January 5-11, 2025
Hey everyone! Welcome back to my blog for weekly update #2. So after the first weekly update, I realized just how time consuming it was to recap every single little thing that happened in the games I’m playing. In an effort to streamline my video editing and blog writing, I set up some shortcuts in OBS. I have a nice gaming mouse (Logitech G502X) with some extra buttons that I can program to do different things in the software. I set up one button to capture screenshots, one to save the last two minutes of recording, and one to mark the current time code for my editing software so I know to go there later and cut something out if need be. That last one will be important for when I start posting full gameplay videos on my YouTube channel. I’ve already seen how much more quickly I was able to put this together compared to last week. Hopefully this means no more pulling an all-nighter to get the blog post up in time. Anyway, let’s get into it starting with my game acquisitions.
Game Acquisitions
I got a lot more games this week. The January Humble Choice was revealed and it included a few games I’m interested in so I ended up claiming it. I’m excited to try out the Blasphemous series. I have the first one but haven’t played it yet. I heard the second one is even better so now I can play through both! I played a somewhat similar game called Moonscars back in 2022. It was really hard and I almost quit when I got stuck on the first boss. I persevered and ended up beating the game after many, many deaths. It was pretty good! I’m also interested in Jagged Alliance 3. I haven’t played the originals but I’m a sucker for turn-based strategy and this looks right up my alley. I also ended up buying the AGDQ Humble Bundle I mentioned in my last update so both bundles are included here. I’ve heard good things about Ori and now that I have the first game, I’ve wishlisted the second. Some people don’t add games to their backlog until they actually acquire them but I go ahead and add them right away. That’s why my backlog increased by more than what is in the picture above.
On top of the games listed above, Amazon Prime also announced all of their giveaways for the month. It started with Eastern Exorcist last week but now they have a blog post up for the other giveaways. I claimed Spirit Mancer as you can see but I’ll be adding five more throughout the month. They always announce everything at the beginning of the month but then space out the giveaways every Thursday which is why I can’t claim all of them yet.
# of Games: 15
Total Money Spent: $12
Price/Game: $0.80
Game Recaps
Alright, a decent increase from last week, almost 10 hours! I actually managed to game a bit during the work week instead of having to wait until the weekend. That’s always nice. Unfortunately, not everything was positive and upbeat in my games. Let’s get started with my shop management RPG.
So mere minutes after starting my next session, I was running the shop to get enough money to donate 10,000 VenDRANK! to the Queen Bee and the game informed me that my loan balance hit $100,000. It was followed by this ominous message from the tax collector:
Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. OK, definitely need to stick to my plan laid out last week. Get the drinks for the Queen Bee, buy the last of the automation keys, then focus solely on paying down my loan amount. So after a few more minutes, I actually did get enough to buy the 10,000 VenDRANK! to donate. It didn’t take nearly as long as I was expecting. It turns out the vending machine that sells it close to the bees is two coins each whereas the vending machine in my shop is only one coin. After taking a few trips between the hive and my shop (you can only buy 999 at a time), I was able to donate enough and only spent half of what I was expecting. Here’s how that went down:
Wow, now I can sell the drinks for a 244% markup! This should help significantly. The bee behavior ended up being them buying a lot more of the drink every time they enter the shop. Nice! Alright, commodity side quest complete. Back to the shop to save enough for the automation keys. Just a few minutes later:
Oh wow, another side quest so soon. After the great rewards from the VenDRANK! one, I definitely need to see what this one is about. Let’s see:
A three-in-one special. Now I can choose for my assorted fruit plans to grow all the way to the seed stage or stop at the fruit stage. I actually never noticed that there were different stages the plants grew to, I just bought seeds from the fairy when I ran out 😅 I also got another new teleport orb outside my shop directly to the garden and I can sell the fruit for a 25% markup. Another successful commodity side quest. I also got a new spell that lets me turn plants at fruit stage to go to seed stage so that could come in handy.
