WTS one crystal ball; Doesn't see the future, but makes a cracking paper weight!

Hullo, Hullo, assorted readers! The inspiration for today's article comes largely from a discussion I had the other night with a friend. We were waxing philosophical, ahem, about a certain popular MMO (let your imagination run wild) and talking about the future. It got me thinking about the state of the whole genre now and what might be coming to us SOON (TM). First, a riddle!

Rankin Bass Hobbit, best Hobbit

This thing all things devours:

Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;

Gnaws iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal;

Slays king, ruins town,

And beats high mountain down...

Now, of course most of you know that this is a riddle that Gollum gives to Bilbo in The Hobbit. If you remember, the answer to this riddle in particular is quite hard for poor Bilbo to suss out. In fact, he yells out the answer in an inadvertent attempt to get Gollum to not eat him. Time. The reason I bring up this riddle isn't to get poetic or philosophical with you, but instead because I want to first talk about the concept of a "WoW killer." You see, for as long as World of Warcraft has been popular, people have been touting every new game with a small glimmer of promise as a "WoW killer." If you are a follower of MMO games, then you will be quite familiar with the fact that, in truth, none of these games could quite live up to that feat. However, I've met the actual murderer of WoW. Time. Now before we get bogged down into a semantic debate about what constitutes the actual demise of WoW, let me elaborate. Do I think that it will ever really, truly go offline in the near future? Of course not! There will always be people who will play it, just as there are STILL people who play Ultima Online, EverQuest, and even Asheron's Call. Instead, I am just referring to an eventual decline (that I firmly believe we are sailing into currently) that will result in World of Warcraft no longer being the "face" of the massively multiplayer online role playing game genre anymore. Want proof? Look at the subscriber numbers. Plot them on a chart, it's easy to see that with each successive year (and expansion), WoW is going through a cycle of departing and returning players. Only, each year less and less actually make the trip back to Azeroth.

Bowling ball or crystal ball? You decide.

This naturally leads me to wonder; Well, what's in the oven? To be honest, if you do a search for future MMO games it can really make your head spin. It seems that over the past five years it has become hip to slap this tag on your game, even if players are only vaguely connected to each other. So for the sake of keeping myself and all of you sane, I'm only going to be focusing on games in the more traditional vein of massively multiplayer games. You know the drill, many players, together, on some form of a "world" that have the option of interacting with each other. Yeah, it's a fairly murky definition, but I think you know what I mean. Let's take a peek, shall we?

What would an MMO market be without an EverQuest offering? Hmm? Of course there will be another EverQuest attempting to break into the market again soon. EverQuest Next is our first contender, ladies and gentleman, for next biggest thing! What really stands out about this iteration of the series is the raw ambition of the game. Everything will be destructible. I'm not sure how that will work out with towns, but the idea of being able destroy/shape anything I damn-well-please definitely has my chops slavering. It also instill a certain amount of trepidation, as well. Being that their current plans are to have this game back free to play, you can bet that a large contingent of trolls (not the fantasy type) will be around, just to make your life hell. Details about the game are still somewhat sparse, owing to the stage of development that it's in, but it also seems like they are loosing the bonds a bit on class restrictions. The tricky part about this is that they will definitely not want to give players so much freedom that it gives birth to a super complex system of character development. Sure, for an advanced players, that sounds absolutely swell. We have to face the facts though, my friends, for any new game coming out to truly succeed it will have to be accessible. Just look at a game like Darkfall. An amazing concept that seems to truly hearken back to games like Ultima Online, but doomed to fail because the game isn't very new player friendly. (and, apparently, neither are the players, heh)

Moving on with our cavalcade of contenders, next up is a game that player versus player enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting. Camelot Unchained is an upcoming release from City State Entertainment (never heard of them? me neither.) and designer Mark Jacobs. If the name didn't sound vaguely familiar to you, allow me to enlighten you further. This game is being brought to you by the exact same guy who made Dark Age of Camelot, which many people feel was the most balanced PVP game ever. Just like DAoC, Camelot Unchained is promising realm vs realm vs realm combat, or as Mr. Jacobs is calling it, "Tri-Realm" combat. Being that this game is fairly fair along in development (2016 release, first beta phase imminent), there are quite a number of features of the game listed on the website. In a move that reminds me strongly of the word of power from Ultima Online, spell creation will focus on combining runes and reagents to powerful effect. Instead of being presented with the normal progression of "fireball 1, fireball 2, et al.", players will be able to customize their spells for use in specific situations. It sounds extremely interesting to me, but I just wonder how new player friendly it will be. This is only one of the interesting things that I read about when researching for this article, so if you are looking for a game that might skew a little bit more on the deep or challenging side, this might be worth reading up on!

