Whhaaaaaat? Mythic Rank in Brawl Stars?

I had to make a quick Brawl Stars post today because it actually happened, and it's something that I said would never happen for me back in December of last year.

OMG . . . whaaaatttt?! Mythic!?!?!

Crazy, I'm trying to think of the difference, and I believe it has to be the new Ranked Pro Pass system. I certainly haven't gotten any better, and I definitely don't have a set team I play ranked matches with.  No, I'm just doing random battles in ranked and playing like I always do.

The win that sealed the deal . . . and hey . . . I was the star player even!

I suppose I have ranked up quite a few new heroes, and if there is a difference in my play, it's that. I've found myself playing a lot of Carl for gem battles, Jacky for hockey (a new mode they've allowed to be played in ranked matches) and Brawl Ball, Pearl and Cordelius in knockout, and Jessie and Barley in Heist. 

As for what's going on in Brawl Stars itself these days, we're about 10 days away from finishing up Month 1 of the new Ranked Pro Pass. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen when that rolls over? Also, we wrapped up the Dark Sands Season and have moved into the era of the Super Brawl Season. Super Brawl seems to be all about heroes and villains. I'm sure we shall see a whole slew of hero and villain skins happen here in the next few weeks.

I was tempted to buy Dark Sands. I kind of loved that mummy skin for Frank.

Of particular note to me, I've got quite a few heroes to level now that there are a ton of hyper charges that seem to be dropping like candy. I picked up Tick, Mico, and Sandy's hypercharges from random legendary Starr drops. It's just a never-ending gold drain trying to level these heroes. I suppose once I finish Tick, I'll probably move on to Mico. He's a pretty hip monkey man with a fun pouncing hit, which also seems to make him challenging to play.

Check, 1, 2, Check 1, 2.

So, I guess there you go. I feel lucky to have made it into Mythic, and I guess the new goal would be to see if I could push into Legendary, but . . . LOL . . . yeah, I don't think it's going to happen.

It seems so impossible to reach

Happy Dueling!

Blink your eyes, lose half a month: Brawl Stars, BG3, and more!

Hi readers! Am I the only one who feels like January is flying by like blink your eyes, lose half a month? This is crazy. Maybe it's just because I've been either hard at work, watching hockey (I have a new fascination with the Utah Hockey Club), or playing either Brawl Stars or Baldur's Gate 3. I feel like I've been ignoring my faithful few readers! Sorry! Let me take a second here and catch you all up.

Brawl Stars

I continue to kind of suck at this game. It's alright though--I'm still having fun.

The Brawl Pass this season is called Starr Force and involves more cartoon-esque character skins. I love the little animations they do on these things. Of all the heroes in this video, my favorite obviously is Berry, who recently got a buff and a beautiful, new hypercharge ability.

I am tempted to buy this one just because I'm feeling the gold pinch lately. 

In other news, Buzz Lightyear is still in the game, still overpowered, and I think people are genuinely over it. Once Buzz is gone, the game can return to normal. It was fun for a while, but I think we (the collective we of Brawl Stars Players) can move on here soon. Please? It feels like Buzz overstayed his welcome.

The one good, new thing coming out of the Toy Story promotion is the Pizza Planet deals and events that are now running. You can pick up great little prizes in exchange for the pizza slices you earn, including a brand new brawler character named Meeple, who is . . . a meeple made of meeples. A cheating Meeple at that. Check out his video promotion.

This game is absolutely crazy. I love it. All I need is 15 more pizza slices, which I should earn tomorrow, and then I can unlock the new hero. woot!

Baldur's Gate 3

A couple weeks ago, my old buddy Dylan and I both got the bug to play Baldur's Gate 3 together and the hit team of Moonstar and Avantador were back together. We crashed through the end of Act 2 without much trouble and promptly skipped off to the final act.

Bai Myrkul!

The town of Baldur's Gate proper is pretty great. Where else can you take on a quest to find a flying cat that eats delivery pigeons and discover severed body parts of a clown?  Baldur's Gate is the only place to be for wacky side quests.

