#it's so much fun playing this on steam deck. i didnt realize how much my pc was struggling to run beastieball even on lower settings

[millenniumhooha]

Beastieball challenge update!

Thanks for the votes! Seakit won the poll for my next team member! But, to recruit one, I needed to be able to land two+ mind plays on one, which was impossible with my current team. Socrates (Turogue) learns heartbreaker at lv 11 but its a 75 base power play which kept destroying any seakit in one hit.

With not many options for beasties with weaker mind plays that I could recruit, I ventured north towards Jasper and found a beastie perfect for helping me recruit Seakit!

The newest member, Akemi, was perfect for the job! With a couple practice shots that almost wiped out the wild seakit - and almost got Akemi wiped out, before I tagged em out

...we managed it!

And so Kelp joins the party!

Which just left the last member, as I had one last remaining Jersey, and three runner up beasties to choose from: Sefren, Blitzwift and Sprecko.

Sprecko is unrecruitable right now since I have no beasties with field changing plays, and while Sefren is easy to recruit I decided to go with Blitzwift, as Kelp's net rush made it pretty easy to do 2+ shift plays.

But Blitzwift is a real danger! Even low level ones kept almost wiping out my high level beasties. And in the process of recruiting one...

I almost my first starter...! One stamina left! 🥶

But! We did manage to recruit one.

And with Bomber, we now have a full squad of 5! I'll be tackling a ranked match next, I've decided to go with Kaz since he's the easiest to get to (and also I just like Kaz and want to see him).

Once I meet Sports King, I can decide on a name for our ragtag squad! And hopefully not lose anyone to Kaz!

[pbandjesse]

Im real tired and my eye has been swollen all day. Its probably allergies but its got me a bit down. Today was a pretty good day regardless.

It was really nice walong up with James this morning. But with my eye bothering me I really didnt want to get out of bed. I did though and went to get ready while James fed sweetpea and packed up his own stuff. Today would be pretty frustrating with him not having a phone. But we would make it work.

We back together about halfway and then he went on his own to steal side and I went to Constellation.

Sean was already there when I got in so he just let me in the building. We had a fairly easy time opening up but no luck on James's phone. I called it a couple more times but now it was going straight to voicemail so it was probably dead. We're both pretty sure I got stolen at this point. But at least we can now move forward and figure something else out.

Dr. Brad, our Civil War Doctor reenactor, brought cakes from Christmas to share with us all. So I had way too much cake today. The sugar helped. I didn't get as much accomplished today with my lesson plans as I would have liked. Sean had me out on the deck basically all day. Which annoyed me because I told him I would like to work on my lesson plans but whatever. I feel like he always puts me on the deck all day.

I did get to start reading the book just got me about American hauntings. And it's really good so far. It's not a scary story book it's a book about why Ghost Story start. I'm looking forward to reading it more.

Maya was our lunch relief today and it was really nice talking to her. It always is. The firing went off really well even if it was a bit early because she'll never does a long talk about the history. But that's all right.

I had a nice lunch over at Johnny Rockets. I got a little annoyed with my waiter because he kept asking if I wanted stuff on my grilled cheese and I just kept telling him I wanted it playing and you just kept asking me. And I was just very tired and it made me upset but then the food came and it was all fine. He was a nice guy.

I gave a tour at 1. Maya apparently had never seen a full tour. Which is crazy because she's been there for months. Or at least it feels like she's been there for months. Regardless though she came on my tour and it was a really really good one. I had a really good crowd. We lost most of them by the end I started with maybe 20 and ended with nine but everyone was really enthusiastic and I was really hitting my points and just had a really good time storytelling. The full tour was about 45 minutes and I'm very proud of myself for how well I did.

My throat hurt pretty bad after that though so Shan left me downstairs for about an hour. I really would have liked more time but I also wanted to do the gun drill at 3 so it's just the way it worked out. I couldn't focus on my lesson plan too much. I did try and I got most of it done. I just have to finish the demos on number 11. I still would like to finish number 12 before we go back on Wednesday.

But what I did work on was figuring out change this phone situation. I had told him to try to call Verizon and put his account on hold just in case someone did have the phone. But every time he tried to call from the chief phone because it's not a Verizon phone the number hung up on him. He could not get through and he was getting more and more upset. I finally even though I was at the desk and we were very busy today I called. The guy on the phone was nice enough to let me keep putting the phone down and not get upset. And I was able to give them the number of the phone James on and they called him. So everything was fine but he was not able to get a replacement he does not have insurance.

