Author: MrBlueSky

SNKRX

SNKRX is neat, but not revolutionary.

If I had to boil down my thoughts on SNKRX, it would probably look something like this: It’s a neat little game, but its actual moment to moment gameplay is somewhat lacking, and its upgrade progression structure that it borrowed from the Auto Chess genre doesn’t map super well to its mechanics. On the other hand, it was also $3, and I’ve spent more than that on food that’s made me sick. So I feel like I got my money’s worth.

I learned about SNKRX several months ago, and then proceeded to forget about it until last weekend, when I saw an unfinished article about it in the drafts folder. This wasn’t my article, because someone else promised me they’d write me an article, and then didn’t, because they’re preparing to “Follow their dreams and move to another country for school.” And since that effort took most of their time, they didn’t really have the space to finish their article.

Which is fine. I’m not upset or anything.

So after reading what they’d written, I decided to go grab SNKRX myself. While I’ve seen people describe it as like the game Snake, I’d say it’s closer to Geometry wars. Each level places you in a large square, while waves of enemies spawn in and try to kill you. There are no level layouts other than the square, and there are no obstacles. Occasionally variant enemies spawn in, and I’m pretty sure they start showing up based on what level you’re on, but I didn’t pay enough attention to be sure.

Every few levels, instead of being presented with waves, you’ll be tasked with killing a single larger enemy/boss while waves of normal enemies spawn in.

These are the two level types in the game.

After you beat a level, you go to the buy screen, where you purchase more units for your snake/train.

A Brief Side Note: If you’ve ever played an Auto Chess style game, such as Underlords, Team Fight Tactics, or the original Dota 2 mod, SNKRX pretty much completely copies the upgrade mechanics from those games, and you can skip this next bit.

Here’s how it works: After each round, you’re given gold based on two factors. First is the gold that you earned during the round, from killing enemy units, and also from enemies dropping it, based on various combos and perks. The second main way is interesting: You get up to 5 gold per round based on how much gold you have saved up.

You spend this gold on either upgrading your items, (which you get a choice of after specific rounds) or buying more units for your train. After each round, you’re given a selection of three units to buy. You can buy as many or as few of them as you want, and you can also spend gold to get a new pool of three units.

Units have a few separate factors. They have one or more classes, they have an ability, and they can also be upgraded. More on upgrades in a moment. Classes function as a sort of set bonus style mechanic. For example, when you have 3 Rogues, all Rogues get a chance to deal 4x damage with each attack. When you have 6, that chance increases. Most of these bonuses are threshold based, requiring you to hit some number of units before they come into play, and usually play to those units’ strengths. For example, Rogues’ fast attack speed and multiple projectiles benefit from the damage multiplier.

Some of these set bonuses are more interesting than others. The Infestor class bonus buffs up the mini-units that many Infestors summon while the Curse class bonus increases the number of enemies that can be cursed. On the other hand, the Warrior class bonus just decreases enemy defenses.

So let’s go back to talking about those upgrades, shall we? Upgrading items is straightforward. You just spend money, and after buying enough levels, they upgrade.

Upgrading units is a bit more convoluted.

In order to upgrade a unit, you need to collect 2 copies of the unit. So to upgrade a level 1 Blade to level 2, you need 2 more level 1 Blades. To upgrade a level 2 Blade to level 3, you need 2 more level 2 Blades.

And this brings me to my first big problem with the game: Unit recruitment.

See, while the game’s upgrade structure is almost an exact copy of the Auto Chess structure, the game doesn’t allow you to use multiple copies of the same unit at once in your train. What this means is that where in Autochess, picking up your second level 2 of a unit can be a small, but useful power spike, in SNKRX, that gold is effectively gone until you can actually finish the upgrade. Again, because you can’t use more then one a unit in your lineup, if you roll a unit in your buy pool that you already use at level 3, it’s effectively a dead slot.

So yeah. Despite the interesting between level progression, the actual gameplay itself only has two types of levels, and few types of enemies, meaning that it’s not super satisfying to play, and the post round progression isn’t the most satisfying thing in the world. I don’t really hate or love SNKRX, but it’s not a terrible use of $3.

SNKRX is on Steam, and also apparently, this Github page?

Weekly Wrap-Up

3 Interesting games I haven’t played enough to do full writeups on, because I’ve been playing too much Hunt: Showdown and Minecraft.

Ah, Saturday. Well, technically Sunday at the time of writing this. July has passed us by, it’s now officially August, and I really need to make sure I pay my rent at some point tomorrow.