Bad dad joke clowns are the worst clowns

As for main quests, we just recently took down a lady who liked to wear meat suits (not Lady Gaga unfortunately), and we seem to be on our way to confronting the last "absolute" God before dealing with the Elder Brain situation.

Meat suits for everyone!

Progressing with Dylan also meant that I could play more of my Everquest Beastlord in BG3. It's my second play-through, and I don't want to get ahead of my original play-through. As for the character itself, Volt's gameplay is definitely more "sneaky" than our pretty straightforward Fireball and Moonbeam spell light shows from when Dylan and I are playing Moonstar and Avantador. 

I suppose that's the influence of having Astarion in my party and being a bit squishy as a Ranger/Monk/Cleric hybrid as a main character.  My bear pet needs a serious upgrade to be honest. It's dying in one or two hits these days. Although for all intents and purposes, playing a real beastlord in Everquest felt that way sometimes when you were just one level away from getting a new pet summoning spell.

Other Stuff

Outside of those two games, my old friends in Team Spode are working through the latest expansion in Guild Wars 2, but my interest in that game has been waning lately. 

I have dipped my toes into Marvel Rivals, and it is in fact giving me HUGE overwatch vibes. I need to get back into it again. Playing Dr. Strange with a superhero team in a 6v6 pvp game was a blast.

Man, he was super fun to play

So there you go!  That's about all I've been playing. I still want to write up an article on the remaining two boards of Bounce Arcade and finally get back into playing more Asgard's Wrath, but while my mother-in-law is still in town, it's been difficult to play any VR. (She stole my office space and I'm stuck in the basement.)  

I'll be writing more as I can!

Happy Dueling!

Recent Brawl Pass Updates and the impossibility of Mythic rank

GAHHH! I'm so frustrated right now!  I don't think I'll ever hit Mythic rank in Brawl Stars. I'm not that good at the game and don't have a good, solid PvP team to play with. I went on the worst losing streak today from mid-Diamond 2 all the way down to the bottom of Diamond 1. So frustrating.

GRRRRRR! I SUCK AT THIS GAME!

The highest I've ever reached is Diamond 3 and the creep up the ladder to Mythic seems like an impossibility for me. It's that same level of rage I used to get when I was playing competitive Overwatch and not being able to get out of the Gold ranks.

Ok, now that my rage is out of the way . . . a lot has happened in Brawl Stars since the last time I posted about it. Let's take a couple deep breaths and talk about it.

(calmly breathing -- a zen beach scene emerges in the distance -- ok, let's talk)

First up, we had the whole Angels vs. Demons Brawl Pass season. It was a really cool and well-done season that involved a lot of really great skins, some neat game modes, and, yes, the angel and demon books played a part in it all. Basically, you'd fill out your power books and select which power you wanted to bring into a match. There were some interesting powers you could choose from like siphoning life off your enemies, resurrecting after defeat, and even spawning enemies when you killed another player.  Great stuff.

EMZ's skin was my favorite from the event.

Next, I finished maxing out Squeak, Bull, and Angelo with all of their hypercharge powers and everything. It was a lot of work, but I got it done. I'm now sitting on 19 Max-level characters -- 11 of which also have their hypercharge powers. (Just to put that in perspective, there are a total of 87 characters and I only own 67 of those . . . it's an infinite grind)

Next up to max will be Pearl thanks to this hypercharge acquisition

After Angels vs. Demons, the new season that happened involved a cadre of cartoon styles mashed into one Brawl Pass Season named "Starr Toon Studios 2." There are some super great skins involved in this season. I've actually been tempted to buy this pass a few times, but I'm staying strong. I kind of feel like I've already spent enough on this stupid game . . . ESPECIALLY WHEN I CAN'T RANK UP TO MYTHIC RAWR!

(calmly breathing -- a zen forest scene envelops me -- ok, let's continue talking)

Also, the holidays happened and clubs everywhere were cracking open a ton of presents for the season. The club I'm in managed to get 14 presents, and on Christmas Day they gave every player a few more. It was a present opening extravaganza in Brawl Stars! Two of the gifts I received were hypercharges: One for Colt (who I already had at max) and also for Jackie. Yay! Free hypercharges are the best gift of them all!

