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Smashing Bottles (PC) by jp (May 30th, 2026 at 18:16:28) |
Heard about this one recently and got stuck playing the demo on itch (though it's also available on Steam) for a few hours until I got to the final (demo) ending!
It's an incremental game with some interesting things going on - you have a bat and smash bottles, but you have a limited time to do so (in seconds, like max 25 or so after all the upgrades?). When time runs out you can go again or go to the shop to buy upgrades. As expected you want to get more money from smashing bottles and there's ways to do that - spawn golden bottles, champagne bottles (when they smash the corks fly out and can smash other things), and even molotov cocktails (that explode, smashing other things).
There's a few things I thought where nice/clever:
a. The game has two distinct phases (once you unlock molotovs, everything changes, really) - the "you smash" and the "maximize money in the time allowed". In the latter, the game mostly plays itself as the molotovs keep everything getting smashed.
b. The "you smash" has rotating bottles, and since the smashing can take a few hits, there's some interest in smashing champagne such that the cork flies in a certain direction for more damage.
c. The champagne corks are pretty clever - since it gives you a reason to, in the short time you have to smash, choose what to smash a little more carefully. Go for golden or champagne hoping for a productive chain reaction?
Of course there's also a prestige/reset mechanic - from which you can lock a separate bat that smashes.
I'm curious how far things will go once the full game is out - and what the nature of the upgrades will be. I'm really hoping for more variety in the experience beyond the simple "number go up" - in that sense the molotovs seem like they're capping the experience in a detrimental way (even as they were super fun to smash when I first unlocked them.
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Donkey Kong Bananza (NSW2) by jp (May 30th, 2026 at 18:07:32) |
Still playing!
It has an interesting structure in terms of its levels and such - the core metaphor is that you're going deeper into the planet with each level, and they're both thematic and numbered. I got to a point where there's a bifurcation - go right into what I thought was "jungle land" or left into "snow land". I went right did a few more levels, cleared the boss (it was plant/poison land) and in order to continue going deeper I was then told to go back to "snow land"! There's a fast travel/teleport system involving giant worms that can move your around, so it was easy enough to do this, but I was surprised to learn that the fork was just a "choose what order to do these" situation... and also, the entire "fork" makes little sense thematically so I'm curious to see how it's explained and communicated in the interface - will it look like a fork in the "hole" going into the planet's core?
The titular ability (bananza mode!) was a bit underwhelming - you turn into a bigger DK and can now punch things you couldn't before - it lasts a limited amount of time. But, I've since unlocked a new one - DK-bird - where you can glide around (and after paying to unlock) and drop an egg on enemies. The gilding around was important/necessary in the plant/poison levels, and I'm expecting it to be similarly required in the snowy ones. We'll see!
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Hollow Knight: Silksong (PC) by dkirschner (May 13th, 2026 at 14:58:07) |
Kicking myself for not writing an entry when I was playing this 6 months ago. I am cleaning up my wishlist, backlog, and etc., and the FEELING I get when I see Silksong "in progress" is anxiety. I had jotted a few notes in December, as follows:
"It’s true, Silksong is hard. Like, really, frustratingly hard. Like punishingly difficult. I hit a wall at the end of Act 1 trying to beat the Last Judge. The game likes to place benches far away from boss fights, such that retrying boss fights involves slogging back through tough platforming and other sections of the map."
I did kill the Last Judge and complete Act 1. I remember that took a very long time, and that after the Last Judge, I died a few more times and, probably, with shaking hands and rapid heartbeat, said, "I can't do this anymore." Actually, it may have been in one of those rooms with waves of enemies. This innovation is new and unwelcome to Silksong, rooms that lock upon entering and spill several waves of challenging enemies at you. Yeah, I think that is what got me, just being pummeled over and over in one of those rooms, getting tired of exploring the maze-like map, tired of dying, tired of corpse runs, just exhausted. The game became a chore.
Besides that, I loved it, haha. I was definitely into it for a while. It was sublime until it wasn't.
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Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (PC) by dkirschner (May 12th, 2026 at 17:20:35) |
I meant to quickly beat this back in April so I could have a "completion" for the month, but I got really busy after spending barely an hour one afternoon with Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, a bizarre little twin-stick shooter about a turnip...who robs a bank. The game builds off previous games in the series, which I have never played, in which Turnip Boy commits tax evasion and, according to this game at least, seems to have started a war. Work has slowed down for the first time in nearly two months, and while I wait for my next contract to begin, I figured I'd knock this out.
