx of alchemist simulator games in the last few years. Most of these alchemist simulators would have players accruing ingredients through exploration (through a dungeon mechanism separate from alchemy) and learning new potions through trial and error. Potion Craft streamlines this process. Players explore a perilous map by adding ingredients to their alchemy pot. Ingredients (that players obtain through farming or purchasing from vendors) move the player’s cursor on the map north, south, east, or west. But these ingredients seldom allow for traveling in a straight line. Spiral and zig-zag movements reign supreme. Once the bottle-shaped cursor reaches an ability, players can stoke the fire and boil their potion, so the potion gains that ability.

This simple, yet ingenious, twist puts the focus on alchemy. I waited for a second gameplay type where I played as my character dungeon diving for ingredients. That gameplay never came, and Potion Craft is the better for it. At times the gameplay can feel puzzly, but with the focus on what I put in my alchemy pot almost all the time, I felt more like an alchemist in Potion Craft than I’ve ever felt in any other video game of this ilk. And I’ve played a handful of alchemist simulators. If an alchemist simulator sounds intriguing to you, you owe it to yourself to play Potion Craft.

Gameplay Loop: 9/10

Pick ingredients from your alchemical garden. Then, tend to your garden. Serve your customers by guessing which potion would best fix their problem. You may haggle with the price if you want. Finally, explore the alchemy map to find new potion types or find better (more efficient) ways to produce potions.

Potion Craft is one of those notorious games for “just one more turn.” Everything seems as if it’s just one day (turn) or two away. Even when you know how to make a potion and save the potion’s recipe, you can create the potion, using fewer ingredients, so that you spend fewer future ingredients. That’s another great feature of Potion Craft. The ingredients you used when creating a potion recipe you saved will be used whenever you make potions from that saved recipe. There’s a reason to make the same potion twice. Let’s say that it took you three Waterblooms to make an Ice potion. But you unlocked Tangleweed and began farming that and it only takes you one of those to make an Ice potion. This can save you time, resources, and money in the long run. Brilliant!

Frequently, I’ll make a less-than-desirable recipe for a potion type just to have a means of making that potion. When I unlock the means to make that same potion on the cheap, I take it. And it feels good exploring the map through alchemy, even when I’ve already unlocked the ability I’m heading towards. Each day, experience boosts (in the form of alchemy books) reset, and players can collect them again. This allows you to level up your alchemy skills, and the skill tree, while basic, does a good job of giving players choices. Do you want to focus on selling potions, exploring the map, or farming? The choice is yours.

And then there are the customers. This dovetails into the Storytelling section (and less so for Narrative) but I’ll begin discussing the customers here. Customers often don’t tell you exactly what they want. Even when they do, there are often multiple ways to fix a problem. Light spoiler: a customer may say that they locked themselves out of their house; you can choose to give them an explosive potion or acid. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Season pick a means of fixing a problem that didn’t cross my mind. And she’s said the same for ways that I’ve solved the occasional problem.

But the core element is map traversal through alchemy. I didn’t expect to like the map movement that much, but Potion Craft nails the explorative nature of throwing things in a pot and seeing what happens.

Narrative: 5/10

Potion Craft doesn’t have much in the way of a narrative, but I gave it a five because of its implied customer backstories. Sure, some customers have generic “my stomach hurts, do you have a potion for that?” But others have more sinister motives should you get to know them better. Others still have bizarre stories like why does a scuba diver exist in medieval times? Players will have to piece together scraps of story to make one that makes sense, but Potion Craft does have a loose-knit story.

Storytelling: 7/10

Like Papers, Please, which we covered last month, Potion Craft tells its story in the game’s negative space. Hidden within the string of customers who stop by for potions rests a deeper narrative for those characters and the town in which they live. I won’t spoil some of those stories here, but Potion Craft builds its world and its story through the people who stop by for magical potions. And I love this world.

Citizens solve mundane problems with magic. Why not? If magic is plentiful, why wouldn’t you solve any minor inconvenience with alchemy? Potion Craft runs with this premise. You can solve people’s issues at lower difficulty settings through multiple means. You may need a specific potion with multiple effects if you raise the difficulty. Unlocking abilities to converse with customers may yield even more backstory. And that’s where Potion Craft’s story lies: the characters’ backstories.

User Interface: 8/10

Potion Craft does a great job of showing players where their alchemical ingredients will lead them on the map. The locations are easy to navigate. The goals are easy to find and understand. In short, Potion Craft does a great job of showing its players how to play the game. But at the same time, it still gives players the freedom to come up with unique solutions to problems.

