5 ONE THOUSAND LIES - LUCE'S REQUIREMENTS

Dear Readers,

Luce drove us in the stolen car out into the street, endangering many lives. All in the name of trust and requirements and justice. When we got pulled over by the police, she made me swap seats with her and put me into another embarrassing situation. (Ciarán may not be the nicest character but at least he has friends of similar niceness to keep him on his toes!)

Later on we went to my secret place where I go to be alone and write. We have a tender moment where we talk about my writing and about Luce's drawing. It's kind of a cosy place here, this abandoned canteen area. Then we go into a big story, I think it's one I've written. It's about a wolf and a clown and a jester and about how the wolf wanted to chase the sun. It's nice and readable enough. I'd like to see some of Luce's drawings though.

7 SMURFS EPIC RUN - DON'T BE GREEDY

Dear Readers,

I've built up a nice stockpile of energy points! That's thanks to opening up the game every day really. I have progressed beyond the deep forest into the mine and I've opened up a portal into a cloud world of levels too. Every stage in this area is a Flying Smurf stage. Much easier than the silhouette stages!

Also, I unlocked Cook Smurf. I thought his name was Greedy! Of course that's because I'm most familiar with the Hanna-Barbera cartoon!

36 FINAL FANTASY EXPLORERS - EIDOLON AMBUSH GAMMA ONLINE WITH JOE AND NOVA

Dear Readers,

At this stage Joe was EL313 Thief, Nova was EL175 Samurai and I was EL124 Monk.

Quest 1: "Demon in the Depths"

I was a bit slow in starting, so Joe and Nova went ahead and did this quest.

Quest 2: "Eidolon Ambush Gamma"

The big one! 5 eidolons to defeat within 60 minutes! We spawned at Tinze Shores. Nova and I went after Shiva and Joe went after Ifrit. We got KO'd a LOT! To make matters worse, I didn't have any Phoenix Downs! Whoops! By the time we had taken care of both eidolons, we had about half the time left!

Nova and I quickly rushed to Dryad and Joe joined during the fight. After that, more running!

On the way to Ramuh, there was a Mom Bomb. I was like "Outta the way, MOM" and we ran past in a hurry. Joe stayed behind to fight it though, the daredevil!

We defeated Ramuh and continued running. We only had enough time for Diabolos, so we went for him last. When we defeated him, we had just 7 minutes left out of the 60 we had. Whew!

Quest 3: "The Hellfire of a Djinn in the Depths"

A bit more relaxing as we weren't so rushed for time. We beat Ifrit handily enough.

Quest 4: "One Perfect Diamond"

TWO aberrant Shivas! What was I thinking? I hardly spent any time on my own two feet during this battle because I was constantly getting KO'd. I lost count how many times! It wasn't completely embarrassing though, as I did manage to encase the remaining one at the end.

Quest 5: "Gilgamesh Strikes Back"

The subquest for Gilgamesh has a higher quota than the eidolon ones so I thought I'd do this again. Got KO'd a couple of times. His Ultimate Illusion attack is something else. I can't even Counter it without getting KO'd.

Quest 6: "Gilgamesh Strikes Back"

Gotta fill that subquest quota! This time I got KO'd fewer times. It's difficult to even run away from that Ultimate Illusion attack!

Nova calls him "Gilgy". That's cute :)

1 PAC-MAN DASH! - ANOTHER ENDLESS RUNNER FOR ME!

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about Pac-Man Dash!, another endless runner for Android. I quite like these games! I've been playing quite a few of them lately!

This one has the recent "Pac-Man And The Ghostly Adventures" style of Pac-Man design. Personally, I prefer the classic pie-eyed smiling Pac-Man design that was retained for the Smash Bros game for 3DS/Wii U. This one is alright though and I got kinda used to it.

The interface can be slightly confusing when a notification looks like a button, but it's no biggie really.

The game itself is very fast and fun. The levels are time based and short enough so it's good for a quick go. There's a bit of a hitstop when Pac-Man eats a ghost that never fails to be satisfying, even after all these years!

When I started the game up from the beginning, it was amusing enough when it asked if I asked my parents if they had read the terms and conditions or whatever. I never came across that in a game before! It is family oriented though, going so far as to having different save slots suggested specifically for different family members.

2 SONIC DASH - UNLOCKED ESPIO AND CREAM

Dear Readers,

I'm having a pretty good time with this game! I haven't really gotten tired of it and it's fun to do the missions. I'm also much better and defeating Eggman and now Zazz. Not sure why Zazz is there, maybe it was because Sonic Lost World was new when this came out.

