I have one last post in me for the 100%ing of Birdigo (John August, Corey Martin), and then it’s time to move on. I’m so relieved that I got the plat so that I don’t have to play the game again. That is no diss against the game, but a diss against my obsessive nature.
Side note (yes, this soon into the post): In the Discord I’m in, there’s a joke that me and a woman who is very similar to me are the same person. She recently moved to Minnesota, too, so that makes it even funnier. Separately, there is another woman who I’ve become quite close to offline (meaning in DMs). We like to joke that we are the same person as well. Shes’ the one who alerted me to the fact that I might be neurospicy, and I’ll be forever grateful to her.
Today, in the Discord, they were cracking wise about being neurospicy (ADHD for one and ADHD/autistic for the other) and how they had to pay the neurospicy tax. One penalty was the result of getting interested in an activity, being passionate for about ten seconds, and then losing all desire in it. They both commented earsier than I did, so when I wake up, I get a bunch of fun posts to read and respond to.
The two I mentioned above were commiserating about all the things they had stored in their closets because of this neurodivergency trait. They joked that this is how it was for children, obviously, as they were adults and most definitely did not do that. I laughed in rueful recognition when I read their comments because I most definitely did not do that, either. I was a grown-ass adult who most definitely did not have closets filled with jigsaw puzzles I’d never even opened (which I posted).
Anyway, this is the reason why once I go past a certain point in an activity, I have to keep going until I do it. It didn’t matter if I was happy about it or enjoyed it; I just had to do it.
Let’s talk about that final achievement. It was winning one run for the last route (Short-Tailed Shearwater). This route had 22 stops with the last stop being 20,000 flaps (points). This is middling when it comes to number of stops and number of flaps. I don’t know why this was the last to unlock as it wasn’t special in any way. In fact, I think that’s part of the reason I struggled with it. It was just meh–and a grind. Oh, here’s my post from yesterday in which I talk about the second achievement and indie games in general.
It’s funny because in looking up the name of the last route, I ran across a guide as to how to win. The first tip was to stick to one strategy. I laughed ruefully because I learned that way too late. I would say this is probably the most important tip as it’s too easy to get swayed–especially for me and my neurodivergent brain. But it really benefits you to establish your strategy early and stick with it.
It also benefits you to try to find the synergies that will boost your strategy. Of course that’s where RNG plays a part in that you have to decide which strategy you want to use and stick with it. That means that you have to pass on oter legit strategies even if they show up later.
The problem is, at least for me, the strategy to get the last three achievements quickly became the same. It was to get as many enchanted letter as possible (speckled, gold, platinum, and diamond), and then get the feathers and songs that support that. This included feathers that boosted when you had enchanted letters in the word you submitted and one that gave you a buff for every enchanted letter you had in hand. That was how I won the ‘one word per round’ challenge, and I carried it over to the last two achievements.
I also took the +10 power if the word is over 6 letters and +5 power f or words that have an odd number of letters. For some reason, I prefer the feathers that have +power rather than +flaps, even though it doesn’t really matter because they multiple together. The only thing that’s different is when there is a power that is a multiplier and not additive. Those are really hard to get, though, so I basically didn’t bother.
What I mean is that, for example, there’s one feather that gives you X2 power if you use a word that you’ve used before this migration. They do list the words you’ve used, so that’s helpful. But it’s not really practical to try to go for the same word–especially as it’s not just the word–it’s also where you use wildcards. Yes, that’s right. You have to match the wild cards you used in the word in the past, too. that makes it something I really did not want to try to do.
This is one of my biggest complaints about the game, actually. The feathers don’t count for wild cards. There’s one that gives you +2 power for each vowel in the word used. Which, great! Except if you use a wild card instead of vowel, it doesn’t count.
It’s one of the complaints I’ve seen in the forums, but it hasn’t been changed. I don’t think it will, which, I feel is fine. I don’t like it, but also, it’s a minor complaint. It’s an indie game, and as I’ve said before, I am much more forgiving. In this case, it was two guys making the game. That’s incredible! I mean, many of the games I’ve played have less than five people on the dev team. I can only show them mad respect.
It’s funny. The game that came out today and has been pumped up by the cozy crowd has 18 people on the dev team (yes, I just looked it up). So not a big team at all. It’s really weird because I thought it was a bigger team than that given how big a scope the game seemed to have. But, no. It’s just a small team with grand ideas (and I’m all for it, to be clear).
I have so much admiration for a tiny/small team that works tirelessly to make their dream game come true.
Back to this game. I had a great time with it, and I’m glad I played it. I wish I could have stopped myself before I went for the last three achievements, but I know how I am. That was only to be expected.