Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 6 - Part 7

We're getting so close now, I can feel it. Aren't you excited? Soon we'll be moving on to another scenario and before we know it, we'll be at the end of The Keepers Campaign. Then we play through the other campaign and finally we can retire the Age of Wonders campaign series.

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This campaign and more can be found on my Age of Wonders page.

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~ DaemonVirus

How Time Flies

Every once in a while I find myself taking a step back and realizing just how time flies by and life gets so busy. There's so much I have to do and so much more that I want to do; how can a person fit everything into such a short amount of time?

Today I find myself somewhat disappointed for putting my blog on the backburner. So many stories and experiences and thoughts I find rushing through my head that haven't yet been given a chance to be shared with the world. On one hand, I suppose that's a good thing that I was able to have that break because now I feel like I've hit somewhat of a muse that I've been missing previously.

I suppose what I'm looking forward to coming up is the end of my school courses. While they've been fun, I think it really is time to buckle down and complete them. Yeah, that may mean some of my other projects won't get as much attention as I would like. It may even mean I cannot spend as much time with the family as I would like, but once I'm done... I don't have to worry about it anymore. It will truly be such a load off my mind and a weight off my shoulders to not have to devote so much time to working through these classes. I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm about to start a strict diet of textbook material for a while until I can be confident that I know what I'm doing.

So don't be alarmed if you don't hear from me for a bit... though I still fully intend to get back to making blog posts more regularly and continuing to try to stream more often. Perhaps it is a strange thing to many people out there, but live streaming... even if I were to be reading a book or working through schoolwork... something about it seems to motivate me to work harder and to be better and more proactive in other parts of my life. I don't know how to explain it really, but it's there in my mind working away, breaking down the wall that builds up stopping me from getting the simplest things done on a day-to-day basis.

I'm not going to go into detail about everything I have to do and everything I want to do, you'll see the results of all my hard work as things are completed. I can say my primary goals at this time include performing well with my new job (which I absolutely love), spending quality time with my family, and getting back up to date with the real (not gaming) blog posts that I know you all love.

I look forward to continuing to entertain you all. Don't forget to follow the blog, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch so you don't miss any of the coming action!

As usual, you're all fantastic and I look forward to hearing from you when time isn't flying away from you too. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Mobile Game Review -- Crossy Road - Arcade Clicker - 4/10 ===

Today we take a look at the mobile game, Crossy Road. I've been a little busy recently with starting my new full-time job and still working on school at the same time... along with being a little bit sick. It can be quite difficult to have enough energy to keep going when there's so much going on, so sometimes I pick simpler and easier games to play in my spare time.

If you're looking for an simple game to pick up and play where you can learn to be better every time you play while being reminded of the good old days of playing Frogger back in 1981, this game is for you! The controls are really easy to learn, just tap on the screen and you hop forwards; moving to each side and backwards can be done by swiping in the proper direction; if you are faced with a solid object or any situation where hopping forward would block the character... you'd better figure out which way to swipe to fix that before hopping forward, otherwise you're not going to move anywhere at all.

Something I'm not really a fan of when trying to be awesome at a game is RANDOMNESS. Now of course randomness is important in the replayability of a game, but there's a level of randomness in some games which is just silly; I'm talking about the type where due to uncontrollable factors, you've run into an impossible to beat situation. Does that come up in this game? Yes... sometimes you end up stuck with no holes in traffic to pass through while the ever-moving camera swallows you up or forces you to jump to your death into oncoming traffic. HOWEVER, for the most part, this isn't too much of an issue. Because it's so easy to get into a new game and because many situations are avoidable if the player is able to think and react fast enough, I don't mind the amount of randomness in this Crossy Road.

Reasons to come back to this game and keep playing after having played for... a while? Challenges I suppose. I believe a new one starts every day or every few days where a preset character and level is put forth into the world for many players to attempt to see if they can be the best at getting the furthest into the level. Based on the player's rank at the end of the challenge, they are given some sort of reward such as a special character.

I really enjoy the fact that different characters in the game don't really have an effect on how the game is played. Different characters change the setting of the game and the aesthetics, but nothing changes other than that.

I suppose the real downside to this game... is that nothing really changes. Once you've figured out how to play it reasonably well... there isn't really much left to do. I mean hey, if you can consistently get to 200 hops, then you get to keep seeing pretty much the same 200 hop idea every single game you play. What happens when you get further than 200 hops? You see more... of the same... thing.

While I believe Crossy Road is probably a one-week game at best, there is one bonus thing that really truly made me want to play in the first place; they have a version of Crossy Road at Ruckers which is basically the same game without the ability to move side-to-side or backwards. Surely this results in more randomness than I am comfortable with seeing as the game makes its decisions to move to either side on its own, but there's still a chance to play really well and get really far into a level which results in quite a few tickets.

Verdict

Gameplay: Fun and easy to pick up, but the gameplay gets quite repetitive incredibly quickly.

Sound: The sounds a basically what you'd expect; sounds of traffic driving past and honking their horns, water rushing as you jump across logs, trains running across tracks right before your very eyes.... but no music.

Replayability: No game is EXACTLY the same twice... but after a few plays, there isn't much change to the game with each new play.

Bonus: There's a version of this game made for earning tickets at Ruckers. If it wasn't for the cost of buying all those tokens just to play the game this way, I would be playing it ALL THE TIME.

SCORE: After some consideration, I have decided to give Crossy road 2/5 because I was super excited about playing it after experiencing the arcade game at Ruckers... but then I quickly lost interest after only about a week of having it on my phone.


~ Kyle Welykholowa


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