Anyway I unlocked Espio The Chameleon! There's an event thingy this weekend to unlock him. The only other way was to pay real world money. I just had to collect orbs with his face on them during gameplay.

More importantly, I unlocked Cream The Rabbit! She's one of my favourites and she's rarely playable in Sonic games. She was the most expensive out of all the characters and I had to save up 75 red rings for her.

I'm also getting scores of over 300,000 now.

1 SONIC DASH - BETTER THAN SONIC RUNNERS!

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about the Free To Play endless runner game Sonic Dash. It differs to Sonic Runners in that this is from a 3D perspective. Two other major differences that make me prefer this one over the other is that this game runs a lot smoother on my Android tablet, which is kinda strange as you'd expect a 3D game to be more demanding on resources. The other thing I prefer about this game is that I don't have to be connected to the internet to play this.

This game is a lot of fun and makes so much sense! Endless running games are popular, Sonic is a popular running character, so why not! It is a lot of fun to collect rings, roll into crabs, jump over and slide around obstacles... all while running along an endless path with beautiful scenery whizzing by and a happy bright carefree tune playing in the background.

Completing missions is fun and out of the many times I've faced Dr. Robotnik's interrupting boss battles, I managed to defeat him once! It's not too difficult though. One thing that trips me up time and time again are the times I have to roll or jump twice or more in a row quickly. I'll have to get better at this if I want longer runs.

Is this game endless or does it have an end? There's no story from what I can see so I guess I'll just keep running for the joy of it!

I'm looking forward to unlocking new characters like Cream The Rabbit so I'm saving up my red rings. I wonder what that Android shaped Sonic is like?

Another thing I like about this game is that I can play horizontally or vertically. I'd say it's meant to be played vertically but holding the tablet horizontally is a bit more comfortable.

35 FINAL FANTASY EXPLORERS - FACING THE ULTIMATE THERION ONLINE WITH JOE AND NOVA

Dear Readers,

Joe was moving house so we hadn't played in a while. At this point he was EL313 Thief, Nova was EL174 Samurai and I was EL123 Monk.

Quest 1: "There Beyond a Lamenting God"

Amaterasu! I didn't target her much as there are so many different targets around her and they sometimes spin around. We defeated her and I was just narrowly beaten to encasing her by Joe encasing her instead. At least I think it was Joe; neither he nor Nova admitted it. No worries of course, since we all share an encasing in the spoils!

Quest 2: "There Beyond the World's End"

Ultimate Therion. It was very close but we defeated it! Many KOs and revivals but we pulled through in the end. Joe had to finish up after this.

On returning to Libertas I had the subquest complete for defeating Therions. There's no aberrant form as far as I know.

Cid congratulated me with a big speech and unlocked the 10 star quests for me at last!

1 SONIC RUNNERS - A FREE NEW GAME ALMOST OUT OF SERVICE

Dear Readers,

I'm going to talk about this free to play 2D endless runner Sonic game today. I'm not allowed to play this game though unless I connect to the internet. Another weird thing about this game was that I got a notification that the game was going out of service. Not the best message to get on your first day playing!

This game's menus have so much clutter it's unreal and really made me wonder where I could get started?

Eventually I got into the game though and it was quite fun running along and collecting gems, bouncing on springs and enemies too. It has a little story mode as well, where the characters chat with text boxes that remind me of the J2ME days of gaming.

6 SMURFS EPIC RUN - STACKING ENERGY POINTS

Dear Readers,

While reaching stage 39 in the deep woods, I've learned something nice about this game. When you earn more energy points than the maximum cap allows, not only does it stack anyway, it also stays when you close the game and come back later! This is a nice thing that I was anxious about earlier.

I also learned about the Epic Adventure. Or rather, I'm learning about it as I've just unlocked it. It seems you can only use available Smurfs until they fail to complete a level in this mode, so it's like an endurance thing. It also has bubbles instead of coins for some reason. I don't know, I'm still learning about it. I wonder what happens when you lose all of the Smurfs? I'll see in due course...

I've also beaten the difficult blue portal silhouette stages in the snowy area. That took quite a while! I won a fairy companion that retrieves golden keys, so that's nice!

1 A HARVESTING MOON - SEPARATED FROM PARENTS, EXPLORING A CORNFIELD, MEETING A SCARECROW AND GETTING LOST IN A HEDGE MAZE

ZX Spectrum Vega game #0011

Dear Readers,

It's been a small while since I've done a ZX Spectrum game so I'll talk about this adventure game.

It starts with me on a tour of some kind with my parents. I'm in a courtyard with a clock tower. It's not just text as there's an illustration of the area above.

