=== PC Game Review -- Mall Empire - Indie / Casual - 1/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?

Today I bring you a review of the PC game Mall Empire. Now... the first thing I want to say is that by no means am I PURPOSELY looking for awful games to review. I'm just looking to pay some games and give my thoughts on them. Honestly I really want to like games I play and do give them the best chance possible to show me everything they have. I really REALLY tried to give Mall Empire a chance, but it just... isn't... good.

This game was released February 16th, 2017 on Steam. It is currently not in early access, and I'm sure that I must have gotten this game on sale, because there's no way this is worth $4.49 CAD. As you can see by the art-style, Mall Empire is not a premium game, it's definitely a casual / indie designed game from a small team.

Gameplay:

The goal of Mall Empire is to design a mall in which many customer want to visit and spend their money, allowing the player to make money, buy more things, make a bigger mall, and make more money.

The first thing you'll need to start your "empire" is to spend hearts to unlock shops. Hearts are earned by having an open mall and having customers visit the mall. Every once in a while you get a heart just by having customers coming and going throughout the day.

After you've unlocked shops by spending hearts, you have to spend money to build those shops in your mall. Each shop has a different starting amount of stock and makes a different amount of money for their product. As each shop sells product, it gains experience and eventually levels up which allows the player to put points into either more stock which allows you to sell more during each day, or more quality which allows each stock item to sell for more money.

There is a day/night cycle in this game which really doesn't serve too much of a purpose other than to reset the stock levels of the shops and give a break in the customers coming to the mall.

Other things the player is able to do with their money includes investing in advertising (which brings more customers to the mall), residential (which brings more customers to the mall), or Office (Which can affect some maintenance costs... or bring more customers to the mall).

If you reach some set requirements such as making so much money or having so many customer visit, the player can then level up their mall to gain access to more shops, more investments and more combinations of shops to make more money with when arranged in set patterns.

Graphics:

The graphics of this game are, well... it's a functioning game. Graphics aren't the most important thing on my list of stuff to care about when playing a game, though it is nice to have something pretty too look at from time to time. Considering the price tag of this game, I wasn't expecting much and I was probably able to get Mall Empire on sale for somewhere between $1-$2 if memory serves me right. So I didn't take the design of the graphics too harshly when deciding how I felt about the game.

Now I did find that there are quite a few spelling errors and issues with translation. English was not the first language of the design of Mall Empire and that's okay. In fact, even though there were many spelling errors and issues with translation, I still had a little bit of fun with it right up until the end.

Sound:

For the game sounds there isn't much to talk about. It's not that the game sounds aren't great... there just aren't any. Not even basic sounds for building or clicking on buttons or collecting income. Nothing.

Though there aren't any game sounds, the designers were at least nice enough to put in some music. The music is actually quite nice to listen to and in my opinion doesn't get annoying at all. The issue I have with the music is that it doesn't really seem to fit the gameplay. The way I would describe the music is some sort of endless arcade kind of thing... but more like something I would expect from an endless arcade shooter or a bullet hell, not a management game.

Replayability:

I really don't think Mall Empire is very replayable at all. I mean, I played it one time and quickly found that the gameplay formula got very old VERY quickly. Maybe it's just because I'm a strategy gamer, but I didn't find purchasing shops, building shops, and annoyingly clicking on each shop and then another following button just to collect income to be a very fun thing to do without any change other than what is available to construct for little pixel guys to walk past.

Even with that in mind, I still managed to keep myself playing all because the music was enjoyable enough to give it ago... right up until this:

Now you may wonder... what? If you look at the top-most construction in each picture, you'll see what I'm talking about. I was pretty alright with Mall Empire until I ran into this issue where I couldn't build an elevator on that second-level space. No matter how hard I tried, I could build anything BUT an elevator.

Well sure (you might say), why not just build it somewhere else? Simple: I don't want to; that wasn't part of my design. I didn't PLAN to not be able to build something because of a glitch in the system. Most times glitches exist in games I don't care; they're usually rather funny, but when a glitch seriously demolishes the entire point to the same so badly that what is supposed to be done CANNOT be done... it's a problem.

SUMMARY:

Though I was able to endure the many issues in the game from translation to lack of sounds, the gameplay just was not engaging enough at all. I could have put up with it all if not for the terrible glitches which make the game unplayable in the way it was meant to be played.

It's at that point that I realize the gameplay itself is just terrible. If it was at least playable, it wouldn't be on the bottom of the lists. Unfortunately I cannot even recommend this game while it is on sale. I'm giving Mall Empire 1/10 because of all of this.

As a sidenote: this really seems like a game for people who are obsessed with getting achievements. Because this game was so terrible, I didn't spend much time playing it... and still somehow managed to get 122/400 achievements.


~ DaemonVirus

=== Mind Over Matter ===

I've come to realize that everything I do is a matter off the mind. For some time now I've been searching for ways to improve my productivity. As it turns out, that answer has been under my nose this whole time. Or should I say... behind it.

There are all sorts of things online claiming they can improve your mental focus and clarity. Do any of them work? Maybe... but are they really worth the money? I don't think so. See, there's an alternative which I think many people forget about; including myself. That option is quite simply.... doing it.

I sort of had this epiphany a couple nights ago when I forced myself to go to my computer late at night rather than laying down on the couch and falling asleep. I ended up staying up all night streaming on twitch and felt great after that I had done something fun and productive. In fact, I felt so great about it that I then enthusiastically cleaned up the kitchen and prepared for the day. This was accomplished because I made a decision to do something.

