Play Slots for FUN Slot Games for FUN February 2021

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Lockdown, things to do, help & advice.

Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions)
Thanks.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
Disney+
Britbox
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder

Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.

Education

Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.

If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."

Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
CoronaVirus Symptoms
CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
World Health Organisation

Support

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.

LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.

This Week at Bungie - 11/5/2020

Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/49751
This week at Bungie, we’re beginning our descent to Europa.
Every release, we have a long conversation about what we should show players leading up to launch, and what we should leave for players to discover. We want to build up the sense of wonder as a new Season or expansion makes its approach without spoiling everything that’s coming. With just a week to go before launch, we’ve almost reached our destination.
Video Link
Our Beyond Light Launch Trailer went live last week. A ViDoc, exploring Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt, is available for your viewing pleasure. We’ve released our Season of the Hunt calendar to help you plan out your days for the next few months.
Image Link^{^{^imgur}}
All that’s left is a quick preview of patch notes and a maintenance timeline. After that, we leave the rest to you.

It’s All in the Patch

Over the last few weeks, our goals have been to set expectations. We’ve covered the Destiny Content Vault, upcoming Sandbox changes, Gambit tuning, and more. These updates aren’t mind-blowing or overly game changing, they’re just nice little morsels to chew on in the final days leading up to launch. In any case, we hope you like the following quality of life appetizers before your meal is delivered on November 10.
Archives
Beginning November 10, two new kiosks will be available in the Tower. First up, the Quest Archive will be found next to the Postmaster. Our hope is that this removes some of the confusion when trying to track down the odd quest that you previously discarded. Additionally, this will be the place for any veteran players to pick up the New Light Quest on November 10, if they have a strong desire to experience new player tutorials and the (re-)introduction to the Cosmodrome.
Image Link^{^{^imgur}}
Next up, the Monument to Lost Lights Exotic Archive will be found by the Vault. Here, players may acquire various Exotics and Legendary Pinnacle/Pursuit weapons that were once available through now-retired quests. As many of these Exotics were tied to lengthy quests or difficult objectives, we wanted to make sure their prices reflected those previous efforts. Players will need an amount of Glimmer, destination materials, masterworking materials, and an Exotic Cipher or Ascendant Shard in order to purchase the Exotic or Legendary which they desire. We’re also introducing a currency, Spoils of Conquest, which can only be acquired when completing raids. This currency will be required for Exotics previously tied to Vaulted raids.
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In the past, Exotic Ciphers were very limited in nature. While you can expect one to be available as part of the Season Pass, Xur will also offer a quest to earn one Exotic Cipher on a weekly cadence.
Now, let's move on to some traditional patch notes...
Crucible

Trials of Osiris
- Trials of Osiris Power level requirement increased to 1210.
- Added ADEPT weapons and weapon mods to Flawless chest rewards.
- Additional information here (link TWAB).
Maps
- Added physics blockers to some out-of-bounds areas on Altar of Flame.
- Added physics blockers to some out-of-bounds areas on Exodus Blue.
- Added physics blockers to some out-of-bounds areas on Cauldron.

Player Identity

Login screens now have a dark background.
Updated the full-screen menus to have a dark background style.
Player waypoints now display Season Rank, HUD waypoints.
Added toggle functionality to the character screen, allowing the player to make a choice between Light and Dark subclasses.
- Character screen visuals updated depending on player choice between Light and Dark.

Character Creation

Changed selection from "Male" & "Female" to "Masculine" & "Feminine."
Guardian head and hair models have been replaced with improved versions.
- Several color swatches have been changed to better represent the applied color.
- Player’s previous head selections are still used.

Misc

Fixed a bug that prevented online friends from showing up in the roster on Stadia for players with more than 100 friends.
Fixed a bug that occasionally prevented players from earning progress on bounties when joining an activity in progress.
This most notably impacted Iron Banner bounties and could cause players to have their Artifact Power bonus enabled during Iron Banner matches.

A few Sandbox changes that we missed in our Sandbox preview

Traveler's Chosen
- Reduced muzzle flash intensity.
Point of the Stag
- Increased Point of the Stag's Max Power Level to 1310.
Divinity
- Fixed a bug that prevented some weapons from dealing precision damage to the Divinity cage (e.g. Eriana's Vow).
Hunter Dodge
- Increased Hunter's Dodge cooldown by a few seconds.
- (E.g. Tier 4, old cooldown: 22 sec. New cooldown: 26 sec.)
Anti-Champion Mods
- Anti-barrier rounds will now penetrate Taken Phalanx shields.
- All Anti-Champion mods have been shifted to armor, rather than taking a weapon mod slot.
Orbs of Light have been changed to Orbs of Power as they can now be consumed by Light and Dark subclasses.

Before we end our patch note preview, we do want to call out the collectors among you who have been talking about the impending removal of Expired Ramen Coupons from your inventories. We know this one stings a bit. It’s a byproduct of us cleaning up inventory systems and doing general maintenance.
We want to a provide a parting gift before these coupons are tossed into the bin. These coupons can’t be redeemed for spicy ramen, but they can decorate your desktop for as long as you desire.
[4k – SPICY RAMEN COUPONS]
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…and there we have it. Full patch notes will be released on Tuesday around launch time. Stay tuned!

Novembrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

With a new expansion coming next week, we also have a fresh update coming to Bungie Store! We’re entering the holiday season, so it’s a pretty good time to start gift shopping for your favorite Guardians out there in the world.
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Starting November 9, upgrade your arsenal of collectibles and gifts at Bungie Store with new exclusive products and free in-game emblems with purchase, including the Destiny 2: Beyond Light Original Soundtrack!
Cosmic Alignment (Available November 9 through December 4, 2020)
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Between Stars (Available November 9 through February 9, 2021)
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Shattered Harmony (Available November 9 with purchase of Destiny 2: Beyond Light Original Soundtrack)
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Follow @BungieStore on Twitter for more deals and discounts to be announced every Friday in Novembrrrr from The Drifter, The Exo Stranger and Variks.

Let’s Talk Maintenance and Pre-Loads

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Next Monday, November 9, Destiny 2 will go offline for an extended maintenance period. We want to give everyone ample time to download Destiny 2 Update 3.0.0. Our teams are prepping for the launch day assault on our servers. Destiny Player Support has the full timeline for maintenance, downloads, and more. Read up, spread the word, and get ready for Beyond Light.
This is their report.

UPDATE 3.0.0.1
Next Monday, maintenance for Update 3.0.0.1 will begin. Below is a timeline of events:

November 9, 3:30 PM PST (2330 UTC): Background maintenance for Update 3.0.0.1 will begin.

November 9, 4:00 PM PST (0000 UTC): In preparation for downtime, players will be removed from activities and will be required to download a small update before logging in again.

November 9, 6:50 PM PST (0250 UTC): Sign-on for Destiny 2 will be disabled.

November 9, 7:00 PM PST (0300 UTC): Destiny 2 will be brought offline for expected maintenance. Players will be removed from activities and won't be able to log back into Destiny 2 until 9 AM PST on November 10.

November 10, 9:00 AM PST (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 3.0.0.1 will be available across all platforms and regions. Players will be able to log back into Destiny 2.

November 10 12:00 PM PDT (2000 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.

For more information, please visit our Destiny Server and Update Status help article.
BEYOND LIGHT PRE-LOAD
Pre-load for Update 3.0.0.1 will be available prior to the game’s release. Below are pre-load timelines and instructions based on platform:
PlayStation
Beginning on November 8 after 8 PM PST (0400 UTC), users can start pre-downloading Update 3.0.0.1 by:

Navigating to Destiny 2

Pressing the “Options” button

And selecting “Check for Updates”

