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!

Y'all ever play Coin Master?

Back when I was in the vidjagame industry, Coin Master was one of those games the mobile game team would look at and go . . . dang . . . such a simple concept, yet shockingly well executed and successful.  We'd be over here trying to build some complex town builder match-3 cross-over and then look at this simple slot machine town builder that made us collectively throw our arms up in the air.

Thor, Ninja Pigs, and Gold . . . only the best things in life

If you've never played the game, basically, you get spins on a slot machine. Your spins refresh around once or twice a day and you spend the gold from your slot machine wins to build a "village."  There are typically 5 objects to a village. For instance, I'm currently building Village 75, the "unicorn" village, and the five objects I'm building in that world are: a unicorn, a Cupid, a marble column gazebo, a pink floofy tree, and a satyr.  Each of those objects has five stages where they start small and stunted and end up large and fully fleshed out. You build your village and advance to the next one. Wash, rinse, repeat ad infinitum. 

Building a unicorn paradise

Now, if that was the only core loop, it'd be pretty meh.  What makes the game more interesting are the social aspects of the slot machine wheel. If you get 3 thor hammers in a row, you get to attack either a random or someone on your friends list.  Basically, you call down a lightning bolt on one of your friend's objects.  You can protect from this if you get 3 shields in a row, which will give you a shield or three to protect yourself from your friends' attacks.  If you get 3 pigs in a row, you get to steal gold from either a random player or a random person in your friend list.

He attac, I protek

Then, to top it off, there's always a number of events running simultaneously like a tournament to see who can steal the most gold, a PvP battle based on the number of attacks you've done, a quest to send you through a forest scene, etc. etc. etc.

The first time I saw Coin Master, I immediately went, why hasn't anyone done this with an RPG style instead of a town scene builder?  And of course, someone had.  There are plenty of Coin Master clones out there: Island King, Spin Voyage, Piggy Boom, yada yada yada.

I really wish I could remember the name of this stupid Coin Master RPG game I found, but alas, it's lost to time. I actually played it to the end. Sigh. I think it might have been a prototype that was put out there just to see if anyone would want to play it.  To be honest, I think I might have been the only person that wanted to play it.

ANYWAY, fast forward several years (Coin Master was released like 10 years ago), my wife just two weeks ago sent me an invite to play Coin Master. I'm like, no way. She's like, way. I then logged on and found I had some solid progress and a ton of spins. Since she was my only friend, I then proceeded to destroy her town and steal her coins . . . and she was out. I can't help it if the game wants me to destroy my friends!

. . . and even though she was out, I've still been logging in and playing. I'm not sure why . . . probably nostalgia at this point. As far as slot games go, this one is the most tame of them all. It's not like Game of Thrones Slots by Zynga, which, by the way, I have played. When I was without a job I interviewed for a Marketing Producer job at Zynga, and if I had got the job, that would have been one of my games I would have been responsible for.

Sorry about all that . . . I just felt the need to ramble a bit about Coin Master.  Maybe talking about it will help me stop playing it. LOL. Stupid, addicting mobile games.

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!

August Squad Busters Update

Gosh dangit. Squad Busters updated their game and it was lame and safe and exactly what one would expect from an update. Tipa was 100 percent correct despite my hopeful desires for mode modes and styles of play.

The patch notes are actually quite extensive (which makes sense with a new game's first release) So, here's the Squad Busters update in a nutshell:

•  A new battle area called Lava World -- Now when you play, sometimes Lava World pops up as an event world you can enter. After August 21st, that world will get put into your squad journey as a world you unlock.
  
  
• Pancakes -- You collect pancakes from playing and convert those into battle chests that have rewards inside them. That also ends with the event on August 21st.
  
  
  
  House of Pancakes? Chests of Pancakes!
  
  
• Three New Troops -- They added more money grinds into the game as Tipa suggested above. Archer, Miner, and Leon. 
  
  
  
  
• Megas Removed -- The cool uber mobs you could recruit into your team were too swingy and so they changed them into skins.
  
  
  
  

  Aww. I liked Megas!

  
  
• Balance Changes -- Troops were nerfed and buffed.

So, yes, new troops for people to invest in. So far I've recruited 2 of the 3 (Miner and Archer).

You no take candle!

Maybe someday my dream of new modes will come to fruition, but not today.

Happy Dueling! 

Squad Busters Need More Modes

When I first started playing Squad Busters, I was kind of in love with it. Now that three weeks has passed by, I'm still playing, but the Honeymoon is over and I'm starting to think about what's next for the game.

The basic loop of the game is you play in a 10-person free-for-all and place 1st through 10th for the match. After this you are given rewards based on your performance and unlock progress to more worlds to play, more characters to play with, and a strengthening of your squad.  That's it, and that's ok because if that base game isn't fun, no one will keep playing your game.

When I was first playing the game, I was dominating! As I should be. Mobile game designers always look at the win-loss ratios of your first few game sessions. If you're not destroying things and feeling good, then the game has less chance to hook you.