It can be quite difficult to tell your body to do these things when it is do exhausted, but it can be done if you put your mind to it... As long as your brain isn't out of juice as well. Yes, things like caffeine can help; I prefer to avoid needing any though if I can help it. Although... there is a real spectacular boost when you're able to effectively combine both caffeine and brain power.

I've seen people shut down no matter how much they want to keep going... including myself. The biggest hurdle really is resisting what the body is asking for and instead doing what YOU want to do.

So what do you say? Will you join me in putting your mind over matter?

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Spring Semester ===

     If you've never taken Spring classes at school, then oh my goodness... let me tell you about how different this semester is compared to last semester. My previous semesters have been much MUCH slower than this one. I didn't realize it at first, but I already have midterms coming up in about a week and my finals are only about a month later. I have assignments due almost every day with not much of a break between each one.

     It's definitely been really hard to keep up with everything and still help out around the house and with the baby. I want to be able to do a great job at work and around the house and with school all at the same time, but instead I think I'm tiring myself out and not doing an amazing job of anything. It's a tough position to be in; I know I want to do so much that I wouldn't sleep if I didn't have to, but I simply don't have enough energy to accomplish everything I want to do at this time.

     As an example: my blog. I have hopes and dreams and goals of wanting to post things at least every couple days in an effort to grow my site and viewers and also as a way of sharing myself with the world in a way which could possibly benefit others. Instead, I see myself only posting maybe once a week at best and the rest of the time I sit in front of my computer after work and fall asleep until I finally drag myself to bed. This unfortunately happens with homework some days as well.

     Combined with the busy-ness of how work has been at this time of the year, I can certainly say I'm looking forward to after June once I'm done with 99% of school. I'm looking forward to finally having time to think without feeling guilty that I'm not constantly working.

Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Using Work Skills At Home

     This isn't really something I've thought about greatly previously, but I think I may have had a wonderful brainwave. At work, we have a daily task list. I'm sure it seems simple enough, but it's a really good reminder of what we have to do each day. And of course, we have the option of adding new tasks to future days if anything comes up that isn't normally on the list. I'm beginning to think more and more that this is something I should implement around the house somewhere. I think the easiest way for me to do so would be to use my whiteboard for such a thing.

     In the past I have tried a few different things with varying amounts of success. I've tried to just remember everything in my head... which works alright, unless you get distracted by something or are tired or anything to that effect.

     I've also tried using programs on my computer like a notepad or something; this works alright as long as you remember to open and update it every time something changes. This should be simple enough, but I've notice that if it isn't visible, it can be quite difficult to remember to update continuously.

     I've also used Google Calendar; this actually works really well also if you remember to update it all the time. This COULD be what I will start getting myself into a habit of doing along with updating my whiteboard. I think both options together would be a good habit to get into.

     Anywhos, I just wanted to talk a little bit about something we do at work that I think would be a good tool to implement at home to help keep everything under control and organized going into the future. We'll see where it goes from here. I'll keep you all updated.

     Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Banished - Game Review - 7/10

     This game, I have put so many hours into. Partly because I'm a perfectionist and I don't like to leave a game without 100% of the achievements finished, but also because this game is a nice city-builder.

     My first instinct is to call it "casual". I'm not actually sure if that's accurate or not. I mean, you aren't really playing against anything besides the elements, and basic human survival. The goal of the game is to make a settlement/village/town/city/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. You don't have to worry about being attacked by anything besides tornadoes and fires. It's just you and your people. As long as you make sure they have enough food and supplies, they're good to go.

     So in terms of a city-builder, this is a really fun game. Even though you don't have to play "against" anything, and don't have any specific goal besides making a city and keeping your people alive... this game captures enough attention to keep me playing it even when there's only one achievement left to get... that takes FOREVER I might add.

     The only thing about this game I can REALLY harp on is the fact that it slows down a ton as your population increases. I assume it's a problem with having to render/calculate every one of the sprites in the game. Figuring out what each and every one of them have to do, because they all have their own lives. I would imagine the more powerful your computer, the better the game would run at higher populations. Now, I have a pretty beefy machine... and my game starts to crap out around 200 population. I've searched for fixes for this kind of thing and unfortunately haven't really come across anything. I'm pretty sure it's just the way the game is made/encoded.

     Now, saying that. I do highly recommend this game. I have found it very interesting to learn how to take care of my people. If you're into tackling achievements, then that's what really makes this game worth it's money is the time you have to take to figure out how to get those elusive achievements.



     I'm going to give this game 7/10 for a city-builder. I haven't played many of them, but this one caught my eye. It could be better, but it's not bad at all.

~ Kyle

Streaming

Oh how I do so love streaming. It's one of the things that actually makes me enjoy playing a lot of the games I play. Because even though most of the time nobody watches, I still imagine people watching me and having a good time.

Seriously, if I could do one thing for the rest of my life, if would probably be to stream games for a living. Now of course I know that's probably impractical. That kind of thing doesn't happen to everybody now, right? But somewhere in the back of my head, I imagine myself being a popular streamer on twitch one day.

So maybe it's a stupid dream, but I still like having it. And even if I never get to that point I'll still enjoy doing it just in case I manage to make some friends one day or heck, perhaps I'll just make somebody's day. And that's all I can really ask for. Is to brighten someone's day, just a little bit.

Come check out my stream at www.twitch.tv/DaemonVirus1. ^_^

~ Kyle