=== Crazy Taxi Tycoon - Mobile Game Review, Idle Action - 5/10 ===

     Welcome to Crazy Taxi Tycoon. If you're interested in finding a good idle game where you actually have to do a little bit of something to progress through the game... this one isn't an awful option. While not the most amazing game I've played, it's also not a terrible game.

     The gameplay of Crazy Taxi involves looking at a space which cannot be moved and clicking on icons as they come up. Every time you click an icon, one of your cars is sent to the customer who is then driven to their destination. The more crazy the taxi is during the drive, the more bonus money you get at the end of each trip. As this is an idle game, there is also a little bit of income which is made while the game is turned off based on how upgraded your taxis are.

     Once you have upgraded your taxis enough to unlock all the drivers for the area you are moved on to the next area where you are able to make more money than the previous area. There are many different drivers to unlock throughout the game, all of which have different personalities and things... though that doesn't really come into play at all as you mostly only see each person once and assign them to a car, then continue on with your day.

     As with most other idle games, there is some form of bonus currency sort of thing which you get for special events or watching videos or just for time passing. In this case, you get scratch cards.

     From these scratch cards and from upgrading vehicles, you can get driver's licenses which can be used to upgrade each driver once you have enough of them for a certain character. This makes the then upgraded character make more money.

     This game isn't awful; it's actually very well programmed and it looks quite nice. The thing that bothers me about this game is that I'm not captivated by the gameplay. There doesn't really seem to be any reason to make money offline except that every once in a while you have to put the game down and go do things in real life. Playing the game isn't really much different either; tap icon, car drives itself to the locations, you make money and move on. There really isn't much else for me to say about this game. I'm not trying to be hard on Crazy Taxi, but there just isn't much here. I suppose if you like following stories then you might be interested in seeing this game to the end.

     For this reason, I'm giving Crazy Taxi Tycoon a 5/10. It's not an interesting game, but it is well designed and I can see other people liking it even though I don't. For people who have similar interests as myself, I wouldn't recommend this game. For other people who are interested in mindless games and not quite as strict on whether a game is engaging or not, I would say to try this game before you take my word for it.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Snuggly Dogs ===

     Anybody who knows me well would know that I absolutely love dogs; especially my own snuggly dogs. I know they love each other care for one another because they whine when they're separated and they happily go everywhere together. They wrestle in the house and they will spend hours outside together. Back when we only had Furgle, he was a bit of a terror with way too much energy and always destroying things. Then we got Autumn to give him some company (which worked out amazing) and started worrying about her destroying things because of HER being bored. She still chews on things every once in a while, but most of the time they run around so much that they don't have any energy left at the end of the day.

     I recently saw this happening in the kitchen which absolutely melted my heart. As much as I know they love each other I almost never see them laying together so this was a treat for me (I just HAD to take a picture of this right away.)

     Now for a little story about them. I took them for a car ride this evening as I usually do when getting fast food at night. I started out by taking Furgle with me for these trips, but recently I started taking Autumn as well. Furgle is amazing in the car; he stands in my lap and puts his head out the window and loves every moment of the ride. Autumn.... I'm not so sure about her. She awkwardly stands with part of her in the cup holders and not feeling comfortable enough to sit in the seat. She pushes herself into either the back of the chair, or into me if she's close enough to me. The way she rides is like she's super terrified of being in the car, but she doesn't want to go anywhere that would take her away from me in the slightest. I honestly can't wait to bring her up to Lake Diefenbaker if we get the chance to do so this Summer.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== The Quiet Amount Of Trouble ===

     Everything was going so well. This weekend I've been looking after Isabelle while Carley has been working and last night I experienced the quiet amount of trouble. The day had gone pretty well with minimal whining and crying from my little girl. I figured it would be a fine time to let her crawl around and take a little bit of time to relax to myself. So she crawled around and played with some toys on her own for a bit until she decided to crawl away into her room on her own.

     How could that sweet little face possibly cause any trouble? I think to myself as I hear some rummaging around coming from her room. I can tell this rummaging is the sound of her playing with her toys in her cardboard toy box. I also periodically hear the sound of her touching a plastic bag as well, but other than that, not much noise. After some time of relaxing on the couch and playing a game I figured I should go and check on her. I come to her room right as she's leaving her room and I notice her hands are quite a bit more white than they normally are. In face, they're pasty white... with some kind of paste on them. I looked up from her to see her toy chest covered in white paste as well on the top and the side... and an open container which is also covered in white inside and out. Not only that, but there was paste on the toy box, on her singing book, on various other toys, in the carpet... you name it. And all the while she was VERY upset that she had to be cleaned off from this. If she had her way, her hands would have stayed that way for the rest of the night.