When I typed in "HELP" it told me that other commands can be found in the booklet and that a hint sheet can be obtained by corresponding to the address found in the booklet. More help can be found by accessing the flip side of the game cassette. Unfortunately, this is all completely useless, as I'm playing this on the ZX Spectrum Vega! I'll have to look online if I want more help I'd say.

I wandered around and got separated from my parents. I explored several paths but not many of them had their own illustrations. I have to play this game in NTSC mode on my PAL TV for some reason or else it doesn't have colour. The problem then is the illustration has this weird flickery flashing thing going on. This is the case with many of the Vega games. I don't know what's up with my TV though.

I saw something moving but I couldn't follow or catch it. I then went to the cornfield. It's not illustrated but I quite like the way the game describes it and how the "bright yellow corn sways gently in the breeze". Quite an attractive spot to explore!

On exploring further, I found a scarecrow in a clearing. It's wearing a top hat and I decided to take it, but it seemed to sway out of my grasp and the game asked if it was due to the wind. Very mysterious indeed.

I then went back out of the field and headed to the coach park. From there I saw a sign that pointed to a hedge maze. It sounded fun so I went along.

I then got hopelessly lost in the maze. I couldn't even retrace my steps back! I could hear raised voices and reached a pavilion in the centre of the maze. I could also see something large and black flying overhead but couldn't make out what it was.

I didn't know what to do so I just quit the game, with 0 out of 250 points. The game told me to get lost when I quit out of it! Jeez!

2 SPACE INVADERS ANNIVERSARY - YELLOW IS DANGER

Dear Readers,

Today I got a new high score! It's 7,540.

I hadn't played this game in a while and I had a go this evening. I cleared out many screens of invaders but didn't shoot down the UFO very often. I'm actually kinda surprised how far I got and how high my last score was. Nonetheless, I managed to best it. Woo!

I like how there's a colour overlay effect on the screen so the invaders change colour depending on how low they go. The lowest is yellow, or at least that's the lowest I've seen them get in this session anyway.

13 SUPER MARIO MAKER - MARIO-VANIA BY KEVIN

Course ID: 93D1-0000-00AE-1061

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about this Bowser Castle level in NSMBU made by my friend Kevin.

The most difficult part of this stage is the beginning with the Thwomps and Fire Bars. After that it's Spinies and Hammer Bros.

I quite like the design of the turret in the top left. I also quite like the short cut you can take to skip the Thwomps! :) Good distribution of power-ups too.

It's a fun stage with some tricky narrow hallways so it's best to take it slow and with care.

5 SMURFS EPIC RUN - CHECK PAPA SMURFS REWARDS FIRST!

Dear Readers,

Today I started a session by doing the daily wheel spin, followed by another 3 regular wheel spins. Then I checked Papa Smurf's rewards and there was a timed one to spin the wheel once for a gem! Gah! I had all my daily spins used up so I couldn't claim it! To make things worse, it's a timed challenge! I should've checked his rewards first!

So now I have to wait 8 hours to get free wheel spins and I have to claim the reward over the next 15 hours. This means I have to keep the game in my mind when I plan out my next day. Being a free-to-player is stressful!

4 ONE THOUSAND LIES - MYSTERIOUS GIRL X IS LUCE

Dear Readers,

Ziva and I went to the gym so I could start basketball training. While I was there, the soundtrack shifted to the ambient sounds of squeaky sneakers and teammates calling out. Very nice touch! :)

So I became the newbie of the team and little did I know that we were going to play against a team of girls. Also, one of them was Mysterious Girl X, the girl from whom I ran away earlier! I learned her name was Luce from one of my teammates. When she noticed me and the fact that I was playing against her team, it turned out to be something pretty interesting. It was funny when she tried talking to me in a hillbilly accent, responding in kind to me pretending to be an American in front of her earlier. At this point, Ziva was long gone.

One thing led to another and after an accidental three pointer I made, she made a bet with me that I couldn't do it again. Then of course the Fred Flintstone "bet bet bet bet bet!" alarm bells went off and I couldn't turn it down. My team won but I lost the bet with her, forcing me to agree to her terms.

Later on, Ziva, Ausse and I went to the school across from ours. Over there we met Luce again! Also, Ziva knew her! Dun dun dunnn! It really was time to clear up all those entanglements from earlier in the plot. Ausse was his usual self and sized her up and gave her a grade on her attractiveness.

Other than what transpired here, it was a lovely scene in this classroom with all of us hanging out and the soundtrack played this gentle jazzy tune that wouldn't seem out of place in the Charlie Brown and Snoopy cartoon! (Wouldn't a Peanuts visual novel be wonderful?)

