Since I didn’t quite finish the time I planned to spend in Medieval Dynasty, we’ll do some finishing up for that – next week will start the Megaquarium week (which will involve a ton of fun mods to add a whole bunch of new fishies to my game!) Another highlight of the week will be some Sims building, working on both of my big builds that are due this month. Also, I will be publishing my next shell challenge, the “Platform Problem” – which should be a LOT of fun – on June 1st. (And you still have time to do the Gimme Shelter build, too!)

In all likelihood, this is a game franchise you’ve never heard of. However, it’s also one that took countless hours of time from my son and I on our Playstation 1. Initially, I put it on this game list for that reason alone- it clearly defines a large period of time that I spend playing games… but ultimately, I decided not to play it on stream. I truly couldn’t see it being a fun game for someone else to watch you play, at least – not for any full stream. Hence, I decided I’d write an article about it and leave it on the list, but not play it.

Afterthoughts: I really had a good time playing Civ 5 on stream. I just started a random civ game, and ended up doing a cultural victory. Took me two days, but we did win the game. Unfortunately, due to copyright music, I can’t post the VODs for it on youtube, which annoys me to no […]

I really have enjoyed this whole game series, and bringing it on-stream was no different. If you’re into 4X strategy games, this is one that’s high on my list of recommended purchases. If nothing else, get it for the history that they’ve worked so hard to include in the game. The graphics aren’t too bad, either, and the user interface makes the game easy to learn (or pick up again after years of not playing an “Age” game)… So, yeah. Would I give the game a positive review? Heck yeah, and playing it on stream didn’t change my mind.

Well, let’s just say I didn’t even make it through one full day of playing this before calling it “quits.” It turns out, after all this time, the game was just too complicated for me to figure out on the “fly”. I was getting frustrated, and a frustrated streamer is never fun to watch… so I swapped games and went to play Megaquarium. I still hold fond memories of this game, but it’s been too long, and I completely forgot how “clunky” the user interface of this game was, and how utterly difficult the game was. Will I go back and play it again? Probably not. Will I still smile when I think about this game in the past? Heck yeah. Just not planning to play it again!

I enjoyed the heck out of playing this game on stream. Which explains why it got two full days of play time on my channel. Since then, I’ve watched some other people play it and struggle figuring it out, but I definitely didn’t have the same experience with it. I can’t wait to see what else is added to the game (if anything? – although it still does seem to be in active development, so I hope good things are coming for it!) and I look forward to playing it some more in the future. Definitely on my recommended list if you need something that’s a little open ended and a little bit Zen.

If this looks familiar, then congratulations, you’re probably acquainted with the first video game I ever played. When I was quite young, my grandfather had a computer that had one game on it. It was known to me as “Adventure” – called that likely because that was the executable name that you typed to start up the game. Both my Dad and I got very into this little game, even though, at the time, neither of us knew anything about it. This is the game that taught me how to make and read maps, how to have a sense of actual adventure, and that I was going to always love games. If you’re wondering what the convoluted diagram that is the featured image – that’s one of the maps someone made based on this game. And yes.. it’s that complex. Despite the fact that the game I played didn’t have a single graphic involved, it sparked the imagination of my young mind… and is a game I’ve NEVER forgotten. (This coming from someone who has very few memories of a happy childhood.)

Sims 3 is another high point of the Sims Franchise for me. It was when I really started discovering and playing challenges, and – once I found out about challenges – it completely changed the way I played the game. It also marks the beginning of my Blogging “career.” This blog was actually established during the Sims 3 era, and if you’re looking hard enough, some of my old stories from back then (the ones I actually published) are still linked into this site (under retired or completed stories). It also marked the beginning of my love/hate affair with game modifications. I literally could not play Sims 3 without mods. To me, the game was unplayable without it – so while waiting for a mod to update or be fixed, I couldn’t play the game. (Which plays a huge part of my lack of mods and CC in Sims 4 – I just don’t want to come to a point that I cannot play the game without a mod). The game is still installed on my computer, and I *could* play it.. I just don’t. The memories of all the games lost to corrupted files, the long load times from back then, and all the bugs… *shiver*.. just don’t make me want to go back. Maybe someday.

I’ll be back to full streaming schedule this coming week, and since the Medieval Dynasty Week challenge was fully funded last week, that’s what’s on the schedule this week! Also of note: this week’s “game awards” game is going to take me jumping through a few “hoops” to stream. I will be without my camera and overlays for it, and sitting on the couch so I can play hubby’s Xbox – but I’m REALLY looking forward to playing this game on stream, so we will just have to deal with it. Super looking forward to next week!

I would be very remiss if I didn’t mention the classic game “Minesweeper” at least once in this year’s game retrospective. As I’ve mentioned, my early history with games was very limited. Tetris and Minesweeper, (and to a lesser extent Solitaire and Freecell) however, were part of my early game education. I very much remember competing with my dad for high score on the family’s computer. I could never beat him in solitaire or freecell, and rarely in Tetris, but for some reason, I COULD beat him in Minesweeper. So I did. repeatedly. I usually played on “Expert” and he had the worst time trying to keep up with me on times. (Which was a big thing, because he usually won at EVERYTHING!)