Path of Exile - Scourge

Overview: Scourge was a Path of Exile challenge league. The primary mechanic consisted of collecting blood, switching to an alternate world, and defeating Scourge monsters in order to "Scourge" items. The league also consisted of currency that allows players to alter corrupted items. The league started on 20211022 and ended 20220201.

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Banebenadada - Bane ED Occultist

20211022:
I played starting with the first day of the league and I got to Act 7. I'm following Subtractem's Bane Occultist.

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20211104 Comment:
I'm quite bored.*

Milestones:
20211022: Started and Reached Act 7
20211023: Reached white maps
20211030: Reached level 90. Approximately 2 days, 17 hours
20211103: Reached level 91. Approximately 3 days, 4 hours

Niarcixota - Toxic Rain Champion

*20220408: I made a similar comment during the last league, roughly with the same number of time played, but with a longer physical time difference (here roughly 14 days, while last league was about 20 days).

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20211105:
I felt weak and squishy with my initial character so I started prepping for Toxic Rain Champion.

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20211106:
While I appear to be no faster leveling, this build feels tankier while dealing less damage. Note that I made the "mistake" of starting with a bow skill before switching to splitting steel, which I've never used before.

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20211112:
Today I beat Acts with my Toxic Rain Champion: 11 hours and 36 minutes with 15 deaths. In contrast, I spent 1 day, 2 hours, and 3 minutes with 90 deaths on my Bane Occultist character.

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20211205:
I stopped playing the League and started playing Standard.

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20220408 Comment:
Since I stopped playing early in the league, I did not make any sales and purchases exceeding 1.5 exalt. My greatest spend was 60 chaos for a large cluster jewel for my Bane Occultist character followed by 30 chaos for a two-stone ring for my Toxic Rain character. Meanwhile my top sale was 15 chaos for a cobalt jewel.

Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (PC) (2012)

Overview: You're a blob that must swallow objects to grow in size in order to progress.

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2021013:
I didn't know what to expect going into the game, but after finishing three or four levels, I felt bored.
Setup: Laptop

Steam Game Time: 54 minutes*
*About 15 minutes were spent idle as I was trying to get my earbuds to work

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Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Good art
+ Humorous

Cons:
- Occasionally boring gameplay; perhaps a full keyboard and mouse would make it more fun
- Time seems to be critical but it seems hard to actually zoom through a level

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Summary:
As a puzzle-platformer, this game appeared to lean towards being a platformer more than a puzzle game. But I think the puzzle part of a puzzle-platformer is more fun, otherwise I'd just prefer to play a platformer. When trying to think to games similar to this game, but with more of a puzzle element, I thought of Blocks That Matter.

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Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (PC) (2012)

Relevant Links:
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (Wikipedia.org)
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (steamdb.info)
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (Steam Store Page)

ARCADE GAME SERIES: GALAGA (PC) (2016)

Summary: Move your starship left and right, avoiding enemies and their projectiles as you shoot them down to get points and advance to the next stage (clearing all enemies on the screen).

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A group of three Galaga ships fly down toward the player ship at the bottom of the screen.

20211009:
This seems like a simple arcade shooter that would take a combination of skill and patience to master. Enemies appear to spawn in the same pattern everytime, so with practice one can position oneself and time one's shot to repeat a run consistently. However, an even more skilled player may wait for moments to kill moving enemies for more points.*

For example, during the challenge stage, under the C, to the left, under the S, to the right, under the C, and the under the G, where the letters are the letters of "HIGH SCORE" at the top of the screen.

Gameplay statistics after a Game Over.

Setup: Keyboard.

Steam Game Time: 14 minutes

I saw a Boss Galaga using a tractor eam and lost my last life while taking a screenshot.

*Watching a speedrun to a million points, the top runner did not appear to ever wait for enemies to start moving. With that being said, the runner did usually hit multiple enemies as they fly in. Cleverly, the runner intentionally gets a ship captured at the end of Stage 1, so that he/she can release it in Stage 2 and create the twin ship.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaga

PC Building Simulator (PC) (2019)

Reason for Playing: This game was available for free on the Epic Games Store, but I actually already own it on Steam.

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Overview: The player is in charge of a computer repair shop. Customers send in their computers for repairs, upgrades, and more. The game features various components from the real world.

Finished the repair!

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20211006:
For the most part, the simulation is fun. Some of the actions are tedious, but purchases can be made to remove them.

Random Note: for some reason the dates for the screenshots are incorrect; probably the clock was wrong

Checking requests for repair

Steam Game Time: 4.1 hours (session game time)

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Thoughts:
Pros:
+ A free build mode for just playing around
+ Cord connection is well-done via highlighting

Run 3DMark (doesn't take as long as a real benchmark)

+ All the real-life components are fun to work with though I could do away with having to manually screw parts in and out (e.g., case cover, video card); with that being said, having to do so is part of the PC building experience

Neutral:
~ The campaign mode is neat, but the rules regarding budget were not obvious to me at the beginning

Dusty PC that needs some air dusting

[20211008]

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Summary:
This game was fun. At first I was surprised when I hit the one hour mark. I only stopped playing because I was beginning to feel sleepy and I was surprised that I had played the game for more than four hours. While the game was fun, I'm not sure I'm up for playing more of it any time soon.

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PC Building Simulator (PC) (2019)

Buying PC parts to stock inventory

Relevant Links:
PC Building Simulator Website PC Building Simulator (Wikipedia.org)
PC Building Simulator (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
PC Building Simulator (steamdb.info)
PC Building Simulator (Steam Store Page)

Interesting and unfamiliar case...