Legendary Christmas presents are the best presents!

Finally, you may have thought the Spongebob Crossover was crazy, but get this . . . Brawl Stars is crossing over with Toy Story right now! That's right, you can play as a super overpowered Buzz Lightyear in regular game modes (not competitive thank goodness). He's a temporary character, but really fun to play. In addition to Buzz, you can unlock new Toy Story-themed skins for Colt (Woody skin), Bibi (Bo Peep skin), and Jessie (Jessie Jessie skin lol).

So cool you can play Buzz three different ways!

Brawl Stars continues to be an incredibly fascinating mobile game for me with a ton of adrenaline-inducing fun . . . even if it makes me rage a bit when I'm playing the competitive ranked games. In my eyes, Brawl Stars is now officially the Fortnight of competitive mobile gaming.

I don't know if I have the patience and skill to move the needle on ranked games until it all comes to an end. This current season will end in a little over 5 days from now and Ranked will do the same in 4 days.  Oh well. The good news is that new fun will be here to ring in the new year of Brawl Stars soon!

Happy Dueling!

Brawl Stars' Update -- From Scary Tales to Angels and Demons

In my last post, I was all about Count Pengula. Since then, things have only gotten better. Not only did I reach the end of the Brawl Pass with a few days left to spare, but the game kept the treats coming right up until the very end.

Dripping with Looty Goodness!

One of the biggest wins this Brawl-O-Ween has been my luck with those Halloween-themed loot boxes, Dead Boxes. They gave everyone 10 free Dead Boxes, and that made for some super looty goodness. I scored BOTH Cordelius and Moe! I would have been overjoyed with just one brawler, but TWO?! So good. And as if that wasn’t enough, the boxes coughed up a ton of Brawler Credits, which gave me just what I needed to unlock Chester and start unlocking Draco.

Mushroom boy!

And here’s another Halloween bonus: I earned Vamprimo, Primo’s vampire-themed skin, in one of the dead boxes too! The Halloween skins have been on point, and my collection just keeps growing.

Free skin?! I'll take it!

The biggest question still haunts Brawl Stars like a lingering ghost from Halloween: the mysterious “don’t tap” star. When I last wrote, it looked like a dark, Necronomicon-style book wrapped in chains. Now, the mystery has deepened. The book’s look has changed, morphing into a more traditional Brawl Stars-style book hiding behind shattered glass. The ominous chains are gone, and in their place is a single button that reads, “Turn Back.” Looming over it all is the title, “Angels vs. Demons—The End is Near.”

Is this the Angel version of the book?!

It feels like Brawl Stars is setting up something huge for the Angels and Demons event, tying it all back to that spooky star that’s had everyone curious. Could it be something game-changing? New lore? A surprise challenge? Whatever it is, the mystery is building up, and I’m here for it.

On the leveling front, I’m happy to report that Squeak is now fully upgraded! Next on the list for leveling are Primo, Bull, and Angelo. I’ve unlocked the hypercharges for each of them, so now it’s just a matter of gathering enough gold to max out their skills. Fingers crossed I can stay focused on that goal without getting distracted by the next shiny thing. That’s the genius of Brawl Stars, though—there’s always something new to chase after. Supercell knows exactly how to keep us coming back, which is probably why the game is thriving. According to an article on Pocket Gamer, 2024 might even be the game’s best financial year yet. In the first four months of this year alone, Brawl Stars generated more revenue than it did in all of 2023. That’s some impressive growth!

The Angels and Demons event is just kicking off, and it’s already off to a good start with a new Brawler named Juju available in the shop. Based on the past season, I’m guessing the new event will drop a whole lineup of celestial and infernal skins. If the Halloween event is any indicator, I’d bet we’re in for some good rewards and maybe a few surprises, especially if they tie in with that mysterious star.

Looks pretty cool! I'm sure I'll hate fighting against her.