I'm confused on multiple levels, here

And in the "most likely to be cosplayed" category, we have an offering from Korean company NCSOFT, Blade & Soul. For those of you familiar with NCSOFT's offerings, you'll certainly see the common threads that B&S shares with other games. Visually, it seems to be quite stunning. Screenshots and videos that I saw showed a great variety of environments, all rendered beautifully. The character animations seem very well done as well, and for people who really enjoy, uh, "customizing" their avatars, this game will really appeal to them. Stylistically, the game certainly resembles another NCSOFT offering that most of us will be familiar with, Guild Wars 2, The combat Blade & Soul isn't trying to revolutionize the genre, for sure, but are instead focused on improving the existing concept. I'm quite surprised at how amazing the graphics of this game look, being that it saw it's first release in South Korea a few years ago, but GW2 has also held up fairly well, so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. Anyways, if you are looking for more of the same, but fresher, Blade & Soul is set to release later this year in North America.
seems fast paced and action driven, with a great deal of movement and flair accompanying skill usage.

Now, are there a few other games that I could've written about in this article? Certainly. However, I chose these three games as a representative of some of the various options we will have presented to us over the next year-ish. (EverQuest Next, who knows?) In my own opinion, we will continue to see an increasing number of games enter the market with "massively multiplayer" features and at some point we may even see that moniker get completely dropped because it will become the norm. It will be more rare to see a game without some sort of online functionality that connects players to each other. We like to play games with each other, because at best it can lead to a completely different in game experience, and at worst, well, you just turn the game off! I'll be back at you on Friday with another article, folks. Take care!

You are NOT PREPARED! New World of Warcraft expansion details released!

Woo, you know that feeling you get when you knew something was coming, but you're still surprised it actually happened? Yeah, that's it. I'm getting it now as I think about the forthcoming World of Warcraft expansion that was announced at Gamescom 2015 today. Now, before you go thinking I'm all super giddy about the expansion, wait a minute. I didn't say that I was excited! In fact, I'd say that I'm fairly blase' about the WoW expansions these days. Business as usual. The fever pitch usually grows the closer it actually gets to hitting release and they unveil more of the new features. It was definitely this way for me with the last expansion, Warlords of Draenor.

Anyways, the new expansion, Legion, brings back some familiar faces from WoW's celebrated lore. Yep, The Burning Legion are back in a blaze of glory. The writing was certainly on the wall with this one, and many people (yours truly included) had strong suspicions this would be the next expansion due to the direction the game took in Warlords. As my title alluded to, Illidan looks to shake things up in some form or fashion. I'm hoping that Blizzard sticks to their guns with his character and keeps him as somewhat of a rogue agent with a strong grey moral compass. Anti-heroes are the new black, right? Fittingly, his return also accompanies the introduction of a new "hero class" (starting at level 55? My guess is probably 95), the demon hunter. So you can bet a few WoW tokens that the servers will be crowded with people "rolling" that class on launch day. As of this writing, Demon Hunters are known to have only two character specializations; havoc (dps) and vengeance (tank). We also know that this class will be able to double jump, which is neat, but you have to think there's more in the chute on this one.

I'm back...Miss me?

The setting for Legion will be "The Broken Isles", located in the center of Azeroth. It used to be the a stronghold full of night elves, but now it's been turned into a "graveyard" staging ground for an EVEN BIGGER (I had to laugh at this plot device) invasion of the Burning Legion. I suspect that here is where some of my cynicism and disdain kicks in. I understand that we need some closure in regards to Sargeras and his army of hellions, but make it fresh! Perhaps it will be, maybe I'm jumping the gun. We'll see. Anyways, in another content rehash, the mages of the Kirin Tor will again be *poofing* Dalaran (I assume) into the picture, as it is the main hub of this storyline. Sigh.

Something that did perk my ears, however, was the introduction of a "class order" system. There aren't many details kicking about for this feature yet, but it looks like an interesting iteration of the garrison feature introduced in the last expansion. You know, the things you loved to hate or hated to love? Anyways, now you are the head honcho of the class order and you will be surrounding yourself with powerful "champions" to take on Legion. The champions sound a great deal like followers, but apparently there will be less of them and they will be more important. You will also have access to a garri- I mean, "Order Hall" where you can do...stuff. Well, they have revealed that you will be able to customize and upgrade "artifacts." Whoa!? Sounds cool, right? Maybe!