Since I owed Luce, she brought me to the office of one of the staff and broke in to take the guy's keys. She had it in for this guy because he had no consideration for the cyclists when he parked his huge car. She brought me outside to his car, made me get in and she drove us out into the street!

Not the kind of girl I needed to owe something to! I actually expected to meet Claire again when I went to their school. Even if I did, I suspect there would've been a similar misadventure!

4 SMURFS EPIC RUN - UNLOCKING THE DEEP FOREST

Dear Readers,

I still couldn't get to the next area starting with stage 30 when I played today. It said I needed to connect to the internet. What happened to the countdown when I connected last time? The difficult stages were the only new ones I could do so I did them for a while.

The next chance I got to connect online, the barrier opened up right away. Countdown was up I suppose but I still had to connect online to proceed.

The next area is the deep forest I think and it looks absolutely lovely! Especially after doing the difficult silhouette stages. The twinkling blue lights in the dark shaded forest made it look really pretty.

After a few attempts I managed to unlock Reporter Smurf. I didn't buy him yet though. He has a handy looking permanent magnet ability. I'm still using Poet Smurf. Love his glide ability!

12 SUPER MARIO MAKER - SHAUN'S MOSSY MOLE MISCHIEF EVENT

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about this event course Inspired by Shaun The Sheep from the brilliant Aardman Animations! Man I loved that movie... also loved the Nintendo Video 3D Shaun The Sheep shorts.

This stage is in NSMBU style so it doesn't have the Shaun costume, but if you complete it, you unlock the costume for your own stages.

In this ground stage, there are lots of Monty Moles and those doughnut bumper thingies. It can be a little tricky but not too difficult. It may be worth putting on a beetle helmet for some of the enemies that show up. There's a nice underground section as well that has "BAAA!" spelled out in coins and some of the theme tune plays out too.

Shaun The Sheep's costume is this skinny little thing that makes the meek and cute bleating sounds when you jump. He also poses in Mario's overalls when you press up! Cute!

34 FINAL FANTASY EXPLORERS - RUNNING OUT OF 9 STAR QUESTS, ONLINE WITH JOE AND NOVA

Dear Readers,

At this point Joe was EL310 Thief, NOva was EL172 Samurai and I was EL121 Monk.

Quest 1: "Fall Not into the Abyss"

Nova reckons this is good advice. Maybe it was a fitting name, because Diabolos seemed to be spamming his black hole type moves constantly. We eventually defeated him though.

Quest 2: "The Battle-God Before You"

This battle against Odin was quite nice! We got him paralysed so he was relatively docile while we pelted him with attacks! Joe wanted him encased and Nova managed to do it nicely.

Quest 3: "Destroy the Sacred Defender"

We took care of Alexander nicely enough and I encased him!

Quest 4: "Wrath of Megaflare"

Nova finally had access to this one! We had a good time hunting Flan Princesses along the way. Bahamut was tough and was able to do damage to me just by walking in to me. I eventually managed to encase him though.

Cid finally had something new to say to me after this! He talked about the Ultimate Therion showing up.

Quest 5: "Taking On a God"

This wasn't the Ultimate Therion quest. Nova didn't have access to it, so we just did this earlier one. I didn't mind, as I needed to defeat more of them to complete a subquest. Nova did too.

Quest 6: "Twisted Sister's Soirée"

It was near the end of the evening, so we just did this aberrant Dryad quest to complete more subquests.

I wonder if we'll do the "Eidolon Ambush Gamma" quest next time? It involves defeating 5 of them, so we'll be quite busy!

3 ONE THOUSAND LIES - SHORT GIRL IS CLAIRE

Dear Readers,

Towards the end of the sled-desk race, it wasn't looking too good for me. Then this choir of voices and these supposed alumni of sled-desk champions past pushed me on and made me not want to give up, so I turned my desk upside down and continued racing that way, passing Ausse out.

Soon after, the stairs were fast approaching and our desks went crashing down below and towards the new substitute teacher. At that point I declared my forfeit to Ausse and escaped. My character is a complete jerk!

I went back to the pond and met that short girl with the hat again but this time I was playing "keep away" with her hat. (more jerkiness). I learned that her name is Claire and she talks about a lot of really weird things that makes her personality kind of irksome. She is cute though and it was a lovely moment when she asked me to be her boyfriend. Nice to see my character be at a loss for words for once too. Maybe he's met his match.

