Another banal update about the things I've been doing

I realise it has been a couple of weeks since I either:

a) Wrote a blog post,

b) Did any development work on this site.

So I guess now is as good a time as any for an update. Hopefully if I write enough words I will have a good chunk of text to help me choose a font for this site (it’s not staying as comic sans or monospace forever!). Honestly that’s pretty much all I want to get out of this post, but if you read it and enjoy then I suppose that is a plus. 🙌

Video games

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been playing a fair few things that have been rather addictive and time-consuming.

Portal Knights (Xbox One)

Portal Knights is an action-rpg/construction game. Think of a mishmash of elements from Minecraft, Terraria and Trove and you’d be somewhere in the right ballpark. You can pick to play as one of three character classes - warrior, wizard and archer - each with their own unique sets of weapons, armour and spells. You can play co-operatively with up to 3 other players and the goal is simple - explore a random world killing enemies and collecting materials, decide you’ve had enough of that world and find the exit portal(s), fill in the portal with a special type of block to activate it, travel to a new world, rinse and repeat.

I’ve spent a lot of time on that game over the last couple of weeks with my friends, it seems to be hampered by a lack of end-game content though. Once you’ve got the maximum player level, the strongest weapons and armour, and opened all the portals, there’s not much else to do, other than base-building, which is not particularly good in this game, Minecraft and Terraria definitely have it trumped.

Still, it didn’t cost much (£15.99) and I’ve had my money’s worth from it.

Magikarp Jump (iPhone)

Ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where everyone is obsessed with one of the weakest pokemon, to the point where they’ve created a contest to see which can jump the highest? Ever wanted to have a virtual fish pond where you can check in on your Magikarp and feed him treats? Ever wanted to experience the cruel side of nature as your beloved jumping fish is snatched away in the claws of a hungry Pidgey?

If the answer to any of those questions was “yes”, then download this free app immediately. While being as far from the traditional series of ‘Mon games as you can get, this is still a fun and cute little distraction, perfect for trains and toilet time.

Sega Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co. (Xbox 360)

This month the Xbox Game Pass became available to trial for Gold members. It’s like Netflix, but for games, you pay £7.99 a month and have the pick of 100+ titles to download and play at your leisure. The list includes both Xbox One and Xbox 360 games (playable via backwards compatibility) and like Netflix, unless there’s something you’ve been eager to try, choosing what to play can be a little daunting.

Rather than dive into one of the newer games I’ve been curious about, when I saw this collection of retro classics I couldn’t download them fast enough. Included games in this volume are Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Revenge of Shinobi and Super Hang-On.

I had played all these games growing up. Alex Kidd was the preinstalled game on the Sega Master System II, my first home console. Revenge of Shinobi was a game I bought for Sega Megadrive in many iterations (I’m pretty sure it popped up on at least one of the “Mega Games” cartidges, and if memory serves I even owned it on the Mega CD). Super Hang-On was not a game I ever owned, but I definitely spent a few 10 pence pieces on it in my time.

I’d never actually completed any of these games before, both of them had puzzles in their final levels that always got the best of me, and due to neither of them having a cheat mode or level skip, I would always run out of time, lives and patience. But finally, after 20 or so years since starting them, thanks to M2 building a save function into their repacking of these classics, I was able to beat them all! Huzzah indeed.

Movies

I’ve seen a few things over the last few weeks, mainly on-demand stuff, but a few trips to the cinema. I’ll save that for another post later.

Music

Apple Music is pretty much my main source of music enjoyment, this month I’ve found some new stuff I liked and again will share this all in another post soon.

Edit - hey, one last minute thing. I picked some fonts for the site, yay! Also dropped a splash of colour in, but the palette is probably not permanent. Bye 😘