In an effort to decrease server load, some PlayStation Plus users may be able to pre-download Update 3.0.0.1 starting on November 7 after 8 PM PST (0400 UTC) if they have auto update/download enabled on their PlayStation 4. For instructions on how to setup auto update/download, please click here.
PLEASE NOTE: BUNGIE RECOMMENDS THAT PLAYERS SHOULD NOT DELETE THEIR CURRENT VERSION OF DESTINY 2 ON THEIR PLAYSTATION CONSOLE TO SPEED UP THE PRE-DOWNLOAD PROCESS.
Xbox
Pre-load for Xbox will be available shortly after Destiny 2 is taken offline for expected maintenance at 7 PM PST (0300 UTC) on November 9. For instructions on how to setup auto update, please click here.
PC
Pre-load for PC will be available shortly after Destiny 2 is taken offline for expected maintenance at 7 PM PST (0300 UTC) on November 9. Update 3.0.0.1 should automatically be put in the Steam download queue once it is available to pre-load. For more information on managing Steam downloads and updates, please click here.
STORAGE REQUIREMENTS
Below are the updated storage requirements for Beyond Light:
Platform |Destiny 2 Install Size |Storage Space Needed for Installation | |--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--| Xbox Series X|S|65.7 GB|65.7GB| PlayStation 5|70.78 GB|70.78 GB| PlayStation 4|70.78 GB|171.68 GB| Xbox One|65.7 GB|65.7 GB| PC|69.7 GB |186.2 GB** |
** PlayStation 4: Includes current installed version of Destiny 2 (100.9 GB) + Update 3.0.0.1 pre-load (70.78 GB) = 171.68 GB*
*** PC: Destiny 2 Install Size may vary based on languages installed, size shown is maximum size possible *
** PC: Includes current installed version of Destiny 2 (up to 116.5 GB) + Update 3.0.0.1 pre-load (up to 69.7 GB) = 186.2 GB*
DESTINY CONTENT VAULT AND THE END OF SEASON OF ARRIVALS
With the start of Year 4 and the introduction of the Destiny Content Vault on November 10, certain items will be deprecated from player inventories that correspond with Vaulted destinations, activities, and campaigns.
Players should review our help articles on items being deprecated at the start of Year 4 and items being removed at the end of Season of Arrivals for more information on items, quests, and currencies that will be removed from player inventories at the start of Year 4. Some items listed can be used or turned in for rewards, such as Glimmer, weapons, and armor, so be sure to do that before November 10.
Additionally, certain Titles will become Legacy Seals and unavailable to earn at the start of Year 4. Players should be sure to equip the following Titles before November 9 at 7 PM PST (0300 UTC), after which they will be unavailable to earn. For more information, please visit our Year 4 Triumphs Update help article.
Seal |Title | |--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--| A Shadow Rises|Shadow| Reckoner|Reckoner| Black Armory|Blacksmith| Destinations|Wayfarer| Lore|Chronicler| Undying|Undying| Dawn|Savior| Almighty|Almighty| Arrivals|Forerunner| Moments of Triumph 2020|MMXX|
BUNGIE REWARDS
With the release of Beyond Light on November 10, certain Bungie Rewards will no longer be available to earn. These include the ‘Eclipse Sunset’ and ‘Sunset’ emblems, the Year of Shadowkeep Artifact Coins, the Moments of Triumph t-shirt, the Raid Ring, the Prophecy Dungeon Hoodie, the MMXX Seal, and the Forerunner Seal.
Players should be sure to earn these rewards by November 9 at 7 PM PST (0300 UTC) and claim these rewards from the Bungie Rewards page before November 13 at 8 AM PST (1600 UTC).

Encore

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Before we kick off a new year of Destiny content, we have a final round for Movie of the Week. 2020 isn’t over yet, but we’ve had a blast watching community-created content throughout Shadowkeep and its associated Seasons. Many thanks to those who’ve submitted their footage (and art!), as it’s kept us sane week over week.
Here are your final Movie of the Week selections before Beyond Light brings some Darkness to the table.
Movie of the Week: Thanks, Taken!
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Movie of the Week: Festival of the Lost, Parting Shot
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Movie of the Week: Give ‘em a hand
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Movie of the Week: SEVENTH COLUMN!!! ...AND ANOTHER ONE!
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Movie of the Week: It isn’t over until it’s over

OMG can someone explain this please?!?! Like wtf just happened🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ @A_dmg04 @Gladd @BungieHelp @Xbox pic.twitter.com/aYNfaeG7WM
— TG DuAc (@TGDuAc1) November 2, 2020

Next week, we’ll have a new companion section for Movie of the Week. We felt it important to give the same spotlight to the artists of our community as we’ve been giving to those who create fun videos.
To throw your hat in the ring, submit your content to the Community Creations portal on Bungie.net. If you also post your content to social media, tag it with #DestinyMOTW or #DestinyArt. We’ll snag a few winners each week and grant them some fancy new emblems.
We’ve been here a few times. What was once months became weeks. Weeks have become mere days. Five more sleeps stand between you and Beyond Light. Well, that’s if you can even sleep the night before launch. I know I probably won’t. Many of you have been on this journey with us from the start. In the last year, numerous Guardians have begun their journey through New Light. No matter how long you’ve been a Guardian, we can’t thank you enough for playing.
Stay hydrated. Be healthy. Treat yourself well.
We’re almost there.
See you starside.
-dmg04

ACAC Spac (PlayStudios): A Solid Risk Reward Longer Term Play (Long)

