This past week I’ve been struggling to focus my efforts. Aside from getting the newest chapter of Wakeup Call uploaded, I haven’t been able to determine which big project to focus on. I reached 91 aliens on my site, and I’m planning to get up to 100 this month, but that’s more of a side project in comparison to what I’d call big. I keep flip-flopping on my second comic, I can’t get a foothold on my video script, I keep getting demotivated to work on my simulator since it has no potential of being more than a personal project, and I can’t get invested in working on my game idea since it’s not as interesting to me as my simulator. Everything’s coming up short, so I haven’t been able to get to work on anything.

Instead, I finally got around to purchasing the original Mario & Rabbids game. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the developers behind it know what makes an engaging video game. Originally, my concern was that the drastic drop in simplicity compared to XCOM would make the game trivial to the point of mindlessness, as a mindless strategy game is a truly worthless game. However, the game does have a fair amount of challenge, to the point where even the puzzles in the overworld take some effort to figure out. The gameplay loop of playing battles so you can earn upgrades so you can use those upgrades in battles is pretty solid, and the offensive game is pretty strong. As an XCOM veteran, I’ve had to get used to the game’s defensive game, as this is not the sort of game you can play where you win runs without taking damage. They give you so much HP with the intention that you will lose some of it, with HP occasionally carrying over between battles. In addition, there are a number of enemy types that basically ignore cover and have enough range that they can hit you from across the map, meaning your options are to either take the enemies out or take damage. The game is also a lot meatier than I anticipated. Even though there are only four worlds, each world takes hours to complete, with quite a bit of post-chapter material to chew through afterwards. I’m definitely interested in 100% completing it, as I haven’t come across any obnoxious luck-based challenges yet. Also definitely looking to purchase the sequel.

I participated in Never Nathaniel’s Monster Train tournament this week. Only got to try out for one round of the qualifier. I won my run, but I had to restart and definitely didn’t score as well as I hoped. I’ll have to try again next month.

In any case, I’m going to see if I can pump out this next chapter of Wakeup Call by the end of the day. That’ll at least be something accomplished by the 3rd of October. I don’t like going too much time without accomplishing something. Also, I’m going forward with my daily SpongeBob trivia posts on Twitter. I just need to figure out which main project to focus on and something artistic to strive for next. I’ll keep at it. Make the most!