Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. I was busy with family due to the holidays, but I still found some time to finish Kentucky Route Zero, play through Pine Tar Poker, and catch up on some other games. I’m still working on my GOTY list and should hopefully have it ready in the next few days. But for now, let’s talk about this week’s games.

Pine Tar Poker

I know so little about poker and even manage to forget everything I learn whenever I try a poker-themed video game. I was intrigued by Pine Tar Poker, though, and I’m glad I didn’t let my biases about poker keep me from playing it. The way the game works is you’re dealt five cards. There are poker hands listed at the top of the screen and you can only cash each one in once per game. For instance, a flush is worth 80 points, but once you collect that you can’t make another flush unless it’s a straight flush, which is worth 250. You also have a limited number of deals before you have to select something. If you fail to, it’s game over. There are some tricks you can fall back on when things get tight, though. If you select Pine Tar, you get points for your whole hand, regardless of what’s in it. But again, you can only use it once. So as you get deeper into each game it’s going to be harder and harder to keep it going. But there’s also a shop where you can buy different trinkets that have mysterious powers. The most useful ones are tiles that you earn through “fortunes” that allow you to manipulate the cards. For instance, one of them allows you to increase a card number by 1, while another decreases it by 1. There’s also a whole separate table you can unlock that has different hands and the possibility for higher scores. There’s so much more to this game than is first apparent, and I just had to see it through to the end. I highly recommend checking it out even if you’re not a poker fan. And if you need help with any of it, I have more videos here.

Kentucky Route Zero

I started Kentucky Route Zero a couple of weeks back and slowly made my way through it since I wanted to play a full act at a time. It was certainly a strange game with a lot to say, and I never could tell what would be around the bend. It plays out in five acts, but there are interludes between each. One of my favorite interludes was just a phone with a phone number next to it. When you call that number, you get a recording with a whole bunch of options. I spent a good amount of time listening to things like bat calls and instructions on handling a snake. I kept going back in for more, but I still didn’t listen to everything available. And a lot of the game is like that, since you often have to make dialogue choices or even decide between two locations to visit. So there’s a lot replay value if you’re interested in that, but I’ll probably just stick with what I’ve already seen. I also really liked the way the final act was portrayed, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. This was definitely a journey worth taking and I recommend playing through it if you have a Netflix subscription. I also have all my videos here if you want to see more,

Little Inferno

I played Little Inferno a long time ago, but the developers added a holiday DLC a couple of weeks ago and I started over with it. This week I got far enough to see the new ending they added for the DLC and it was quite enjoyable. I can’t remember if the original has anything similar, but I still have about 70 combos to discover, so it’s possible I’ll still get something when I complete them all. I had a good time with the Ho Ho Holiday update, but I still find the timers annoying — especially when I’m recording. It especially makes it tough to experiment with the combos, but I’ll probably work on those anyway in the coming weeks. Again, if you want to see more, I have all my videos here.

Alba: A Wildlife Adventure

A while back, the Apple Arcade game, Alba, got another small content update that added four new animals to find. It took me a while to get to it, but I finally played through it and added it to my walkthrough. This update was very brief, but it was nice revisiting the island and searching for new animals. Hopefully we’ll see more updates like this in the future.

Genshin Impact

And last, I’m still playing Genshin Impact, though there isn’t a whole lot going on right now. I’ve been enjoying the return of Windtrace and I managed to get 36 stars in Spiral Abyss even though it was very difficult this time. I’m skipping both the Raiden and Ayato banners and saving my primogems for Dehya and a weapon banner. I think 3.4 is supposed to bring a new area to explore, so I’m mostly just biding my time till then.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to this past week. I’m also on the third season of For All Mankind now. I’m enjoying it, but find the timeline a bit silly. I don’t see how they could have made this amount of progress in such a short time. I’m also not sure what they were thinking with the whole Karen/Danny storyline and I can’t believe they carried it on into the third season. I’ll still stick with it, but that seemed so unnecessary. Anyway, let me know in the comments section which games you’re playing, and I’ll see you back here next time with more of My Week Unwrapped.