A Pixel Nomad

My First Otome – Magical Diary

Yesterday a good friend of mine gifted me a game on steam called ‘Magical Diary‘ which I had heard of vaguely but wasn’t really familiar with on any grand scale. This game is considered to be an ‘otome game‘, and I love games that involve a lot of story so I was pretty excited to play.

Little did I know.

I started playing at about 1pm, planning on just dipping my toes in for an hour or so before moving on to World of Warcraft or some other game. By the time I came up for air I realized it was 6:30pm and I really needed to get some dinner made. I had SUCH a fantastic time playing this game, it was unbelieveable.

You might laugh when you hear the premises. You’re a 16 year old human girl sent to go to a school of magic, much like Hogwarts, actually. You’re a Wildseed, a human with magical abilities, but not everyone there is, some have magical parents. You meet two roommates along with a lot of classmates and professors, and you have the choice to go to classes or not. You can study, relax, go to the mall on Saturdays, and you get a weekly allowance. Along the way you get sucked into the incredibly complex and interesting storyline of individual people, and you make choices based on certain activities. Because every decision furthers your personal story in a different way you can replay the game quite a few times for a bunch of different results.

It’s not just the interesting stories and personal play that kept me interested, either. There’s a great combination of ‘other stuff’ going on, like learning spells and taking exams. Your exams tend to send you to a dungeon (a puzzle) that you have to solve using your spells or another creative means. So far I’ve failed three of them and only passed two. You earn demerits for each time you fail, as well as any other ‘bad’ things you may do in the story line. I don’t want to give too much away so I won’t get into a lot of detail, but needless to say I am not a good student and I’m sitting at -40 demerits. Oops.

I’ve really enjoyed playing so far. It’s a relaxed pace, without having to worry about any of the usual game issues that I experience while playing an MMO or a ‘regular’ single player game. Sure it’s not going to be a game for everyone, but it IS on sale on steam right now, so if it sounds interesting you should pick it up.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Pet Battles, iLevels, and Pandas – Oh My! #WoW

This weekend I spent most of my game time in World of Warcraft – something I had not intended on but seemed to just happen. It began innocently enough, with me working on pet battles. At this moment I have 151 pets in my collection. I joined Warcraftpets.com some time ago and forgot just how much I love the site. I managed to get my first team to level 11, and completed a bunch of quests for pet trainers. I won an item that allowed me to upgrade any beast pet to rare, then learned later you can trade them if you don’t want to upgrade a beast pet. My team (so far) consists of Lil’ XT, Scooter the snail, and the Onyxian Whelpling. The weak link in the team is Scooter but I base that on the fact that he’s weak to the encounters I’ve been facing. When he’s fighting flying creatures he does quite well, and he has a lot of HP in order to survive encounters. Lil’ XT is my tank, as long as the encounter is not something he is weak to, chances are he can solo it. I’m trying to work up to the current pet level cap (25) on at least 15 pets so that I can partake in the celestial battles. I have a ways to go yet.

Speaking of celestials. When I returned to the game I was sitting on an ilevel of about 476, that was back in March. This weekend I spent a lot of time on the Timeless Isle, and am now sitting at 508 ilevel. It’s still no where near where I would like it to be, but it is a start, and I’m having a lot of fun. I really like the fact that I can ‘farm’ loot and gear for my alts by playing my main character. Of course none of my alts are even slightly close to level 90 yet, but one day I hope to get them there, and it’s comforting to know that I won’t necessarily have to grind the exact same quests to gear up that I’m currently doing. I like this process a lot, and to be honest it’s probably also one of the main issues I have with EQ2’s latest expansion, Tears of Veeshan. Unless your alt happens to use the exact same gear as your main character you are forced to complete the exact same quests in the exact same timeline that you just did on your main. When you have as many alts as I do, this makes for a painful experience.

I appreciate the fact that I don’t HAVE to raid in order to earn Valor points. I did partake in the first Siege of Orgrimmar that was unlocked to me, but I didn’t feel like dealing with LFRaid over the weekend, so I did my dailies, some scenario, and earned my valor that way. Choices are great.

All in all it was incredibly relaxing, very fun, and I’m surprised. WoW gets a bad rap from a lot of people that I know but it’s not ALL bad and sometimes it is exactly what you’re looking for.

Welcome to Oasis Landing #TS3 #TheSims3

I held off purchasing the latest Sims 3 expansion, Into the Future, because I knew that shortly after I bought it for full price, it would go on sale. It happens every single year, and every year I get mad at myself for paying full price. So I waited.

I didn’t have to wait too long, thanks to the black friday sales. I picked up the game on Thursday and am incredibly happy with it so far.