Hey guys, I have a bit of a long DD on ACAC / Playstudios. You can read the text below. If you want to see the full post with all the nice pictures, you can check it out here. I was too lazy to upload each picture individually to Imgur. Apologies in advance.
I've seen numerous people on Reddit compare the ACAC / Playstudios SPAC to Skillz, and some even to Draftkings. I think this is mainly because they're all in the online gaming / gambling industry, but aside from that, the companies themselves are quite different.
I think a more apt comparison should be between Playstudios and Playtika (Ticker: PLTK), since they operate in the same vertical, compete against one another in mobile slots games, and Playtika has publicly available financial data in which I will be making comparisons against.
Playtika Analysis
You can find Playtika's prospectus here
First and foremost, Playtika is one of the leaders in the mobile casino space. They have an assortment of games, and they themselves are diversifying into more casual games (similar to what Playstudios says they are trying to do), but their bread and butter are casino games, and the ones that make the most money for them are slots.
Slotomania, House of Fun, and Caesars Slots are all mobile slots games, and as you can see from the above, they generate a significant portion of Playtika's revenues (roughly 50% of their 2020 revenues).
OK, so why do I keep bringing up Playtika? Well, they had a very interesting graph that shows how much of their revenues come from different segments of their user base, based on when they acquired those users.
What this chart is saying is that 45% of their revenues came from users acquired from 2013 and earlier!
This is insane! They have such high user retention and user LTVs, that they're still monetizing a portion of their users that they acquired from 7 years ago.
If we go up to 2017, then roughly 75% of their revenues come from users acquired 2017 and earlier!
This is important because Playtika's oldest games are all slots games. So this is telling us that users that play mobile slots games, they tend to stay with those games for extremely long periods of time, and if they do stick with them, they spend a lot of money! This is great news since the vast majority of Playstudio's revenues come from mobile slots games.
If you look at Playtika's financials, you'll notice pretty nice revenue growth. However, a lot of that is non-organic, and was accomplished through M&A. This was because in 2016, Playtika was acquired by a consortium of Chinese game companies for $4.4 billion (including Giant Network, a well known gaming company in China), and they need to make revenue numbers higher to have a better story to sell for the IPO.
And part of their strategy was to diversify into casual games, and they did so by acquiring about 15 companies since 2016, including Wooga (developer of June's Journey, a very profitable find hidden objects mobile game) and Supertreat (developer of Solitaire Grand Harvest, a profitable card game).
However, one of the caveats of casual games is that the ARPPU (average revenue per paying user) is lower, and retention is lower than casino games. I did my own calculations on Playtika's ARPPU for 2018, 2019, and 2020, and you can see the noticeable downtrend. This was obviously not disclosed in the prospectus. Only ARPDAU (average revenue per daily active user) was disclosed.
My belief is that even though ARPPU and retention are lower, maybe the market is giving a higher multiple to casual games. I believe that even though online gambling is beginning to see legalization in many states, and more and more people are starting to be open to it, there is still a bit of a social stigma associated with it, and certain investors may be wary to investing in a pure "casino" play. That's why Playtika is making such a concerted effort to move away from purely casino games, and positioning itself as an mobile entertainment company. Another reason is also the immense competition and high user acquisition costs, but Playtika has shown that they are more than able to execute on a long term strategy here.
Playstudios Analysis
Before jumping into anything else, I want to go straight to Playstudio's financials.
The reason is because I think there's a lot of fluff here, and I want people to know the bullshit. But even when you see through the bullshit, the downside is still mitigated enough to warrant this play.
So first off, take any numbers you see from 2022 with a grain of salt. No one knows what's going to happen this year, let alone two years in the future, and in my eyes, those 2022 numbers look extremely unrealistic. Revenue growth will probably not be that high, unless they make some big acquisitions, and EBITDA margin expansion probably won't be that fast.
Revenue Growth
Playstudios is planning on launching a Bingo and an RPG game, and their plan is to aggressively spend on UA (User Acqusition) in 2021. Their hope is that revenues will scale up with their UA, and by 2022, they can lower their UA spend a bit, and continue to monetize the new games exceptionally well, maybe at an even better rate than 2021.
I think this is a bit farfetched, especially in such a competitive space as Bingo. I've done analysis on Bingo games before, and some of those games have also been around for 8 to 10 years, and they can't expect to just launch a game and have it ramped up to their expected revenue in a year's time. Development for those games requires game designers, people who are very good at math, product designers, and a many other people, which can make the development timeline quite long (at least a few months, for a more finished product, I think at least half a year for these guys). I think a more plausible scenario is that they acquire a smaller Bingo player, and then begin optimizing that game, and add in their own loyalty rewards, as that's the quickest way to ramp up revenues post IPO.
My guess is revenues are not going to ramp up as quickly as they expect, and they'll see limited revenue growth here, and still mainly see some growth from better monetizing their slots players. I think by 2022, somewhere between $350 million to $400 million in revenues is more reasonable, and I'd probably lean towards the lower end of that range.
Margin Expansion
In terms of margin expansion, I think the decrease in cost of sales is doable. It seems like there is some extra fat there that they can trim as they scale. The cost of sales is mainly the tax that Apple and Google charges when users make a purchase through their respective stores, and this is a flat 30%. I doubt they'll get it less than 30% any time soon, but that will probably be through getting their whales to make purchases outside of the Google Play Store or App Store, and using a much cheaper payment processor.
I think a long term goal of 20 - 25% for UA spend is reasonable. I'm OK with these numbers, though they may need to spend more initially to ramp up new games. One of the benefits of their loyalty rewards program is that they can have higher retention, and this might be a way for them to lower their UA spend, since people may be more willing to tell their friends about a free trip or prize they won through a mobile game.
Another reason I'm OK with the UA spend is because it seems like they have a pretty knowledgeable UA team. I have access to App Annie, a data analytics company that tracks mobile apps, and I checked out the download history for POP! Slots, one of Playstudio's mobile games.
You'll notice that US downloads spiked quite a bit in March. This is right when COVID-19 was beginning to spike in the US, and people began working from home. In the mobile app world, many apps had spikes in downloads in March and April 2020 because there was a much larger pool of users looking to download apps. CPAs came down, and companies that had strong UA teams were able to capture a lot of these new users. Thus, this tells me that Playstudios UA team was at least aware of ongoing trends in the mobile app space, and they were able to capitalize by gaining more users during that period of time.
The biggest issue I have is with the "All Other Expenses." I don't know why it's this high (R&D and G&A shouldn't be that high), and Playstudios definitely needs to do some expense cutting here. While this has the most room to cut, it may be the hardest since I'm guessing a lot of that cost is from legacy employees. But if they can get this to around 30% by 2022, I'll be happy.
Playstudios Has No Daily Active Users (DAU) Growth
This is a common issue I see raised on Reddit and I want to address it here. Below is another chart from App Annie, which has DAU estimates.
As you can see, DAU has remained pretty flat for the past 2 years, roughly between 150K and 200K users.
But have you considered that revenues were actually increasing during this time? This means that Playstudios is becoming more efficient at monetizing their current users (getting more money out of older players), or their user acquisition team is targeting more profitable users.
And this is just how the game is played in the mobile apps world.
Users will eventually get sick of a game and stop playing. Not many games can count on users organically finding their game, and continuing to play indefinitely. To maintain a certain DAU, companies generally have to spend money on UA to maintain that user base. It becomes a business where you are calculating how much you are spending on UA, and whether the LTV and retention are good enough that you can make money in the long run from those users. You can think of it as an ROI on your marketing spend.
And this is especially true for mobile game apps. If it were a social app, then yes, something like the network effect can come into play, and UA spend would be much lower. But for Playstudios, maintaining a steady DAU is actually a sign that their UA team knows what they're doing, and they're able to maintain a profitable and highly efficient business. It's actually a positive that they can maintain their DAU, and even INCREASE their revenues during that period.
End Game?
I don't actually know how this will end up. I don't give price targets cause I have no idea how the markets will value this company. But I can provide a few data points so that you can make your own decisions.
From a multiples standpoint, Playstudios is cheap on a revenue multiple basis compared to Playtika, and is about the same from an EBITDA multiple basis.
I personally don't think that Playstudios is a play that's going to 5X. Hell, even 3X I think will be a stretch. But, they do have a loyalty program that will help lower their UA costs, and extend the lifespan of their users. And they are moving into more types of games to diversify their revenue source.
The reason I like this play is because I think the downside is heavily limited. The lifespan of casino slots players are so long, and the revenues are pretty stable (even growing), that there isn't an immediate risk that revenues will all of a sudden drop 30%, as is the case with lots of other mobile game companies. Add on top of this the potential for new revenue growth drivers from Bingo and RPG games, and the potential for margin expansion, that this is an easy 30-50% upside from current prices with almost minimal downside.
One last minor bit, is that I'm sure lots of people missed out on the hype surrounding Draftkings and Skillz, and I'm sure there are some retail investors that will look for any type of casino / mobile gaming / gambling deals, and may jump on this as well. My feeling is that there is also a potential upside from the hype or FOMO factor.
Anyway, this is my analysis on Playstudios / ACAC, hope you guys enjoy.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. These are my personal views and analysis on Playstudios. Please do your own due diligence.
Disclosure: I own 400 shares of ACAC.

Super Truck Life Open Beta is Live!

What do you think the future holds for Square-Enix on Switch?