Later on, I was hanging out with Ziva again. She was making me investigate the mysterious email and she told me how Ausse and I were going to be punished for the sled-desk thing by working on the student committee helping out with the graduate event.

3 SMURFS EPIC RUN - OFFLINE DEAD END

Dear Readers,

I've reached the end of the snowy levels in this game, which is beyond Stage 29. There's a barrier here though that I may only pass if I fulfill one of the following conditions:

1. Pay 20 gems
2. Ask Facebook friends.

I don't use Facebook so that's out. I only have 16 gems and I'm not sure how to win more without paying real money or connecting to the internet and watching ads so that's out too.

There's also a message that says "Connect to the internet to start the countdown!". I'm not sure what that means and I was a bit afraid to try. I eventually did and it gave me almost 6 hours on the countdown clock. What does that do when it goes to zero? Does it open up anyway?

I wasn't even allowed to access the Companion's House for some reason without connecting online.

2 ONE THOUSAND LIES - SLED-DESK RACING AND APARTMENT INVASION

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about my further adventures as Ciarán Endyein. I went to the place described in the mysterious e-mail after saying bye to the crazy girl in the big hat. It's a playground near some properties that never became occupied so it's always deserted here apart from one blonde girl with yellow eyes sketching.

Before I can make up my mind she's gone. I like the flashing dotted outline of where she used to be! The beeping sounds like a Windows OS alert sound though and they're never pleasant. She had left her pencil and a whole bunch of discarded sketches with outlandish comic book characters.

I'm not going to refer to myself as Ciarán because of what he did next. He followed the girl inside a cardboard box, which was pretty stupid but it was fun to see the hole slit from the first person perspective. He then followed her to her apartment and let himself in when she ran out for something. After leaving the pencil, it was too late, the girl came back. He then pretended to be American while the "The Star-Spangled Banner" tune played out. He then ran away in a panic.

Ok I'm back as Ciarán again! I told Ziva and Ausse the story the next day at school and they couldn't stop laughing. The slice of life continued with Ziva psychoanalising me until I got another mysterious email. Ausse made a bet with me and it was settled with a Sled-Desk race! When I hear about my protagonist describing his compulsive gambling habit, I'm suddenly reminded of that episode of The Flintstones where Fred says "bet bet bet bet bet!" in the manner of a chicken clucking. Had to watch an episode when I thought of that!

The Sled-Desk race isn't animated of course, so it has to be narrated and Ziva takes on the role of commentator. It's quite fun and written well enough that I can fully picture it going on! The tacks under the legs, the oil, the Wacky Races-like shenanigans... lots of Hanna-Barbera memories surfacing!

33 FINAL FANTASY EXPLORERS - TERRA RETURNS! ONLINE WITH JOE, NOVA AND TERRA

Dear Readers,

Nova's friend Terra joined us again for a while! At this point Joe was EL309 Thief, Nova was EL170 Samurai, Terra was EL127 Dragoon and I was EL119 Monk. Well done to Joe for going past 300! Terra was ahead of me too but didn't have 9 star quests unlocked yet.

Quest 1: "Zantetsu Master"

Joe was finishing up this quest on his own when Nova and I connected.

Quest 2: "Tonberry Kings"

This took place in Diabolos' usual lair. We were taking care of the Tonberry Kings handily enough when I got disconnected from everyone else! Oh no! It was a very close one but I beat the rest of the Tonberry Kings on my own. It was very difficult to hit them without being hit several times.

Quest 3: "Demon's Whisper, Wolf's Howl"

Joe, Nova and Terra went on this quest while I was panicking around the Tonberry Kings from the last quest. While waiting for them I disconnected from them twice more. Luckily my connection was more consistent for the rest of the evening.

Quest 4: "Twilight of the Gods"

Finally, all four of us questing together! Nova got a little bit lost on the way to Mount Chaminil. We all made it together though. I managed to encase Bahamut!

At this point, Joe was really tired and needed a nap, so we continued questing.

Quest 5: "The Ultimate Inferno"

With Joe gone for now, we had a Goblin Lord with us. Not the most flattering replacement! We got on fine though and one of the others managed to encase Ifrit.

After this, Terra left. Nova and I did just one more quest.

Quest 6: "Big Business Opportunity"

I was wondering how three dragons would fit on the wreck of the Donnyglen, but it was big enough. They weren't too difficult for us but one of their circular lava moves was kind of a nuisance. We managed it well between the two of us.

This evening I tried using the Tiger Break ability. It's quite nice! Good change of pace anyway. It makes me sail across an area in a big fireball-like attack. It's good for getting out of the way of an eidolon attack too if I need to.