I've got four 3-star heroes now and my squad is slowly growing!

I'm to the point now where I'm only placing in the Top 5 (the real goal) of the match every few games, and I'm starting to feel the pinch to spend real-world money for a little boost. Now, as long as I accept that I'm not always going to place in the top 5 and that I'm content to just accept lowered rewards for my gameplay, it's really no big deal. I can keep playing.

Hog-Rider's three-star evolution is looking pretty sexy. I need more sexy.

In the future as I unlock even more units and more high-level worlds, the chances are that the pinch will be felt even more fully as the divide between those who pay and those who don't grows. It is what it is and that's the life of playing free-to-play mobile games.  Now, to be sure, strategy can trump another player's wallet, but I'm not to that point yet. I haven't watched any YouTube guides at all. I'm sure if I did, I could increase my win-loss ratio, but I just don't know if I care that much about winning yet.

Fourth place . . . it's sufficient . . . I'm definitely not dominating though

What I really think is that this game is too new and needs more depth, more modes, and more ways to play. That's gotta be the goal, right? You want to keep updating your game and adding more synergistic systems and modes to keep people engaged. Here are a few suggestions I would make if I was on the design team.

~~

1- Give me a reason to build my base -- as you play the game, it gives you hammers to unlock little decorations you can put around your house. This is pure vanity and something really only you will see. I can't invite anyone to my house and the placement nodes for decorating are all pre-determined. It's boring and unneeded, but it is a hint at something better.

These are fun, but ultimately useless decorations that no one besides me sees in my base

You could swing a number of directions with this. You could make decorations become static daily reward spawners or sources for active buffs to help gameplay. You could also make bases something that other players could visit, perhaps even raid someday. Supercell could definitely mix Clash of Clans into this game if they wanted to, but it'd have to be executed differently since there's so much that goes into character building rather than base building. Hmm.

18 housing nodes . . . meh . . . this could be much cooler.

What I know is that it's currently the weakest point of the game and therefore the strongest candidate for something interesting.

2- Cooperative mode -- Everything in Squad Busters so far is competitive. Imagine if instead of competing for resources as things were destroyed, that instead we were gathering resources to BUILD something together.  The more we cooperate, the more everyone wins. Destroying stuff in the outskirts and then bringing it into the center to unlock a gem mine or cool statue would be really fun . . . and especially if I had a guild to do it with.

What if I was building up the center node cooperatively?

Cooperative modes and guilds go hand in hand for mobile games. It'd be a nice layer to add to the game.

3- Make Some Special Fusions -- it's pretty easy to understand that if I have 3 heroes of one type, they fuse into a stronger version of that hero. That's a no-brainer to understand, but what if I could fuse together 3 different types of heroes to make a special kind of mutant? I think it'd be pretty fun to combine a common Greg Woodsman with a rare Hog Rider mounted unit and a legendary Mortis undead unit to create a Headless Horseman Mega Unit.  In this way, you create special fusions that you have to learn -- you'd be on the hunt for making the right combinations, which would be a lot of fun.

The perfect Halloween DLC Special Fusion!

Granted, that's a lot of work for everyone (artist, designers, programmers) to come up with special fusion characters and combinations, but the fun factor would be amazing.

~~

I'm sure there's a lot more you could do with this game, and now it's really just a matter of "Will this game be successful enough that we see them develop it more?" I certainly hope so. If not, the game probably needs more teeth to keep me logging back in for more than a month or two.

Happy Dueling!

Squad Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good!

A couple days ago I shared my Brawl Stars post about Berry on Twitter and my old acquaintance, Officer McGruff, let me know that he too was a Brawl Stars player, but ended up switching to Squad Busters, the new Supercell game that launched a little over a month ago. I remember the cross-promotion that was done in Brawl Stars, but at the time I ignored it . . . how could anything be as awesome as Brawl Stars!

Bustin' makes me feel good!

On the other hand, who could argue with Officer McGruff?  It was something I needed to try out.  It's new. It has a fantastic rating, and if Officer McGruff likes it, I'm in!  I immediately downloaded the game and tried it out.  

My initial reaction was, MAN, I am DOMINATING the 10-year-olds today, and then I realized that it was probably bots I was going up against there. In my eyes, they did a really good job at making you feel amazing for those first few games. That's a thing we used to try to do at KingsIsle and WIMO back in the day. If you can improve a player's win-loss ratio in the first moments of gameplay, they'll be more apt to keep returning to play more. It's an art.

I DESTROYED them! What?!

This game will also feel like a fun fit for both Brawl Star players and Clash players as well since it merges the two characters from the games as playable heroes that join your squad.  One of the first characters that joins your squad is a cute little baby version of El Primo.

Everyone's favorite baby wrestler!

Basic gameplay goes a bit like this: You enter a match that takes four minutes and thirty seconds to complete. When you start the game you get to choose one of three characters as your starter hero. you then run them around a slightly isometric, retro Zelda-like looking map full of monsters, trees, chests, and other players.  In fact, there are 10 other players, and if you kill another player you "bust" them, and they're out of the game. 

