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Luck Be A Landlord (Mac): COMPLETED!

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This game is a bit like a cross between a clicker and a fruit machine. You spin the reels, and get items appear, and then get money depending on what items and how many of each. But you also unlock more items that could appear, and there are buffs to certain items which increase their worth or a multiplier or both.

So, for example, if you get a Witch, then you get more for each Cat it is next to. Or if you get a Monkey, you get more for Banana. After so many rounds, you have to pay rent and then the rent increases for the next set of rounds. Can’t pay? Game over! So yeah, it’s partly luck based, but then it says that there in the title!

There’s an endless mode, which is obviously impossible to complete, but there’s also a mode with an actual ending, and it’s that I completed.

Zelda (Game & Watch): COMPLETED!

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I was lucky enough to be given (an original!) one of these, as well a Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong II, this weekend. It’s the best Game & Watch game and although I have a keyring mini replica I haven’t played the G&W classic since it was a Hot Product in the school playground.

And it still stands up really well today. Although it was much, much easier than I recall because I managed to complete it on my first go. Actually completing G&W games is unusual because most are high score chaser games, but Zelda has an endpoint – get all the bits of triforce by killing all the dragons – and that’s what I did. It was Excellent.

Game Dev Story+ (iPhone): COMPLETED!

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Many, many moons ago, I bought the original version of this on my iPhone. It was great. In fact, I still have it and my development company (Ubisocks) is still going and is on year 300 or something.

Recently, a modified version was released on Apple Arcade as Game Dev Story+. I’m not sure what is actually modified, aside from a different coloured icon, but it doesn’t matter because it meant I could restart the game without losing my more-than-a-decade-long save file.

It’s easier than I remember. Certainly, the early stages anyway. Once you have All The Money and can get a game that scores 40/40 regardless of how hard you actually try during development or which genre combo you choose then it’s a walkover, but I had no issues in the beginning at all – never ran out of money, constantly made a profit, and quickly grew Fire Sausage (my new development house) to the point of unstoppable sales. My Animal Crossing clone in particular was a massive seller and award winner!

After 20 in-game years you reach “the end”, in that no new stuff happens, but by that point I’d won all the awards and created a best-selling console so I’d done everything there is to do.

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Not that long ago I picked up One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 on the Switch because it was cheap and I was after a fun musou game. Turned out that, despite not knowing anything about One Piece, it was really rather good. So, when the sequel was cheap on PSN and I’d just bought a second PS5 controller, I thought I’d pick it up.

It’s more of the same, really. There’s a few different story arcs, characters who were not in the previous game, and a new skill upgrade tree method which is easier to make use of this time round, but ultimately it’s a prettier looking (thanks PS4), faster loading (thanks PS5) expansion to Pirate Warriors 3.

As before, I played it from start to finish with my daughter in co-op. Well, aside from the few levels which are bafflingly single player only despite there being a second AI character that could be player 2 in each of them. We also completed all 120+ of the “treasure mode” scenarios, which are vaguely analogous to the Adventure Mode in HYRULE WARRIORS, and I even unlocked every single trophy, which is pretty unheard of.

It’s mindless and mashy and repetitive, sure, but it’s also a lot of fun.

New Super Lucky’s Tale (Switch): COMPLETED!

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New Super Lucky’s Tale is no Mario 64 or Yooka-Laylee. It’s a nice little (mostly) 3D platformer in that style, however, but without the acrobatics and inventiveness of the former and with none of the fancy moves and humour of that latter. It’s a very pared down experience in many ways, especially compared to those, but actually, it was a pleasant surprise.

It doesn’t do a lot – you collect things and jump around and there are odd characters to talk to and levels within themed worlds, but it’s still fun and it looks nice in its own cartoony art style. Sometimes jumping is tricky in 3D, and there seem to be more 2D levels than I’d prefer, but I enjoyed it from start to finish. I understand this a remake of a game called Super Lucky’s Tale which came out a few years earlier and had a number of issues which this fixed, although I’ve not played that to compare.