At this point, I decided to focus solely on running the shop. I decide to check my vault when the tax man comes and much to my horror, my loan has ballooned to $150,000! How did that happen so quickly!? OK, kind of in panic mode at this point. I decide that it might finally be time to buy some speed and character upgrades. I need to make sure my items stock themselves faster than customers can buy them, and that customers spend more when they do come. I head out to buy what I need and head back with the only goal being to pay the debt. Unfortunately, I start noticing that no matter how much I put towards loan payments, the loan balance is slowly going up. I’m at the point now where the interest is outpacing my profits and things spiral out of control. That’s when it happens:
Oh no, an actual game over (but also technically an ending). I didn’t know you could lose in this game! I thought there would just be some special scenario that would play out once you hit $200,000 owed but nope. OK, this isn’t good. I go to check when my last save was and it was a few minutes earlier when my balance was around $140,000. I could also go back to the beginning of my session (losing two hours of progress) and start paying down my loan earlier. I really didn’t want to lose all my progress so I look up some possible solutions. Someone brought up that you can go back to work at the first shop without fear of the tax collector showing up and increasing your loan balance so that’s what I ended up doing. Wealth accumulation is much slower this way but at least I can accumulate in peace. I’m able to put some money towards my loan and it actually started going down! OK, this is working and I don’t have to lose progress. I guess it’s time to grind at the first shop for a few hours to get enough gold to wipe away the debt. I didn’t think there would be grinding in a non-combat RPG but here we are. I did get an alcoholic upgrade for buying so much gin during the grind to replenish my mana:
I also came across this puzzle that I didn’t even know was a puzzle while I was trying to figure out how to get the apple chest. Very mysterious, may need to come back to this later.
So it turns out the grinding for money at the small shop only took another hour, not nearly as bad as I was expecting. When I got my loan balance down to around 75,000 I was able to start paying it off slowly but surely through the main shop. While I was doing this, I got a couple commodity upgrades. First was one for fermented tea:
I didn’t know the option I picked was the bad one! He said there were no side effects! Oh well. At least now the tea sells for almost double and production has tripled. I’ve actually noticed that I’m now producing more tea than I can sell so I don’t even need to buy it anymore. I totally would’ve rejected this deal had I known 🫤 Anyway, I also got a second VenDRANK! upgrade. I didn’t even know there were multiple upgrade tiers.
Wow, almost a triple price markup. This is turning into quite the lucrative business. I’m working the counter for a while after this and then it finally happens. The moment I’ve been waiting for:
The loan has finally been paid off! I wish I could remember what the original amount was but it took me 400,000 gold to pay it off. Wow, that was a lot. Now I only have to worry about keeping up with taxes, and I’ve reached grand merchant rank! Right now the only thing I know about this is that I’ve unlocked the next tier of upgrades with the butterflies. They don’t seem to be game-changing but it’s nice to have another thing to work towards. Now that my money is all going to commodities and profit, I can finally afford some upgrades again. I start with this upgrade to the assorted fruit planters in my shop:
It seems this was premature because I’m not even close to having 999 fruit yet. Oh well, it’ll come in handy later I’m sure. I also took the time to buy all the customer upgrades I can and got all the speed upgrades to level two so the shop restocks itself. The only minor annoyance is that the red portal in the shop produces upmarket coffee at a slower pace than people are buying them so I’m always out of stock. Hopefully there will be a way to upgrade that in the future.
My next focus was on the battlepass commodity. This took some work because the ingredients to create them are expensive and I’m terrible at the minigame to get the fire necessary. I was finally able to get enough fire in one run to get the battlepass automation key. I was also able to find the customer willing to pay for them. Turns out there’s a chicken in town that will buy everything that I never talked to. Who’d’ve thought? After I sold my first battlepass and left the store, the quest for the last commodity started. I need to find a way to obtain some permits.
Further along the quest I was given some vintage VenDRANK! I need to figure out whom to give this to next time. This quest is becoming quite convoluted. I also did some side stuff like found a couple more apple collectables, got a +1 Health regen upgrade from the apple maze, purified a cursed relic, and unlocked a couple more areas in the mysterious cave close to my home city that were level gated. Next level unlock is at 50 and I ended my session at 47 so I’m close.
Alright, that was a lot of information. I’m glad I got more time in with this game and made some progress. On to my story driven co-op game, and there were definitely some ups and downs this week.