From small beginnings come great squads!

After killing a few monsters, you're able to invest in a new hero at a chest. If you keep purchasing the same type of hero, they will evolve and merge into a tougher version of that hero. So, basically, you're building a party, or squad, if you will. Eventually over the four-and-a-half-minute game, you draw closer to the center where other players have brought their squads as the center is where all the good gems and super tough enemies are, which also drop gems. The remaining squads at the end of the match have their gems tallied up and a ranking is determined. The goal is to be in the top 5 to keep your win streak going.

Squad fight!

If you're one of the teams in the top 5, the opportunities to increase your rewards from the chest you get to open after the match keep escalating. Much like cracking open Brawl Stars' "stars" at the end of a match, you unlock chests, and with each tap to unlock it, the opportunity to increase its rarity and size happens.

Cracking open a super big chest!

It's super addicting and fun to play. I also really like the familiarity of the Supercell characters. Squad Busters is definitely going to have a new place on my phone thanks to Officer McGruff's excellent suggestion.

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!

June 2024 Gaming Roundup -- Diablo 4, Max Mustard, and Brawl Stars

Man, June was a crazy month for me in real life. I packed up my family and moved them from Texas to Utah. I also was working full time and just trying to survive. To say it's been busy would be an understatement.  

The 26-foot Uhaul helped me feel like I was fulfilling my trucker dreams

But just because a month is busy with real life, that doesn't mean I can't play some games as a pastime -- and especially now that things are starting to get settled a bit. So let me break down my, I guess you would call them, top three games of June.

1- Diablo IV

So I did something amazing with the help of my friend, Dylan.  You may remember my post about our Southern Gentlemen, Montgomery and Leufroy.  Last you heard, they were in their 30's or so, but not anymore. Leufroy is officially my first character in Diablo 4 to have reached max level. 

Yes! Captured the ding moment in all its boring glory!

I didn't think I'd ever have a level 100, but here we are.

Why I say . . . a level 100 . . . bless your heart

Not only is he max level, but he also has a pretty nice set of gear and can take down tier 78ish dungeons.  Also, because of that, I took the 5 glyphs of his build and built them up to Level 15 to finish out his skill point build.  I've been playing the Heartseeker Rogue build found on Icy Veins. It's pretty brainless, but also pretty powerful.

Need . . . more . . . Vulnerable Damage!

I did modify the build a bit so that I could use the death trap ultimate.  It's pretty fun to watch things explode inside of it, and it combo'ed well with Montgomery's teleport vacuuming he was doing to gather up all the enemies. I could improve his gear a bit still, but honestly, I'm not sure I have it in me to do all that grinding.

2- Max Mustard

There was a screamer of a deal going on that the Ruff Talk discord channel informed me about.  Max Mustard, the VR Platforming game I've had my eye on for a while, went on sale for an amazing 90% off. So picking up a regularly $30 game for $3 was absolutely irresistible.

Gotta love when a game feels like a theme park ride at the same time

It's such a fun game. It reminds me a lot of Astrobot, which is one of the games that made me fall in love with VR in the first place.

There are some great moments so far in the game where not only are you platforming, but you're shooting plungers out at enemies and sucking things up with your vacuum gun. Here's a little video footage of the first level of the game I took for fun.  Enjoy!

3- Brawl Stars

I've been playing an unhealthy amount of Brawl Stars to be honest. It's one of those weekend morning things for me where I wake up before everyone else and just veg out to some Brawl Stars fun. 

That feeling when you lose 10 games in a row and drop rank

Once I complete my quests for the day, I usually grind a bit on PvP.  I got so close to bumping my rank above Diamond III to Mythic . . . and then I went on a terrible losing streak that took me all the way back down to mid-Diamond II. 

I've gotten some great characters since the last time I posted about Brawl Stars. Let's see . . . I've now added Spike, Mr. P, Pearl, Mandy, Kit, Maisie, Ash, Belle, Griff, and last but not least . . . Meg.

Not only did I get Meg, but I got her cool Aztec skin as well!

Of those listed above, Meg is the hero I've played and leveled the most. I just really like how she feels like Brawl Stars version of Dva from Overwatch.  She loads up into a tank that fires a crazy barrage of bullets and when her tank body explodes, it does damage to anyone surrounding it and runs around in a little human version until her ultimate charges, then she can build her tank again and keep going. Basically Dva, right?

Feels like someone is always playing spike in every match I play

Kit, Meg, and Spike are the good pulls out of the bunch -- they're all listed yellow legendary characters, and if played in the right hands, would be a serious threat.  The question remains if I'm "the right hands." ;)

~~

I'm hoping that July sees more time to game and definitely to post about gaming. I have quite a few more VR games to post about and play, and Dylan and I are looking to play some Seven Days to Die and possibly even Baldur's Gate 3.  It certainly would be fun to write about all of that here on The Friendly Necromancer blog.

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!