Into the future adds a LOT of extra game play. I decided to start with a fresh game, and I actually had to look up some guides to figure out how things work. To get started it is pretty simple. Your sim will be hanging out in the present, and a portal device will land on the lot. When you go and interact with it, a time traveler will pop out and introduce themselves. They will ask for your help with collecting some power cells, and once you’ve completed that challenge they’ll give you a little book / device that you can access from your inventory screen (it’s located beside your phone) as well as the ability to use the portal.

You will then be whisked away to Oasis Landing, the futuristic city where your sim and their descendants live. That’s right, I said descendants. You can go and meet members of your family in the future, and how you live in the present (your money situation, your job, who you’re seeing, etc) will affect those people and their future lives. It’s awesome.

There are also a lot of new technology bound items in game, as well as skills and jobs. You get a jetpack and learn how to fly around using it. There are new modes of transportation, and you can create bots that are equipped with trait chips so they can specialize in certain functions. I ended up using “Carl’s the Sims 3 Guide” to figure out the finer details of things because there’s just so much content to learn this time around.

You can pick future timelines. It can be a Utopian or Dystopian timeline, or the regular default one you start with. There are rewards and achievements for unlocking each one. There’s a big section on legacy statue requirements, and how to achieve that. There is a bot arena career, an astronomy career, there’s nanites to be found, the new advanced technology skill, how to make bots, and much, much more.

Overall this expansion has not let me down at all. I’m very glad I picked it up and I think it was well worth the cost. It added so much besides new house items and outfit choices. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Back on Argent Dawn #WoW

A number of my friends have decided to wander back to World of Warcraft for a while, there’s no telling how long it may last but I decided to join them for at least a month and see how it goes. I’ve been playing WoW for just as long as I have played EQ2, but I tend to take much more frequent breaks because I typically find the content and community lacking. Now it seems like a good portion of my friends all play on Argent Dawn, and this could be the temptation I need to keep me playing for longer than a month straight.

I last played March of this year, so things have changed. My ilevel is well below the current acceptance, and there are many scenario I’ve never completed before (or even seen before). In other words there is LOTS to do. My first course of action (I believe) is to head to the Timeless Isle. I’ll see where I go from there.

I have also missed the pet battles, and lets be honest, playing Hearthstone does install me with a bit of nostalgia. With BlizzCon out of the way and juicy details about the next expansion being released, it just brought about the feeling that maybe I should play again for a while. We’ll just have to see how long it lasts.

For those looking to meet up, please feel free to add me to your friends list, my battletag is Stargrace#1783

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

It’s Autumn Steam Sale Time

Last year I didn’t buy much in the way of steam sales, for whatever reason. I suppose I owned most of the games I wanted and nothing really appealed to me. This year I have tried to be much better about purchasing games when they go on sale, and realizing that I don’t NEED to pick up that game the day it comes out.

This year there have been lots of games I want, and most of them are indie games still in alpha which surprises me. I have really been looking forward to the steam sales, and I’ve already added a few games to my collection that were on my wishlist. What have I picked up so far?

Gone Home – 75% off. One look at the key features makes this game an easy purchase for me, especially since it was only $5.

A Personal Story: created by veterans of the BioShock series and the writer behind Minerva’s Den, Gone Home offers the rich, nuanced details of one family’s struggles to deal with uncertainty, heartache, and change.
An Immersive Place: return to the 1990s by visiting a home where every detail has been carefully recreated, and the sounds of a rainstorm outside wrap you in the experience.
No Combat, No Puzzles: Gone Home is a nonviolent and puzzle-free experience, inviting you to play at your own pace without getting attacked, stuck, or frustrated. This house wants you to explore it.
Fully Interactive Investigation: discover what’s happened to the Greenbriars by examining a house full of the family’s personal possessions, and the notes and letters they’ve left behind. Use your powers of observation to piece together a story that unfolds as you explore.

Deponia – 80% off. This isn’t a game for everyone, with crude jokes and off colour humor, but I absolutely love the art style.

Unique comic style with hand-drawn HD resolution 2D graphics
Bizarre characters and wacky humor
Challenging puzzles and hours of dialogue
Unique universe in the tradition of Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Terry Pratchett (Discworld) and Matt Groening (The Simpsons, Futurama)
From the creators of the award-winning games Edna & Harvey: The Breakout, Edna & Harvey: Harvey’s New Eyes and The Whispered World

Chaos on Deponia – 50% off. A sequel to the above.

Civilization V: Brave New World – 50% off. The latest expansion, which I’ve been waiting to pick up for some time now. I love playing Civilization, it’s relaxing and calm and fun, a great way for me to wind down.

I’m still waiting for some games on my wishlist to go on sale at a larger discount, games like Craft the World, Castle Story, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Dragonborn, Long Live the Queen, Gnomoria, and Ittle Dew. In the mean time, I’m very happy with what I’ve picked up so far.

I hope all of my American friends have a very happy thanksgiving today, I celebrated mine last month here in Canada, but I’ll be enjoying a nice relaxing afternoon watching football and I hope everyone has a great day, no matter where they find themselves.