Games I've been playing lately and Games I'm watching out for

Been quite busy these past few weeks, so I don't really have that much time to play more immersive games. Lately all I've been playing are those that I can do on my phone or portable consoles and don't need too much from me.

For the phone I've been playing these:
-Matchington Mansion
-Homescapes
-Family Zoo Story
-Forge of Glory
-Miracle Nikki

and occasionally,
-Snake vs Block
-Sudoku Quest

I know what you're thinking... I've always been fond of puzzles, but lately I've been hooked on these match3 games (Homescapes, Family Zoo, Matchington) . Personally I play them more for the decorating part than the matching part. My officemate even joked about them saying, "wow, those are so exciting." (sarcastic voice) I know, I know. Not much excitement here, but well, they're easy to play and I just kinda wanna see how the mansion/house/zoo turns out after decorating. I personally like Matchington more out of the three. My mansion is starting to look dashing. ^^

These games are more of the casual type, so if you're looking for a game that you can just jump into for fun or to while the time away as you wait, be it on travel or waiting for someone/something, try these on for size. It's pretty interesting watching the characters transform their places.

Other puzzles I've been playing are Sudoku Quest and Snake vs. Block. Again, these are casual games. These two are the games more on Math. I've always loved Sudoku. I even joined competitions for these before back in my high school days. I mostly love multidoku, so it is my glee that Sudoku Quest has some of that. Though I've yet to see other Sudoku variants in the games. A killer sudoku would do nicely. And as for the snake vs. Block, it's basically about maneuvering your snake (which appears as multiple connected dots, but you can later on change it into other things, mine is currently a very looooong burger, though in the image it's just starting out so it isn't long yet) to hit only blocks that you want it to hit while collecting parts so that it can get longer. Don't be deceived by the 0 length in the game though, it actually means you have 1 length.

And for Miracle Nikki, I've been playing this game for quite a while now. Though this is more of for the girls than guys, but lately I found out that there are also real-straight guys playing it. For copying some designs for drawings and such. The community of Miracle Nikki is really alive and vibrant, and so many active players talking on the facebook group. You can expect it to hook many women, working or not, because of the clothes. And most women love pretty things. The clothes here are really cute and I love collecting them. It is actually so hard to keep myself from buying whenever there is a really catchy outfit attached to a promo. Out of all my games, this is probably the only one I really spend on, which, according to my boyfriend, is fine, since I earn my own money, but "wouldn't it be better to buy actual clothes instead of virtual ones?" is what he said. Which, he has a point, but these virtual clothes are not really always available in real-life. Though I guess, being a daughter of a dressmaker does kind of make it possible for me to procure them in real-life, but that's beside the point. :P Believe me, the amount I spent here is still nothing compared to what the others have spent here. I know, because whenever there's an event, a lot of people are already finished with it on the first day using diamonds (game currency) and that has gotta cost a lot, even though the costs could definitely go down a bit if they had just waited till the last day, like I do. Anyway, the game is fun, if you like mixing and matching clothes, and just basically collecting them. I'm still below 60% complete and they add new ones almost every other week.

Out of the games I listed, the only one that probably has some battling involved is Forge of Glory, though the developers of that game seem to be MIA for a few months now. The game is actually nice in an also casual way. Sieging or missions, and raising your guards, heroes and castle levels. It would be great if they could update and improve it.
The game is actually also a match3 game, but with a touch of action, being also mmorpg in nature. Sieges are where you attack other players' castles (if you think you're strong enough to take them on), and Missions are where you can get soulstones for summoning new heroes/guards. Heroes are the ones you use to fight and Guards are for defending your castle.

They have this daily code where if you "guessed" it, you could choose one of the 9 available prizes for the day. And they also have 3 daily quests that gives big bonuses like energy or diamonds apart from the usual missions. I only really started playing for almost a month now. My castle is just level 11, and I don't even have 6 star heroes/guards yet. There's also that tree of life, that's more of an endgame part, but you can play it even early on though you might find it difficult getting past level 15, and there are 100 levels, I think. Like if you're done with the missions and sieging isn't all that much fun anymore, you could do that, and get good rewards.

Anyway, that's it for the phone games, next is the 3ds games:
-Story of Seasons
-Bravely Second
-Fantasy Life

Story of Seasons is, well, the first Bokujou Monogatari game after they stopped partnering with Natsume (game was known as Harvest Moon then, but that title is now being used by Natsume to produce similar games, but no longer of the same series). I've been a fan of the series since Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (HM:FoMT) and have followed it ever since. I even follow the Rune Factory games which is also from Marvelous.
For those who don't know, it's a farming role-playing simulation game where you tend to your farm (obviously), making money and improving your farm and house, while keeping good relationships with the folks in the town. There are also marriageable candidates for both genders, and heart events for each candidate. And you get to have a child after marriage. There are a lot of things to do for each game, but lately, it's been about helping the town you're in (like in SoS). Apart from farming itself, there are animals to tend, fishing, mining, and foraging (which is helpful early on and throughout). The earlier mentioned Rune Factory is a spin-off of Bokujou Monogatari, only it involves fighting monsters and using them for farm produce.
Anyway, it's been years since I started SoS, I've been at it since it first came out on the market, but I've yet to finish it until now, because, well, the game technically doesn't really end. :P But what I mean is, I haven't unlocked all of the vendors yet. I'm only missing one vendor. The hardest one, because you need to ship a lot of items in order to unlock them. I've probably finished more than half the requirements now, though I don't really play that often anymore because as I stated earlier, I don't have that much time to play lately.
I'm in Year 2 going into Year 3 right now in the game. Apart from the usual animals, I've got the alpaca, the suffolk, the jersey cow, the angora rabbit and the Silkie Chicken. I've got all the house upgrades, farm upgrades (all maker sheds) and 4 greenhouses (one for each season) All the main bachelors are at the maximum heart they're capped at (SoS caps them at green heart. I used to love seeing the heart events of every bachelor before finally marrying one), but I've yet to propose/reverse-propose to one of them, since I'm still working on the town newcomer bachelors (Nadi and Kamil). I'm raising their hearts only to see their friendship events, because I'm actually already set for Raegar. <3 (Kamil was my choice in the Tale of Two Towns, and he's just a stay-in visitor here so I ain't choosing him again) And every villager is already high on friendship points, I'm also winning almost every competition, have more than 5million in the game (if only it could be converted to real-life currency XD), and have the rights to all the public fields. So that's my progress there.
At one point, I do wanna finish all the to-dos in the game, but I don't know when I'll get there at this pace. Then again, it's the journey, not the destination, right?