With the recent (ish) announcement of a physical edition of Final Fantasy IX coming to the Nintendo Switch, I thought it might be interesting to have a discussion about potential future Square-Enix projects that might yet appear on the system. The ‘pick up and play’ nature of the Switch makes it very compatible with JRPGs, and Square-Enix already has a pretty sizable collection of its games on Switch. It seems likely that there are more to come, but what and when is an open question.
I’m going to start this off by listing a number of potential projects, and my sense of how likely or unlikely they are to materialize. Curious to read all of your lists as well. I’ll say up front that some of the games I’ll be talking about I know like the back of my hand, and others I know only by reputation. Hopefully, we can all fill in each other’s knowledge gaps. Thanks for stopping by! :)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: This is the game I always have my fingers crossed for whenever Nintendo announces new additions to the NES/SNES Online apps, but unfortunately, we haven’t seen it yet. I still think it more likely than not that Seven Stars will eventually be available this way—it was included with the SNES Classic system, after all—but the longer it’s absent, the more I wonder if there’s some sort of legal/financial dispute standing in its way. (This was Square and Nintendo’s last major collaboration before their bitter mid-90s split).
Would Seven Stars instead be released as a standalone download for purchase on the Eshop? Given how beloved this game is by its fanbase, (myself included) I tend to think it would turn a profit. I suppose it could be given a slight visual touch-up and add things like higher difficulty settings, bonus dungeons, a boss rush, additional superbosses, access to all minigames from the main menu, etc. A similar approach to how Final Fantasies I-VI have been re-released since the GBA era.
There was a rumor I read fairly recently that a direct sequel to this game was under consideration, as a collaboration between Square-Enix and Nintendo. I am extremely skeptical of this, however, since Seven Stars has a nicely contained little story, with few if any loose threads to be tied up, save for perhaps exploring how Mallow adjusts to his newfound role as Prince of Nimbus Land. Certainly wouldn’t object to a sequel, though, as Seven Stars still contains my favorite overall incarnation of the Mario world.
Chrono TriggeCross: A ’Chrono Collection,’ which would include Trigger, Cross, and perhaps even Radical Dreamers as a bonus, seems logical, if not necessarily inevitable. This series may never have reached the commercial heights of Final Fantasy, but Chrono Trigger is among those very rare games where it’s hard to find even a word of negative criticism, a reputation I think still draws people in. (That was the effect it had on a young me in the early 2000s; I missed it the first time around on SNES, but as soon as I heard about Final Fantasy Chronicles for PlayStation, which included both Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger, it was an instant pre-order). Chrono Trigger has since shown up on the Nintendo DS and mobile devices.
Chrono Cross, on the other hand, is more divisive, with passionate admirers and detractors. This might explain why Square-Enix has yet to bring it to mobile devices, despite the availability of Trigger on these platforms. The fact that an enhanced version of Final Fantasy IX is available on mobile devices suggests that technical considerations are not the reason for Chrono Cross’s absence. (And of course, none of this would be a barrier of entry with the much more powerful Switch).
All this leads me to speculate that Square-Enix is holding off on releasing Trigger or Cross for modern platforms at this point because they are planning a ’Chrono Collection’ at some point down the line. I can’t help but picture a very attractive physical edition, perhaps featuring a black and gold case with the familiar clock design, and a companion booklet containing artwork and development history for the series. (Trigger’s development history is particularly interesting).
The visual novel Radical Dreamers, which could be described as something of a rough draft for a key early episode in the story of Cross, is non-essential, but would still be a nice little bonus—a window into the creative process. Including the excellent soundtracks for both Chrono games (ala Super Mario 3D All-Stars) would be an even bigger draw.
Of course, this is all just speculation on my part. Outside of Chrono Trigger being made available on Steam and mobile devices in recent years, this series has not shown signs of life in quite some time.
Secret of Evermore and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Grouping these two together because they are both lesser-regarded Square SNES titles that might still be interesting additions to the SNES Online app. The likes of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV, and Final Fantasy VI are unlikely to pop up there, both because they have a proven ability to sell individually, on multiple platforms over the years, and because the initial SNES releases of these games are no longer the optimal versions available. (Especially true in the case of Final Fantasy IV). The popular Secret of Mana is also unlikely, given that Square-Enix has already released a remake, as part of an ongoing project of remaking the Mana series games for modern platforms.
So why these two? Well, with little if any demand for either to get the modern treatment, bringing them to SNES Online isn’t likely to step on the toes of any future remake/re-release projects. While neither are great games, both are semi-interesting ‘relics.’ Evermore a Secret of Mana clone with a different aesthetic; Mystic Quest designed as a beginner-level RPG for audiences outside of Japan. Not the sort of games many would go out of their way to find and play, but if made available on the SNES Online app, I suspect that many would happily give them a spin. Little if anything to gain, but nothing to lose either.
For the record, I don’t see either as a likely inclusion to SNES Online, which has slowed down considerably in terms of adding new games to its roster. But aside from possibly Seven Stars, these are the only SNES-era Square games I can picture them giving Switch owners more or less for free.
Final Fantasy Tactics/War of the Lions: Quite possibly my favorite video game of all time, I’m both disappointed and a bit surprised that it has yet to appear on Switch. Tactics debuted on the original PlayStation; the enhanced War of the Lions version, featuring an updated translation, beautifully animated and voice-acted cutscenes, and a respectable amount of bonus content, made its first appearance on PSP, and was later adapted for mobile devices. The mobile versions operated with touch controls, and the Switch in handheld mode has touchscreen support built in. Theoretically, at least, War of the Lions would translate well onto Switch, but perhaps there are more potential technical complications than I realize. Alternately, Square-Enix might have made the calculation that those who love Tactics already have it on iOS/Android, and would be less likely to ‘double-dip’ and buy a Switch version.
I really hope this isn’t the case, though, since I’d love to have it on Switch. This is another game where I think Square-Enix could make some extra money by releasing a physical version that includes artwork, maps, the soundtrack, etc. A full visual remake, with the production values of the gameplay graphics matching that of the cutscenes, would be even better, but I don’t think that’s very likely.
The Final Fantasy VII ‘Expanded Universe:’ The original Final Fantasy VII is available on Switch, but what is probably the most famous and popular entry in the series has branched out in multiple directions since its debut in 1997. Most recently, of course, was the Final Fantasy VII Remake for PS4. Whether a downgraded version of that game could possibly be adapted for Switch, I honestly don’t know, but even if it technically could, I wouldn’t particularly like its chances. Reason being that Final Fantasy VII Remake is, from a narrative standpoint, incomplete, since it doesn’t cover the range of the original’s story. (Not even close). In theory, this necessitates at least one more entry, and probably two or more. With the ‘original’ being a late PS4 title, that means that its follow-up(s) will likely debut on PS5, which the Switch will be much further behind from a technical standpoint. Would Square-Enix want only one part of a two- or three-part story workable on Switch? If they thought it would sell well enough, perhaps. But I think it’s more likely that if anything from the FF7 Remake series ever makes it onto a Nintendo system, the Switch’s hypothetical successor is more likely to see it than the current model.
Remake is not the only video game expansion of the FF7 universe, of course. If any of the others are to make it to Switch, I think Crisis Core is much more likely than either Before Crisis or Dirge of Cerberus. Wouldn’t rule out the possibility of any of them, but Crisis Core was originally designed for a handheld: the PSP. Zack Fair’s story was and remains compelling to fans, despite anyone who played through Final Fantasy VII knowing full well how it ends. The popularity of Vincent Valentine was not enough to save Dirge of Cerberus from some pretty harsh criticism.
Working against all of these? Well, Remake throws the continuity of the original and its spinoffs into question. It’s possible that Square-Enix might be planning to scrub the existing canon clean as part of this ongoing project.
Vagrant Story: I’ll admit, this is pure wishful thinking on my part; I’m under no illusions that this is even remotely likely. Still, it’s behind only Tactics/War of the Lions on my own Square-Enix Switch wishlist. (Switchlist?) What’s not to like about a dark Renaissance detective story? (The block stacking/rearrangement puzzles required to progress through dungeons can be a bit tedious, but nothing awful).
Star Ocean Games: With First Departure—a enhanced PSP remake of the first Star Ocean game—already on Switch, I think it’s a virtual certainty that Second Evolution—the PSP counterpart to Second Story—will eventually make the leap over as well. (Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t already). The Switch prospects of post-Second Story/Evolution games are iffier, but with the second installment often regarded as the highlight of the entire series, it is a very strong candidate to pop up on the Eshop.
Kingdom Hearts Games: The first games on this list I know only by reputation. My understanding is that they have done very well in terms of both sales and critical reception, and even that feels like an understatement. The recent announcement of a Kingdom Hearts rhythm-based spinoff for Switch seemed to spark disappointment in these parts that nothing from the main series was coming. This suggests that there is a potential market for mainline Kingdom Hearts on Switch; I’d certainly be willing to give them a shot.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Games: I can’t help but wonder if the original Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was hurt at all by Fire Emblem making its debut appearance outside of Japan around the same time, to positive press and public reception. The success of Fire Emblem on GBA likely overshadowed Tactics Advance a bit. Still, there are other reasons why this game tends to be held in lower overall regard than the original Final Fantasy Tactics. While the first has the air of a Shakespearean epic, the central conceit of Advance is that a group of kids, presumably from the ‘real world,’ get sucked into a fantasy world, and the main story goal is their trying to somehow get back home. Some saw this as a major step backwards from the original, while others praised the writers for thinking outside the box. Also controversial was the ‘Judge’ system, where every battle would start with the announcement that certain abilities could not be used. Some saw this as a fun challenge that kept players on their toes; others found it irritating and contrived. I know less about the DS sequel, Grimoire of the Rift.
If we ever see anything from the Final Fantasy Tactics sub-series on Switch, War of the Lions seems far more likely than any of the Advance titles. If a hypothetical War of the Lions Switch version was to sell well enough, however, perhaps Square-Enix would release one or both of the Advance games in the hopes of piggy-backing off its success.
Final Fantasy XIII Games: Doable? Probably. Worth it for Square-Enix financially, given the mixed reputation of these games? Tougher call.
Final Fantasy XV: Another recent Final Fantasy I know quite little about. I know that the downgraded ’Pocket Edition, which I first became aware of via the iOS App Store, is also available on the Switch Eshop. This perhaps suggests that Final Fantasy XV in its original form would be difficult to adapt to Switch. Difficult, however, does not necessarily mean impossible, so I would be surprised, but not shocked, if Final Fantasy XV was eventually brought to Switch.
Threads of Fate & Brave Fencer Musashi: Grouping these two because they are both mid/late PS1-era games that have virtually no chance of re-emerging on Switch. Still, both are cute, family-friendly action RPGs that would be right at home on the system.
Xenogears: Another PS1-era longshot...noticing a pattern here? Legal difficulties aside, I could see Xenogears potentially doing well on the Nintendo Eshop, riding the coattails of the popular Xenoblade games. (Which I definitely need to get around to trying one of these days; my understanding is that although there are no direct narrative links between them, Xenogears, and the Xenosaga games, they are considered to be ‘spiritually’ connected).
I last played Xenogears myself about two or three years back, and my experience then left me with the sense that the game might be a bit more ‘digestible’ on a handheld-hybrid like the Switch than its home console origins. Engaging, thought-provoking story; complex, well-written characters; a wonderful soundtrack. No one can take these things away from Xenogears. That being said, Xenogears often employs long (winded) cutscenes and dialogue sections to tell its excellent story, has a pretty high rate of random encounters throughout its large-scale dungeons and overworld areas, and requires frequent micromanagement and shopping to upgrade ‘Gears’ (combat robots) so the player remains competitive in battle.