The whole game is silly. The world is populated by sentient fruits and vegetables. You are employed by a pickle / mafia gang leader to rob a bank of a garlic bulb / bad guy / killed your dad. You have a base, where you can get new weapon loadouts by bringing weapons from the bank (always try to return with something new or high-powered!), purchase progression items from the "dark web," and upgrade stuff at another vendor. You go on "runs" to the bank, which are timed (starts at 2 or 3 minutes, goes up to 5 or 6 with upgrades). Runs are over when you die or when you exit the bank. Die and you lose half the cash you accumulated in the run. Survive and you are handsomely rewarded. Upgrade stuff. Go back to the bank. It's a roguelite too.
The bank has a specific layout of rooms, but you'll encounter some randomized areas too, and enemies and treasure are somewhat randomized. Throughout the bank are tons of NPCs with little fetch quests that usually reward you with pictures (fun/ny to look at) or hats (fun/ny to equip). A blueberry might want you to find its wedding ring, a lime wants you to get divorce papers from her lemon husband, a scientist pineapple wants you to find a philosopher mango and ask it an ethical question about experimenting on fruits, etc. I had some good laughs.
In each corner of the bank is a boss. Boss fights were fun, but the most challenging were early on. Once you start upgrading stats, the game becomes easy. It definitely ends up being an "upgrade everything and go nuts on all the enemies!" type game, experience being overpowered.
I haven't played a twin-stick shooter in a while, and while this wasn't revolutionary or anything, it was fun and scratched the itch. I gotta get back to Divinity: Original Sin 2. I might have some extra time till my next gig, so maybe I can boot it up, remember what I was doing, and make some progress this week.
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Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS) by jp (Apr 27th, 2026 at 22:04:52) |
I got to that point where I hit a monster/boss that just wasn't that much fun, and then I got a bit lost in terms of where to continue making progress, and the backtracking started to get a bit tiresome...as I explored and searched for different paths. So, time to bail!
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Truco (Other) by brenolleite |
| The game is really funny to play with your friends, and despite all the lucky elements that it has you have to be smart enough to play the right cards in the right time. |
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most recent entry: Tuesday 10 February, 2015
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Truco - Brazilian Card Game
Introduction:
Truco is one of the most popular card games in Brazil, it might be played with two or four players. The main goal is to get 15 points before the other player or team, more about the rules will be explained in the rules section. Truco is not played only in Brazil, it is mostly played in south America. Moreover, other countries as Spain, Italy and France also play this game. Some theories say that Truco is a derivation from a game created in France called Truc. However, it is not very clear how Truco was created. There are some different types of Truco all over the world, this log will explain the Brazilian version.
Rules:
Deck: The game is played with a French deck, and the cards 8, 9, 10, and jokers are not used.
Players: It can be played with 2 or 4 players, basically singles or doubles. Each player cannot see the other players hand, but they can communicate using signals to let their partner know his or her cards. In this log, all examples will be shown as a 4 players game because it is the most popular type, and all rules also can applied to 2 players game.
Cards Ranking: The cards are ranked in crescent order as follows (4,5,6,7,Queen,Jack,King,Ace,2,3), where 3 is the highest and 4 the lowest, the card's suit does not matter. Moreover there is a card in the game that is called "The Joker", this card is higher than every other card in this sequence, note that the "joker" in this game is not the joker's card. The joker is chose every turn depending on a card that is draw, basically every single turn a new joker is chose. Different from normal cards, the joker's suit matters in order to choose the winner card. And its sequence is (Diamond, Spade, Heart, Club), where club is the highest, and Diamond is the lowest. The joker's choosing process will be more explained on the examples.
Points: The winner of each turn(mini game) earn points, a normal turn gives the winner team/player 1 point. However, the teams could increase this value to 3 calling "Truco". Every time that a team calls "Truco", the turn points is increased by 3. So if one team call "Truco" and win the turn, it would get 3 points instead of 1. More than 1 "Truco" call can be called in the same turn, but they need to be divided between the teams. A same team cannot call "Truco" twice in sequence, team 1 needs to call "Truco" then team 2 calls "Truco"(Turn holding 6 points) and now team 1 can call "Truco" again. This rule will be more clear in the game example, where we call this turns mini games because every minigame has 3 turns. So in order to make it simpler, it will be called mini game.
Dealing cards: The dealer has to give 3 cards for each player, the dealer shuffle the cards and gives to his or her left player cut the deck. After the cut, the dealer is going to draw a card that will be the card used to choose the joker, which was explained in the cards ranking section. This card is placed in the center of the table faced up, and the card right above to this card in the ranking scale is the joker in this turn, example: drew card is a 7 of diamond(suit does not matter), the joker will be the Queen that is the card right above 7 in the ranking sequence. After choose the joker, the dealer will give one card by one card to all players following an anticlockwise pattern.
