The Sims Medieval

When I was a teen.. I had a slow computer and The Sims. I was so excited about the game that it didn't matter even it took a lot of time to play the game since my computer wasn't good enough for the game. Still I sit in front of the computer during summer nights and realised at some point that it was morning already.. I had played through the night. Scary!

Making a new queendom.

Of course I want my queen to be adventurous.

Queen Sonja loves red.

Now I am not playing that long time anymore but still it is nice to return to play Sims serie every now and then. Nowdays I play either Sims 2 or The Sims Medieval and now it felt good to go into medieval time. Even the game is rather different comparing to basic Sims. The Sims Medieval is a game where you do make your own kingdom and create characters in different professions to play it there. All of them have tasks to do but rather different ones. When you play a ruler your duty is to make new laws, listen your folk and make decisions what are best for your country. As  a healer you will try to find new cures and medicines and heal people.  Still tasks are rather simple ones  and you can finish them rather fast. After that you can concentrate to gain some money and to decorate your buildings.

Queen Sonja is holding a court.

People will come to get an advice from a queen.

Sometimes decision is the right one.

The new thing is that now you're doing quests (Alright, I think same idea was at least in the Sim game where you were showrecked into tropical island). You can choose quest what you want to do but after choosing one they're rather straightforward what to do. Still they have been rather interesting ones.. at least to a person who is tired after work and want to play hour or so relaxing a little. And there are always some extra things what you can do like go to adventuring. When you choose to do so, you will get some options what you will do and depending what you choose the game will tell what happened. What a lovely idea.

Queen Sonja loves adventuring.

The queen has to defen her land from outlaws.

The Sims Mediaval feels familiar  and yet there is slighty different things compared to the Sims, Sims 2 or Sims 3.  It is nice to play more straightforward game and finish your duties when you can see your kingdom improving. Still the game is very light one and at least for now I haven't needed to worry about wars or nasty neighbours. So if Civilizations feels competitive games, perhaps making a kingdom in the Sims is your thing then. 

Overwatch as a noob

Ha! Sometimes I do play games were I match against other players. I am not good at it but still I do play games such TF2 or Overwatch. Sorry to my teammates who have to tolerate my faults when playing!

The battle begins 

When I was a tank.

Overwatch is first-person shooter game what you do play online. There are plenty of different characters what to choose and I do like that variation. So far I have enjoyed to play either healer or those characters who shoots and flies at the same time like Pharah. My aiming is bad but still I return back to play the game. But why?

I see often my kill cam

Not that good match for me

I work better as a healer

First of all.. I think it is rather easy to learn basics how to shoot, attack and defence yourself.  It depends a lot from a character how you can do these things but they're possible to handle. And the game looks like a candy! The areas are nicely made and they do not repeat each other. and third reason is that spawning time isn't overly much. To a player who dies a lot it become very frustrating if you can't return back to battle fast. I have played TF2 before so at least Mercy in Overwatch works same way than healer in TF2. Maybe that is the reason why playing Mercy works for me.  When I am playing tanks like D. VA I am not usually very effective.. as you can see from above. But maybe I will learn since I am still level 10 so noobie!

Halloween loot box.

What I got from a loot box this time.

When you gain levels, you will get loot boxes from the game. Those will give you new looks for the characters, new voices to them and such things. It is good that you do not have to wait good weapons from such from the boxes since you have to buy the game anyways to play it.  But so far this games seems good.. I am not feeling annoyed even though there is always more experienced players in my team. But I am still beginner so I will send another posting when I am improving in the game and learn to play it better. But for now.. if you wish to find me from Blizzard games, just seek Redsonja.

Wasteland 2, Director's cut

Somehow time passes very fast.. I thought it was only several months when I played Wasteland 2: Director's cut but when I checked my saves.. I realised it was about a year when I played it last time. Still I remembered pretty much from the game and wanted to continue the story. Playing Wasteland 2 helps me to orientate to be a dungeonmaster in the pen and paper role-playing game, Era Survival. Known world has fallen and only the strongest survives.. That combines both of these games even reasons for the collapsing are different ones.

Stats for my main character.

Everyone has their quirks.

My team.

