Monthly Archives: May 2018

Blog: The Big Bonza – 05/30/18

I’ve always hated crossword puzzles. I was always much more of a word search guy myself. Which probably explains why I like the Bonza games so much, they’re basically combining the two puzzles into one.

BONZA

We start with the purest of all the games in the series, Bonza is all about the crosswords. You start off with some puzzle packs, each containing about 30 puzzles or so. Completing each puzzle as well as completing entire puzzle packs give you some in game currency. You use this currency to buy more packs but can also use real money to speed up the process if you need to. The economy here remains untouched for the majority of the series.

BONZA: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The Nat Geo version of Bonza is almost identical to the original game except for two very important distinctions. The Nat Geo version contains categories that focus on animals and locations and such, you know, National Geographic type stuff. But they also add in jigsaw puzzles too. “Here’s a picture of a tiger, it’s all jumbled up, fix his face.” As mundane as that addition may sound, it was totally a game changer that broke up the monotony of just doing crossword puzzles. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt that way either.

BONZA: JIGSAW

So they went ahead and made Bonza Jigsaw, a game that is all about the jigsaw puzzles. With added challenges like rotating pieces and blind images, it really adds a lot to the experience. The problem is, there is kind of a paywall in this one. As you complete puzzles you get experience. New levels grant you a new puzzle pack. Unfortunately you’ll find yourself just a few XP short once and a while. And for one 6 dollars you can unlock 4 more packs. I’ve spent 12 dollars already. I don’t feel bad about it either, I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out these games and it seems fair that I kick them some cash for it. I just don’t like how in this one I hit the paywall twice already. But hey, it’s still a fun game.

So yeah, Bonza, it’s a series of really fun apps that are all technically free. I strongly recommend these games if you’re looking for a way to kill time.

Blog: Mundane? More Like Fun-Dane! – 05/23/18

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So here’s the thing, I like playing what could be perceived as mundane games. Games that make you play through something that resembles an actual job. These games are great for when I want to play something but not really have to pay attention to it. You could call them, “Games to Watch Movies To.” Here are some of my favorites.

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HOUSE FLIPPER

This one is pretty new and I’m kind of in love with it. The premise is that you’re a contractor who is tasked with fixing all the shit wrong with a house. Painting walls, cleaning the garbage out, refurnishing, patching holes in the wall, etc. You do this until you can afford to buy some rundown dumpster homes, and make it a house worth selling. Rinse and repeat. The game is kind of broken and has some quality of life issues that need to be addressed, but I still think it’s great.

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CAR MECHANIC SIMULATOR

Now, I’ve only played Car Mechanic Simulator 2015, but I’m fairly certain I can recommend the others in the series safely. There’s something oddly satisfying about buying a rusted out shitbox of a car for pennies on the dollar, fixing that baby up and selling it for five times what I paid for it. That and it was kind of cool to get an inside look at the engine of a car.

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AMERICAN TRUCK SIMULATOR

This one is awesome. You drive a big ol’ truck across a vague representation of the west coast of America, delivering various sorts of cargo. It’s a good game to listen to a podcast to. My only hangup with American Truck Simulator is that I don’t have a racing wheel, which would make that experience so much better.

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VISCERA CLEANUP DETAIL

This one has been around for a while and is probably the easiest way to waste a few hours. The concept is pretty stellar. You play as a janitor who is cleaning up a level after the protagonist of a shooter got done with it. That means cleaning all the blood and guts out of the level. It’s super repetitive and can even be mind numbing to an extent, but still oddly satisfying when you finally finish cleaning everything.

Finding Joy in the Mundane

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Over the past few days I’ve really made a concerted effort to make my way through God of War. I genuinely do love that game but have found the toughest part about continuing my play-through of it to be just motivating myself to turn my PS4 on and dive back in. It’s a game that demands your undivided attention, but sometimes I just don’t have it in me to give it that. Sometimes I’d rather put on a TV show in one monitor and a more relaxing game in the other. A game that I barely have to pay attention to and go at my own pace.