It's bigger, so it must be more powerful, right?

"Artifacts" are powerful weapons that will be available for each specialization. Basically think of this as a spec specific legendary quest line that grants you a customizable weapon, both visually and effect wise. Now, this does sound neat! It really reminds me of some of the weapon stuff you could do in Lord of the Rings Online, which had a system where you could craft and improve powerful items. My biggest fear is that it will end up being a grind/fetch fest, where you are required to mindlessly complete some raid tier for three months in a row at the whim of maddening RNG. (Random Number Generation) Hopefully they nail this, I really want to like this!

Of course, there will also be graphical upgrades, new dungeons, new raids, and a whole whack of other changes to the mechanics of the game. So far, Blizzard is boasting of nine new dungeons (Nice to see you again, Violet Hold!) and two new raids; The Emerald Nightmare and Suramar Palace. I'm looking forward to seeing how they close out the lore on this one, seems like they are trying to tie up a lot of loose ends here. There will also be a new "PVP Honor System" that will function as a talent tree of sorts, with perks that you can unlock to spice up your encounters with the other faction. I'm sure many people are thinking, just balance the PVP already! It'll never happen!

Anyways, despite my misgivings, you can count me in as one of the people who will play it at launch. What about you? Yea, nea, or hell no? Let me know in the comments below!

Awww, isn't that kitten cu-*KABOOOOOM*

Hey, hey, everybody! It's my sincere hope that today finds you happy and healthy! I'm writing this post in the middle of a bit of a work hiatus, due to celebrating my five year wedding anniversary with my wife this weekend. Huzzah! Go us, and all that stuff. Well, technically our anniversary is next weekend, but this is the weekend she was given time off, sooooo, yeah, here we are. Anyways, I decided not to do any game recording during these five days to relax and enjoy some time away, but I still thought I'd bring you a real quick hitter about a new card game Mrs. Nerdstalgic and I are excited about; Exploding Kittens.

Exploding Kittens is at it's core a card drawing game for between two to five players. More players can be brought into the fun by adding together another Exploding Kittens deck. (either the core deck or the NSFW edition) This allows for up to nine players to take part in the shenanigans, which is good, because the game seems to be really set up for group play. Fear not though, if you only have two people to play it's still entertaining. I just think that quite a bit of the fun of this game will be had in much the same way that Munchkin creates fun, through chaos. My wife and I played a two person game that was decently fun, but lacked the back biting and under the table deals that often accompany games like this.

The main objective of Exploding Kittens is to not meet your demise at the hands of a cute and cuddly kitten. Each game you will add a number of "exploding kitten" cards equal to the number of players minus one, thus insuring that at the end of the game only one player will be left standing. Your efforts at dodging the feline fireworks are aided by some of the other card types in the game such as "defuse" cards that allow you to shuffle the exploding kitten card you drew back into the deck anywhere, "nope" cards that allow you to effectively cancel the plays of the other players (though, notably, NOT exploding kitten or defuse cards), or just by matching two of the "normal" cards so that you can steal a card at random from someone else's hand. Unlike many other card games, which encourage you to maintain a lean hand to play from, Exploding Kittens seems to skew more towards the card hoarding end of the spectrum. You have no maximum hand limit and having more cards available to you gives you more power and also provides an effective smokescreen from people trying to steal your good cards. Ultimately, the mechanics of the game function well and it's fun, but don't expect it to bring
anything revolutionary to your gaming nights.

However, what the mechanics lack in innovation is more than made up for in the chuckles that will surely occur from both the art on the cards themselves and the flavor text. Particularly, the NSFW deck is full of cards that are in turns gross and hilarious. For fans of Exploding Kittens' creator, The Oatmeal, the art will feel comfortable. It's not masterpiece artwork by any means, but it's certainly effective for this medium and the crude art style befits the humor. So, how do you come by a copy? Well, that's the tricky part. You see, everyone who is getting the game now is someone who backed the kickstarter earlier this year. If you go to the Exploding Kittens website, you will be greeted with a button to "pre-order" a copy, which redirects to a page where you can enter your email to be alerted when it becomes available. So, when will it hit actual distribution? *shrugs*

If you missed backing it, just ask some of your, uh, "weirder" friends. Yeah, those friends... I'm sure they probably have a copy. (like me!)  Anyways, that's all for today folks! I'll scribble something else for you on Friday! #GameOn

Gaming with a purpose: Summer Games Done Quick 2015

Hey everyone! Time for another majestic Friday post flown in on the wings of eagles, or something. This week has been a fantastic one for me, filled with lots of content creation and fun. However, something that has really put my week over the top has been being able to watch Summer Games Done Quick 2015. What's that you say? Well, I'm glad you asked!