Meanwhile, the Brawl Stars Championship 2024 is underway! I just tuned in recently, and although there’s no chance of me winning that exclusive Hypercharge, you can still catch today’s final matches and join the action at event.brawlstars.com. They’re offering rewards for voting on match winners, choosing MVPs, and even just watching the event live. The championship has added a whole new layer to this season of Brawl Stars, and it’s cool to see the game’s community come together for these final matches.

Imagine being on that stage!

This has been one of my favorite Brawl-O-Ween events so far, filled with surprises, incredible pulls, and that eerie star mystery that’s still dangling. As Brawl-O-Ween draws to a close, I’m ready to dive headfirst into Angels and Demons, waiting to see what awaits on the other side of that shattered glass.

Whether the “Turn Back” button is a warning or an invitation…we’ll find out soon enough.

Happy Dueling!

Greedy little coffin-throwing vampire penguins in Brawl Stars

I’ve been creeping around Brawl Stars' Halloween event and managed to get myself up to the 45th stop on the new Season 31, Scary Tales, Brawl Pass. I shouldn't have any issues going all the way to 50 on this one before the event ends on November 6th. 

Just a few more to go to finish it out! (Still don't know if I'm going to buy this though)

Gotta say that Halloween events in games are always fun. Brawl Stars hasn't disappointed: there have been sales, free stuff, and a bunch of new modes that have been, how would Count Pengula say, bloody good fun? Naturally, I had to sink my fangs into the Count Pengula skin (vampire penguins? That’s a coffin I’m willing to live inside).

Greedy little coffin-throwing vampire penguins for the win!

And to sweeten the cauldron, I also scored a free Hypercharge from the event! So, it looks like Angelo is next after I finish leveling Squeak (a character who also won a free hypercharge before the event started). It makes sense to level the characters who get a hypercharge talent for free since it's such a great boost. Unfortunately, I'm not that great at Angelo, but practice will make perfect.

Not really in my element in my element

As for the new Halloween game modes, what really digs me six feet deep is the new Payload mode where your payload is a coffin. Honestly, I love this mode. I'm kind of surprised that payload mode isn't a regular event like Brawl Ball or Heist. After years of playing overwatch, I'm all in for this mode ALL THE TIME. 

There’s also the zombie head toss mode (Volley Brawl), where the heads really roll, and you have to be in the right spot to bounce it back at the other team. It's essentially Volley Ball but with a Halloween twist. Good stuff.

And finally, Zombie Plunder is a game mode where you steal the other team's pumpkin and run it back to your team's hotspot. Also a pretty fun mode. I had some fun in Zombie Plunder this morning and recorded me going crazy with a little Frank action.

Overall, Dead Weight is the one that drove a stake through my penguin vampire's heart this season. It's drop-dead good. Honestly, Supercell! If you're reading, payload should become a permanent mode!  

So there you have it, the Halloween event in Brawl Stars is giving me all the thrills and chills I could ask for in a mobile game.

The real question is, when will we find out what THIS is?!

Happy Dueling!

Yup. Spongebob is coming to Brawl Stars

Well there it is ... I didn't really know if the rumors were true or not, but Supercell just pulled off a Spongbob collaboration.

Bikini Bottom at its Brawliest

I was so positive Clancy would be wearing the Spongebob skin, but nope, they gave it to El Primo. That actually does make more sense since so many more people would have access to El Primo whereas Clancy is a bit harder to get.

The finer things in life always cost money

The exclusive Brawl Pass skin for the season of Spongebob will be Mortis Squidward! I'm not very good at playing Mortis nor the clarinet. :(

The other characters will be Patrick Buzz, Sandy Jessie (with Gary Turret), Mr. Krabs Tick, and Plankton Daryl. 

New power ups are going to be active and changing gameplay Sept 5th to October 7th -- all Spongebob themed. You'll also get a couple new game modes as well, including a Jellyfish collecting game and a new 12-person Trio showdown. 

Honestly, it all sounds pretty great, and you can get all the details from their recent video.