Like I said before, there’s more than one way to fix an issue, and Potion Craft gives players the time and space to explore those options. Potion Craft’s setup isn’t the hectic DMV hellscape as Papers, Please. It organizes things in a way for players to thrive. Potion Craft is a layback and chill game instead of a tense, don’t make a single mistake game like Papers, Please. While the two user interfaces work for the games that use them, I prefer Potion Craft’s interface. I’d rather a game show me exactly what I can do. Potion Craft does this better than most.

Graphics: 9/10

Potion Craft uses medieval documents and medical books as the basis for its graphics. While simplistic, the art amplifies Potion Craft’s subject matter. I don’t know if any other graphics would’ve worked for this game. You can tell that Potion Craft is a labor of love for the designers. The user interface and graphics merge intuitively. Part of the reason why the user interface works as well as it does is because the graphics feed into the user interface and the theme. I feel as if I’m grinding leaves, flowers, berries, and roots with a mortar and pestle. There were times when I swore, I could smell the herbs.

Audio: 6/10

I’m not going to lie. I played Potion Craft while muted most of the time, but when I did have the sound on, it worked well. I wouldn’t say that Potion Craft has the most memorable soundtrack. Its soundtrack is serviceable. Potion Craft’s sound effects are what give it an above-average audio rating. You can hear the crunch of leaves and fruit. Heating your potion is satisfying. Pouring water into your solution to thin your potion is visceral. Seriously, I had to go to the restroom after hearing pouring water on more than one occasion. Potion Craft amplifies its tactile gameplay with sound effects.

Replay Factor: 8/10

This is a difficult section to grade. Potion Craft may not offer much in terms of replays through different games. You can get by beating each difficulty setting once. As of this write-up, there are four different difficulties. This still gives you well over 100 hours of gameplay. I’m giving Potion Craft a higher replay factor score because of the replays during your initial play.

I mentioned before that you may want to optimize your potion recipes. That leads to numerous hours of gameplay. But Potion Craft has a sneaky other reason why you might play. Your alchemy shop has a reputation score. You could play an evil alchemist and only sell potions to people who have nefarious plans. I didn’t know who would order a Necromancy potion with my first play. Switching to an evil alchemist showed me who would order a Necromancy potion. It doesn’t look like it, but Potion Craft is a sandbox game.

Aggregated Score: 7.8

I enjoyed my multiple playthroughs of Potion Craft. It’s the preeminent alchemist simulator game. If you have any interest in an alchemist simulator game, give Potion Craft a try. With Potion Craft’s quirky graphics, I didn’t know what to expect. The streamlined nature of Potion Craft’s gameplay is a revelation. Developer niceplay games and publisher tinyBuild are on my radar. I can’t wait to see what this studio has planned for next.

Whatcha Playing, Geekly: May 2025

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Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here. Today’s post is a Whatcha Playing, where we’ll ask our writers what they’ve been playing (tabletop games and video games) over the past month. As always, you’re part of the Geekly Gang, too. Feel free to share which games you’ve played over the last month.

Kyra’s Games

I’ll preface my entries by saying that I won’t include my board game prototypes (of course, I’ve played these games many times recently) or any of the gacha games I still play (Wuthering Waves and Honkai: Star Rail). If I ever stop playing these games, I’ll let you know. With that said, let’s begin with the tabletop games I’ve played over the last month.

Board Games

Someone from my game group received their copy of Super Boss Monster and brought it to the table. I love the original Boss Monster despite some of the cards being stronger than others. Super Boss Monster tries to balance cards more than the original, but most notably, it adds worker placement by giving each player a minion they can control and take an action from the town. The town becomes more than the place where heroes are generated.

Of course, that still happens, but now I can choose to give myself more perks during a turn, and as you can see at the bottom of the above picture, players draft cards into their hands, giving players more agency. But I was left a little wanting. While these new additions are great in theory, they slowed the game down to a crawl. The original Boss Monster plays in about thirty minutes. Super Boss Monster took two and a half hours. Granted, none of us played the new additions before, but there are so many new additions to Super Boss Monster, and the game adds phases to each turn that I can’t see the game speeding up too much, even if we knew how to play. I was hyped for Super Boss Monster. It’s a good game, but I’ll hold onto my original copy.

Another one of my game group members received their copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Game. This game has the prerequisite silliness needed to call itself a Monty Python game. It even comes with a set of coconuts, or should I say, horseshoes. If that wasn’t silly enough, Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Game also comes with a catapult and animeeples shaped like cows, chickens, and pigs. You will be catapulting your enemies.

I wanted to say that I liked Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Game more than I did, but our gaming group was workshopping ways to streamline how the game played. Most members in this gaming group aren’t designers. I’m a part of game designer groups, and I’d expect discussion on how to streamline a new game. I wasn’t expecting this with Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Game. I’m also certain I was winning the game (we ended the game early because it ran long), and I did so by abusing the “bring out your dead” space. I waited for the followers’ discard pile to fill up, head to “bring out your dead,” and gained victory points for every follower I shuffled back into the draw deck (that’s how “bring out your dead” works). It felt cheap.