When I returned to play Wasteland 2 I didn't want to make new characters, I rather used my premade group so that I could continue adventuring instead of making new characters. I still had pictures about creating characters and you can see them above. I tried to make a team where one can heal, one is good to speak and has some intelligence, one is strong and one can use snipers and also knows how to improve weapons. Usefull skills and it is necessary to have several skills in your group if you do not want to have troubles to go forward all the time. Lockpicking, safecracking, alarm disarming are rather handy when you wish to find a good loot.

Conversations  gives useful information.

Travelling is dangerous, remember to have water and check radiation.

When I started to play game again I remembered fast why I liked this. The game gives impression that we aren't the only team who is working in the world. There are others and we can hear the reports as well. That gives small hints about new places but also creates story that we are part of something bigger. I like that idea and also it feels nicer to travel as a group than travel alone in the dangerous world. So everytime I go adventuring I always have whole group with me. That simply helps to survive.

Team moves as a group.

Giant rabbits don't eat carrots. They love meat.

Decisions! Awful decisions. I am gamer who would like to help always almost everyone.. but now you simply can't.  You have to do decision what to do and you will know that if you help some, someone else might suffer. It feels horrible but it also gives impression about harsh world.  Life sucks when even water and bullets are valuable. Wasteland 2: Director's cut is still a good game and it seems there is plenty to play..  My goal is to finnish game before they release the third part in 2019. Here is short trailer about  Wasteland 3.

The cottage part 1, the basics

Today I was dungeonmaster in a game called the Cottage. I had made characters beforehand and gave them to players. There were four characters who were working in the mental asylum where they kept prisoners. Employees who were friends with each other needed a break and they had rent a cottage for a weekend. The story started when they left from the city towards countryside.

I wanted to keep system a simple one. There was three skills.. physical (like strength, dexterity), mental (wisdom, intelligence etc.) and effectiveness (like charisma) and I had shared ten points between these to every character.. Like one of the characters was porter and I had given him these stats:

Physical 5

Mental 2

Effectiveness 3

When I asked players to roll the dice they always rolled one six sided dice and added their skill to the result. If it was 8, it was success. If it was 1 it was always fail and something bad happened. Simple system since this game was supposed to last only couple hours. And to be honest we finished it in three hours.

The other characters were nurse, psychologist and psychiatric nurse. Unfortunately there was only three players so one of the written ones was dropped away. This time no one wanted to play psychologist, so she was out of the adventure.

In the beginning all the friends had had a rough week at work and they needed a break desperately. They had morning shift on Friday so they could leave together from work and could travel towards the cottage after buying some food for the weekend. 

I will analyze the plot on the next part then.

Back to Stardew Valley

It seems I want to grow things when it is spring. Because I am usually killing plants in the real life, Stardew Valley was good option to try out again. Still that simple game is fascinating and there are those little renovations what gives little extra to it. Like now you can date also Shane and Emily.

Being friends will Emily can be odd.

Haley  tries out  life in the farm.

I suppose Stardew Valley is a good game when I am too tired to play anything longer since you can still save the game every morning. There are still some new areas what I didn't unlock even on the first time so I should focus to explore more and to do quests. But it is taking time when I am still wanting to grow crops as well. Multitasking takes time and progress is slower. But day by day I will go further.

Emily is showing off her skills.

Fishing still gives challenge.

Harvey saw a plane.

Stardew Valley is still a game what I can recommend to play. It was worth of buying if I have been sopending around 200 hours playing that game. That is a lot more than what I usually spend with the most of the games. 

Reigns

Being a king isn't ever easy. Not especially when you usually have two bad options and you need to choose less bad from those. If you make wrong decision you will use resources. If your rescources goes to zero, new king will arise. 

Time for the second king.

The old king is haunting the living ones.

13 years he lasted before dying.

Reigns is an indiegame what has a simple idea but it isn't too easy anyways. You need to keep your king alive and every year you're making a choice. Sometimes they bring resources (money, religion, army or people) but usually they uses one or more from those. So you need to find a balance because if one of the resources will go to zero, your time of ruling ends.  And be careful.. always the decision what sounds good isn't any better than the other ones.

Decisions decisions..

What a destiny to become lost.

Lost in the dugneon.

For once the kingdom remained over ten years.

Reigns is nice game when you have short time to play  or you do not want to take things too seriously. But just remember.. Decisions made by ealier kings bight stillf affect in the future so you should also always think about the options. For some reason my kindgoms usually fall before they have seen ten years.. but still I like to return to try once again with a new king.