So James told me to go to the Verizon store after work today and get him the cheapest most basic Android phone I could. And I was going to do that but then I remembered that you can get unlocked phones on Amazon. And then even better doing a little bit of research you can get just straight used Verizon phones on Amazon. So I ended up finding my phone, an LG G5, for $90. Which is how much I spend one I had to replace my phone with my insurance. So you know this phone is going to have some wear and tear because it's used he's going to have the same phone as me and he pays the same price that I did. I also got him a case. Honestly as you're probably get him a neck strap so that he can't lose it again. But it'll be here on Thursday and he just has to make it through this week without the phone and everything's going to be okay. I don't know what he has to do to activate it but I did make sure that it is a Verizon phone and he should just have to get a new SIM card. So hopefully in the end all of this will be fine and they will be cool about it. We'll see what happens.

I gave my gun drill at 3. Maya watch that one as well and I had like 40 people watched the whole thing. I didn't have as many hands on participants this time. I only got two adults and two kids so that made the Hands-On part very hard but I got everyone to laugh a few times in history was fun and it was a pretty good talk. I had a guy ask me a question trying to stump me later but I gave him the best answer I could even though I didn't actually know. I just told him like with my understanding. But I still felt really good and confident and strong and very smart. Which is why I love that program.

We finished up the day pretty strong. I did get to work on my lesson plans a little bit but we were very busy at the desk so I didn't have as much Focus as I would have liked.

But it was a nice way to end the year. I mean I'll be on Constellation tomorrow night for the actual end-of-the-year but for a full day shift it was a good day.

We finished up and Sean let me leave at 5. Which was good because I was really losing steam. I have been kind of holding it together a lot because James was upset but all it was kind of hitting me at once. I picked up to the grocery store, realized it was closed, and went over to Rite Aid instead. I had stopped at my apartment to grab grocery bag and I bought a whole lot of drinks and stuff to make the pasta salad that I got for Christmas.

There's a crazy line at the store so I kind of just walked around for a while and then I paid and I went home. When I got back here I started working on my pasta salad and then I went and got all of my clothes that are not hanging up in my and put them on the ground. While my water was boiling I started sorting all of the clothing and shoe I get rid of it I keep file. Then when the pasta was cooking I went through and I separate all the sweaters out and all of the other clothes. Then once the pasta was done and I folded all of the keep clothes and put them away. Most of it summer stuff. I also put all the sweaters back in the trunk at the bottom of my bad. But it closes a lot better now so that's nice. I'm really trying to only keep clothing that really makes me happy.

I took a shower and listen to music. And now I'm playing in bed petting sweet pea and I'm looking forward to my pretend day off tomorrow. The last day of the year and me and James are supposed to spend it together. And at 7 we are working the constellation deck party. I'm looking forward to it even though it's going to be an exhausting night. I still hope that's and be fun. It's my first New Year's not in New York in years so it's going to be a little strange. But in a good way.

I hope you all sleep well tonight. Pray that the rain holds off. Or it finishes up before I have to go to work. New Year's won't be as fun if we are all wet.

[lazymorninggaming-blog]

Blowing Off Some Steam - 1: Coin Crypt

Let’s start off this section with a big of an odd one: Coin Crypt!

Coin Crypt is a roguelite, turn-based RPG that’s surprisingly fun and addictive, despite its simple mechanics and its... bad start.

When I booted up Coin Crypt, I was greeted with the screen above. It took me a moment to realize I could move my character by clicking where I wanted her to, and when I started I was a bit... confused. But more on that later.

Like in any good roguelite, you have a basic theme for a procedurally-generated map, a low bar of health and total freedom of where to go from the get-go. Not knowing what the game was even gonna throw at me, I just went ahead.

I bumped on an enemy (didnt even notice he was, he was just sort of a white block I crossed paths with), and then the battle begins!

I kind of wish I knew ANYTHING about this game beforehand. I knew the protagonist was a “lootmancer”, and that the point was getting coins and fighting with them. But I had no idea what that entailed.

Here’s the thing: you have a bag of coins, which is to say, a deck of cards, from where you pull out a random hand of coins each turn.

Each coin has a different monetary value, effects and casting cost. You have a limited number of coins (as does your enemy), and each turn you cast one of them (or a stack like in the picture above) to fight. Once you use a coin, it’s gone forever.

Oh yeah, your enemy also fights with coins.

Your two resources are your HP and your coins. Run out of HP or coins, and you lose. The same goes for your enemy. I was surprised when I first won against an enemy who ran out of coins - if I had known that beforehand, I wouldn’t have wasted some of mine.

Once you beat them, you either get the coins they didn’t use up... or nothing at all if they wasted them all.

This is a double-edged sword: you run out of resources by fighting these enemies, but you *might* also win them back. There’s nothing like EXP or anything, so when is it a good idea to confront an enemy you can just evade?

Along the way, you also find several chests. Open one, and a ghost appears, letting you take some of the coins in it, of your choice. Some chests let you choose a lot of good coins, others very few bad coins, and other combinations. Picking up a ton of coins is ESSENTIAL, and what drives this game forward.