In other words, an average Xenogears play session can leave the player with the sense that they have accomplished relatively little compared to the amount of time they just invested in it. Because of that, I often found myself feeling ‘burned out’ by the game, engaging though it was.
While a Switch version of the game could not be expected to totally resolve those issues, it could alleviate them, both by its ‘pick up and play’ nature and by increasing opportunities to save progress outside of the designated save points and world map of the original. (As was the standard of the time). Ideally, one would be able to save during a lengthy cutscene, so they would be able to take a break from the story without being forced to later watch (and process) the entire thing from the beginning.
Dissidia Games: Admittedly, I don’t know much about these games other than the very basics: they are a fighting game spinoff of the Final Fantasy series. On paper, though...doesn’t that sound like something that would sell like hotcakes on Switch? Dissidia may not be at the top of my personal wishlist, but outside of Kingdom Hearts, it is perhaps the most puzzling Square-Enix exclusion.
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings: A definite longshot, but there are two factors that could theoretically, at least, work in its favor: a) its ties to Final Fantasy XII, which is on Switch via The Zodiac Age; and b) the fact that, unlike XII itself, Revenant Wings was originally released on a Nintendo platform: the DS.
Working against it? Radio silence. I admittedly have never played this one myself, but the fact that so few people seem to talk about it suggests that it didn’t make much of an impact one way or the other. It would have been a cool bonus—as an unlockable or DLC—to include with Zodiac Age, but no such luck, and Revenant Wings seems to be more or less forgotten. I quite like XII, though, so if Revenant Wings did come to Switch, I’d be inclined to give it a shot.
Front Mission Series: A not especially famous, but long-running, somewhat prolific Square-Enix series, with entries spanning from the SNES to the PS4. File this one under surprised but not shocked if something from the Front Mission series eventually lands on Switch.
Parasite Eve Games: The last PS1-era longshots, I promise! (And the second-to-last entry overall...Hallelujah!) Right down there with Threads of Fate and Brave Fencer Musashi in the ‘never gonna happen’ column. I totally missed out on the original and its sequel during their initial run, which I kind of regret now, since many of their basic elements—a more gritty/realistic tone; a female detective as the protagonist—sound really cool on paper. The sort of thing I glanced over as a child/adolescent, but would be right up my alley these days.
Final Fantasy I-VI: If you’re still here, thank you very much! This will be the last section of my list today...but also the longest. I decided to group the first six mainline Final Fantasies together here not because I think each is of equal importance—far from it—but more to highlight the curious fact that, despite the fairly widespread availability of these games on multiple platforms over the course of many years, the earliest Final Fantasy game up and running on the Nintendo Switch at the time of this writing is VII. So, what gives? Thinking back to the Tactics/War of the Lions section, this could be a matter of Square-Enix calculating that, with the first six Final Fantasies already available on mobile devices, there would be little incentive for Switch-owning fans to ‘double-dip.’
I’m not sure if that theory holds up as well here, however, since we are talking about six individual games of varying importance, as opposed to one.
Final Fantasies I & II have often been bundled together, in the case of both Final Fantasy Origins for the PS1 and Dawn of Souls for the GBA. If we ever do see a Switch re-release of these games, my guess is that we would get another two-pack, if for no other reason than a bundle is probably the best means of selling the ambitious yet deeply flawed Final Fantasy II. My first experience with both games was via Dawn of Souls, but one thing I didn’t realize until some time later was that, at least in the case of Final Fantasy I, the adaptation was quite different from the original experience. The Dawn of Souls version had a traditional MP system for spells—each spell used x-amount of MP, which could be recovered via certain items and by resting at town inns and tents/cottages on the world map. The original release, on the other hand, featured limited spell charges, which could apparently only be recovered by resting in towns, forcing the player to be much more strategic/conservative with magic use. Thinking back to the high encounter rate and maze-like dungeons, my first thought was: ’My God, that sounds like an absolute nightmare!’ For others, though, it could be a fun challenge, so it might be nice for future re-releases of Final Fantasy I to include both magic systems.
I’m not sure to what extent, if any, Square-Enix might be influenced by Nintendo’s recent decision to re-release the first NES/Famicom Fire Emblem game on Switch, with no apparent changes aside from it being available in languages other than the original Japanese, but I suppose this could theoretically compel them to release the first three NES/Famicom Final Fantasy games with the original NES/Famicom graphics, at least as an optional setting. (Hopefully not completely replacing the ‘prettied up’ versions). That being said, I wouldn’t want any downgraded graphics settings to strip a future Final Fantasy I re-release of the fun superboss cameos, including but not limited to the dragon Shinryu and the eccentric swordsman Gilgamesh.
A quick aside about Final Fantasy II, since we’re here. There are very few games I’ve ever wanted to like more, and I think it deserves credit for thinking outside the box with its leveling system, and for having a story more on the human folly/political intrigue side than the straight ‘good versus evil’ side. Unfortunately, though, it falls a bit flat in both areas. The game does have its bright spots, including a pretty strong supporting cast—Princess Hilda and Minwu the OG White Mage are standouts—and one of my favorite music tracks in the series: the Wild Rose Rebellion theme.
Onward to Final Fantasy III, which is probably best known for its more complex/sophisticated take on the ‘Job System’ introduced in Final Fantasy I, and for how long it took (sixteen years!) for the game to first release outside of Japan. The last of the NES/Famicom Final Fantasies, my understanding is that, after the largely failed experiment that was II, the next game in the series was intended as a return to form—going back to the concepts of the original and expanding on them. A similar approach, one could argue, to both Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. With the SNES/Super Famicom set to release within the same timeframe, however, and Square’s plans to bring the ambitious Final Fantasy IV to that new platform, it was ultimately decided that releasing III outside of Japan would be unwise. Fast-forward to 2006, and the Nintendo DS would see a full remake of Final Fantasy III, complete with both 3D graphics and an expanded story—where the four playable characters were nameless avatars in the original, the remake gave them established names and backstories. (This version was also later adapted for mobile devices). The sheer novelty of this ‘lost’ Final Fantasy game finally showing its face outside of Japan, and of a Nintendo system finally being able to boast having a 3D Final Fantasy of its own, led to the game getting some decent attention early on, but long-term, it doesn’t seem to have made much of an impact. Perhaps in large part because it’s difficult to think of anything Final Fantasy III did that Final Fantasy V didn’t do as good or better.
And on that note, I’m going to skip ahead briefly to Final Fantasy V. (IV will get its time, don’t worry). Like the odd-numbered Final Fantasies before it, V is remembered more for its gameplay—an even more sophisticated Job System than that of III—than its story or characters. This is the most common criticism of the game, and while I think there’s something to it, it should also be noted that Final Fantasy V had the misfortune of being sandwiched between the epic, story-driven IV and VI, so it had some stiff competition in that area. There’s still a pretty good story to be had here; a likable, if not super-memorable cast; and a handful of interesting plot points and twists.
One interesting aspect of Final Fantasy V is that, in terms of gameplay, it is almost a mirror image of IV. Where IV is very linear and allows virtually no opportunities to customize characters, or even choose which party members to go with at any given time, V encourages frequent mixing and matching of classes and secondary skills to adapt to the current situation. One might go in expecting, consciously or unconsciously, the obvious male lead to function best in a Knight/Swordsman class, and the obvious female lead to be most effective as a mage. In truth, however, anyone can be anything. All characters have access to the same Job classes, but their visual design in each class varies to reflect their personality. Take the Monk/Martial Artist class, for instance—where both male characters go shirtless when assigned to this job, the more ‘girly’ of the two female characters dons a bright red athletic dress, while her more ‘tomboyish’ counterpart instead chooses a plain white robe/karate uniform. Given the relative obscurity of Final Fantasy V, it’s difficult to picture Square-Enix investing many resources into a future remake project, but it would be cool to see a modern take on all these character designs.
As for why I skipped right from III to V? Well, despite the fact that these two games, as far as I know, have never been bundled together, I think they would make pretty logical ‘running mates’ in the future, given that both are centered around a version of the Job system. (Maybe they could call it ’Final Fantasy Labor Collection’).
Now let’s tackle what is arguably the heaviest hitter of this group: Final Fantasy IV. Of the pre-VII Final Fantasy games, IV is probably the one that has gotten the most love from Square-Enix, which one could argue is a mixed blessing. While the original release is almost universally well-regarded, its direct, seventeen years after-the-fact sequel, The After Years, is often considered among the weakest titles to fly under the Final Fantasy banner. It has its good points, and I think there would a pretty engaging story here if they had just trimmed the proverbial fat and made >!Kain Highwind the undisputed main character.After Years is kneecapped by its original format of downloadable ‘episodes’ that were released gradually, and these chapters are by no means created equal. (Some are interesting, but others are a miserable slog).
Final Fantasy IV would eventually appear on both the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS, but the competing handhelds were not to receive the exact same product. The DS version featured the 3D visual style of Final Fantasy III DS, while the PSP’s Complete Collection employed a more traditional 2D art style with redrawn sprites and locations. Complete Collection, unlike FFF 4 DS, also contained both After Years and the aptly-titled mid-quel Interlude.
If Final Fantasy IV ever does make its way over to Switch, Complete Collection seems like the better overall value, but my guess is that the DS/mobile device 3D version is a bit more likely. It might be worth noting that, despite After Years debuting with a 2D style, it was re-released for mobile devices with a 3D ‘makeover’ back in 2013. This move also suggests that Square-Enix would sell the original IV and its sequel separately on the Eshop if they ever do bring them to Switch.
And now, the biggie: Final Fantasy VI. The most recent mainline entry to debut on a Nintendo system, and simultaneously one of the most beloved by fans and most neglected by its parent company. To this day, the definitive version of Final Fantasy VI is the enhanced GBA port, from all the way back in 2006. (Advance takes that crown in my book solely because, unlike other re-releases that contained the same bonus content, it included a run button from the beginning, in place of always needing to have one party member’s Relic slot taken up by the ‘Sprint Shoes’ if you wanted to get anywhere fast).
The sad reality of Final Fantasy VI is that, more than probably any other entry in this series, it is hindered by its graphical limitations. Not because it uses a 2D sprite-based presentation, to be sure—both Chrono Trigger and the first two Suikoden games managed to convey a large-scale world with a similar art style—but I think the best illustration of this shortcoming is to compare the the city of Vector in VI to Midgar in the original Final Fantasy VII. Neither locale would win any beauty contests these days, but even the rather primitive 3D visuals in VII were enough to convey that this was a massive, massive city. The Imperial capital, on the other hand? Not so much. Save for some slightly larger, plain-looking buildings, a lack of flowers and trees, and what looked to be pieces of industrial equipment in an area just beyond the line of apartments and stores, there wasn’t a whole lot to distinguish it visually from the average town a player visited.
Beyond the basic set pieces, though, there are a multitude of scenes in Final Fantasy VI that absolutely demand a greater visual spectacle than what the SNES/Famicom could achieve at the time. Especially the whole Floating Continent sequence of events. (Can you imagine?) As I admitted earlier, I don’t know much about the Dissidia games, but one thing I have seen of them are the amazing 3D models of VI’s Kefka and Terra. To have all those elaborate character designs given a modern (ish) touch, whether they used 3D models or 2D sprites, would be a thing of beauty.
Do I think a modern remake of Final Fantasy VI being developed for the Switch is likely? Sadly...no. But I can’t ignore how poetic such a thing would be. Considering that the first the world saw of the eventual Final Fantasy VII project was an N64 tech demo showing 3D models of Terra, Locke, and Shadow in battle, this would really bring things full-circle.
Again, if you made it this far...frankly, I’m surprised I made it this far! Five thousand-plus words, more than a month of fiddling with this ‘script,’ and I’m sure there’s still plenty I missed and got wrong. Still, it feels good to finally wrap this up, and if nothing else, I hope it will be a semi-enjoyable read. Curious to hear your thoughts, and many thanks!