It’s the Hibernation Festival! This is a celebration of the beginning of winter in the town of Porcupine where everyone just gets together and has a good time. We run into Karl as soon as we get there. It looks like he already has a head start. I wonder if he has a drinking problem…
We found out that our best friend Mia entered the stew contest for the festival. I wonder how she’s handling it.
Alright, not doing so well. We give her a chance to collect herself and peruse the festival. Just a few stalls here and there and the big center stage. At least we found out where the music was coming from. Hopefully we’re not bothering him.
After talking to everyone we could, we go back to Mia to start the stew contest. Some stiff competition, except maybe for the pig on the right. He’s the hospital cook and thinks he’s all that but I suspect he’s not actually a very good cook.
We talk to Mia on stage and she realizes she forgot an ingredient than can only be obtained by another contestant. Long story short, he agrees as long as we win the bottle of liquor being given away at the festival by answering a riddle which we eventually do. After all is said and done, Mia wins the contest. Hooray! After celebrating, the festival officially begins.
We talk to everyone again and eventually have to part ways. We have to work the night shift at St. Ursula’s tonight. I got a kick out of Finley’s origin story for the vending machine near the entrance. He really is a character.
We receive our assignments and start with this owl. She is apparently a surgeon so thinks she already knows her diagnosis and is very dismissive and belittles us. Finley’s side eye makes a triumphant return.
Eventually we get to our old turtle friend with the stories and she isn’t doing too well. After telling us one last story, she asks for some tea so we run to the break room to brew some. That’s when we get to possibly the saddest conversation in the game with our boss, and one I’m sure a lot of healthcare workers have to have.
Poor guy. As a junior doctor, it seems this is his first time dealing with a patient dying on his watch. He brings her her tea, they have one last exchange, then she passes peacefully.
Finley spends the whole weekend depressed.
He walks around town with his head down. When he goes up to an object that
would normally start a hilarious imaginary conversation, he just says he
doesn’t feel like it and moves on. He goes to work and after finishing up his
patient assignments, his boss says he’s been invited to speak at her funeral
and says he can take the rest of the day off. We end with him outside of
Giuliano’s where it’s going to take place. Man, what a sad way to end the
session. Hopefully next time he’ll be in better spirits.
TV/Movie Recaps
OK, let’s try to lighten the mood a little bit. Here is everything I watched this week:
- FLCL Season 1 Episode 4-Season 5 Episode 1 (still watching, show ended)
- American Dad Season 21 Episode 11 (all caught up, show ongoing)
- Rushmore
Controversial opinion incoming: I enjoyed FLCL Season 3 more than Season 1. Everything I read online said Season 1 is the only good one and the others aren’t worth watching but I disagree. I think I just enjoyed the characters more, and I’m finally starting to understand the show. I was really lost on what was happening at the beginning. Season 4 was really off-putting with the 3D animation style and short length. I wasn’t a big fan. Season 2 was alright. Only two more episodes to go! I’ll finish it the day this post goes up and start Firefly. Rushmore was your typical Wes Anderson movie. Somewhat strange and off-putting, yet charming. I enjoyed it. Next movie coming up is 127 hours.
Conclusion/Upcoming
A productive week this week, and I barely lost any sleep when putting this together! I still feel like it’s too long, maybe I just need to stick to summaries instead of play-by-plays because writing these is seriously cutting into my gaming time. My work also announced that they want us back in the office every week starting this week and staying for the whole shift instead of leaving early and working the rest of the shift at home which really sucks. My free time is only getting lower.
In other news, Nvidia announced the RTX 50 series GPUs at CES. The 5080 and 5090 will be released on January 30th. I took off a couple hours that day and I’m going to try to get to Microcenter early to snag a card for my new build. Then I can finally transition everything over and soft retire my current one. I spent the better part of December setting up what I could on the new PC without a GPU so hopefully most of the heavy lifting is done. It will still take a while to get Playnite and all my new recording stuff set up so game time in early February may be limited but that’s a future me problem. I’m going to start putting my total number of games at the end of my posts to keep a running tally. It should be interesting to see how much the number goes up from week to week. Thanks for reading, and see you all next week!
Backlog total: 3,039
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