But enough about all of that. I don’t actually have a full new writeup this week, as I’ve mostly been playing old stuff, and I’m not sure anyone would benefit from me writing about Minecraft, Hunt: Showdown a second time, or even Dota 2. So instead, here are a few things that might be neat to check out. I may do longer reviews of them in the future, but for now, short reviews will have to do.

Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

The Shiren the Wander series was the progenitor of the mystery dungeon games, and arguably my favorite set of non-mainline Pokémon games to ever exist: the Mystery Dungeon series. So visiting the actual sources for those games is interesting. Shiren is far more brutal than what I’m used to, even though I have a decent understanding of the mechanics. The game can feel like a roguelike at times. In either case, I haven’t beaten it yet, so all I can say so far is that it’s neat and very hard.

Skul: The Hero Slayer

I have mixed feelings on this one. So far, Skul reminds me of both Dead Cells, and Hollow Knight, but it hasn’t really clicked for me. It feels like a sidescroller roguelite, but the combat isn’t as clean as Dead Cells, and the story feels overplayed for what it is. On the other hand, I’ve only played for an hour and half so far, so make of that what you will.

Barotrauma

Last, but not least, we have Barotrauma. As best as I can summarize, Barotrauma feels like a combo of Minecraft and Overcooked. You and others attempt to pilot a submarine through the underground oceans of Europa, while not being murdered by fish, enemy subs, other enemy monsters, having your equipment breakdown, or overheating your nuclear reactor. It’s Overcooked in that it’s a frantic dance of chaos and resource management, and it’s Minecraft in that after playing 2 and half hours, I haven’t beaten a single mission, and still barely understand how to start up the reactor. It’s got both single and multiplayer, but I’m not too interested in the single player parts, and the folks who convinced me to buy it haven’t finished the tutorials yet, so I’ve yet to see how incredibly poorly we work together to play it.

Pokémon: Unite

You can skip Pokémon: Unite, unless you’re a massive sucker for anything Pokémon related. Like I am.

For me, the ultimate test of any licensed game consists of two very simple questions:

  1. Would I play this game if it didn’t have the licensed branding?

    And
  2. Am I going to play it anyway, because I am a consumer whore?

For the best sort of licensed game, such as something like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, the answer to question 1 is a solid “Yes.” This is something I can say with confidence because I’ve been playing a bunch of Shiren the Wanderer, and it kicks ass. Then we have stuff like Pokken, which is more of a “Sorta,”(but it’s not because the game is bad, just because I don’t really play fighting games).

On the flip side, we have games like Magic: Legends, which gets a solid double “No.”

And then in the middle, we have things like Disgaea: RPG, and, the actual topic of this article, Pokémon: Unite.

I am a sucker for pretty much anything Pokémon. This doesn’t mean I’m 100% “Consume Product,” but if there is something Pokémon related, and it doesn’t cost me money to try it, I probably will.

I’m not sure how long I’ll play Pokémon: Unite for. It honestly might be less than a week. The primary reason to play it over something else is that it’s on the Switch, it’s Pokémon themed… and that’s about it.

The main reason is that while the theming, sound, graphics, etc are charming, the gameplay itself is lacking any incredible moments, and the meta-progression/economy is absolute garbage. Also, I have some problems with its informational display, but at least my UI complaints are correctable.

Let’s start with the gameplay: Pokémon: Unite brings exactly one new interesting idea to the MOBA genre, and that is the victory condition/scoring. Instead of towers or ancients to destroy, there are a series of hoops. You gain score by collecting points, and then convert those points into score by channeling at these hoops. So the basic loop is: build up points by KOing wild Pokémon, go to a hoop, channel and score. It’s an interesting mechanic that leads to some neat tension. And that last sentence right there is a the nicest thing I’m gonna say about the game for the rest of this article.

Okay, this isn’t a great combat screenshot. The UI usually isn’t this busy, but it’s the one I have.

The rest of the game feels fairly standard, like a dumbed down version of Heroes of the Storm. There are a few different maps, with different layouts, but similar objectives. Your hero champion Pokémon have an auto-attack, two specials, an ultimate that takes 8 years to charge, and a summoner spell battle item. In either case, the end result is that in any fight, you have effectively two activatable moves, but I’ve yet to see a situation where it doesn’t feel like I’d want to just spam them. There’s no mana cost to discourage you from doing so, and the cooldowns for the moves are fairly short.

I can’t believe it’s not flash!