1 FINAL FREEWAY - BETTER THAN OUTRUN

Dear Readers,

Today I'm going to talk about this wonderful Out Run-like game by Oyatsukai(OYK) Games! Yes I think it's better than Out Run because I like the way I don't slide all over the road when I'm steering. It clings to the same spot on the track as you steer and I love that about it. It's got the looks, sounds and atmosphere and its own sense of fun!

I've been playing a few sessions of this game and it really is great fun. My favourite way to control is with accelerate and brake on the right side of the screen and steering on the left. It doesn't have the branching paths but it does have two different courses with an option for shuffling stages around.

The graphics are lovely with its slopes, bends and sprite like objects whizzing by as you race along. Of course, there's the blue skies as well. They're absolutely gorgeous, Summery and make you feel like you're at a seaside arcade!

Sometimes the touch control can be hit the wrong way and it doesn't respond and this can be troublesome, especially if you get stuck in an obstacle at the side of the road.

The weird thing about the score is that it doesn't save them when you exit the app. Maybe that's because I'm using the ad version. My score in this session was on the Beginner difficulty, Standard Course A. My score was 1,439,232 and time was 6'22"11. I completed the race. It took a few tries to do this and I like the planes zooming by in commemoration!

The sound goes dead when you navigate the menus sometimes and that makes me have to exit the app and go back in again. Have to have sound! The music is pretty good and I like playing the California Heat track.

1 ALEX KIDD IN MIRACLE WORLD - FIRST FEW LEVELS

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about playing this game on the bus. The version I'm playing is the SEGA Arcade Gamer Portable so the jump and punch buttons are reversed to what I'm used to. It's not bad since I was playing at a slow and deliberate pace, punching everything and collecting everything.

I'd like to get used to the blocks that have guaranteed grim reapers, so that I can avoid them. Some of those blocks sometimes have extra lives in them too. Also, I have no idea what some of the items do, so I'll have to look up some instructions. There's this blue ball that doesn't seem to do anything.

Getting used to this game takes a bit of time. I forgot that the cycle-copter thingy breaks when you fly into the ceiling. Lots of risky rewards with the floating money bags just under the hard ceiling too.

I got as far as some cave a few levels in. There's this item that makes little guys jump out of it but I have no idea what it does yet. I didn't get further than this.

The Janken matches are something that put me off the game when I first played it. I didn't like the idea of some kind of random or gambling element in it at the cost of a life. I think there's a pattern to them or something. I'm not sure.

1 MINECRAFT - A COUPLE OF NIGHTS IN SURVIVAL MODE

Dear Readers,

I haven't talked about Minecraft on this blog yet! I don't play very often because I don't get that much of a chance to. This may change in future but I'm not sure.

Anyway I decided to create a new world and spawned on a hillside peninsula. I'm not that experienced in actually playing so I just hung around here for a few days crafting bare necessities. I dug a little bit of the hillside out but didn't venture anywhere. Plenty of trees around so I used some wood blocks to make charcoal. I also got a little wheat farm going by the water. It's a snowy biome so there's ice right next to it.

At night I just pillared up into the trees and hung out there waiting for day to come back. I'm getting hungry now so I hope the wheat crop will come in soon.

1 AFTERNOON IN DEPRESSION BY PINKTREELEAF

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about this short visual novel by PinkTreeLeaf. It's about a girl who is going through depression. Never did that with my Android tablet before.

My bedroom is quite big but it is dark and dreary in here. I'm in bed all day and I just worry about school and about my weight. The choices of things to do come up and they are all part of the ennui of my daily life. Later on a boy I know comes to visit and he brought an alcoholic drink with him. He asks about how I'm doing, I talk to him about how I'm feeling, he offers me the drink and he puts his hand on my knee as well. After rejecting him, he leaves upset.

This girl's life is dreary! I'm not envious of her at all. The artwork is quite effective, all the rooms in her house are dark and not much light comes in at all. She has a sad looking expression and the boy that comes to visit looks sad too. This really isn't the kind of story I wanted to read but I was drawn to it. At least it was short and it was engaging for what it was.

1 13 MINUTES OF LIGHT - LOVE LETTERS ACROSS THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about this short visual novel by Jod. It's set in the future where my girlfriend gets a university job on Mars. The cheapest way to communicate with her is by old fashioned letter writing, and when the war breaks out, it's the only way to stay in contact with her.

I like the way this visual novel gives me a sense of the universe in which it takes place. The Reddit pages was a brilliant idea and is my favourite example of this immersion. Imagine Reddit lasting that far into the future too? Food for thought!