This isn’t anything new for me though. I’ve spent almost 200 hours playing Cities: Skylines, and never once have I played without unlimited money. In the case of Cities: Skylines, it’s cathartic for me to just watch something I’ve made grow autonomously. I can glance over at it every few minutes and buy a new hospital or fix a traffic jam and then resume watching something else.

That’s not pollution, these are just thunderstorm factories

I remember doing this kind of thing a lot back when I played Star Wars Galaxies. There was a lot of grinding in that game, and trying to pay 100% attention to it was a sure fire way to get me to lose focus and fall asleep. I have friends who have done the same thing with World of Warcraft and other MMO games in the past and currently do it with games like Hearthstone.

It’s nice to be able to play something without having to be absorbed by it. Not so long ago I was using Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 for this very purpose. There was something satisfying about fixing customers’ busted up cars. It got even better when I had enough money to start buying rusted out husks of cars, repairing them, and selling them for an insane profit. I was putting the best parts on my cars, and using the limited customization options to put a unique spin on them. It was fun for a while until the lack of diversity in the cars and scenarios eventually got to me and I moved on.

With this Swiffer, I will conquer this room

More recently I’ve found a newly released game called House Flipper to fill the same void. In two days, I managed to blow through all of the built in scenarios and move on to the actual flipping of houses portion of the game. To preface, this is a game in which you are a handyman who is contracted to clean out abandoned houses, paint walls, install toilets and so on and so forth. You basically rebuild houses for people until you have enough cash to buy some gross homes, fix everything wrong with it, and sell it.

After 15 hours or so with it, I don’t think it is a very good game. It has some really bad performance issues, a ton of “jank” to it, and it’s missing some really core functionality. I should be able to see the information for the job I’m doing while at the house I’m working on. I should also be able to designate a room as a bathroom or a living room so a potential buyer doesn’t cryptically criticize my work while also being the highest bidder on the home. But despite all of these shortcomings, I really am enjoying the game and am eager to see what changes the developers make to it along the way.

Who says you need to move furniture to do construction?

I’ve had people ask me why I bother playing games like this when all they do is recreate a job I could actually do in the real world. It’s a valid point, I get that some people wouldn’t find any fun in playing these kinds of games when they could or actually do perform these tasks in real life. But I don’t think I would actually ever want to flip houses for a living or fix cars for that matter. I don’t actually have the talent or the tools to get those jobs done either. In House Flipper, they started me off with a home, some cash, clients, tools and most importantly the ability to paint walls by just clicking on them for 3 seconds. It’s the simplification and gamification of these tasks that really holds the allure for me.

These kinds of games aren’t for everyone, I get that. Some people get their fix from grinding levels in Destiny or by building up stats in The Sims. Sometimes you’re looking for something to really sink your teeth into, while other times you just want to play a more passive role. That’s what these games are for me, fun ways to waste time and still get a sense of satisfaction out of it.

Blog: Distraction Ball Z – 05/16/18

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eat it bitch

If you’re a regular follower of The Bonus World, you might have noticed that its been kind of quiet lately. It isn’t a sign of some major dysfunction or anything, in fact we’ve been doing some planning on the back end in terms of site navigation and show planning. The real issue has been Dragon Ball Z.

I’m not kidding either, instead of actually streaming something right now, I’m writing this while watching yet another episode. It’s been like this since I figured out a way to watch the series again. All of this was spurred on by the release of Dragon Ball Fighter Z earlier this year and compounded by the folks over at Giant Bomb watching the series for the first time and chronicling it in their podcast “All Systems Goku.”

I’ve never considered myself a huge fan Dragon Ball or anime in general, but all of these exterior forces encouraged me to revisit a series that was an after school staple back when it aired on Toonami. I’m about 80 episodes into the series at the time of writing this and I’m super enjoying it so far.

There’s a lot I could say about DBZ, I could write for days about it. But I’ll keep this short and just hit you with some of my general notes thus far:

Goku is an absolute moron. He has good heart, but he’s a complete dope.
Vegeta is cool, but can also be a colossal doofus.
Yamcha is the worst.
Krillin isn’t as bad as I remember.
Trunks is in this way more than I recalled.
Chi Chi sucks.
King Kai is actually the best character on the show.