You see, a few years ago, a group of gamers got together and decided it would be fun to have a marathon gaming session where they completed games as fast as they could and took donations for a charity from the people who watched. Like most great things, it started small but has mushroomed into a huge bi-annual event attracting game players from around the world, but professional and novice. 100% of the money donated goes straight to the charity being supported (currently it's Doctors Without Borders) and it's just generally a great time if you enjoy seeing exactly how broken some games can be.

It's a week long event that happens twice a year in which games of every ilk will be on display. Some of my personal favorites are always seeing some of my favorite role playing games being destroyed in an expedient fashion. Remember Earthbound? Well, it got blasted in about an hour and a half. That's not a typo folks. Now of course, it was what we call a glitched any % run. Meaning, it doesn't matter how you complete the game, you can skip areas of the game, don't have to pick up all the items, and can abuse in game bugs. Other speed running categories can include 100%, where you must pick up all the in game items and hit all areas, Glitchless, where you can't abuse any in game glitches to advance, and other incentive based prerequisites. These can be some of the most fun types of runs, because they can put ridiculous restrictions on the player, such as a Swordless Legend of Zelda run. You can complete the whole game, minus Ganon, without the starting sword. Amazing! (and super difficult) Want to see someone beat Mike Tyson blindfolded? We've got you covered.

mmmm, swag

As the event has grown, quite a swell of support has grown from different corporate sponsors and as such, special products have been made available supporting the marathon that are only available during it. There are special t-shirts available, wall art, and game bundles, of which some or ALL of the proceeds of the sales go directly to the charity as well. When you add in all of the viewer donations along with these proceeds, most of the marathons usually raise above a million dollars during the week of the event. Donating also enters you into random drawings for certain gamer swag, some of which is quite expensive or rare. So, overall, it's just a great thing all around.

This iteration of SGDQ began last weekend and will culminate on Saturday, August 1st with runs of Super Metroid (save the animals!) and Chrono Trigger. (100%, please!) So, if you haven't already checked it out, you still have time! Even if you don't really care much about games, it's still amazing to see people who have near godlike reaction times flying through these beautiful games at an insane pace. So, where can you watch it? Well, you can navigate over to www.gamesdonequick.com and watch from there or you can also catch it on www.twitch.tv. A warning though, turn the twitch chat OFF! It's generally a fairly toxic environment full of negativity and trolls! Anyways, it's great to see something good coming of gaming and I hope you agree and check it out! #GameOn!

Imminent! August arrivals

Hey, hey! New games are a comin'. Are you ready? Each month I will be bringing you an article detailing some of the exciting and popular new gaming releases for the next month. I won't be covering EVERY great new release, it simply wouldn't be feasible. Instead, I'm just going to focus on a small handful. August's list of new releases almost feels like the calm before the storm. Aside from a few releases, most publishers seem to be gearing up for the holiday season. So, shall we see what's on the horizon?

Why do they always seem to put rain in these?

For fans of the Shadowrun series, Shadowrun: Hong Kong will be available for the PC platform on the 20th. In this offering from Harebrained Schemes, players will find themselves in a Hong Kong dominated by megacorporations. There will be a single player campaign as well as a level editor for the more hardcore Shadowrun fan. This level editor will allow anyone to create their own content for Shadowrun and share it with other players through the usual outlets. (Steam, etc) If you like your games a bit grittier, darker, and more futuristic, Shadowrun: Hong Kong might be worth your investment. I'm eager to see the graphical rendering of a future Hong Kong dominated by corporations. Neon everywhere? Probably.

Lisa the Joyful is tentatively set to drop onto Steam on the 25th. This is the third game set in the post apocalyptic Lisa universe. In this game, we will be further introduced to the characters of Buddy and Buzzo (Let's play a game!), and we will learn more about the apocalyptic event that caused most of the world's women to suddenly vanish. While the first game was a bit of a mixed bag overall, if this game is anything like the second game, it should be a great play and well worth the pittance it would cost. If you enjoyed Earthbound as a kid, you'll definitely feel the tugs on your heartstrings when you see the animation style. The writing and subject matter is definitely mature, so take that under advisement.