The end result is a game that feels bland, to the point that I’m bored with writing about how boring it can be. So let’s move on to the next part of the game that sucks: meta-progression.

Everything about the game’s meta-progression is garbage, and I can summarize why I hate the system in two sentences.

Unless you want to spend real money, unlocking a new character costs between 6000 and 10000 gold. The maximum amount of gold you can earn in a week from winning random battles is 2140.

Yes, you can get more gold from doing quests, and limited time events. Yes, you can get gold by leveling up your trainer level. Yes, you can get gold by finishing the tutorials, or doing some weird slot machine thing. It doesn’t matter. The core point is that the game is designed to be an absolute slog for grinding out the ability to play more characters, leveling up equipment, etc.

The game feels like a cheap mobile game, in the sense that it’s designed to make you log on to do your dailies, to build the habit of playing a few matches, and then leaving. Instead of having you come back for the gameplay, or exciting updates, you’ll come back because if you do for just a few more weeks, you can unlock a new character! Or you could just spend like $10, and get them right now!

Oh, and it has a premium currency, bonus boosters, a battle pass, and just about every other feasible way short of straight up gacha. The game even has a kinda gacha in its energy roulette system, but at least you can’t directly pay money for it.

Oh, and while we’re at it, I have one last big gripe. Keywords, description, functionality and stats. Every attack in the game is something like this:

Secondary gripe: why do I have to confirm moves being upgraded when I get them? Just upgrade them! Don’t make me press buttons twice.

And then we have items in the game that look like this:

40 SPEED UNITS OF SPEED

Do you see it? Or perhaps more specifically, do you not see it? “It” in this case, being any sort of useful information/way to measure the actual numbers/damage/etc that your character can do in a game? Because I sure don’t. At least this one they can probably fix, but why isn’t it there already?

Pokémon: Unite isn’t awful, but it isn’t very good. There are better games to play on the Switch, better MOBAs to play in general, and better Pokémon spinoffs. If for some reason after all this, you still want to play it, it’s Switch exclusive right now, so just go find it on the eShop.

Luck Be A Landlord

I wish it was as easy to write about this game as it was to play 20 hours of it.

I like Luck Be A Landlord. Fin.

I’m pretty sure this isn’t good enough to qualify as an article, but I’ve been trying to write about Luck Be A Landlord for quite a while and failing completely.

This might be because there is only one aspect of being a game that Luck Be A Landlord does well, but it’s also the only thing about games that actually matters to me: the gameplay. Luck Be A Landlord is an incredibly unique take on a deckbuilder, where instead of building a deck, you assemble a slot machine.

And this leaves me in a bind, because I can’t faff around about other things in the game that I like, such as music, animation, art, and story for several paragraphs like I normally would. All of those elements are pretty mediocre, but it doesn’t matter, because Luck Be A Landlord is mental crack.

The general gameplay loop is pretty simple: you have a slot machine, and a certain number of spins. At the end of those spins, you have to pay up a certain amount of cash. After each spin, you choose from one of three symbols to add to your pool, meaning it can now show up on future spins. Each time you have to pay rent, your rent goes up, and you have to pay more rent the next time.

And this probably doesn’t sound super enthralling, but I think it’s worth pointing out that a summary of Bejeweled’s mechanics would be something like “You have a grid of jewels, and you swap them, this removes them, so you can match more jewels.”

Let’s use this run as an example of why Luck Be A Landlord is so interesting to me.

At first glance, this probably looks like a fairly boring setup. I’m only using 3 different symbols. So why is it satisfying at all?

Well, the effort to get to this point was fairly massive. The symbols in question that I’m using are the Amethyst, the Dame, and a wildcard.

The Amethyst is part the Gem family of symbols. These symbols include Diamonds, Pearls, Emeralds, Sapphires, and a few others. The primary thing that’s unique about them is that they’re a family of symbols, much like the Fruit family, that are far easier to get by having symbols interact on the board, than by drafting them.

The Amethyst’s gimmick is that it’s the only symbol in this family that scales, and it does it in a fairly unique way. Each time another symbol would increase the value of an Amethyst prior to the end of a round, its score permanently increases.

The second symbol, the Dame, is from what I tend to think of as the humanoid family. The Dame buffs up any Gem family symbol she’s next to, meaning that when next to an Amethyst, she makes it worth more both in the current round you’re scoring, and in addition triggers the Amethyst’s unique ability, making it worth more permanently.

At the same time, the Dame also destroys and scores points for Martinis, making them an effective symbol to use in combination with Bartenders and Dwarves, as part of an alcohol removal engine.

