My Week Unwrapped: March 10, 2022 – Ultra Blade, Stuffo, Clue, Tacape, IDEA and More

Hi everyone, and welcome back to My Week Unwrapped, where I discuss all the games I’ve been playing over the last seven days. You may have noticed I didn’t do any roundup for the last few weeks. I unfortunately had to put my beloved cat to sleep and am also dealing with another family emergency, so I’m cutting back on work and only doing what feels right. So this roundup will cover everything since my last one. I likely still won’t get back to doing this weekly just yet, so please bear with me and thank you for your understanding.

Ultra Blade

Since Vampire Survivors was my 2022 GOTY, it was hard to resist grabbing Ultra Blade as a distraction. And I did enjoy it for a while. Even though I only recorded a couple of videos on my iPad, I switched to playing on my iPhone and put in quite a few hours. I even found my favorite character — one that shoots off cyclones at enemies. But eventually the grind became too much and I lost interest. I still think it’s a great game, but it could benefit from a speedier grind to keep players from burning out before even unlocking all the characters. There’s so many characters and it costs so much of a specific currency to buy them — even the ones you unlock through an achievement. If you don’t mind that, it’s worth checking out. And the price is cheap enough even if you only play for a few hours before moving on.

Stuffo the Puzzle Bot

Stuffo the Puzzle Bot is a pretty well-made puzzler in which you need to move and place boxes in order to get Stuffo to the exit. There are also extra objects to pick up in certain levels for more of a challenge, and already I’m seeing some new mechanics that I haven’t completely figured out yet. At any other time, I would probably be playing the hell out of this and trying to make a walkthrough. But right now I need games that go easier on my brain so I can mostly turn it off. But what I’ve played of it was satisfying to solve and I can see it’s going to be a tricky game. If you’re a puzzle fan, it seems like an easy recommendation.

Adventure Escape Mysteries – Clue: The Murder of Mr. Black

Haiku Games have a collaboration going on with Hasbro, and they made an Adventure Escape game based on the Clue board game. It features all the familiar characters — Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, Miss Peacock and more — and one of them has murdered Mr. Black. You need to investigate and question all of them in order to figure out who killed Mr. Black, in which room, and with what weapon. The game is on the easy side, but it was still entertaining. What I don’t get is why it’s only available for 30 days. And the timer started two weeks ago. So if you’re interested in playing, you really should get on that soon. And if you get stuck, I have a step-by-step walkthrough guide.

Tacape

I’m a big fan of card-based roguelikes, so Tacape seemed right up my alley. I also liked the art style, so I was excited to give it a try. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really do anything new and it feels very clunky, which is making it hard for me to enjoy it. The animations are slow, making the whole game feel slugging. But the most aggravating aspect is that the cards are all squished together and too hard to make out without pulling each one out individually to look at it. And on top of that, I keep grabbing the wrong card, like the touch controls are off. It’s just too much effort for a game that isn’t exciting enough. I also don’t like how every time I complete a chapter and unlock the next one, I have to restart from the beginning instead of continuing on. It makes no sense to me. I can understand starting over if I die, but if I successfully defeated the boss, why can’t I just continue? I can’t really recommend playing it in its current state when there are so many other options that are far more enjoyable.

IDEA: Drone camera calm puzzle

I like the idea of IDEA (pun intended), where you guide an idea around real world locations, picking up other people’s ideas along your way. The problem is, I only spent about 10 minutes with it and ended up at the same ending twice, even though I kept trying to take different paths. Somehow I always ended back where I was. When I did eventually manage to find a new path, the timer on that screen was so short that I failed to get through it both times I made it there. It just didn’t feel worth the trouble. I wanted a relaxing game, but the timer meant that if I didn’t manage to navigate that screen perfectly, I had to start over and try to find it again. Unfortunately, I don’t see myself continuing with it, but I recommend watching some of my gameplay video to see if it might be something you’d enjoy.

Genshin Impact

And last, I’ve stuck with Genshin Impact, but I’ve mainly been focusing on the limited time events and leaving the permanent content for later, since it’s not going anywhere. Version 3.5 also arrived recently, bringing with it Dehya’s banner and the Windblume festival. I’d been looking forward to Dehya’s banner ever since we first met her in the game and she was the Sumeru character I wanted the most. But MiHoYo completely ruined her kit and made her weaker and more useless than even all the 4-star characters, while she’s a 5-star character. And she’s also going to the standard banner after this version. I knew she was bad but I still wanted her and it ended up costing me 130 wishes (with a Diluc in the middle). She is indeed not very good at any role. I was hoping I could use her instead of Zhongli on my overworld team, but it’s not going so great. I really do hope they fix her, because if they don’t I’ll probably end up benching her when I get too annoyed at her uselessness. It really is criminal what they did to a character that had such a great design and personality. It made it harder to enjoy the Windblume festival and is also going to keep me from getting excited about future characters. Here’s hoping they do right by her and fix her kit.

And that’s everything I’ve been up to over the last few weeks. I also started watching The Last Man on Earth and it’s been exactly the kind of dumb show I need, that lets me just turn off my brain for a while. Again, please bear with me as I get back to normal coverage of games. It might take some time, but I’ll do what feels right for me at the moment.

This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. John

    I had been worrying that there were no new posts! Sorry to hear about the puss and your family 🙁 Looking forward to you being back in full swing!

  2. Deb

    I’m so terribly sorry Lisa 💔 Please take all the time you need to help heal your heart.

  3. CatReader

    Dear AppUnwrapper (inserting your real name in my mind),
    I commiserate with you on the loss of your kitty companion. I recall smiling when you have apologized for her vocal contributions during some of your game commentary. I imagined she would have also enjoyed photobombing, given the opportunity. Deciding to euthanize a pet causes many of us an additional layer of grief, but it is one of the most loving gifts we can give them, deliberately hurting ourselves on their behalf. I’ve been there.

  4. Sara

    I noticed you were off last week. Was hoping you were on a nice vacation. Very sorry for losing your cat. I hope you and your family are all right. Take care.

  5. MrsMop

    So sorry to hear of your loss – it is heartbreaking to have to do that, even when for all the right reasons. Really good to see you back – intermittently is fine – take care of yourself x

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