But yeah, I guess the point I’m really trying to drive home is that Dragon Ball Z Kai has been a problem for me. I need to break myself of this “one more episode” syndrome that I’ve come down with, but sometimes those cliffhangers are really good and I need to see what the next episode of “Let’s Stall Till Goku Shows Up” goes.

Blog: Slump – 05/09/18

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slump

For the past few days I’ve been racking my brain about what to write for today. Usually something will jump out at me or I’ll be able to conjure up some topic to discuss. This week has been a little tougher though.

It’s weird, the past few weeks I’ve slowed down a little on gaming and I’m not exactly sure why that is. Sure the obvious answers could be things like there hasn’t been much I’ve wanted to play, or time constraints have really been at an all time high. While those things are factors for sure, it still feels like something more is at play.

Maybe it’s the fact that I have 500+ games on my Steam library at my disposal, and instead of choosing to actually play anything, I end up choosing nothing. Maybe as the weather gets nicer I just don’t want to spend all my time inside. Who can say really?

When I do end up playing something, it usually tends to be something that doesn’t command a lot of my time or attention for too long. For instance, I still play Cities Skylines cause I barely have to pay attention to it while I’m watching Netflix or whatever. The same goes for Dragon Ball Fighter Z because a match only occupies minutes of my attention at a time.

And it isn’t like I don’t have a backlog worth digging into. I’ve still got Far Cry 5, God of War and Yakuza 6 waiting in the wings for me. Then I stupidly decided to start replaying Watch_Dogs 2 cause I thoroughly enjoyed that game when it came out. I think I need like a week off to really dig into these experiences, but even if I had the time there’s no guarantee I wouldn’t just do nothing instead.

Blog: Anyone Wanna VR? – 05/02/18

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htc-vive-dktz

For the past few months I’ve had the privilege of having open access to an optimal virtual reality environment. There’s a big studio space with a beefy computer and an HTC Vive connected to it. In theory it’s awesome, but I’ve found my desire to take advantage of it waned more and more over time.

For context, I was part of an internship program at my college to investigate whether VR was a viable technology to bring into the classroom. I’d weigh all factors, be it gaming, education or whatever. If it was a unique VR experience, I was supposed to look at it and make a value judgement against it. It was a really broad concept that didn’t really have much in the ways of boundaries, which is probably a factor in why my interest in VR has plummeted.

Let me clarify here, I don’t hate VR. In fact, if anything I’m more excited about VR as a technology than ever before. It really is what all the gaming outlets described it as, where you need to try it to understand it. But that’s well worn territory.

What really fell out of favor for me was just getting myself excited to use it. Here we had this optimal set up, the sensors were set up almost all the time, and the space was clear. Essentially, all I had to do was put on the helmet and go. But I rarely wanted to.

Maybe it was a lack of software that killed my drive for it. We had some things like Job Simulator and Duck Season, even SUPERHOT VR at the ready. Those experiences were fun for sure, but not something I’d want to do for extended periods of play. We found some fun and interesting free applications as well which helped add variety to the mix, but it never really clicked for me. I had fun with these games and experiences, but after the first few times in them, the fun for me really boiled down to showing it to other people and getting their reactions.

There was a sound design class that rolled into the studio that got to play around with Sound Stage, the now unsupported music creation software. It’s a super robust and intuitive beat maker to say the least. If you have a Vive, I would recommend it, especially considering the developers dumped the files online for free. But that was probably the high point in my demonstrations. Being able to see a class look at this technology and have it instantly click how cool it is was an awesome feeling.

But that was it for me really. Showing the technology got to be more interesting than actually using it myself. At first, I’d get multiple people asking me for demos and opportunities to play around, but lately no one really seems interested. Somehow virtual reality got mundane for everyone involved.

Still, in the end VR is still a super exciting concept to me. Maybe the reason for it waning in popularity in our space is on me. Maybe people just don’t quite grasp the concept of it until I forcibly strap this helmet to their heads. Or maybe virtual reality isn’t the thing that gets people excited after all. Maybe mixed reality or augmented reality are the ones that will catch on. But for now, the desire to “get virtual” just isn’t there for most people, myself included.