You don't have to be spiky, but please don't be well-rounded

I'm possibly the least well-rounded person you will ever meet.
I mean it. I suck at so many things. Just terrible. I can't do math, or draw, or cook, or sing, or act, or include the unbelievable artwork from my artist, Felicia Tzeng, on Reddit , or plan, or make a competent TikTok , or lift heavy things, or dress myself, or promote stuff correctly, or lightly edit a piece once it's live without the entire Goddamn universe crashing in upon me, or sit through a movie without biting my nails, or be normal even when I really need to be...the list goes on and on.
I also wouldn't necessarily call myself "spiky." If I had a spike, it would be writing. But it's not like I'm out here winning Pulitzers. There's a reason I put my stuff out for free on Reddit instead of slamming it into a book. I tried that once before. No one bought the book.
But along with writing, I'd also say I'm quite good at college admissions info, explaining new concepts and ideas...talking about myself, telling jokes, ummm, analyzing handwriting, ummm, Playing Smash Bros at bars, ummmmm…
See? Not that spiky.
But I get enough nice DMs to know I'm good at what I do. It makes me feel grateful for all the support I've gotten and proud that I've been able to capitalize on and combine what I am good at to make myself happy and give back to the world.
That leads us to today's question:
Hi! I'm a rising sophomore. I've read most of your blogs, and I think they're gold and make a ton of sense. But they also freak me out. How am I supposed to find a weird hobby? On top of doing well in school? And having amazing extracurriculars? And family stuff? And how am I supposed to have a unique life so I have "unique" half ideas? It's so much work, stress, pressure, everything. I guess my real question is do you have any tips to manage the stress of applying to college or thinking about college in the future and trying to apply all the stuff I read on the internet and be a good, cool, passionate, driven person that gets enough sleep?
Sorry, no.