Perhaps we played the game wrong, but Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Game played longer than it should. The catapult, while fun, slowed the game down further. I liked several elements of this game, but it didn’t make a cohesive whole.

Video Games

I went trophy hunting this past month. As a result, many of the video games I played weren’t that good. The Cat Quest series is the one exception. Are the trophies easy to obtain? Yes. Very easy. The story is a little thin as well, but the gameplay is addictive. I had a lot of fun playing each entry of the series.

The first Cat Quest allows the player to fly by flapping their arms. Watching a cartoon cat flap their arms and fly is freaking adorable and hilarious. It’s hilarable. The second Cat Quest brings in a dog character to pair with the cat. Cat Quest II had the most strategic value of the trilogy (unsure if there will be a fourth Cat Quest). But Cat Quest III has the best theme (cat pirates), the shortest runtime that promotes multiple playthroughs, and takes all the fun elements of the previous games and builds upon them. Cat Quest may have an easy-to-obtain platinum trophy, but it’s also a fun game series.

That’s all I have for tabletop and video games this month. I’ll pass this post over to Season and Skye, so we can see what they’ve been playing.

Season’s Games

Before I dive in, I’m going to level with you, Geekly Gang. I’ve hardly played anything outside of my gacha games this last month. I don’t think a single board game hit the table for me. Finals have been ramping up, graduation is imminent, and there’s a huge conversion project going on at my day job. Without further ado, I’ll share my games.

video games

Thank you to Gigi for recommending Legends of Elysium. This is a beautiful game. It combines tile laying, cards, and mana. It’s sort of like a Magic: The Gathering board game. I didn’t play too much of it, but I enjoyed learning a few strategies and crawling across the map to defeat my opponent. I don’t think there’s a campaign mode to play against the CPU. It’s more along the lines of Marvel Snap and only has PvP available. I’ll have to play some more of Legends of Elysium and collect cards. I definitely want to see more of what Legends of Elysium has to offer.

The other game I’ve been casually playing is Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei. It’s a visual novel set during the Genpei War in medieval Japan. I stopped by GameStop and thought the art was pretty, so I figured, sure. I’ll take a gander. It is a romance visual novel that allows the player to romance characters who are based on actual historical figures. Not going to lie: I Googled the heck out of the Genpei War and the figures featured in the game because history is cool. I haven’t gotten all the endings yet but, if you’re into romance, period pieces, and great voice acting (Japanese only), I’d recommend Birushana: Rising Flower of Genpei. Also, there’s blood because, you know, war and stuff.

I wish I had more to share this time around. Skye, whatcha been playing?

Life Is Strange Video Game

Skye’s Games

I know I’m late with playing Life is Strange. I’m glad I finally got around to playing it. Life is Strange was released a decade ago, but the game remains relevant and rich in story, characters, and atmosphere. Story-driven games are great at making the player question their own morals, and Life is Strange is no exception. In fact, player choices are even more complicated by allowing players to rewind time and try for the best possible outcome.

Life is Strange wasn’t the first game to feature player choice, but it popularized the genre. For good reason, too. My favorite part is collecting all the Polaroids. I wanna make my Max the best photographer she can be. Life is Strange also happens to have an easy Platinum Trophy to obtain. Don’t judge me! A plat is a plat.

Ghost of Tsushima is another game that’s been a long time coming, and worth it. Ghost of Tsushima has been one of those games that’s difficult for me to put down. One of my favorite aspects of open-world RPGs (or JRPGs in this case) is the exploration. I love gallivanting into the unknown and, bit by bit, uncovering every piece of the map.

Not only is it fun to explore, but Ghost of Tsushima’s combat is stellar (with a learning curve), the story is interesting, and I love its setting of 1300s Japan. The first thing you’ll notice about Ghost of Tsushima is that it’s gorgeous. I haven’t had much time to play any other games, but I’m glad I managed to check Life is Strange and Ghost of Tsushima off my list.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle again. That’s what we’ve been up to in terms of board games and video games this past month. Be sure to let us know what you’ve been playing because we’re all part of the Geekly Gang. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Geekly News: April 27, 2025, Thunderbolts* Fan Screenings

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Hey, hey, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here. It’s another Sunday, so we have another week of Geek News. There is plenty of tariff news and updates, but we talk about that a lot. Let’s sandwich those stories with more cheerful news.

Thunderbolts* Fan Screenings

Thunderbolts* becomes the first MCU movie in history to receive advanced screenings for fans. Typically, advanced screenings are reserved for critics, who must sign a non-disclosure agreement and a gag order preventing them from leaking any information about the movie. Advance movie screenings are meant for critics to form an opinion and write a review in advance of the movie’s release. Those reviews will feature zingers the studio can use in future trailers and teasers. But Thunderbolts*’ advanced screening includes fans. Fans don’t care about a gag order.