That also mentions a couple new Brawlers and an upcoming Halloween event by the way...

Man, I can't even imagine how fun it must be to work on this game and with a Marketing Team that can pull off a collaboration like this. It's also great to see that this game is technically successful enough STILL to be having events like this. Even if Spongebob isn't your cup of kelp juice, you've gotta be impressed by at least that.

Happy Dueling!

Busy and Brawl Stars

August has turned incredibly busy. My car's in the shop. We're commuting ourselves and our child long distances. School started. Work is busy. I don't know. Everything just kind of exploded here.

At the same time, right now I'm just kind of doing nothing. I'm sitting outside of a house we put an offer on waiting for my real estate agent and typing a post in the blogger app.

And there's my agent ...

(Insert home inspection walk through)

(Imsert trip to my mom's apartment)

(Insert 2 hours at work)

(Insert picking up child from school)

(Insert picking up wife from work)

(Insert dinner)

(Insert dropping kid off to band)

(Insert Target trip)

OK! So it's now 8pm and wow, the day just kinda dissolved. I'm just waiting to pick up my kid from band in an hour or so.

Anyway, the phone has been my main source of entertainment the past couple of days, so let me quickly talk about Brawl Stars!

The end of the road!

I managed to get to the end of the Brawl Pass and thus time I'm about 12 days early. I like it. Along the way I leveled up Shelly to max level, got my favorite skin ever, and won a new Brawler. Not a bad time at all here.

Cowboy Shelly at yer service, ma'am 

The main reason I leveled Shelly is because he has the potential to earn a supercharge power. As it stands now, characters with a supercharge have an advantage over those that don't, so those are are the most "max level worthy" to me.

Reaching into the hells to grab his bow

Next, seriously, this Bo skin is thee best. I love him as a red skinned demon. He's always been an amazing character and this skin is the icing on the cake.

And finally, look at this little doofus!  He's a sno cone machine!

what a little guy! What a little dude!

He's a little weird to play so far, but I do like how he can freeze opponents!

And there you go. I squeezed out a post on a crazy busy day. Whew. I can't belive I'm still loving Brawl Stars! Such a fun game and time killer.

Happy Dueling!

When Splatoon Meets Brawl Stars

By now you all are probably tired of hearing me talk about Brawl Stars . . . like, we know, we get it, you like this dumb mobile game. MOVE ON, TOM! MOVE ON!

It's a good point you make, imaginary reader who just said that, but they keep doing new things in the game and I really do like to play it, so BACK OFF, IMAGINARY READER! (When I say, imaginary reader, I'm pretty sure that's more reality than fiction according to these Brawl Star post view counts.)

So, ACTUAL READER, I have to say that the Brawl Stars new event is pretty great, mostly because it hails to one of my kids' favorite PvP games called Splatoon. 

This game is so great!

Splatoon is big news around these parts (meaning, my household), and I would be lying if I didn't say I too have taken inspiration from this fantastic game (I may or may not have taken some design queues from the Splatfest event).

In Splatoon, the classic game is a 4 v 4 brawl with awesome painting weapons like a roller brush, Spray guns, Splatterscope, Goo Tubers, paint buckets, umbrellas, paint brushes, and on and on. Once you choose your weapon and queue for a match, you and your team then paint the floor and your opponents with a color. The other team does the same with a different color. At the end of the match, the team that colors the most wins.

Ready to paint the town green!

To go along with it, the characters of Splatoon are pretty much semi-aquatic humanoids, the squid kids if you will, and they're fighting each other for turf in a post-apocalyptic earth. It's great. There's been 3 versions of the game with multiple updates and millions of players. It's well known in the Nintendo-lovers world.

Likewise, The new Brawl Stars season/theme is called Paint Brawl and it comes with a new game mode where you have a 3v3 paint-the-floor match between 2 teams with 2 colors.  Sound familiar? It is slightly different in that you kick around a ball to paint the floor and killing an enemy leaves behind a big splat of paint.

Green destroyed Orange in this match.

