Jevnation's 2020 Challenge Post

Grouvee Game Challenge
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  • G2: Skills & Things We Want - Powerful Vehicle
    Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet - Grouvee review here! :red:

  • G5: Seven Basic Plots - The Quest
    Supraland - Easily described as a first-person platformer, Supraland brings out a world of tiny, colored people inhabiting a sandbox filled with memorable locations, puzzle gadgets and tons of secrets for your story and collectable progress. Although the main plot of the conflict between reds and blues are relatively short, the amount of quests that side-tracks you yields possibilities for you to find new items and abilities for you to overcome obstacles. There isn’t a lot of substance to the story but Supraland is surely a joy for explorers to figure out and discover practical collectibles behind every corner. If first-person platformer with puzzle elements is something for you, there is a demo available. :SupraNeutral:

  • G2: Skills & Things We Want - Ninja / Parkour Skills
    Super Panda Adventures - Grouvee review here! :tyler:

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  • G6: Life - Living in a utopia
    Scrap Garden - The Day Before - Pretty much what you can expect from the devs’ debut: It’s short, a little disjointed, limited gameplay core but they sure worked enough to bring it some charm to a simple robot, being sent out to save the day. It’s nothing special, other than connecting the story with its sequel as the main game, which is… :bolt:

  • G5: Seven Basic Plots - Rebirth
    Scrap Garden - Grouvee review here! :onbriefing:

  • G4: Mother Earth - Weather Changes
    112 Operator - Grouvee review here! :PoliceUnits:

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  • G6: Life - Living in a Dystopia
    Alwa’s Awakening - Grouvee review here!

  • G7: The Title - Signs
    CROSSBOW: Bloodnight - Grouvee review here!

  • G1: Developer - Developer acting as a subsidiary
    Red Faction Guerilla Re-Mars-tered - The original release of RF Guerilla brought a ground-breaking experience in free-roaming action game with destructible structures, for a guy like me who shies away from building games like Minecraft (heh). Now, I just made a 3rd playthrough with the Re-Mars-tered version, which supposedly buffs the graphics quality with modern functions.

    Alas, while these may be barely noticeable, the gameplay has gotten worse due to new bugs and altered physics. For the latter, the vehicle driving turned more painful because they are sensitive to uneven roads to the point that a slight bump will get it flying off the road, making timed car retrieval missions much more difficult. Even some other missions were failed where the mission critical NPC driver ended down the cliffs or flipped over on its side and exploded.

    It’s hard to understand how a graphically remastered version turned out for some worse gameplay experiences. The multiplayer is also quite dead, unless you look up on Discord channels. If you don’t care for the outdated graphics and more for the substance of the content, stick with the original.

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:star2: Holiday double special! :star2:
I had some plans earlier to make franchise-focused batches for this challenge, although I took too long to get through all the modern XCOM products. Still, it’s plenty enough for a making a trio.

This happens to be the first post where I (after some crunch and organization) have managed to complete at least one of the groups for the Grouvee challenge. One week remains, so I’m gonna hustle with hopes to make ends finally meet.

With all things said… Happy holidays! :christmas_tree:

  • G6: Life - Read A Book
    The Forest of Doom - Grouvee review here

  • G6: Life - To The Arcade
    Beat Saber - Grouvee review here

  • G6: Life - Road Trip
    The Wheels of Aurelia - Played on Epic Games. I’ve returned to this game I’ve checked off earlier without writing. The Wheels of Aurelia is a top-down driving game with dialogue-driven narrative. I get that there are branching paths (literally and figuratively) that decides the outcome of the car journey through the 1970’s Italy. All in all, the prog rock enthusiast in me can rejoice in the soundtrack featuring rock progressivo italiano.Besides that, this game didn’t leave me keen coming back after reaching one ending. The intrigue hasn’t developed enough to be intriguing for me and it’s hard to enjoy when my attention gets too divided between driving and dialogue. At least I got it for free on Epic Games.

  • G3: Newspaper Headlines - UFO & Supernatural
    The Bureau: XCOM Declassified - Grouvee review here

  • G3: Kill not the goose… - Reboot / Remake
    XCOM: Enemy Unknown (incl. all DLC’s) - Grouvee review here

  • G6: Life - To The Future!
    (And thus, the final piece to completing the first challenge group!)
    XCOM 2 (including the War of the Chosen and Tactical Legacy DLC’s) - Grouvee review here

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With so little time, I’ve got to scramble around to fill in the last gaps I’ve yet to complete in this Grouvee challenge. Therefore, I will write and post the reviews of the remaining games after the new year. Here below, marks another 2 groups completed (only one tier 3 group missed by 1 game, ouch). The challenge was fun and productive, though I feel there are improvements I have to make for a more focused challenge run. Exit 2020! Happy new year! :fireworks:

  • G5: Seven Basic Plots - Rags to Riches
    UnderMine - Even in early access back then, its contents are enough to warrant a full-on, roguelike experience. Playing as one among the miners that is seeking fortune, you are in time rather caught up in an intrigue devised by the realm’s royalty and lesser beings.
    UnderMine has a gameplay mechanic similar to Binding of Isaac: Exploring and fighting through different rooms between the underground levels while you discover and trade a wide array of unlockable relics and blessings. Those elements, along with a fluid pacing, primarily makes for an unpredictable and addictive fun of the action-RPG game.

  • G1: Developer/Publisher - Square-Enix
    Final Fantasy IV - Grouvee review here

  • G1: Developer/Publisher - Nintendo
    Super Mario Run - Grouvee review here

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And that concludes my duty for the Grouvee Challenge 2020, one that I had a free way with going about and ending with some crunch-time to fill in some blanks. With that said, it was a fun and productive way to deal with the backlog and now, I’ll wind down for a while and go for what suits my mood.

Total games I’ve gotten over with is 105 games (not including DLC’s), most of them taking part of the challenge here. There are still lots to go, though, but I acknowledge that change is possible. Especially when you are keeping track.

With all that said, enjoy the final outcome on the list in the first post’s link. Jevnation signing out! Game on!

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