I got the "Home Sweet Home" ending. Thankfully, the war on Mars ends and my girlfriend comes home. I got this way by not carrying out any actions that are jealousy oriented and by constantly telling her I miss her and want her to come home.

Plenty of sad things happen during her Martian stay. The job offer turned out to be a dud, which is a very common thing nowadays. I also hear about the things she's seen over there and when she got injured during a peace rally.

The love between her and me keeps going through our correspondence with all the mushy pet names and other moments like her talking about Martian lingerie.

So... aahhh I like this ending a lot. I don't know if I want to play for the other endings though! I don't want these two characters to end up unhappy after so much hope. It reminds me of that anime Voices Of A Distant Star. Also, when they say stuff about life being strange at the beginning, are they making references to the recent and popular Life Is Strange? It's likely, but I haven't played Life Is Strange so I'm not sure.

1 ONE THOUSAND LIES - CIARÁN, AN IRISH NAME!

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about this Android visual novel by Keinart Lobre. I like that the progatonist is named Ciarán, an Irish name!

This starts rather uneasily with long paragraphs and the auto text goes a bit fast for me, so I slowed it down a bit in the settings. The prologue features a scenario about three youths and another sequence between a kid and a pianist. I had that awkward moment I usually have when I'm starting a story and was trying to get used to the way it was written.

So finally we get to me as Ciarán and my friends Ziva and Ausse. A dramatic love triangle scene plays out where I declare my love for Ziva and she declares her love for Ausse and he declares his plans for having a big family with the new substitute teacher. The moment I find out the whole thing is a prank with the sound effect of everyone applauding, after my stunt with the scissors and the ketchup, made for a very nice twist! Kind of reminded me of Zootropolis too when Judy did the thing with the ketchup!

Anyway, we all get punished for our prank and later hang out downtown. My character is quite cynical! I guess we're all teenagers trying to be cool and clever. Ziva is quite zany and is obsessed with being my psychotherapist, treating me like a patient and making notes about my "case" and everything. Ausse is a cool best friend kind of guy and fancies himself as a bit of a ladies man. He is a good guy though.

They both make fun of me for not having a smartphone when I ask about checking my email. In real life I don't have a smartphone either(playing this on a tablet) so I guess I can relate to Ciarán here.

The plot thickens with this mysterious email telling me to meet someone somewhere and I discuss it with my friends. There's also this notebook that I write things down in and it predicts the future or something? I'm not sure, I'm still getting used to this story and my protagonist.

Later on, I'm at this lovely looking pond and I'm talking to myself out loud about this mysterious meeting. When I decide I'm going to go through with it, I suddenly hear someone by me I hadn't noticed before, be inspired by what I said. It's a short girl with a big hat named Claire. She thinks I was talking to her and is inspired by my words. She's a bit sassy as well. Uh oh! What a weird development this is taking!

32 FINAL FANTASY EXPLORERS - MORE 9 STAR EIDOLONS, ONLINE WITH JOE AND NOVA..

Dear Readers,

At this stage Joe was EL284 White Mage, Nova was EL168 Samurai and I was EL117 Monk.

Quest 1: "There Beyond a Lamenting God"

Joe and I started with this quest against Amaterasu. We fought well against her but she was defeated before I got a chance to encase her. The Chocobo Joe brought along was very generous with the Cure magic! Didn't have to worry much about running out of HP. Joe was trying to pass the "use monster command 2000 times" subquest.

Quest 2: "Blinding Bolt of Judgment"

Nova joined and Joe brought his Land Turtle along too. I encased Ramuh when we defeated him.

Quest 3: "Tonight's Sublime Main Dish"

We all made mincemeat out of Dryad! I don't know how Nova felt hungry with having to face such a poisonous boss.

Quest 4: "Item Collection Master"

At this point I was having trouble finding quests that Nova had access to. That means I was finally catching up! Anyway, we had plenty of fun scavenging on this 100 of any item quest, made light work with three pairs of hands.

Quest 5: "The Immortal Bird's Legend Ends"

I'm not sure who encased Phoenix but it was nicely done.

Quest 6: "The Ultimate Howl at the Moon"

Last time we did this quest it was pretty tough without Nova. This time I only got KO'd once by Fenrir and was lucky enough to give myself invisibility a couple of times.

Quest 7: "Tidal Wave of Destruction"

Leviathan's double sweep attack is something savage! I can only counter one of them and it was responsible for a lot of our KOs. It's funny how the Tsunami move doesn't sweep us away when we are KO'd. We were there on the beach, unmoved by it, which was pretty amusing! I was in the process of encasing when one of the others beat me to it. Like Nova said, it's a pity we can't get more than one when we do the encasing move at the same time.