Likewise, the new character introduced into the game is Clancy, the damage-dealing crab, which pairs nicely with Hank, the Pufferfish-riding Shrimp. Check out the crazy new video they released to go along with the new season.

People in the video's comments are all claiming it to be a Spongebob collaboration. That very well may be, (side note, Griff would be perfect in a Spongebob Skin) but I'm not sure if it's not just all done out of parody than an actual collaboration. Nickelodeon's famous IP would not come cheap. 

100 percent Spongebob Candidate

I suppose if any game company could pull it off, it'd be Supercell. To me, the whole thing smacks more of Splatoon than SpongeBob.

As for the Brawl season pass, I'm not sure if I'd spring for it just yet.  I've had a hard time justifying it for the past couple season passes. The exclusive skin is for a character I haven't unlocked yet named Sandy, so if it was possible to choose that character as the brawler I unlocked, I'd probably choose him. Meh. If I bought it, it'd be for the gold, let's be honest.

mmm . . . I don't know. I guess it's cool?

So there you go!  It's a new event in Brawl Stars that's uncannily like Splatoon with a possible touch of Spongebob.  What's not to like.

Happy Dueling!

Brawl Stars Berry, the grumpy unicorn

I've often had a thing for rainbows and unicorns . . . as evidenced by this blog:

• Unfeigned love of the rainbow-tailed unicorn in free realms
• The Magical Tales of Angus Unicornpants
• Happily playing the game No More Rainbows

Well, here we are. It's 2024 and you now can add one more rainbow unicorn love to the list!

Cute and grumpy, just like me!

Just two weeks ago, Brawl Stars dropped a brand new character named Berry, and he is a very grumpy and somewhat psychotic rainbow unicorn. The game allowed me to swap out my Brawler Claim Credits to Berry from Bonnie. (side note for those that don't know what I'm talking about -- There's a currency in Brawl Stars called Claim Credits. You can use these to unlock epic and legendary Brawlers. You get the credits by hitting milestones in Trophy Road and the Battle Pass.)

Below is a video of me, um, horsing around with him.

They also made a fun YouTube marketing video to showcase his personality.

At a base level, Berry plays a bit like a mix between Barley's regular attack and Carl's ultimate attack.

Berry lobs ice cream on the ground that damages enemies and heals teammates -- Right off the bat, this splash attack is clearly better than Barley's because of the healing component of the splashes he leaves behind. Once his ultimate is built up, Berry spins forward in one direction, damaging enemies he contacts and leaving a long trail of ice cream behind him in his wake. 

When comparing this to Carl's ultimate, you'll find that it's both better and worse than Carl's ultimate. For one, it's faster and leaves behind an effect. Secondly, you can't control the direction of the spin once it's set (unlike Carl's ultimate, which is pretty flexible). On the other hand, you can still use his ultimate for attack, positioning, and escape like Carl, but just not with as much control, and of course, you get the added benefit of healing on top of damage from the trail of ice cream left behind.

I'd love to pair Berry and a melee character like Frank. Adding a healing buff where the melee character is fighting seems like an awesome synergy. I haven't yet leveled Berry to a point where I can really mess around with star powers and the like, but my inherent love for unicorns will probably cause me to take him all the way to the top.

Happy Dueling!

Of Gods and Monsters -- Season 28 of Brawl Stars

The Gods Versus Monsters update dropped in Brawl Stars, and it features a slew of new skins that have ye' olde Olympian flair. EMZ as Medusa is a pretty great skin, and that alone makes it a tempting battle pass to purchase.

Medusa EMZ! So much awesomeness!

For me, the only thing I've felt immediately compelled to purchase was the Goblin Carl skin. Carl has a special place in my heart,  mostly because my oldest child is studying to be a geologist, and that's carl's whole backstory. I don't' know if this was marked down in price because of the Gods Versus Monsters sale, but it was pretty cheap and a great improvement over your standard looking Carl skin, which is pretty bland.

Digging the diggy skin!