Dragon Age Inquisition; Clothes

I have been busy by making live action role playing game so there hasn't gotten much time to play computer games or anything else. But every now and then I have played Dragon Age Inquisition once again. I didn't begin a new story, only continued the older one. I have written about the game before but on this posting I will tell more about clothings in that game. When I look at the characters I often think that they're very well dressed, even the chracters who are only standing on the streets and making world lively.

This atmosphere and clothes are so lovely.

The better folk has more expensive fabrics.

I simply love these dresses.

Especially Orlais  is full if various fabrics. When you step into the court it is easy to see that costumes are made from expensive fabrics. They're decorative and details are carefully thought. I rarely even notice clothes that well when I do play so they really has paid attention to this. And it is also nice to see difference between places. In Orlais many dresses a lot better than in Ferelden. The fashion is also different between places and in the cities they care more  about how they look.

Orlesian folk is well-dressed even not in court.

Varric and Blackwell shows their style.

My lady is wearing her casual clothes.

In Ferelden clothes looks a lot more practical. If I would see orlesian peasant I believe their clothes would also be practical ones. But Ferelden also seems colder place than Orlais so people has to wear more than silks and corsets. If you haven't noticed clothes just yet in DAI I would recommend that you look around in the game. Beautines is everywhere despite the threats what the whole world is facing. And still this  game is sso tempting that I keep seeing dreams about it, so definetely worth of trying.

The Flame in the Flood

When the river is your friend and the worst enemy. The Flame in the Flood is indie game where you travel along the rivers and try to find things for survival. There are wild animals who are threat to you if you face them unprepared. And yet the biggest threat is the weather. Rain soaks and make you feel cold. How to survive when everything is against you?

You can play either campaign or free endless game.

When you enter the raft for the first time.

Dog will be your best friend, and usually the only one.

I have to say that music is very smooth and nice in the game. If the music would be threatening, the game would be creepier. Now you hav a dog and nice music to help during your journey. And both of those helps quite a bit to keep the atmosphere the right one, despite the endless rain. The game is hard.. when you still learning what to do the death is sudden and unexpected. When you try the same thing again, it works a lot better and you will survive a bit longer. But be careful about everything.. rain, wild animals, food, poisons, insects, cold can be deadly to you.

Uups.. Damn snakes.

The horrible way to die when raft is falling apart.

At least I can see the road how logn I survived before dying.

When you float along the river there are little islands where to land. It might be an old campsite, or ruined hospital but all of those offers something useful to gather. Forage all the time when you have the possibility since it is a key to find new things. When accidents happens you have to be prepared or your condition might become worse fast. This is the main things what you will learn from the beginning in the game. Every rag, dandelion or yucca has a way to help you to last longer. The only problem is that you can't carry everything with you, so finding the best combo helps you further. When you forage new items you will learn new recipes how to make more difficult things. Try them out and make your living easier.

Make sure your basic needs are taken care.

Many dangers are floating in the river what might crash your little raft.

This game has a good balance. It is challenging but still I ended up to try it again and again and I learnt from my earlier mistakes. The islands aren't holding same things all the time so what you will be finding is randomly selected. But if you love surviving and challenges this the game you should try. I liked it even still hasnät gotten through the campaign... But I am close ending it! And at least I do have a hope that when I die, I can always begin from the point during journey and keep the stuff I had at that time before dying instead of doing everything again from beginning. But if this feels too merciful feel free to make a whole new beginning and challenge yourself even more!

Zup!

Do you wish to play a game without thinking too hard? Try Zup! It is a little game what is made from blocks. You simply blow up red blocks so that blue one ends up on the green flat. Sounds simple? Well it is as simple as it sounds. When the blue block end up in the green flat gate will be opened and you can go to try next level. 

These are the rules.

First round is simple.

Gate opens, when blu block remains on the green flat.

I was a bit stressed before christmas and I needed a game what I can play without thinking. Zup! is a short game but I liked the idea. Minipuzzles what are based on physics. So blocks won't fly randomly. Usually right timing helped to go through. The whole game was short, it took me less than hour to play it through, but luckily the price wasn't very high either. 

Kaboom! Blocks flies.

Each from the red blocks will explode if you click them.

The more the merrier.

If you like Indie games and little puzzles, check this game. It is nice for those evenings when you are so tired that you can't focus  to follow any longer stories.