Portal

Portal the game is slightly scary and yet extremely great at the moment aka only pass level 10...

Harvest Moon

This is really one of the games that cheating will kill the joy of it. Now, don't start lecturing me. You know that everyone cheats at one point or another. Tell me of one person who has played the Sims for a long time and yet not cheat a single bit. Even the unlock alien skin codes and move objects cheats count. Even the unlock developer's stuff counts. (i.e. so that you can make your sim alien looking or with items that are usually not available)

HM is one game that will tempt you a lot, especially if you're the kind who has to do some research on the tips and tricks, stuff that can help you gain more gold easily and read through some of the walkthrough. I am one such person. I have to have a walkthrough when I play. Why? Simply because I am a somewhat perfectionist in gaming. I cannot stand to lose that single opportunity to do that rare thing or that one item that can only be gained early on or extremely late in the game.

Now, HM is a farming game mixed with a dating simulator and more. With so many aspects of it, the perfectionist in me demands that I do a perfect game, meaning doing everything at once. So, the Stop Time cheat is used. What a mistake it was. It made the one month spring unbearably long. In fact, I found that I just couldn't move past spring. What a wasted potential favourite game.

However, I am now starting a new game using no cheats whatsoever. The goal is to reach Year 5 or finish the dating quest line and be married with a baby. Hopefully I succeed...

Fortune Summoners Grinding

I've mentioned before how I dislike grinding at Fortune Summoners.

To tell the truth, I don't dislike it. I love it. However, the constant need to time my taps correctly, aka do it slowly and in time and not in quick successive moves, makes it extremely tiring. This means that if I get slightly impatient and try to speed up the process, bye-bye it is.

Here's an example. I want to slash in front, thrust, uppercut (of sorts..forgot the name of the move) and then do a backwards thrust.

I would press 'z', wait a second while the animation finishes, 'z' + '->' to thrust, wait for animation to finish, 'z'+ '^' , animation waiting, and 'z' + '<-'.

Let's say I get bored or excited in the process and try to input the next move halfway through the animation. The character will only do the default 'z' move. This means I miss the enemy and potentially will cause a chain of attacks to be unleashed onto my character. This makes the battle extremely tiring and frustrating after a while. Thus, I only play the game in short bursts or ignore the enemies completely, aka decreasing the amount of exp gained as compared to a simple game like Fable in the same amount of time. Do you know how frustrating it is? Especially since I can play FS for a day and only gain 2 levels while I can grind more in other games.

Therefore, the battle mechanics of FS is too precise and tiring to make me enjoy it as much as I should.

Grinding

Grinding in gaming is an itch for me that has to be scratched from time to time.

It's tedious and yet fun. I mean, it's boring but the sense of achievement you get afterwards is great! However, I don't like all forms of grinding.

Conditions for me to enjoy grinding:

1. Must be a game whose plot I like
2. I must like the game play
3. Alright graphics
4. Non-tedious controls and camera angles
5. Done without anyone around to nag me

Conditions 1 to 4. It is obvious.

Condition 5? To enjoy grinding, one must give their heart, soul, mind and time to it. People constantly interrupting me would totally ruin the mood.

Here's a list of games that I've enjoyed grinding on so far: 

1. Pokemon (My first game I grinded on. Yellow : Pikachu was level 81 before Elite Four!)
2. Final Fantasy (Believe it or not, they are great no matter which one...except for the online ones)
3. Prototype
4. Ragnarok Online (1, not 2! This is my first MMO and the one I get nostalgia for the most)
5. Tales of Phantasia (GBA)
6. Summon Night (GBA)
7. Shining Force (Love this game! But I've only played the first one)
8. Breath of Fire (GBA)
9. Kingdom Hearts (Love it! But I've only played the PS2 ones)
10. Fable The Lost Chapters (It's nice. The first RPG game on the PC I've played that's not from Japan)
11. Recettear (It's Re-Se-Tear! Not Reckettear! Just follow the Japanese pronunciation!)
12. Princess Maker 2 (It's weird since the game play is really just grinding-ish but I like it...)

Games I don't like grinding on:

1. Chantelise (The game looks alright but it's tedious. My enthusiasm for it vanished after 2 hours...)
2. Fortune Summoners (Lovely game but somehow I don't feel like touching it after non-stop gaming for a week)
3. Any other MMO (...I've tried 3 others so far but my energy went missing after a few months)
4. Flash games
5. Harvest Moon games (Never made it past the first spring...Maybe I should try again?)

My First Game

After knowing about Sploder, a free game creation website, I wanted to try it out since its interface looked easy. So...here it is : My First Kills