Also of note, a new season of ranked play happened at the same time as this update, and that means you can get some great unlocks for ranking up. For me that meant I got a lucky unlock of the Cobra Lola skin! To be honest, I really don't know if the cobra skin is more likely to manifest itself because of the Gods Versus Monsters update, but it does seem pretty in line with the theme of the event.

Having a hissy fit as Cobra Lola

I wish there was a mode of play that came with this event. Probably one of the best seasons I've seen was two seasons ago where everything was Godzilla themed. Not only was the theme fun, but they also threw in a new game mode for you to play where you could BE Godzilla, destroying the other players' town. Although, it was debatable if people actually liked this mode.

My finger keeps hovering over the buy button on this one, but I haven't quite committed to the seven dollar price tag . . . mainly because I just bought Baldur's Gate and a whole slew of VR games with a Humble Bundle deal.  I have an invisible gaming budget that I might have already overspent on during the month. Wish my wallet the best of luck!

Happy Dueling!

Diamond Rank in Brawl Stars Achieved!

Brawl Stars continues to be my favorite mobile game, and yup, they got me to purchase the Battle Pass. I relented, but the reason why wasn't that I got a ton of skins and goodies, it was all about the gold!  

Gimme that 8000 gold! (and all the other stuff too)

As it turns out, this morning was the first time I had ever hit the Diamond rank in ranked PvP matches. I've gotten gold rank usually or silver, but the past couple of weeks I've been a bit more deliberate in playing ranked PvP. 

Gimme that Mythic Rank-up reward!

There was a bit of a rude surprise when I got there though, and that was to continue ranking up, you need to have a full squad of 12 brawlers ranked up to at least level 9 to play. To do that requires, a ton of gold that I just really didn't have . . . unless I bought that delicious-looking battle pass! So I went for it. I mean, it was only 7 bucks, and this game brought me through nights of unemployment.  You got my money, Brawl Stars!

You need . . . 12 of them?!

The next interesting surprise was that at Diamond rank, PvP is a bit more intense . . . not just the competition, but you can choose heroes to ban the other team from choosing. I think I'd actually have to start looking at the meta if I were to make happy choices for my teammates, but I typically just choose the characters that are annoying to play against.

PvP at the higher rank also involves a more Overwatch style of winning matches. Honestly, it feels like overkill, but it does make the game different.  Once you play 2 matches against a team, you start to get the feel for how your opponents play and, if you're a good player, you can swing the game based on this knowledge.  Spoiler alert, I don't think I'm that good of a player.  I'm trying though!

At least the battle pass gave me some new fun skins and a Brawler I can't wait to play.  He's a fairy-turned-mosquito and just looks crazy enough to love.  

Angelo is super charming in an ugly way

I don't know if I have the wits about me to make it up the ranks of PvP post-Diamond, but it certainly was fun getting there! I'm really loving Brawl Stars still for my go-to mobile game.

Happy Dueling!

Surviving Unemployment with Peridot and Brawl Stars

So as this recent story goes, while I was unemployed, I honestly didn't have the stomach to play any PC or VR games at all! For me, that's pretty much the weirdest thing that's ever happened. The feeling I had was that I just lost all joy in doing the things I typically love. I know that sounds depressing, and yeah, it was. But that said, two mobile games helped ease the pain. 

Every day while unemployed I had a pretty strict morning schedule. I'd go to a morning meeting at 8am about job hunting, at 9am I'd go for a walk, and when I got back home, then it was time to hit the networking and resume circuit. If you're unemployed, I highly recommend keeping a schedule. This little routine gave my day some needed structure.

While I was out on a walk, I would pull out my phone and start up a game called Peridot, which is made by Niantic (you know, of Pokemon Go fame).

My Peridot waiting at the end of the sidewalk, ready to play catch with me

Peridot is a super cute AR game where you hatch cute baby pets and grow them into adults. It has the whole Tomigatchi thing going for it, but without the constant annoying real-life, real-time electronic whining. Basically, you care for your Peridot, feed it, play with it, do daily quests, and it grows up and becomes your best friend. But you don't want just one! You want a whole generational tree of Peridots.