Mattie

...Yes, I have an answer.
This question cuts to the heart of what I find to be the single worst thing about college admissions. It is an objective fact that getting into college is not conducive to living a fun, care-free teen life. I'm smacked in the face with this fact every October 31st. That's the night before the first major round of EA/ED applications are due, and it is the first major checkpoint on the college application Grand Prix. For the first couple of years at my job, I would send out some "fun" Email congratulating my students on working so hard and demanding they do something to celebrate the holiday.
I stopped after realizing that every student would then report they either fell asleep at 7 PM or were too nervous about submitting things to do much of anything. I extra stopped when a student responded, "did you do something fun?"
No. I was up until 2 AM copy-editing, and then I watched a baseball game on DVR because I couldn't sleep.
Being in the weeds with you students gives me a crystal-clear understanding of what modern high school life is like. It sucks! But, to be fair, it sucks in mostly the same ways it did in 2009. I played the game just as hard in high school as I do with students now. And in both cases, it's worked. That's why I'm not the guy to tell you a summer job and Flaming Hot Cheetos LORs will be enough. Not if you want to go big.
So that's why I cringe every time there's some post on Reddit that's like, "remember to enjoy being a teen, you guys!" It's patronizing because it implies that every student here isn't "enjoying being a teen" because either they don't want to or because they don't have their priorities straight. And as College With Goddamn Mattie, I believe most of you have your hearts in the right place, doing whatever you can to achieve your goals.
So what do we do about this?
We avoid being well-rounded as hard as humanly possible. And in doing so, we cut out as much unimportant bullshit that makes us tired and unhappy as we can.
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I was inspired to write this after reading u/admissionsmom 's book last night. It's super good! You should buy it and read it and give it 5-stars!
I ended up in the chapter about the well-rounded/spike debate, and Miss Mom described a 5-prong starfish. Instead of having endless stuff, she recommended students pick around five things they care about and go for those as hard as they can.
I think my starfish would have three legs. Or like, two legs and one little toe.
Anyone here ever play World of Warcraft? I know the answer is no, but I have to ask. It was the video game that made young men uninteresting before DOTA and League took over. In WoW, you made your little gnome or goblin or whatever, and then you had three slots to decide.
Class:
Sub-Class:
Profession:
So for example, I was usually a Mage as a class, a healer as a sub-class, and a tailor as a profession. I can feel people back-clicking I type, so I'll now convert those three concepts into what I think they should mean for your application.
Class: This is what you plan to declare as your major. This was the first piece of content I published, and I feel like I agree with it even more now that I'm filling out apps again. You want/need to be spending a lot of time and energy showcasing the skills that you hope to be a professional in one day. If that's CS, I want you taking coding classes and building an app on Saturday. If it's writing, I want you on the school's newspaper and putting together that children's book alongside your artist friend. I also want you to get As in the hardest possible classes related to this subject and study hard to max out any standardized tests related to the subject.
Sub-Class: This is the other thing you do. Might be dance, might be swimming, might be working at Target. Your sub-class will usually be -but does not have to be- a classic school extracurricular. But whatever it is, I want you to go for it. I like awards and Youtube videos and volunteer positions and internships - I want you to go as far and wide with this as you possibly can. Dare to be great.
Profession: Here's where we can get weird. What do you like to do? Screw college, what are you into? I won't accept playing video games or watching television. But what else? Do you like to paint maybe? Or grow chia pets? This is where your weird hobby can come into play. Read this piece. I want you to do this, too.
This is literally my job, and I am telling you that if a student came to me and had all three of those sections jacked up all over, we would 100% be in business. All I would have to do is get to know them, and then I would help them build narrative connections between the three + their personality + whatever else they had going on, and it would work.
The key would have to be that this student had gone for each as hard as he or she could. I want the future doctor to have worked at a hospital and to have done lab research, and if she could have cured cancer, that would be great. And because she swims, I want her competing and winning at every damn swim event in the state. I also want her training little kids to swim for free on Saturday and working as a lifeguard each summer. And because she was the one student who actually took my advice to start a podcast on the medical benefits of swimming with her friend, we could get her into Stanford.
(Someone, anyone, please start a podcast with a friend. It can be about college, sports, local school gossip, serial killers, or anything else you care about and want to chat about. Put it out every week, have a website for it, and get it to 100 weekly listeners, and I will happily join for an episode to talk about anything you like. THEN YOU WILL GET INTO COLLEGE BECAUSE YOU STARTED A PODCAST AND THE BOOMERS WHO READ THIS SHIT WILL LOVE IT.)
Now, I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend you enjoy all three of these "spikes." I want you to go as hard as possible, and that's going to be a lot easier if you enjoy the concept itself. If you're a Frosh, I would prefer you to jump ship entirely than spend/waste so much of your time and energy on something you hate. But if you're a juniosenior, Iono. I think I'd tell you to suck it up and keep going. You can quit the second you get into schools. If it involves your major, my honest advice would be to play a good little soldier and apply with the background you have, then switch to another major you don't hate as soon as you get there.
This all sounds pretty cutthroat, right? It is. I know what it takes to get into top schools. It's really hard, you guys.
But here's the fun part: I don't want or need anything else.
I mean, it would be cool if you had a personality. And A's in other courses that were fairly-competitive. And if you liked Pokemon or something. We could and would write about all that, too. But that stuff I find comes naturally. I never need to force students to be fun, playful, or to like what they like. I've had too many teenagers be remarkable and different and amazing with no coaching at all to believe that it doesn't come naturally. What I need to do is direct their limited focus.
And that's why I think the concept of "being well-rounded" sucks and is a meme. I tend to really, really dislike bad advice. Especially advice that I feel like came from someone who meant well, but not well enough to think about what impact said advice would have in a real situation.
The meme version of well-rounded is: Do whatever makes you happy! The shitty real version is: do as many things in as many subjects as you can until your life falls apart. I see the tragic end-result of an elite student being well-rounded. He or she brings me what I refer to as the list of stuff. It's their resume or EC sheet, and it just goes on and on and on. But there's no theme. No story. All it says about the student is that they are inherently excellent and achieve a lot, seemingly for the sake of achieving it at all. Then I ask them about what matters the most to them and why, and they don't know. And then they don't get in where they want. And then their parents blame them.
It breaks my fucking heart you guys.
Please don't be well-rounded. Please don't let your parents make you do a bunch of shit that you don't like, aren't good at, or don't see an obvious payoff that makes the time and energy required to seem worth it. I promise it isn't. I promise that it won't help you grow as a young person, and ...more relevantly...I promise it won't get you into the schools you want to go to.
---
I'd like you to do some research on burnout. It's a concept that we, as a society, have deemed teens impervious to for some reason. FWIW, teenagers in 2009 weren't actually depressed; we were just moody. Both concepts are insane and dangerous.
https://www.verywellmind.com/ten-signs-your-teenager-is-burning-out-2611230
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm
I've burned out at multiple points in my life. It didn't just make me unhappy; it got in the way of my work and made me worse at the things I did care about. I'm terrified of burning out because I know it will lead to my professional catastrophe. I have worked harder this past calendar year than at any other point in my life. I've been stressed, haven't slept well, and been occasionally terrified that nothing I was trying would work. But I have not burned out. Not once. I'm still stressed and can't sleep, but I am so thrilled to be alive and love getting to work with my teens over Zoom every day.
(I call them my Zoomers!!!)
The difference is I have goals and motivations, and that I love what I have to do. That is my personal theory on burnout: That it is less about hours spent or the ability to tolerate sleepless nights and more about whether you find everything you are doing worth it or not. When you try to be well-rounded, you end up putting unnecessary time and energy into things you either don't like or don't care about. Then you burnout. Then the things that do matter and you do care about start to suffer as well.
So we're gonna cut a lot of that shit out. No, you don't have to learn a second instrument. Do something cool with the one you already enjoy. No, you don't need to learn Italian. You're applying Chemical Engineering; that's stupid. Instead, be that magical starfish wizard. Have a few - carefully planned - passions and go. Gogogogogo.
And then go be a teenager. You are allowed to do absolutely anything you want. You wanna work at the mall? Go for it. Want to try baking bread? I love it. But do these things without a hidden agenda. There's no ulterior motive of how good does this bread need to be? Do things because they sound fun, or you want to know if you can. Then, maybe, if you like it, keep going with it and see what happens. But you shouldn't need to worry about it because you're already working your ass off at the stuff that counts.
...I do not know if this will work. Or at least, I can't prove it. I was not a Stanford Admissions Officer for three years in the 1990s, so I do not inherently know everything there is to know about modern college admissions. What I can say is that this is how I live my life. I showed up here six months ago and meant absolutely nothing. What I did know is that I can write better than everyone else, I'm funny, I analyze handwriting, I am willing to talk openly about my life to strangers, and that I am good with coming up with new ideas. Anyone of those concepts alone does not make me stand out. But what I did is actively combine the few things I knew I was great at as tightly and creatively as possible to make people notice me.
It worked. I run my own college consulting business now - entirely with Reddit students. It has made me happy and successful to the point that it doesn't seem real. I am so unbelievably grateful to you all here that it does not seem real.
But it is. Because half-ideas works, yo.
If it worked for some guy in Palo Alto trying to jump-start his career, it will work for you trying to get into the schools you care about. You all read crappy advice telling you how important it is to "Stand out!" and "Showcase your passions!" Well, here's how you actually can. I build systems, and this is my system for getting into college. I didn't expect to be dumping my high-school consulting expansion thesis today, but here we are.
I really like this piece, except for the fact that I didn't answer that kid's question, like at all. Let's try again.
Hi! I'm a rising sophomore. I've read most of your blogs, and I think they're gold and make a ton of sense. But they also freak me out. How am I supposed to find a weird hobby? On top of doing well in school? And having amazing extracurriculars? And family stuff? And how am I supposed to have a unique life so I have "unique" half ideas? It's so much work, stress, pressure, everything. I guess my real question is do you have any tips to manage the stress of applying to college or thinking about college in the future and trying to apply all the stuff I read on the internet and be a good, cool, passionate, driven person that gets enough sleep?
The way you achieve this is by thinking ahead.
First, keep your grades up. That matters most of all. All As will take you further than any weird three-pronged sea creature ever will.
Next, you're starting your sophomore year. That's still so much time to do what needs to be done. Take a step back, breathe, and then begin to plan a bit. What's your magic starfish? What's the stuff to prioritize? What isn't? Which of those activities do you not even enjoy? I think you should stop those activities that you don't like and don't feel contribute to your overall application strength directly.
That should buy you some more free time. Maybe dedicate half of it to doing more and better things that do matter. Be smart about it. I mean it that if you like to swim, you should be volunteering at a pool or a beach. It seems so simple as I write it, but in the chaos of the admission frenzy, it's easy to lose track of the goal and go do a bunch of things that feel right without a valid reason why. I am telling you they're not. Well-rounded is such a meme, you guys.
And with that other half? Do you. Download a calendar app for your phone. I use Google Calendar, and it works well except when I accidentally click a popup and get porn spam sent to it. I live through my calendar and have everything I must do graphed out in front of me at all times. It makes me waste zero time or energy wondering what I should be doing; I just do it. I once tried filling in social activities like "see mom" or even "write for fun" in the empty spaces, but that failed miserably. Instead, I punch in everything I must do and then know and respect that any blank time is mine. I try to build my weekly schedule to allow me as many decent-sized free blocks as possible. I plan and package my week so that every Friday night I have off to go on a date, and every Sunday I'm clear all day to watch football in bed with my cat.
If I didn't, shit would just be everywhere, and I'd spend all week either working or awaiting working. I'm obsessed with efficiency. You should be setting your week so that you cut down on as many unproductive moments as possible. For example, you need to book that theoretical little-kid swim class either right before or right after your regular practice session. Doing so cuts out all the time and energy it would take to get ready and head to the pool a second time. That's an extra 90 minutes each week you just took back. Actively work to create solutions like these, and you'll be amazed just how much more time each week you can reclaim.
It is possible to be a successful, hard-working, high-achieving person without everything else in your life falling apart. I try really hard to be an example of that fact.
And weird hobby? Just have it on your mind. The fact that you are on this message board, asking a guy like me, and getting a Goddamn Masters thesis in return is an excellent sign for your future. I love this board so much because it's somewhere for kids to turn who absolutely give a shit about their future, but need advice on what to do. A place like this didn't exist when I was your age, and it pisses me off every day. Merely the fact that you are mindful of the type of content colleges will want to see in three years puts you so unbelievably far ahead of the game. You don't need a hobby nownownow. But try some stuff. Do things you might typically pass off as not worth your time, if only because some random dude on Reddit gave you the scoop ahead of time. Then, if you like it, keep going.
I am not the person to ask how to get more sleep.
And lastly: good, cool, passionate, driven person is not a trait you train for. At least not that I've seen. Instead, every teenager I have ever worked with I have considered a good, cool, passionate, driven person. I think it comes with the territory of the type of young person who cares enough to contact a man off Reddit to help them get into college. But also it's emblematic of a new generation of young people that are objectively incredible. One of my favorite lines is, "teenagers remain undefeated." I do not think you will be the one to break up this perfect season.
- Mattie
I wrote another thing! I had a big paragraph before explaining it but then I wanted to add a cute picture of a Starfish and Reddit LOST ITS MIND. For about five minutes the article ended at "Sorry, no - Mattie". GOOD TIMES.
Look at him. He's adorable.
https://feliciattzeng.myportfolio.com/
Anyways I wrote a guide to the "Why College" Supplemental. Bout 4,000 words. Worked really hard on it! It's on my site and will be sent to you in exchange for your Email. In doing so you'll be added to my mailing list and all sorts of fun stuff.
Tinyurl.com/CollegeWithMattie is the link.
Spread it around! It's good I swear! If you're on Discords, College Confidential, or other places I'm afraid of, it would be huge for you to share it there for anyone asking about this type of essay.
I’m glad you guys liked this one.

