Underneath my yellow skin

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Birdigo, indies, and when a game just misses, part four

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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.


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Birdigo after 100%ing it, part three

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I have a bit more to say about Birdigo (John August, Corey Martin) and indie games in general. At the end of the last post (which you can read here), I mentioned that I was surprised when I got the ‘win each round with one word’ achievement. It was anticlimactic because I did not realize I had won it until after it was over. I had been going at it for so long, I didn’t know quite what I was supposed to do when I actually won or how I was supposed to feel.

It reminds me of when the boys fought

*SPOILER*

Malenia for three days in their Elden Ring (FromSoft) playthrough. And, yes, it’s amusing to me to spoiler tag a boss from another game in this post. Part of the series evolved into Rory soloing every boss as long as there were no NPC summons to summon (and even sometimes then). In Elden Ring, they decided through trial and error that he would not use the spirit ashes for bosses. Krupa said to Gav that he (Gav) would one day rue that decree, but to Rory’s credit, he adamantly refused to use the spirit ash during the Malenia fight.

They edited down the footage, obviously, but they revealed that it was fifteen hours in total over four days. They did not even show any of the footage for one of the days. I think? They split it into three episodes, and each was over two hours. The last was almost two-and-a-half hours. It was epic, and the struggle was so real. The reason I mention it is because when he fginally beat her, the celebration was muted. I mean, the initial celebration was pretty hyped, but it subsided quickly. It became much more an expression of relief than excitement. Rory said something about not knowing what to do because he should be running back to fight Malenia again (massive paraphrase). He died 265 times to her, and you could see it wearing on all three of them in the last episode.

Anyway, this is me whenever I go for a plat. I go blank on the inside and something deep inside of me almost gets angry. Like, “You’re not the boss of me, and I’m going to do this!” Who it’s saying it to, I have no idea. Also me, probably. This is why I don’t do competitive sports–I’m way too hard on myself when I do.

It’s funny. It’s not so much that I care about winning and losing–though I do to a certain extent. It’s just me feeling like I’m not doing enough. It’s all about me winning and losing against myself–not me winning and losing against anyone else.

I just now realized that Birdigo sounds like vertigo. D’oh! Huh. The video I’m including is an interview with the two devs. I didn’t realize that the game was a card game first (called AlphaBird). Huh. Made by the same two guys. Thats’ pretty cool!


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Birdigo–those last three achievements, part two

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I’m back to write more about Birdigo (John August, Corey Martin), 100%ing it, and my gripes with indie games in general. Before I get into it, here’s my post from yesterday. I started talking about the three achievements I needed to 100% this game, and then I justt migrated (heh) all over the place.

I am so bad when it comes to sticking to a subject because everything is connected in my brain. So, I may start out by mentioning that I 100%ed the game, and that makes me think about the game, of course. Then, I think about what I didn’t like about the game and/or what frustrated me. That got me to thinking about what I didn’t like about indie games in general, which then led to me broadening that out to games in general.

Then, I give in to my to rant about how much I hate certain things in tutorials–and then I forget what I wanted to talk about in the first place. Or I run out of time/desire/will to talk about it. This is how my brain works, much to my dismay.

Speaking of, I just tried the demo for a typing game that has absolutely no tutorial; it was frustrating as hell. Also, here is one of my pet peeves in games: limited inventory. In the demo I tried, it’s a farming/cooking sim with something like 10 slots of inventory. 10!!! It encourages you to go out and explore so you can pick up ingredients for your recipes. Except I can go about two steps and pick up ten things (I can pick up several of each item, but 10 different items total). I can barely go to the next area before I have to return to put tihngs in my box.

By the way, I had to find that on my own. They don’t tell you there’s a box. Also, I got into the restaurant biz because my grandfather died and deeded it to me (of course).

I don’t mind a nonsensical or unbelievable premise, but I do mind not being able to figure out what to do. I will give a shout-out that they allowed me to type in Dvorak without switching up the keyboard.

Anyway. Back to Birdigo.

I used the Lean Deck to tackle the win a route by using one word per round. I didn’t think I could do it with the Feral Deck because I did not have the confidence that I could consistently–wait. I think at some point I changed to the Feral Deck because I realized that if I could only use one word per round, then I might as well use this deck and have six wild cards.


