=== Road Trip To The Beach ===

     This past weekend we decided to go on a road trip to the beach. What a wonderful time we had! I won't tell you exactly where at the beach we went because I don't want to give away our special little place to everybody in the world, but I will tell you that there are many places along the coast of Lake Diefenbaker which are so calm and peaceful with nobody else around.

     I would love to post a bunch of pictures along with this post of our trip, but unlike last time when I proposed to Carley, I decided not to bring my phone with me this time. I'm pretty sure if I had brought my phone, I would have been worrying about what time it was and wanting to take all sorts of pictures and being distracted the whole time. So as it turns out, not bringing my phone was one of the best choices I could have made because it just made my trip all that much more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise.

     Honestly, I would have loved to have stayed there even longer. The water was warmer than last time; still a little bit chilly, but I was able to wander around without my feet freezing off. I enjoyed there being nothing other than the sounds of the winds and the waves to listen to while I wandered around and looked at the beautiful landscapes. I don't think I can explain how amazing it feels to be there away from all the technology and people and everything stressful in the world. It's just nice to BE for a while out there.

     This time around we brought some company with us. Rather than only going with myself and Carley, we decided to invite Carley's sister Tori to come along. The extra company was quite nice to have an additional person to talk to and hang out with for a while. Tori is very much like myself and likes being away from all the people so the two of us can happily be around and enjoy the silence for quite some time. I think I have a greater capacity to enjoy being outside to take in the peace (though I do understand her want to be back home where all the rest of the fun is).

     There was another guest we decided to bring along this time as well. Our fantastic dog Furgle got to come along with us on his first road trip. I was incredibly concerned that he might just decide to go run off into the distance or find a person and chase them rather than listen to us, but as it turns out he's quite fun to have along in the wild. He listens pretty well and even pays attention to us rather than wandering off the whole time. Our sweet Furgle isn't the biggest fan of water, so he spent a lot of time standing on the edge of the dry land and whining at us because he couldn't reach us. Maybe we're cruel, but we made him join us in the water a bunch and learned that he can swim quite well when he must.

     I doubt we'll be able to go again this year, but maybe there'll be some time for us to go on a couple family hikes somewhere nearby in the Fall time. Here's hoping there are much more fun adventures for us to go on in the coming months.

~ Kyle Welykholowa ^_^

=== Adventure Town - Mobile Game Review, Idle City Builder - 10/10 ===

     Hey everybody, it's time for another game review. Recently I had my phone cut off; as a result, I haven't really been able to keep up with Idle Heroes because you need to have an active internet connection to be able to play. So I had to start searching for a game which would be lots of fun to play without getting bored of it, and which could be played without being connected to the internet at all times. After some searching, I came across Adventure Town.

     Adventure Town puts you in charge of a little town where you must build shops and houses to gain gold and direct your heroes to defeat monsters and complete quests to earn experience and progress further into the game. As you play, you have little heroes and townspeople who will go to each shop and "buy" items. As they visit the shops, they make gold for you until the shops run out of goods at which point you must restock the goods. As with many time-based games like this, an observant person will note that shorter timed tasks such as growing wheat over two minutes will make more goods if you're constantly playing the game, but will be less effective if you're only checking up on your game once every hour.

     Growing these plants makes goods which are given to the shops which then make you gold so you can buy more buildings to make more money faster. You can't go wrong with making more money. There's also the option of building houses which make money without needing goods. The downside of using houses is that they take quite a bit of time to make the same amount of money that could be made by growing plants and stocking shops... but they're quite useful if you're only able to check up on your game once or twice a day.

     Making all of this money doesn't just go towards building more buildings. In your spare time when you don't have room for more buildings and you're waiting for resources to upgrade these shops and houses, you have to do something to keep yourself busy. At these times you find yourself needing to use the heroes at your command to complete quests that you're given or to just plain kill creatures for either money, resources, or magical elixirs which are used to craft and upgrade things. These heroes can be defeated in battle and then must take a recovery period before they can be used again, but they can never die.

     As you gain levels, the monsters you face get stronger, have more health, and do more damage. This is one of the uses for all that money you're making; upgrading equipment to have more health, defense, or damage is incredibly important if you're going to get anywhere in a world like this. Some of the strongest items require crystals which you can earn over time by defeating monsters or completing bounties. The rest of the items cost simple gold which we already know can be earned easily enough. Upgrading items consists of buying new items and fusing weaker items with stronger ones to upgrade them once you've fused enough together. The new strength of these items can be used to fight creatures or to increase your chance to be successful at completing quests.

     I think the reason I like this game so much is because it reminds me of a game I played once upon a time. I can't seem to remember the name of the game, though if I saw it I would definitely recognize it. The whole premise of the game was that all you could do was build shops and buildings to help your heroes and you could influence their decisions, but ultimately it was up to them to decide what they wanted to do; similar to one of my favorite games called Majesty. Seriously, if any of you happen to know what game I'm talking about, feel free to let me know. I would love to find this game again and see if I could get it to work on a current computer.

     All of the monster-killing you do in this game goes toward the great purpose of upgrading your guardian statue. The purpose of which is to give you money once a day which increases each time the guardian levels up. More money means more buildings and better equipment for your heroes which means more monsters destroyed.

     As with most mobile games, this is a pretty simple game to play with not a lot of action and just enough going on to keep you busy if you kept the game open to kill some time. No consistent internet connection required, a good pace of progression to keep you interested, and reasonable tasks which aren't too difficult to complete. This all makes for a great mix of gameplay which would keep you coming back for more as often as you can.

     Adventure Town gets a 10/10 from me for being another great game which is likely to keep me busy for a few months without looking for something new.

~ Kyle Welykholowa ^_^