What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Steam Spring Sale '25

Cat Survivors (Lenovo Legion Go)

September 21st, 2025

I'm having some trouble getting going today, but I got a pot of applesauce on to cook and am posting here now. I'm on a very underwhelming roll!

Yesterday, though, I did manage to get some games wrapped up. I tossed a couple hours into getting all the unlocks bought in Candivity, which was a perfectly ok experience. I felt like I was actually starting to get good at it by the end, but the way the pieces kind of moved on their own still bothered me. This wasn't something I really minded playing, but I'm relieved to have it done.

I finished off Cat Survivors by the end, too, getting 100% of the Steam achievements. By the end of the game, I was so overpowered I could stand in one place until a stage event went off, in most cases. No one forced me into the final grind. I just had some misguided determination here. The main part of the game was definitely more engaging, though.

Right before bed, I played a couple of stages of Summer Paws, a 3D hidden cats game. It had been so long since I did the first bit of this game that I totally forgot how it worked. It's not super complicated, though, so I caught on fast and got to cat-finding. The camera controls in this are a bit touchier than I'd like, but it's super cute, too.

September 16th, 2025

I'm not very focused tonight. Outside of games, I'm trying to read all of the manga by CLAMP, an artist team that was really popular when I was in high school and college. I don't mean to be dismissive of them now by saying that, it just seems like they were really at their height for US fans then! Some of their stuff has never made it to ebooks or current printings here, so I've been picking up what I can on Thriftbooks and eBay. It's really fun to see the lists of manga available in the US in the backs of these books, or the goofy taglines on the ads in the back of Tokyopop manga in particular.

Besides just the used book nostalgia, though, I have to pick up my Japanese learning! I got an eBook of HIGH & LOW: G-Sword, a manga CLAMP worked on based on a big multimedia project that I barely comprehend. I can read Japanese, slowly, and with a dictionary, but I want to up my skill level and speed. Maybe I'll do some more gaming in Japanese soon. Practice is tedious and it sucks right now, but I'm never going to get better without putting any effort in.

Anyway, I mostly just chugged away at games I've got going yesterday. I did a couple runs in Cat Survivors, still chasing my final Steam achievement for getting all upgrades. Since this game gets easier the more upgrades I score, it also gets more boring the more I grind. I'm still determined to clear it, though!

My item merging grind dragged on, too, with several rounds of Candivity. This might be a game that's better played in short bursts, but unlocking everything in the base game seems super doable.

On the other side of that coin, I'm not sure getting to the final merged item in Bomb Cat is even possible, but repeatedly failing is kind of fun. Blasting pieces sky high seemed like an irritating gimmick to me at first, but it's enjoyable with smart play and pretty funny when I'm sleepy. This is a decent little merge game.

August 25th, 2025

This is brutally lazy, but I had a crummy day at work and then ate too much spaghetti, so there's no screenshots today. I played a lot of games yesterday and I lack the energy to transfer and edit everything.

Yesterday, I set out to get the last two Steam achievements in Cat Survivors and finally get it off my plate. I got one, but the final achievement requires a lot of grinding. Right now, I'm playing the same level over and over, and I have so many upgrades it's not challenging anymore. I burned out fast.

Once that happened, I decided I was just going to chip away at some of the other Survivors-likes, or bullet heaven games, I have on hand. I got Replik Survivors, a more wave-based game going, but it kept crashing mid-run. Losing progress was much worse than being a little bored, so I gave up on that pretty quickly.

From there, I grabbed my Switch to play a bit of W.A.N.D. Project, another wave-based Survivors-variant. This game just doesn't click with me, though. The combat portions are fun, and I like the magical girl vibes, but the chip-based upgrading eludes me and makes me feel a bit dumb. I'll keep coming back to it, though. It's just neat enough that I want to hit my stride in it.

I did click with Legendary Heroes Survivors when I grabbed my Legion Go again. It uses a very RPG-ish progression and stage system, and I think that works well with this genre. Since I was moving through stages at a good clip, it had a nice feeling of progress. Plus, it had some cute monsters.

The last one I did a run in was Carrot Survivors. I like this one and think it's funny, but it makes me feel kind of overwhelmed and sleepy. I might take that knowledge and start using it to put myself to sleep at night, but last night, at 8pm, it just put me off games for the rest of the evening.

July 7th, 2025

My gaming focus was pretty rubbish yesterday. I spent probably a little over an hour with Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour for the Game Boy Color, played in a very above-board fashion. I got really into it in the moment, swearing profusely when the AI opponents used the item that turned me into a frog, and beat the basic quest. There's quite a bit more to do- that was only a third of the game, and there's a full track I haven't unlocked. Thinking about it today, though, I'm not sure if I will ever play it again. It's totally fine, but I am unmotivated.

From there, I was going to make a run at clearing my last two achievements in Cat Survivors. Instead, I played one run, got really sleepy, and then went to buy a pizza.

My other gaming was right before bed. I'm having trouble making a shmup click as "what I want to play" right now, so I played Dodonpachi Saidaioujou for a little bit on novice mode. This wasn't quite it, either, but I was having fun with it. I might just be in a weird headspace right now.

I finished off the day with Super Mario Kart, which I hadn't played for ages! I'd beaten the first two 50cc cups on Nintendo Switch Online a couple years ago, so I jumped right into the third cup very poorly. I ended up doing some time trials of the two tracks that gave me trouble, and did improve my times. It's not likely those improvements will hold up once a stack of AI racers are throwing things at me again, but it did make me feel better. Plus, I like the music in the game so much! It's just fun to play, no matter how poorly I'm doing.

June 30th, 2025

For the past couple of days, I have been waking up at 5 in the morning sick to my stomach nervous, but nothing at all is wrong. It's very frustrating, and I can't figure out how to get past it! I know I will eventually, but being in the middle of a stretch like this is not super fun. Tonight, I kind of want to zone out with some shmups, since those make me feel calm, and see if that helps at all.

Last night, I got stuck into a Survivors-like called Cat Survivors, which was a little repetitive and didn't feel very different from run to run. You can basically get every weapon on every good run, so I wasn't thinking too much about making good or interesting character builds as the power-ups started to fly in. It still really hooked me, though, and I spent a few hours clearing all nine stages. I don't feel like I'll be done with it until I get 100% of the Steam achievements, but that's just because I'm still having fun. Once I'm feeling a little sunnier, I'll come back to it.