What would an August be without a Madden release? Yep, it's that time again. Madden NFL 16 is going to attempt to intercept your money on August 25th for PS4, PS3, XboxOne, and Xbox360. As of this post, there are two editions of the game available for purchase; the core version and Madden NFL 16 Deluxe Edition. The deluxe edition will set you back ten extra dollars but yields fifty dollars worth of ultimate team packs. Definitely a great investment for people who enjoy that aspect of the game, but this version is only available as a preorder. When the game launches, that deal will be gone. (Likely replaced by another deal, but who's counting) Along with the usual graphical improvements, EA has promised to deliver a "completely transformed passing game" along with a new game mode known as Draft Champions. As someone who has always enjoyed the off the field aspects of the EA sports titles, I'm looking forward to seeing what this mode is all about.

Geralt, is that you?

The last game in our short list of August releases is Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Acting as a sequel to Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, this story follows Punished "Venom" Snake into Africa and Asia as he seeks vengeance for what happened in the previous installment. As is usual with this series, the game leans more towards stealth rather than shooting. Interestingly, Konami is claiming that the game has improved enemy AI that will adapt to the tactics that Snake uses. For example, if you off a bunch of people with a certain weapon, the enemies will start to take care to protect that part of their body with body armor. Hmm.... There will also be base building in the game. From your home base, you can do things such as develop weapons and items for use and recruit units. In the continuing trend of technological integration, you'll be able to access this base from your smartphone. Neat! Anyways, that's only a few of the slew of things the game is claiming to bring to the table, so both new players and fans of the series will probably enjoy this installment. It will be available for consoles (minus the Wii U) on September 1st and then release for PC on the 15th.

Being that this is a new column, I'm still unsure as to how I want to present this information. Should I keep it brief, or go more in depth on the features of the game? I tend to think the former, because the latter could be very, very long for a single post. Regardless, let me know what you think! Hit me up in the comment section below, on my facebook, or on twitter. Until next time, #GameOn!

On your marks, get set, go! Race season 12 (Emberwake) in Path of Exile

Hey everyone! It's Friday, so I know that you are all in a fantastic mood, assuming that you have a weekend to look forward to. I know that weekends are rapidly becoming irrelevant, especially to those who are cursed with working in a service industry. Regardless, Friday has always had that special feeling about it to me. Perhaps it's a holdover from being a student and longing for the freedom that the weekend brought. Maybe? Whatever! I'm not here to wax philosophical on the psychological implication of comfort days. Let's talk about games!

So, although I am loathe to pen another article about Path of Exile, it seems that it will just have to do. I'm a pretty big believer in writing about things that you care about or are in  your area of expertise, and well, lately I've been eating, breathing, and sleeping this game. I was brainstorming ideas for new Youtube vids and came up with the idea of basically vlogging my efforts during the current race season. So today I'm going to explain a little bit about what racing actually is in Path of Exile. Spoiler; It's fun!

Well played, GGG, well played...

Every few months, Path of Exile releases new "challenge leagues." These leagues are fresh economies where players must start from scratch and build up new empires. Sounds like a terrible idea, right? Well, the catch is that these new leagues have features and changes that are not implemented into the core game yet. So it's basically a very clever way for Grinding Gears Games to fool us into pseudo beta testing an unfinished product. Sometimes, after the challenge leagues the new content makes it into the game as a core feature. Other times, only pieces of the new content make it in. It really depends on the community reaction during the leagues. Also during these challenge leagues, they will have what is called a "race season." Thursday marked the start of the Emberwake racing season. Prior to this season, they've always been called by numerical names, i.e. Season one, Season two. However, this season marks a departure from that naming convention. I suppose this is to highlight the signature feature of this league, fire.

Speaking back towards what racing actually is, the races are (usually) timed events in which fresh characters compete against each other within certain guidelines. For example, a race might be something like 30 minute Endless Ledge. What this means is that the player will have thirty minutes of time to get a character class of their choosing to the highest level they can running the zone Ledge repeatedly. When you finish clearing one ledge and get to the zone exit, you immediately start at the beginning of a new one. You receive points when you finish based on the things that you achieved during the thirty minute timer. Unless you are a very seasoned racer, the majority of the points you get will often come from attaining a certain level. If you hit level 10, you might get 3 race season points. Hit level 15 and maybe the number goes up to 5. You get the point. You can also get points for being the first accomplish certain objectives. If you are the first person to kill a boss in a race, you will almost certainly be given an extra couple of points. If you happen to be in the top 20 in levels for your class at the end, you will be awarded extra points. The race season is kept fresh by having a wide variety of different race events that go on at different times.