     This is what she managed to get into; a container of Penaten. She was super quiet and didn't make a noise while doing so. For those of you who don't know what this stuff is, it's used to treat and prevent diaper rash. This stuff is a lot harder to clean off than I would have thought; especially when coming off of various inanimate objects. This just goes to show that a baby suddenly going quiet either means they're keeping themselves entertained with something good... or they're entertained because they're getting into something. I think I've learned my lesson this time.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Games With The Wife To Be ===

     Recently I've been playing games with the wife to be. We've always enjoyed playing board games together and sometimes things like Mario and State of Decay because who doesn't love Mario and zombies? The unfortunate part is that we've always found it quite difficult to find two-player games that we both enjoy. In comes Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the Play Station 2. I've known for a while now that Carley has been interested in Dungeons & Dragons, but we just haven't had the time to run an adventure together. So one night I decided to suggest playing a new game and the next thing I know... she's asking to play "just until the next save point."

     Something I learned from this experience is that it's good to ask to try new things with your partner. You may be surprised to find that they enjoy doing some of these new things, or they may in fact be quite interested in something you like which even they never new about! I've also learned to be much more patient with my partner and that I also need to give new things a try... not just her. I've always been set in my ways where I like to do the same sort of thing every time; I even tend to order the same thing at each restaurant I go to. Now I'm trying to do things that are a little bit out of my comfort zone. We started spending time outside together recently building a snow fort! But that's a story for another time.

     So now we're looking for a new two-player game to play because we've beaten Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and I don't have the second game currently. Amazingly there don't seem to be a lot of great games like this on consoles these days. I'm sure if we keep looking we'll find something somewhere... or maybe I'll just finally get her to join me in playing some games on the PC. ;)

     I've always been a PC person because I enjoy the wide breadth of games available and I much prefer the accuracy of a mouse and keyboard vs a controller. I pretty much can't find a comfortable control scheme when using a controller in pretty much any case ever. The worst part about this... is that pretty much everybody I've ever known has been way more into consoles than PC. As unfortunate as that is, I will remain primarily a PC user searching throughout the land for some people of the same mind as myself to join me.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Campaign Clicker - Mobile Game Review, Idle Clicker - 5/10 ===

     Continuing my rampage of playing through games and reviewing them brings us today to Campaign Clicker. I'm always on the hunt for a good idle game I can open up every once in a while, make some progress and leave it until the next time I'm free for a while. This game brings a new option to the table one where the game resets itself every 24 hours. You get bonuses based on how well you did during the last "campaign" whenever a new campaign begins. On one hand, I love this idea, but on the other... if you don't have time to check up on your game pretty often, it sort of defeats the purpose of being an "idle" game in my opinion.

     Throughout each campaign you can either run as a republican or democrat and you can pick your candidate from a list of people whom you've unlocked. This is really just a cosmetic difference and if you're actually interested in politics and platforms and things, each candidate will have different speeches they run through during the campaign which you can read... or skip... or just not pay attention to whatsoever because it makes absolutely no difference.

     I don't mind this game, but as I'm not interested in politics (especially in the United States) I found my attention and interest in this game dwindled VERY quickly. I don't have a lot to say about this game because I wasn't interested in it long enough to get very far into it. In fact, I didn't make it through one 24-hour campaign. It has all the building blocks of an idle clicker game where click and bunch, then upgrade your abilities so you can click better and even to get more during the times when you're not directly playing.

     Personally, I don't think politics and games make a good match. I'm sure there are some instances where there are some really good games, but on the list of idle clicker games, this one ends up as a 5/10 for me. It's not engaging enough or of an interesting enough topic to keep my attention (I actually find the subject matter to be rather off-putting). I'm also not really a fan of the idea that I HAVE to start over again from the beginning every 24-hour period. If you want to give this a try, it seems like it works well with no bugs or issues, but if you're looking for something more interesting I'd recommend to give this one a pass.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Mobile Game Review - Motor World: Bike Factory - Management - 3/10 ===

     Motor World: Bike Factory is a very fun game. Or at least... the idea is very fun. I've played this game before, back when it first came out actually. This game is a sibling to the game it's based off of by the same company called Motor World: Car Factory.