I’m rambling a little bit here, so I’m just gonna try to get to my thesis: Luck Be A Landlord does a really good job of balancing moment to moment tension, and longer term play. Choices that might get you through your current rent cycle might not be ideal for you build, but choices that could be better for your build might mean you’ll never complete it in the first place. Most symbols have at least 1-2 meaningful interactions with other symbols, or symbol families.

The end result is a game where it’s just a lot of fun to try to build different types of engines, from Cultist based builds, which rely on having a bunch of the same symbol on the board, and then transition into eldritch horrors, to pearl harvesting builds, to pirates cracking open treasure. Watching a build come together is incredibly satisfying, and having one fall apart is frustrating, but not frustrating enough to keep you from doing just one more run.

Luck Be A Landlord is a video game. You can buy it on Steam. It is $10, and it is in early access. Oh, and there is a free demo, if after all of this you’re still on fence.

D6 – Max Level, 1 Fight, No DLC Guide

I keep seeing a bunch of references to farming in D6, with every single guide mentioning the Prinny trick, getting max, but no single guide that actually explains the full strategy. So here’s my writeup, with exact steps and details on what I have done, and the results. This guide does NOT use any DLC to get this outcome. No Valvatorez or Pleinair required.

Prereqs
Rakshasa Unlocked
3000 Cap In Cheat Shop
Capped Squads

Prep

1x Killer – Level Whatever

This slot is more or less whatever you want it to be. In my case, I used Bieko with capped Omega Wind, and had every other booster equipping “Kill With Wind.” You could probably make a more efficient version of this setup, that doesn’t require that. The only important thing about your “Killer” is that they can kill every single mob on Peaceful World – Bell of Blessing – Rakshasa without dying, and that they have a 900 Statistician equipped.

9x Boosters – Level 1 – Any Class/Unit

One of these is the unit you’re power leveling.

Evilities
World is Mine
Genius Studier
Happy Song
Overlord Training
Kill With Wind – OPTIONAL, SEE ABOVE

Items: Each character had a 900 Statistician

90x – Fodder – Level 1 – Prinny God Capped with any one job, for EXP Bonus From D-Merits

Evilities
Recycle Spirit
Focus Bomb

Items: Doesn’t Matter

D.I. Target Myself -> Wait Until Other Units Have Acted -> Nearest Unit -> Lift -> Nearest Unit -> Throw
Put this on every single one of these Prinnies.

Setup and Execution

Setup – You only have to do this stuff once.

  1. In Cheat Shop, set Enemy Strength to 20
  2. In Cheat Shop, set Back to Square One to ON
  3. In Cheat Shop, set EXP to 3000%.
  4. In your auto-battle group, set up your units to be in the following order. PRINNIES -> BOOSTERS -> KILLER
  5. Add the Unit You’re Power Leveling to the Boot Camp Squad

Execution – Do this each loop.

1. Dark Assembly Bills – (Any unit can pass these)
Give Me Triple EXP!
Praise My Performance
Throw a Welcome Party

2. With the unit you’re power leveling, pass Hog All Exp!
3. Go to Peaceful World – Bell of Blessing – Rakshasa
4. Press Autocombat, and watch Prinnies go boom for a bit.
5. Bring out your boosters, and killer.
6. Clear the map. Optional
7. Repeat until you lose your mind and get tired of trying to farm Karma when you can only get 124 Million a Loop.

Additional Notes and Tips

  1. You can fill the Dark Assembly squad with the Prinnies you’ve created. Once your Dark Assembly is capped, this mean every bill will pass without bribes or fights effectively every time.
  2. This is by no means “Optimized.” I’ve spent the last few days trying to get this to work, and every source of information either left parts out, or was a 16 minute YouTube video that claimed you needed DLC, or didn’t include all info.
  3. I get about 9QD per run with my setup. If you’re getting less then that, here are a few things to check. I’m going to be honest, I do not understand how EXP addon stacking works at all in D6. Example: You can’t stack more then 1 Statistican per character, but you apparently can stack Happy Song.
    1. Stick as many EXP boosting Evilities as you can on the character you’re powerleveling.
    2. Confirm everyone has an item with a Statistican
    3. Stuff even more EXP boost Evilities onto your booster characters.
    4. Make sure you’ve capped your cheat shop
    5. Make sure none of your Prinnies ended up above level 10 somehow.

I mostly wrote this because of how incomplete or just inaccurate the other guides were.