In this race season, Emberwake, there are a total of 120 race events scheduled. Yes, 120 events
spread out over the course of a one month period. Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Why would anyone want to devote such a large amount of time to always making fresh characters?" The simple answer is this: rewards! Each race season comes with it's own set of rewards that you can get for accruing a certain amount of points over the course of that season. Some of the rewards are very easy to get to and even a very casual racer could get them racing only a few times, however, other rewards will be challenging for even the best. The rewards are even more desirable because they are alternate art versions of items that are in the game. So not only can you get some of the nicer items in the game, but they will also come with artwork that may never be available in game again. This can seriously affect the price of these items on the market.

I've ran a few races this league so far, and I'm planning on running a good deal more and documenting my efforts with videos on Youtube. So far, I haven't done very well, but for being new to racing, I think I'm doing fine. Have you ever thought about racing before? If you've raced before, what were your experiences with it? Let me know in the comments section below! Have a great weekend!

Po-ta-toes. Holy Potatoes!

Hiyooooooo, I hope all of you had a fabulous weekend. Aside from it being intolerably hot here, mine went swimmingly. Time spent with friends and working on a little somethin', somethin' for you guys to devour. Mmmm...starch! I love me some simulation games and the weirder the better. That's why Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!? caught my eye on Steam. You mean, I can pretend to be a potato while I create weapons for adventurers? Sign me up!

Bulk Bogan, hard at work

Holy Potatoes is a new game published by developer Daylight Studios. They are mainly in the business of making mobile games, so it's not much of a surprise that their game seems like it would be at home if played on a mobile device. For some games, that would definitely be a condemnation of the contents. However, cutesy simulation games seem to hold their own pretty well on any platform, and this game is no exception.

Upon diving into the game, you are quickly introduced to the main plot. Surely fans of the Harvest Moon series will have a smile on their face upon learning that the blacksmith shop was once owned by your grandfather and has been passed down to you upon his demise. We are greeted by a shady character known as Agent 46, who seems driven to help you reopen the weapon shop so he can collect on his 99.9% ownership of the shop. What does this leave you in the shop? To us, it's apparent that it's nothing, but our main character seems to not care as he eagerly gets started following in his grandfather's hallowed footsteps.

The game is centered around your workshop where you forge weapons and then sell them to adventurers from different locations. Not all adventurers are the same, however, and some will pay more $tarch (the game currency) for weapons that suit their interests better. A ranger, for example, might want a bow with a high accuracy stat, but the thief across the room needs a dagger with high speed. As you sell weapons to these adventurers, they use them for, uh, adventures, and gain experience points depending on how well suited it was for them and the craftsmanship. In turn, your weapon shop gains fame which allows you to progress into later areas of the game. It's a fairly simple cycle with just enough bells and whistles to let you get your money's worth out of the game.

Your shop is capable of accommodating a number of blacksmiths, each with their own strengths and
weaknesses. You match their strengths up with the corresponding workstation, and when you are crafting an item, it improves that statistic at a higher rate. The quality of the blacksmith's work is also affected by their mood. Too much work and they get stressed. To combat this, you have to send them on vacations. A few days away, and they come back ready to work! While they are away, you can have your other potato smiths make trips to the store for supplies, explore areas for enchantments and relics, and research using the relics to unlock new things to make. The only stipulation being that at least one spud has to stay at the home base at a time. We wouldn't want our potato dog to be left alone, would we? (Yes, you get a potato dog. Yes, it looks like a potato.)

As you progress through the game, there are many events that can happen and affect your shop and the surrounding area. Some events are minor and will only influence the weapon  you are currently crafting, while some events can affect how much money you will get from selling weapons in a certain place or how much experience you will get. I also saw a neat little event where they give out awards for the best weapons crafted that year. Goals! I'm not sure what you get for winning an event like that, but it will be mine, oh yes!

Would you eat the whole thing?

The game is a fun time waster and for fans of simulation games, I could see putting five to ten hours into the game easily. I haven't played into it too far, but there seems to be a good deal of content to unlock for completionists and, of course, the steam achievements. Aside from a few quality of life improvements I wish the game had, such as a buy max button at the store or an option to auto position your potato smiths when they return from an errand, I've really enjoyed spending time with this game. If you like quirky, silly simulation games with a bit of strategy thrown into the mix, you'll probably enjoy Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!?, too. It's available on Steam for 14.99. If you pick it up, let me know how you like it! #GameOn!