The gameplay is nice and easy: pick a vehicle to build, click the vehicle to start building, click the vehicle again and again each time the next part is ready to be built until the vehicle is done, then wait for an amount of time until the vehicle gets sold for a profit. As you progress through the game, you can use dollars to buy better workers who work faster and/or are more efficient. You also unlock new vehicles which require more work points to finish and get sold for a higher profit. This gameplay is so simple, yet so much fun!

The energy resource in this game which lets you do work is donuts. Each worker has a certain supply of work points which must be refilled using a donut every time they run out. Donuts can be acquired by waiting for them to refill over time, or sometimes you'll find them while working on vehicles. You can also sometimes find mystery cards which can give you random bonuses such as refilling your donuts or allowing you to construct a vehicle for free rather than paying for it.

Now, for the observant people out there, you'll notice that I'm talking good about this game, but im only giving it 3/10. The reason for this is because I genuinely do love the gameplay of the original game (and this one because it's the same), but there are a few downsides to this game in particular.

First, the gameplay is the same; there's no difference between this game and the original Motor World: Car Factory other than this one is building bikes instead of cars. Also, this may have changed since last I played, but the total vehicle options are fewer than in the other game. The second reason I'm giving this game such a low score, is because I really wanted to get back into it, but upon downloading it and playing it once again... it seems to now be swamped with advertisements! I could happily waste tons of time playing this game continuously before, but now I have to watch a 30 second advertisement every time I finish constructing a bike! Maybe I could live with this with bikes that take longer to build, but when you're making really cheap and fast to build bikes... you end up watching more advertisements than gameplay.

*****
     I've now given the game a proper chance and played through the beginning tutorial phase until I've gotten past that and a little further beyond. Unfortunately the game hasn't gotten any better. I did have a ton of fun while I was without internet and playing the game... because it wasn't able to give me tons of advertisements every time I close a menu. Realistically though... who's going to turn off their internet every time they want to play a game? Not to mention the fact that the game crashed after half of the advertisements as well! So unfortunately, as much as I wanted to give this game a higher score, it's just too buggy and in your face to enjoy.
*****
So in summary, Motor World: Bike Factory is not a bad game. It is however already done almost exactly the same, and the amount of advertisements really kills the fun of playing the game, almost to the point where the game is unplayable. ~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== 30 days on $30 ===

     February 3rd, 2018 marks the beginning of Carley's 30 days on $30 challenge. In this challenge, her goal is to spend only $30 for the month of February on food and drinks. She had asked if I was interested in doing this with her. Unfortunately my answer had to be no due to being completely aware that I would be miserable the entire time. Carley on the other hand, is mentally prepared to go through this to gain a better understanding of how to keep a food budget on the cheaper side rather than unnecessary spending. She is also using this as an opportunity to learn to be more creative with the foods she has available. Finally, she's doing this because she wants to be able to say she has completed this and can do it whether or not she really has to.

     At first, while I was accompanying Carley on her shopping trip, I had thought to myself that it couldn't be possible to buy enough food with only $30 unless most of it is spent on something really cheap like rice. As it turns out, most of the food she got is NOT rice. There are quite a few noodles and soups and things and even some juices. Amazingly, what she managed to find and buy is much more than I would have expected and definitely more options than I would have thought possible. Here's a picture of everything she got for herself throughout the day.

     I know every time I go shopping I always think I'm not getting all that much... until I get to the checkout. At that point, things start to add up and then I realize just how expensive it is to eat anything other than noodles and rice. Just in case some of you don't believe this is actually $30 worth of food, here's the receipts as proof.

     Now, for all of you who can do math, yes, these receipts do go over the $30 value. There's a bit of a story to that as an explanation: See, we were looking at frozen vegetables thinking she'll need some sort of veggies to eat for the month. At first we were thinking of a couple different kinds of vegetables, but then we saw a price tag for a larger bag of peas for only about $2. Who could pass that up, right? It's not every day that you find a price tag that is probably printed wrong! Unfortunately the cashier we went to was her first day on the job and the manager on duty started yelling at her when he came over. It was in a different language, so we couldn't tell what he was saying, but it was clear that the girl was being yelled at. We felt so bad because she started crying that we just decided to pay what the price came up as and leave. Here's the tag we found for the peas.

     So, yes, the price tags aren't completely accurate as a result of the error, but keeping this price tag in mind, Carley did in fact stay under her price limit. She's keeping her food separate from the rest of the household so she can keep track of it all. My job? I'll be here to tell you all about her experience with this challenge and keep track of whether or not she's sticking to the rules. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to comment and I'll be sure to get the answers for your as soon as I can. Just for attempting something like this, I'm very proud of my Carley whether or not she succeeds.

~ Kyle Welykholowa