We called it a night after this. My 3DS battery LED was flashing red too, so it was just in time!

4 TRICK & TREAT - STAFF SHOUTOUT, MUSIC COMMENTARY

Dear Readers,

Today I'd like talk about a few more bits about the game before wrapping things up.

In the credits on the menu, the developers all give messages to us, the players. This is a nice thing and you see it in some games or on the paper booklet of music CDs. Alberto Herrera, Ziel Graywords, Stw and Logan made up the team behind the game. Alberto made the graphics, Stw created the story and Ziel helped flesh it out. Logan helped with translations.

These guys are awesome. They are Eternal Night Studios and I've seen them reply to feedback on the Google Play store. I really like the way they interact with their fans.

They wanted to make a simple good vs evil story and release it on Halloween but it took longer and evolved in different ways. I like the way there are 7 regular endings and 1 unlockable best ending. It kind of reminds me of how the Nintendo DS game 999 was structured.

The music is by Kevin MacLeod.

"Come Play with Me" plays during the title screen. It's like a creepy children's melody. It's good but gets repetitive if you have the game running while writing blog posts!

"Despair and Triumph" plays in the prologue. It also plays during the old newspaper sequence the main character and his friends read online. Either way, with this music I get that awkward feeling I get when I start a new book and I'm not quite used to how it's written and it's a little confusing and not quite rewarding yet.

"Anguish" if I can remember correctly, plays when you meet the cat. The cat has this white beam flash attack that reminds me of the Giygas attack from EarthBound; you know, the one you cannot grasp. It is kind of unsettling!

"Groove Grove" plays when the protagonist is hanging out with his friends at home. I guess it's appropriate hangout music. There is a dreary atmosphere here though, but I guess that is fitting with the boys' fascination of the mysterious disappearances they read about online.

"Drums of the Deep" plays when you're trying to figure out what to do with the cat. It's kind of like jungle survival music. Here you are face to face with a beast. Though it is only a cat, it is a cat with strange powers, which makes it a fearsome beast.

"Brittle Rille" plays when you meet Ashley. It's a gentle tune with chilled out acoustic guitar plucking and chimes. Here you're getting to know her and learning what's going on in the forest. All this, along with her goth albino-esque appearance, makes this tune quite fitting.

"Dream Culture" plays when Ashley helps you out of the forest. This tune plays through this and other ending scenes that have tender moments and are nice endings, but they also have a sense of longing behind them. I get that feeling well with this piano tune that is lovely but it has a hint of sadness too that you may find yourself having to deal with.

"Melodie Victoria" plays when you meet Lilian. She is very charming and sweet and so is this tune with its music box melody. There is something odd about this though, as we can see in the cabin that seems forgotten by time. I get the same sense of unease with this tune's echo. Just like the scenario this tune has me gripped and wondering when this sweet charm is going to turn into something bad.

"Sapphire Isle" plays during the kiss scene with Lilian. She is very romantic and forward and calls me her "knight". This is very much "in the moment" kind of music with its soft piano playing and I can choose to get swept away or not.

"Exotics" plays during the big battle between Ashley and Lilian. This track is awesome! Even though Lilian and Ashley cannot be seen, the narrative and music give you the feeling that something heavy and dramatic is happening. This was an excellent choice!

"Supernatural" plays when Lilian enslaves you to carry out her revenge. This scene, coupled with the music gave me shivers and goosebumps. The choir of voices chant dramatically as all these horrible things are happening. Another excellent choice.

"Continue Life" plays during the best ending. This piano tune is full of joy and hope! This ending is too and is just a lovely way to end this dark story; by giving the main character a new hope and a chance to be happy with a new love.

11 - SUPER MARIO MAKER - 3-1 JUMP HIGH, OR DON'T BY MOP IT UP

Course ID: B148-0000-014B-D8E1

Dear Readers,

Today I'll talk about this level by my friend Mop it up. This ground stage starts off nicely and you can immediately see what is meant by jumping high or not as there's an upper path in addition to the regular one.

There's a lot of Mario Maker I haven't played, so jumping through the tree platforms is something I just don't expect to be able to do as you can't do that in SMB1! Things like this I have to get used to.

Jumping Paratroopas are challenging enough to deal with, especially when there are blocks in the way! This is a lot like the start of 3-1 in the original game. After this, there are a lot of Piranha Plants coming out of pipes. Between them and the Paratroopas, I died quite a lot! They can be avoided of course, if you take the upper path. I had to check all the pipes though to see if they went anywhere!