My March was extremly packed with gaming accomplishments as I took a week off of work to relax and get in some “me time”. I wrote a few reviews for my blog and I also made a big decision with The Ones That Came Before (my Assassin’s Creed group) that I will explain further in this entry.
Something new I am going to do in these posts is provide a link to the trailer of the games I am playing in their titles. So please look out for those as you are reading to get a better feel for what I experienced.
#1FinishAWeek
I finished 8 Games this month (#1FinishAWeek Games 9-16)!
I started with A Little to the Left (Xbox Gamepass), an organizing game where you are presented with a minamalist design puzzle that you have to figure out the solution for. You could be given a handful of pencils and notice that the erasers are different lengths, or that a plant has symetrical leaves but with a few outliers. By organizing the writing utensils by eraser length or pruning the extra leaves on a plant, you are rewarded with a star. The game is divided into chapters with a playful and destructive cat that can get in your way at times. Its super cozy and fun to play in an afternoon or via the Daily Tidy challenges.
My second game was Dolores Entertainment’s Time Rift, which I reviewed on this site (here). This was an enjoyable maze puzzle game where you play as a hacker that is testing the security at a major conglomerate while trying to figure out the secret project they are working on. It is fast paced and a cool indie game. Take a look at the review for more images and to read my thoughts on it.
For my vacation, I played the Tomb Raider: Definitive Survivor Trilogy and experienced some of the hardest games I have ever played. The reason for this was due to playing Rise of the Tomb Raider & Shadow of the Tomb Raider on their hardest difficulties, Extreme Survivor & Deadly Obsession respectively. With these difficulties I was limited to saving my progress in this platforming adventure game to the designated campfires sprinkled through the game, was provided limited resources and ammunition as well as harder enemies and damage thresholds. The overall story was fantastic and getting to see Lara Croft transition from an innocent researcher to a world archiologist and survivor of multiple adventures in Asia and South America was an adventure in itself. My favorite was the last game, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, because of the Meso-American mythology and setting in Peru.
For game 6, I played The Witness, a exploration puzzle game where you awake on an island and must solve various mazes and grid-based puzzles to uncover the secrets the colorful island holds. The variations in the puzzles and the random audio and video clips reminded me of games like Myst where a you don’t know what is going on but every new find just makes you more curious. I could find a key to solve a puzzle on one end of the island and use it to unlock a video clip from an old BBC documentary on psychology, or find a tape recorder that plays a poem about Kings that just led me to have more questions. It is a vary challenging game but one you can get lost in.
Nonograms Prophecy was the 7th and most dissapointing game that I played in March. I am a huge fan of the piccross/nonogram puzzle style and had been wanting to play this game for a while on my Nintendo Switch, but never sat down to do so. However, when I did this month, I found a game that started solid, but crashed hard at the end. The number of puzzles was limited and repeated themselves to pad out the playtime and then broke even further when I got to the color options and would be unable to complete a game with only two colors as those two colors each had multiple selections of the exact same shade and became a guessing game of which color goes in each cell. I finished what I could and then moved away from the game quickly. Thankfully it was free via one of the publisher’s many giveaway events so I at least didn’t spend money on it.
My final game of the month was 7Days Heroes by Dolores Entertainment. This was another game that I reviewed on the site (here). It is a classic side-scrolling shooter platformer with a story that made me laugh and gameplay that while a little buggy, gave a great experience. Check out the review for my full thoughts on this game.
In total I played for 135.55 hours and collected a total gamerscore of 6625 in addition to various other achievements including the final ones for Microsoft Wordament which I have been playing for a year. At the time of this entry I have a Gamerscore of 133,702 and am moving closer to my goal of 150k.
Books
I read three more books this month, including the last two Norse Mythology books that I own and the Discovery Book by Assassin’s Creed: The Viking Age. I had decided to continue my last months read of The Poetic Edda with the rest of the Viking Age books that I have. I have one non-fiction book to read about the Viking people and then I plan on starting the Last Kingdom books and TV show. That should hold me for a bit on books.
I also picked up more books about various time periods that are covered in the Assassin’s Creed series and am always excited to see what I find next.
The Ones Who Came Before
By the time I have published this blog post, I will have stepped away from my Assassin’s Creed group, The Ones Who Came Before, and entered their Alumni Program. What this means is that I will no longer be an active member of the team but can return in the future if I choose to do so. I enjoyed the years that I spent as a content writer for this group as it helped me develop a style and opened doors to review for new subjects over time. I am unsure of when or if I will return to the group but am happy to be able to continue my adventure in the world of Assassin’s Creed. My articles will remain on their site and I will still update the Genetic Memory timeline that I created while working with them to the best of my ability. With some new moves being made with their social media presence, I wish them the best and hope they have solid and organic growth and success in their future.
What’s Next?
In April I have some larger things I am trying to do. On the gaming end, I am replaying a Nintendo Switch launch title from 2017 called I Am Setsuna as I never fully finished in and then hopefully afterwards play the successor, Lost Sphear. I may play some other titles in between, and have been doing a lot of mobile gaming lately as AFK Journey released this month. I also want to try and finish Assassin’s Creed Pirates if I can on my phone.
Book wise, I am going to translate and read an Assassin’s Creed book that was released exclusively in China so that I can catch up to where I am on my timeline. Afterwards I will read more Viking books and most likely order a new Assassin’s Creed Artbook for AC Mirage.
Other than those plans, I am going to see what comes to me and just enjoy my time with my hobbies. I hope to write another review in April, but will wait and see what is offered to me to review. Maybe I can find a new company to request review codes from to practice more journalism.
I will be back in May and I hope you all have a great April!
The Reylus Archives 
Leave a comment