A new game recently came out based on Poker hands called BALATRO.

It’s a card-builder game which is also a rogue-lite.

You are dealt 8 cards to make Poker hands from, but you can also power-up the cards and suits, etc using Jokers, Celestial cards, Planet cards, Tarot cards and more!

Today, I got my first win!

I had managed to get a NEGATIVE JOKER which gave a spare joker slot. Normally, you can have a maximum of 5 Jokers but this game I had SIX!!

If you love Poker and don’t mind not playing against other players (this game you just play to beat a score) then this is an amazing game you will really enjoy!

A new game appears!

I started playing this recently. I had been looking for a new survival game which has base-building, crafting and adventuring.

After much searching around and reading reviews I was about to buy Stranded Deep, but since there’s no real danger in the game there’s not much point in creating a base. Or any structures really. I guess it’s a relaxing game but I’d rather a reason to build something.

What I really would have liked was a survival game in the forest where you need to build a place to live, farm and protect yourself from the elements and animals. Rather than having the usual zombies/vampires/etc coming after you as there’s a saturation of these types of games. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any games like that worth playing. I don’t really want a 2d sprite or topdown game. 3D so I can adventure around and realistic-looking environments. There’s some cartoony-designed games but I’m not interested.

Sons of the Forest is about as close as I can get. Unfortunately, it does have cannibals — which, I guess are at least different to zombies.. but not by much 😀

The graphics are high quality and realistic, plus you get a friend to help you along. Kelvin survives the helicopter crash with you and you can assign him roles. He can collect rocks or wood or fish, etc. You can start building a structure and ask him to complete it while you do some adventuring, which is pretty cool.

You can also meet up with Virginia — a 3-legged, 3-armed mutant woman roaming around in the forest. She likes to dance.

Together, you can go on missions and adventures to discover what happened and why. To be honest, you CAN turn on Peaceful Mode which removes nearly all of the cannibals/mutants, but then you’re again with a camp/base which doesn’t get attacked by anything so you may as well use them. Also, they are pretty delicious and a good source of free food! (ahem!)

I decided to find another interesting game to play. I really like Valheim but have been playing it for so long it was time for a change.

I looked through a lot of Reddit suggestions and came across Smalland.

I bought it and loaded up and started playing:

I’ve been having a lot of fun soloing Valheim lately. I started a couple of weeks ago and play occasionally.

I started a new server from scratch so it’ll have the new Mistlands update released last December.

I began in the Meadows and then found a Black Forest not too far away. However, I had to sail quite a bit to find a good Swamp biome. I soon found one and built a small home there which I’ve expanded. Also while sailing around there right next to the Swamp biome was Haldor. I got my Meginjord which helps me carry more items.

However, the small Swamp biome did not have any sunken crypts, so I sailed on further and found a slip of land which is a Black Forest biome with a large Swamp behind it. I landed my boat and build a small home there. I could now mine for iron, which is great.