There are also shops where you can buy upgrades using your coins (that’s where the coins’ values comes in). I found these very, VERY hard to justify buying, since your money is also your main resource: buying a measly upgrade is probably not worth losing a ton of coins, except maybe very later into the game.

There’s also other things, like totems where you can offer up coins for implied bonuses, locked areas that can be opened up with special “key coins”, and wishing fountains where you can heal for a few coins.

Yeah, the whole game revolves around coins.

But, like in any good roguelite, you’ll die. A lot. And then you’ll have to start all over again.

But, like in all roguelites, there’s always a silver lining: unlockable characters with that run’s loot.

Every character has its own quirks, and they’re really just a cool thing to look forward to. As you unlock these characters, more become available for unlocking, so there’s always novelty.

Finally, there’s an encyclopedia of enemies and coins, rankings, and a daily challenge with specific perks or constraints. All in all, despite its simplicity, it allows for quite a lot of replayability, and it seems like there’s a lot to do.

MY OPINIONS:

#1 - It needs a tutorial (of sorts)

Or, at the very least, some sort of learning experience in the beggining.

The mechanics of this game are easy enough to grasp once you understand what this game is about - but when you start, you’ll probably be pretty lost. Even if your confusion will only last for a bit, you still do feel lost, and like the game is asking extra work from you to understand where it’s coming from.

Personally, I think an introduction where you’re given your coins (or are forced to look at your bag of coins for any reason) and then shown the basics of battle (you two have limited coins, you choose a coin to fight, used coins are wasted, when one of you runs out of coins they lose) would have been appreciated.

And I’m not talking about hand-holding - just a sort of safe area where the player is taught of the basics even without saying them outright. By putting them straight into the world, they don’t know what they’re even supposed to do.

#2 - Simplicity at its core

This is both an upside and a downside. As a negative, the game just... doesn’t look very good. Like at all. The coins look pretty enough, and the battle sprites aren’t half bad - but all the overworld sprites are bland and ugly. The world looks super generic and with nothing that stands out - and what DOES stand out, does so... very little.

On the upside, though, this means that the game was really easy to develop, and it also makes the experience very unified. Like I said, this is a very simple game - only one resource to care about, despite having tons of decisions they’re quick to make and only presented one at a time, and despite being a turn-based RPG the environments are fast to travel and the battles take very little time. It doesn’t require fancy graphics because it really matters so little - once you’re getting into it, you’re just devouring everything the game has to offer, taking very little time into looking at each thing.

#3 - Unified resources

This is, by far, the most fascinating thing about this game: it only has two resources, life and coins. Coins are really the only important one though, life being just a number.

Coins are used for EVERYTHING in this game. Not only are they the main monetary resource (I really like that, whenever you give coins as payment, you’re individually choosing each coin - it’s not an abstract number, EVERY coin in your bag is a thing to take into account); but also, they are the thing that drive the game forward.

You need coins, at all times. And you use up coins, at all times. As you advance, more coins are unlocked (which keeps the game varied and interesting), and getting that one cool coin you wanted feels super good - but you KNOW you’re getting that coin to use it up less than a minute later. It’s just how it works! And it works REALLY WELL.

#4 - Variation and elegance

I once read that “elegance”, when applied to a game mechanic, meant that a mechanic served different purposes. This game is very elegant because it takes so very few elements and yet it gives each one so many uses. This increases the number of different gameplay situations exponentially.

You have coins. Each coin can be useful in battle, or it can help you buy new things. Having a lot of bad coins means it’s harder to run out of coins, but the battle system makes it so that it becomes hard to win battles. There are coins with randomized effects, coins that let you steal other coins, coins with passive abilities that are lost once you use them...

Implementing all of these is ridiculously easy. Coming up with them and balancing them also seems ridiculously easy. And yet, every single coin adds so much variation to the way you play the game. The fact that you’re always making choices on what to use and what to take and what to give out adds a lot more variation than the randomized maps ever do.

But then there’s randomized maps! Enemy and chest placements really change every experience, as superficial as these changes may seem (and, like I said, easy to implement). Locked areas, wishing fountains, shops, totems where you may or may not dump your valued coins... all of these do a lot in switching things up every time, but their implementation and respective functionalities are so, SO simple.

It’s genius, which is why I feel sad that the game isn’t... better. Not mechanically or design-wise, just... a game that would attract a wider audience.

Coin Crypt is a good game that seems sadly overshadowed by many others and easy to pass over - but it’s good, trust me, I’m definitely gonna play this again when I have the time because I was having a blast. It shows what some very tight mechanics and an entire experience designed around the use of those mechanics can do for a game. If the game had been more complex, it would have probably lost a lot of its charm and what makes its gameplay so good and addicting. It really comes to show that less is more.