As for Bravely Second, this was the successor to the Bravely Default and I finished that one. Even got everything in the encyclopedia down to the very last detail. (Yes, Completionist much) Both games are turn-based RPGs published by Square Enix, same one who published the Final Fantasy series, and are actually considered to be spin-offs of the said franchise. In the Bravely Second, I'm only about halfway into the game. When it first came out, I played furiously fast, but when I got busy, I kind of forgot about it along the line, since like it's predecessor, it takes a long time to finish the game.

The good thing about the game is that it has that auto function so that if you were actually busy multi-tasking, you can leave it in auto, using either pre-saved moves or repeating the last moves you did. This can be useful for grinding, which you need to do lots of, in order to finish all the jobs. And the addition of their combo battles, which allows you to gain lots of exp, makes grinding all that much easier compared to how it could have been. And if you're really busy, you can actually just leave them doing the Chompcraft to gain extra money on the side. It's a new minigame where the 4 characters make toys. I also like the ship they're riding (you get this mid-game) because there is a hot spring inside, where you can heal after battling (no more going to some inn to rest). And the nice aide you can get from fellow players is, as it has in the last game, been helpful at times. I've been playing this again whenever I get the chance.
I'm actually not very fond of the way Tiz's hair is sticking out oddly, I don't know if it's just me. :P

Fantasy Life is something I play with my boyfriend. I'm really fond of RPG and we wanted to play a game where we can party together and unleash the battle power and we found this. We started quite later than it was first released, but were able to quickly blast through the game. In fact, most of my "life" are already either in hero/master rank. We only have a few things we haven't gotten yet, but we were planning to also get the downloadable add-on to the game so that we can get more to-dos and items. The game is really that much fun and easier when you're doing it as a party rather than alone. And one of you can even be the pack-mule while the other protects so that the loot won't get destroyed by incoming monsters.
Like I said, we haven't gotten a chance to play lately, but since we have an upcoming trip as our break from work, I think I can expect a lot of playtime for the game again soon. ;>

Things I might be playing in the future:

I'm thinking of picking up Animal Crossing: New Leaf again. I played this everyday four years ago when it first came out, but I'm pretty sure that right now my town is a weed-grown town, but I remember I had a lot of bells there and that I also had tons of furniture. I even cross-bred flowers and had lots of fruits from other towns.

I wanted to play again because we saw this post in Reddit where the guy spent more than 1900+ hours on the game and my boyfriend (who has never played the game) was saying "What is up with the game that you can spend more than a thousand hours on it?" And I told him that it is real-time and fun to play with others, like fishing and exchanging fruits and such. And he was really piqued by the thousand hour gametime that he wanted to beat it. XD And I told him that if he was going to play, I'm gonna play again too so we could do it together, because it's more fun that way. :D

And since I love Bokujou Monogatari so much, I'm definitely thinking of getting that new Story of Seasons that was released last February: Trio of Towns. Though I don't know when I'll have a chance to play it. But the game itself seems interesting. It's set in three towns. The last time they did several towns in one was probably the Tale of Two Towns from the DS. I'm looking forward to buying the game. I didn't buy it last time I went because I opted to buy a new phone instead. :P

And of course, UltraSun and UltraMoon are coming out, so I'm definitely playing them. Been an avid player of Pokemon since childhood. ^^
I must say, I know there are a lot who are pissed about it still being on the 3ds platform, but I on the other hand am glad. To be honest, knowing that there are still a lot of issues on the current Switch, I'm waiting for a new release. You know like how they did with the new 3ds and all. They're bound to make a better version of the Switch and that's what I'm waiting for. So until then, won't be buying that console.

Meanwhile, there is no news about this if it will even happen, but I'm really hoping for n Rune Factory 5. I know that Neverland shutdown because of bankruptcy,but hey, RF is still under Marvelous, so it's possible, right? I played Stardew Valley on the PC too, and it was good, and I even finished Return to Popolocrois, but RF is just...entirely on a different league, you know? Really enjoyed RF4, and ToD, so a 5th one would be nice. Hoping also that this time it would have multiplayer. I did hear though that if they do make one, it's gonna be on the Switch, which is fine as long as the Switch gets revamped.

I am so into RPG games and Tower Defense. Of course, I obviously love Puzzles too. But I also do other game genres from time to time, yet right now, none of the current games I'm playing fall under that category.