What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2024?

Oh wow, it's September 1st already. It feels like just yesterday it
was still August. Well, time to pull out my list-of-games-I've-played
and post it to Usenet, just like I do every month.

Huh. It's blank.

Oh well, I guess this means that for once this will be a short post.
So all that's left is for me to ask.... What Have You Been Pla---

No, wait. Stop. This can't be right. I didn't play ANY games this
month?

As it turns out, life got really busy this past month and, by all my
usual standards, no I didn't actually play video games in August 2024.
But those 'standards' imply that I've actually stayed with a game long
enough to get a real experience with the title. If it makes my list,
I've got to play it long enough to actually have something to WRITE
about it. But given the lack of material this month, I _may_ have to
loosen those standards a bit.

    [After all, did you really think I was going to let you
     get away with only a twenty-line comment? Fuck no! I.
     Don't. Do. Short. Posts.]

So here is an abbreviated list of some of the games that
ever-so-briefly entertained me in August 2024.


--------------------            


* FlixMix
A long-forgotten DOS-era puzzle game that I recently acquired. At
first I didn't think much of it but it got a lot more longevity out of
it than I expected. It is essentially a jigsaw puzzle game, except all
the pieces have straight edges. This would seem to make it extremely
easy, except the picture you are assembling is animated, which adds a
bit to the challenge. It is still not particularly difficult but I
found it a fun way to pass five or fifteen minutes. There are a
reasonable amount of options to make the game more or less challenging
(pieces might appear mirrored or rotated, divide the puzzle into
hundreds of blocks instead of the default thirty, etc.) although these
mostly just add to the amount of time it takes to complete rather than
really requiring more mental gymnastics. A lack of animated images to
construct is the game's biggest flaw; it quickly becomes repetitive.
Still, I had a lot more fun with this one than I expected.


* GalCon Fusion
A mobile re-imagining of the classic Galactic Conquest strategy game.
Conquer planets by flinging fleets of warships at them; if you have
more ships than the enemy, you win the battle (it's purely a battle of
attrition). Each planet then starts pumping out more ships for your
fleets. Watch out for attackers going for your own bases; re-deploys
your fleets so you always have the numerical advantage. Conquer all
the planets in the sector before the AI does. It's not very deep and
often is as dependent on how quickly you can move your ships (the game
is real-time entirely controlled by touch-screen) as actual strategy,
but it's a fun way to pass five or ten minutes.


* Solebon Solitaire
A mobile game focused on Solitaire. Although it has a variety of types
of Solitaire, I mostly just play FreeCell. It's a good looking
rendition of the game but otherwise isn't anything special. The thing
I like most about the app is that it filters out games that are
unwinnable by design (e.g., if the card layout can't be solved, it
doesn't show up). Although that is less of an issue with FreeCell, as
pretty much /any/ layout can be solved if you work hard enough at it.
It's another one of those games I whip out to pass a few minutes
between more onerous tasks.


* Euro/American Truck Simulator
Because of course I did. Not that I really played very much of either
-just one session of each, in fact- but both times it kept me busy for
several hours. Nothing new to say about either game, though, so I'll
leave just saying that I played them.



--------------------            


Yeah, but really that's about it. It just wasn't a good gaming for
playing games for me this month (honestly, I think I spent more time
ACQUIRING new games than actually running them). But an entirely new
month beckons, so hopefully I'll have better luck in September.


Anyway, having dragged this out long enough, NOW I can finally bring
this post to its long-overdue conclusion. So let's finish it off the
way I always finish off these posts, by asking:


What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2024?