Turns: Each turn could be called a mini game as told before, so each winner of a mini game earn x points(x points depending on "Truco" calls). Every mini game is a best of 3 turns, each turn all players need to play 1 card, the winner of the turn is the team/player that played the highest card in the sequence counting with the "Jokers", which are the highest cards in the turn. So, the winner of 2 turn is the winner for the mini game summing x points to total team's points.
Game ending: The game ends when a team gets 15 points; In order to get those points the team/player has to win mini games, and in order to win the mini games the team has to win the 2 of the 3 turns of the mini game.
Truco: Every time that a team/player calls "Truco" the other team can either accept or decline the call, if the team accept the turn(mini game) will be counting 3, if the team decline the call the other team gets the mini game points counting in that instant. Every time that a "Truco" is called, the mini game points is increased by 3 except the first call that is increased only 2.
Example: T1 = Team 1 | T2 = Team 2 | (T1, Truco) = Truco called by team 1 | p = mini game total points(as the pot in the poker) =>
Game start p = 1
(T1,Truco) p = 1
T2 Accept p = 3
(T2, Truco) p = 3
T1 Accept p = 6
(T1, Truco) p = 6
T2 Decline
Team 1 gets 6 points from this turn(mini game).
Game Example: In this section, it will describe an example of the game play for 1 mini game.
Team 1: Player 1 and Player 4
Team 2: Player 2 and Player 3
d = Diamond q = Queen
c = Club j = Jack
h = Heart k = King
s = Spade a = Ace
==================================================================================================
Turn 0 - Dealing cards and joker
Player 1 = ([k,c],[q,s],[a,h]) *
Player 2 = ([4,d],[3,s],[k,d])
Player 3 = ([j,h],[2,d],[k,h])
Player 4 = ([5,s],[7,d],[k,s])
() = Represents the player's hand.
[x,y] = Represents one card, where x = card's value and y = card's suit.
* = Represents the dealer in this turn.
- The card [j,d] is the drew card to determine the joker, in this case the joker is all king cards.
===================================================================================================
Turn 1
Player 1 = ([q,s],[a,h]) *
Player 2 = ([3,s],[k,d])
Player 3 = ([j,h],[k,h])
Player 4 = ([7,d],[k,s])
Table cards: {[4,d],[5,s],[2,d],{[k,c]}
{} = Represents the cards played in this turn in order, note that the first player was the next one from the dealer in a anticlockwise pattern, in this example Player 2.
-Team 1 won this turn, with player 1 highest card [k,c]. Note that this card is a joker, that's why is higher than [2,d].
==============================================================================================
Turn 2
Player 1 = ([a,h]) *
Player 2 = ([k,d])
Player 3 = ([j,h])
Player 4 = ([7,d])
Table cards: {[q,s],[3,s],[k,s],{[k,h]}
-How player 1 played the highest card in the last turn, he has to start on this turn.
-The highest card on this turn was [k,h] played by Player 3, so Team 2 won the turn. By now the mini game is tied 1 for both teams.
==============================================================================================
Turn 3
Player 1 = () *
Player 2 = ([a,h])
Player 3 = ([k,d])
Player 4 = ([7,d])
Table cards: {[j,h]}
Player 1 calls Truco
Team 2 Accept call
Player 1 = () *
Player 2 = ()
Player 3 = ()
Player 4 = ()
Table cards: {[j,h],[a,h],[k,d],{[7,d]}
-Player 3 is the first on this turn, he starts playing the card [j,h], so player 1 see a chance to call "Truco" because he has a card higher than him. So he calls "Truco", then Team 2 could accept and the mini game would be counting 3 points or they could decline and team 1 would get 1 point. However, They accepted the call because player 2 has a joker of diamond in hand, and knowing that the joker of club was already played he is pretty sure that he has the highest card on the game.
-So as told before, the highest card on this turn was [k,d]. And team 2 won the mini game adding 3 points to their total points. This process is repeated until a team gets 15 points.
Strategies:
Truco is a turn based card game, some of its strategies are similar to poker. You can bluff calling a "Truco" when you do not have a good card, and even though get the points. There is also strategy that involve the player's time to play, if player one start playing and he knows that the other player in his team is going to play a high card is better he plays a card with low value. However it may be trick some times, as the game showed above, the team 1 has ([k,c] and [k,s]) cards against the team 2 ([k,d] and [k,h]). In theory team 1 has higher cards than team 2, but team 2 won the mini game because they knew how to play the cards in the right time(second turn [k,h] was higher than [k,s]), which means that team 1 wasted a joker for nothing. It is basically a game where you have to play as a team, and make sure that you are playing the cards in the right time.
Additional rules:
- Truco cannot be called when 1 team has 14 points.
- When both teams has 14 points the players have to play their cards without see them. This turn is called Dark Hand(maybe the translation is not that good, sorry).
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