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Birdigo after 100%ing it

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I have finally 100%ed Birdigo (John August, Corey Martin). Here was what I had to say in my A Quick Review about it. As usual, the one achievement I thought would be the hard one was the easiest (and the first of the three that I got). Let’s review. The three achievements I had left were–

Before I get into how I did each of the three achievements, I want to talk a bit about the different decks. The first is the classic deck. It’s the most well-rounded of the decks and it has no penalties. It has two or three of each consonant and four of each vowel. And one wildcard. It’s what I used for most of my gameplay until I realized the usefulness of using the more thinned out decks.

You have to unlock the other decks under certain cirumstances. Some of them are joke decks like the Pirate Deck, which you unlock by playing one word with 3 Rs in it (I had to look it up, obviously). There are three decks that I consider joke decks (Gadsby Deck, Pirate Deck, and Alphabet Deck. Well, the last one is not a joke, exactly, but it’s a deck that only has one of each letter. And you get one extra word at the start. You unlock it by playing each letter at least once in the same run.

The Pirate Deck has 9 Rs in it and one wildcard. The Gadsby Deck is unlocked by winning a run without using an E. The deck has no E, but you start with 10 seeds. (Seeds are used to buy feathers and songs, both of which will help with the run). And it has one wildcard. I have never won a run with any of these three decks because the wackiness of them did not appeal to me.

Oh! The two decks that I consider more serious. One is the Lean Deck. It has one of every consonant (well, two of a few like S and T) and three of every vowel (except U. Only one of that) And one wildcard. But you also get one less discard.

Finally, there’s the Feral Deck. This has the same letters as the Lean Deck, but it gives you six wildcards instead of just one. And you get one less word. Normally, you start with three words, which means you start with two (there are ways to add words). This is the deck that is often said to be the best overall–if you’re comfortable only making two wourds per round (for the first few rounds at least).  This is the deck that most people seem to recommend for–well, just about everything.

As a reminder, these were the three achievements I had left:

1. Win a run by passing each round using only one word.

2. Win seven daily migrations (daily run. I don’t know how they were seeded, but you had to finish them in the same day. Or rather, the same run. I’ll get more to that later).

3. Finish the final route (Short-tailed Shearwater). It’s not the longest or shortest of the routes, but–I’ll get to that in a minute, too.


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Birdigo; A Quick Review

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Birdigo (John August, Corey Martin) is my casual/cozy word game that I am currently playing. It’s a word game that is a combination of Scrabble and Balatro (Local Thunk). You are a bird and you have to score words to make the filgght to each stop on a route. There are different conditions for each route, and you have to finish one to unlock the next.

There are feathers that modify something for the whole run. Like, you get ten flaps per each X you play. Flaps are points. There is also a power stat, and you multiple the two. I never know exactly how many points I’ll be getting per hand, which makes things very interesting.

This game very much has that “Just one more run” feel to it. Not quite as much as Balatro did, but that’s a good thing. I got so lost in that game; it really felt like an addiction that I just couldn’t quit. I lost actual days to the challenges, and at one point, I was so focused on finishing the Orange Stakes on the Plasma Deck, I had lost all the joy of playing the game. It’s supposedly the easiest deck, but it was the hardest one for me. I just could not get the hang of it, and there was a point where I was actively hating the game. That’s when I walked away from the game.

This is one of my issues (and probably partly because of me being neuroatypical): When I get into something, I get obsessed with it. It’s all I can think of, and I cannot let it go. It can be a good thing, such as with my martial arts. It allows me to focus on, say, the Double Fan Form until I taught the whole thing to myself. It took a year, yes, but I kept at it through the tough times. I don’t know why I didn’t quit–well, yes I do. It’s sheer stubbornness, really. I’m not competitive with other people, but I’m very competitive with myself.

I challenge myself to be the best, however, and sometimes, I’m too hard on myself. That’s because I’m Asian; that’s how we do. It’s also because I had parents who didn’t say much of anything nice about me or to me. Yes, that was partly an Asian thing, but it was also dysfunction. One thing I say to people is just because something is cultural, it doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. What I mean by that is that every culture has its negative aspects, and I used to bristle when people tried to hold up Asians as the model minority because it’s just another way of not seeing us as individuals.

How the hell did I get here from where I was? I’m not sure, but whatever.

Back to the game! Oh, I see how I got there.

Anyway.


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