To be honest, when I first discovered Peridot, it kind of made me mad. WIMO had tried to do the same kind of hatching game with inherited DNA traits in our mobile game Unnatural Selection. I saw this and was like, man, why didn't we just do this?  You have one body with morphing of parts -- a peridot can look like any number of four-legged creatures. The art savings must be huge!

In fact, Peridot plays into that morphing by giving badge hunters an assortment of Peridot body "archetypes" for you to hunt after.

So many archetypes!

For instance, if you hatch a peridot with the Bee Wings Plumage, Fuzzy Material, Bee Stripe Patern, Antenna Horns, and a yellow and black body, you unlock the Bee Archetype.

What's the buzz about DNA?

. . . and the resulting Peridot has a little bee flare to it.

His little robin hood hat adds the perfect flair

For a while I didn't even care about the Archetypes, I was just after hatching the rarest 4-star genes to see if I could get something crazy. The best I got was four of the 4-star genes. At the time I was surprised they didn't try to steer collectors into having higher gene ratings with an achievement system.

In fact, the big thing I kept thinking to myself over these six months or so of playing Peridot was . . . man, how does this thing even make money? It just felt like there was no motivation for players to spend. I mean, you could buy a few outfits or get an extra nest or two, but all those things come in time if you just play the game.

It's been interesting to watch the folks at Niantic bend and tweak and balance the game to be more profitable, and I think they may have actually arrived at something brilliant with the latest patch.  Now Peridots can have "chaos traits," which elevates the DNA to a really new and crazy level.  Chaos traits are basically elongated or extreme body features that you get to name and personalize.

Two chaos traits in one!

Now you have a solid reason to use the Eggs Ray consumable (to see a baby's DNA before you hatch it) because the sub-game is now trying to get as many crazy Chaos traits on your Peridot pet as possible. It's kind of genius.

I honestly can't wait to see what they come up with next because the stuff they're adding just keeps making this game better and I feel the pull to purchase more often. I'm actually proud of what they've done with this game vicariously for them. 

So, to sum it up, Peridot was just a nice comfort moment I had during my 9am walks while unemployed . . . as much comfort as I could manage between freaking out about the situation I found myself in as a 52-year-old game designer who was out of work and not making progress with employment.

~~

The other mobile game that provided me some comfort was one I've talked about before on this blog: Brawl Stars. 

I didn't start playing Brawl Stars until about 2 months into unemployment. This was my "late at night" comfort game after I had done all the job hunting I could during the day. 

Unlocking Mythic stars is the best!

By the time I was 2 months into unemployment, I had finally stopped beating myself up for the situation I was in and accepted that I had done everything right in my career to this point and it wasn't my fault for being in this situation. It just . . . was.

Anyway, I was surprised that Brawl Stars had grown its hero roster so wide! Where once I had unlocked pretty much all of the heroes save for a couple Mythic characters, now I had tons of catch-up to do.  After months of not playing the game, I was happy to see them add all these new skins, emotes, sprays, and unlockable items. New events were hitting the game on the regular. All in all it was just a way more fleshed-out experience for me.

I decided to choose a new character and just take it all the way up as far as I could.  When I found Lola, I really liked her and decided, yup, she was going to be my new number one.

I'm a dirty Lola main!

What I like about Lola is that you could use her power to duplicate her and just completely wreck face with her double attacks.  In addition, you could use that same duplicate shadow character to get out of tight situations by shielding it while it stood in place and you run away. It's actually a great decoy as well!

Side note, my wife hates this game because of the music and the look of the characters. *insert sad face* I guess she'll never know why I found comfort in a silly little PVP experience on mobile, but to me, it's always been a well-designed experience with a lot of smart decisions. Unlike Peridot, I get why this game is successful. The pull to purchase is strong. Battle passes always do that to me. I love this little game!

Of course, it's not just Lola I like to play . . . gotta play them all! FRANK SMASH!

So, there you go. I'm giving it up to Peridot and Brawl Stars today for helping me through unemployment as the only type of game-playing I could stomach. Thanks for being a couple of nice distractions.

Happy Dueling!