In fact, the MCU may be banking on fans talking, generating word-of-mouth buzz. It takes a week or so for word-of-mouth to take effect. Thunderbolts* dropping advanced screenings with fans will accelerate this effect. But be careful on the internet. Thunderbolts* may become the MCU movie with the most spoilers.

Geekly has no idea what this development means for the MCU or the Thunderbolts* movie. Will this become the norm? Is Marvel so confident about Thunderbolts* that they’re comfortable with whatever fans will say? Who knows? I will say that heading into this year’s slate of films, Thunderbolts* had me intrigued. Thunderbolts* wasn’t one of the MCU’s make-or-break 2025 titles, but in our 2025 MCU Preview, I listed it as a potential sleeper hit.

Nintendo Switch 2 Pre-Order Wave One Ends

On Thursday, April 24, 2025, Nintendo opened United States pre-orders for its latest hybrid game console, the Switch 2. Pre-orders continued until the order quota was reached. Taking current United States trade policies into consideration, the order quota was based on how many copies the video game company thought would yield the best results.

The Switch 2’s United States pre-order wave one lasted less than one day. Customers who were able to buy a copy won’t receive their systems until June 2025. Don’t worry if you weren’t one of the lucky few who snagged a copy. Nintendo intends to run another Switch 2 pre-order within another eight months (in time for the holidays), when the company believes it can turn a profit by sending systems to the United States. Unfortunately, staged releases for the United States are the new normal.

Rising shipping costs and tariffs have caused tech companies like Nintendo to re-evaluate their business with United States customers. This has become an issue with other business types; Geekly covers geek culture, so we’re interested in video games and board games. We’ll have more on board games in the next segment. Getting back to the Switch 2, most of Geekly’s statistics are derived from an interview with a GameStop manager. I live in the greater Omaha area, and according to the GameStop manager, the Midwest quad-state region (Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri) received 2,000 total Nintendo Switch 2 systems. That is 2,000 Switch 2s for a population of over 14 million. Granted, most of the 14 million people living in those four states have no desire to purchase a Switch 2 at this time, but Wal-Mart overordered and had to issue tens of thousands of refunds in the Midwest quad-state region alone.

Geekly will keep you posted on when the next waves of United States Switch 2 pre-orders will occur. Good luck to all of you who want a copy. We’ll also give updates on any new developments. Hopefully, there will be a resolution to the United States’ trade war soon.

Geekly News CMON Games Tariffs

Board Game Company Madness

We’ve discussed board game companies and the effect rising tariffs have had on them in the past; this will be a quick update. Final Frontier Games and Boardlandia have closed their doors. Greater Than Games and CMON Games have suspended all future crowdfunding campaigns and board games under development, and laid off countless employees until a viable manufacturing/shipping option becomes available. Small board game publisher, Rookie Mage Games, joined forces with three other indie board game companies in suing President Trump over his new tariffs.

According to Jordan McLaughlin, founder of Rookie Mage Games (via The Columbus Dispatch), “I will not stand by and allow my years of hard work and the hard work of many other small businesses to be ruined in a desperate political ploy for attention and ego validation.” McLaughlin continues, “Attempting to move manufacturing jobs back to the United States is a worthwhile effort. There are smart ways to do it, and there are dumb ways.” Numerous board game companies, including Stonemaier Games (producer of Wingspan and Scythe) have joined Rookie Mage Games’ lawsuit. We’ll keep you posted on this emerging story.

This War of Mine, Second Edition Launches on Gamefound

The award-winning board game adaptation of This War of Mine returns to Gamefound. This War of Mine features countless morally gray choices for players to make while they attempt to survive in a war-torn country. Since the game is fully cooperative, players share the experience and the consequences.

This War of Mine, Second Edition showcases numerous updated maps to explore. Producer Awaken Realms is known for its ornate miniatures, and This War of Mine, Second Edition includes additional scenario books. Countless hours of griping stories await. This War of Mine, Second Edition has plenty of pledge options on its Gamefound page.

Solo Game Dicemancy Releases on Gamefound

I love the increased number of great solo board games. Dicemancy looks interesting. It’s a tower defense game with plenty of combotastic abilities. That’s music to my ears. Players construct unique spells they think will help them ward off enemies. I like the domino-style spell cards players can stack for power-ups. Dicemancy plays quickly (about 45 minutes), has minimal setup, and doesn’t appear to take up too much table space.

Dicemancy features adorable art, and at $25 (plus $5 for shipping), it’s a low-cost option for a new board game. Feel free to give Dicemancy’s Gamefound page a look.

That’s all we have for Geekly News this week. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.