Recommendations

If you enjoyed adventure game books DQ2 and Legacy of Dragonholt, this post is for you!

I placed the following adventure game books on my wishlist, but unf brexit is coming so I think it's best to order one before. However, to reach a decision I need more information, and I encountered a problem. There is next to no information readily available, so I would like to hear your thoughts - if you have read any of the books... I read/played Destiny Quest 2 + LoD and liked it a lot.
Q: Is there anything like that?
This post details modern adventure gamebooks. First there were wargames and FF/CYOA books, that influenced video games, which influenced modern adventure gamebooks. I focus on the latter (at first I posted findings randomly here, appending in a random way, now it is a more structured approach) since we're not kids anymore. Specifically spectrum extremes like RPG adventure game books, and dungeon generators, or worldbuilding systems for kobolds are not covered here. This post is already long enough. Modern adventure gamebooks then!
First, what sources are available?

Amazon. Good start, useful for finding other titles thanks to the recommendation function.
GoodReads. Limited but has sometimes info not found elsewhere. A lot of ratings but not many original reviews.
Kickstarter (when applicable): slog through various update posts. Time-consuming.
YouTube. A few gamebooks, a few channels, and videos quality is bad, making their point seems to take forever.
Various publisheauthor-owned websites. Cumbersome to even find these.
Completely useless:
1. BGG > RPGGeek. Mostly abandoned old stuff, not maintained. Useless unless you are into FF old-school adventure books, where you can download all the PDFs, and then this post is not for you, sorry.
2. Reddit. Sorry, but either I can't find it, or it simply is absent. Useless.
3. Wikipedia. You need to know the title first, which kinda defeats the purpose, amazon.co.uk is better suited.
twitch? discord? no idea what the young go to nowadays..

Next, criteria that need to be covered in reviews/info gathered from these sources:

Is the product available and affordable (<$40), or is it OOP, or PDF only?
Is there replayability?
Is the writing quality good enough? Or is it google-translate quality?
How is combat agency? is it FF-d6 style (=no agency), or does it take into account worn gear on body parts, worn gear stats? How does magic work in combat? Is there an initiative system?
How does Life work? Autoheal after each combat you won? Or more attrition based? If sleep is needed, how does lodging work?
How does Food/wateoxygen work? Is it needed to keep track of and why?
How does Death work? Choose left, read section you died. Game over? Or restart in town? Or restart at last save point (to be marked on your sheet)?
How does money work? Is there any? If so, is there an economy? E.g. returning to the smithy near town, you notice two newly erected buildings. Housing for my apprentices, the smith explains, smiling. Apparently your purchases did him good.
How does Loot work? Is loot randomly rolled based on tables (aka Diablo 2), or do many sections have unique items? If so, is there a choice offered among a few items from which to take (agency)?
How is the item inventory system? What items don't count (e.g. gold, bread, arrows in a quiver, gems etc). Is there a stash?
How much agency is there to travel? Is it Hub-Side quests/area boss? or sequentially unlocking areas?
Do scenes come to life? Has sufficient detail been provided? E.g. not "you're alone on a ship", but what boat material, how long is it, who built it, where did you get it from, how did you learn to sail, where at sea, how far at sea, etc.
Do npcs act / think / consider given the information they have? Or are they lifeless, passive and hence break immersion? E.g. not "Will you: A) pull that lever hidden under the rug hanging on the wall of the room that your hero hasn't found yet?"
Does the world/game state change/react to your (character's) actions? Does gameplay track your actions?
Do npcs change/react to your actions? E.g. you didn't help the desperate-looking girl, next day there a memorial is announced because she was found at the bottom of nearby cliff. Closing off your option to a possible location holding a great artifact.
Does the book offer solutions that do not require permanently affecting it?
What traits are relevant to the hero? Fame? Venom? Prescience?
Does it have puzzles? riddles?

List of books and info I found:

The Castle of Blackwood Moors = [amazon], [goodRead], [kickstarter], [youtube]. -> zero useful information/ no reviews other than that 2 people rated it 3/5 and that it depicts a series of rooms in a dungeon crawler. How is the writing quality? Do npcs make sense? Insufficient to warrant a purchase.

Heroes of Urowen: Gamebook [rpggeek] = see google drive link for preview. 4 stats. and everything is 1d6. Combat = if you hit is by your highest stat+d6 vs enemy stat+d6; if higher, roll for what body part (1-6) and modify by what target is wearing on what you rolled; that is the net damage. IOW: complicated decision tree without much to optimize. Inventory: food, coins, and main wpn do not count (6 slots total); Death = respawn at a save point, a number to be exact, that you come across just like a vg.
EDIT: I read the preview, and emailed the author on his spelling of dice/dices. He reacted very quickly and very friendly. Makes me almost wanting to back the bloke.

Rider of the Black Sun: A Fantasy Gamebook = mostly two reviews that read as if they were paid reviews, my gut says untrustworty. Combat is unexplained. Death, same. Actually there is only the ks campaign section. It mentions hidden bonus sections. Unique mechanics.. unique how? A Single page is published from what I see the writing is obviously translated from German and doesn't flow naturally (maybe in a new edition). Zero agency there, so why exactly that page?
The fact it starts with you are an urowen, as if that were explaining anything, annoys me.
Browsing through the project updates I found

a short film on a booklet, with some pretty disturbing pictures (chicks on chains, always good!) but to my surprise there was, more to the point,
also an update with some text.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/swen/rider-of-the-black-sun-a-fantasy-gamebook/posts/2200294
As you can see, the corrected text still (in my opinion) could benefit from a few extra iterations. What I saw: stunted rhythm, poor adjectives, signs of a non-native writer. I don't expect everyone to write like Jack Vance, but a bit more oompf would have helped. If you're not proficient in English, you won't be bothered and then the book is highly recommended. To me however it would distract too much.
EDIT: emailed the writer via the ks FAQ, and dude responded quickly and explained which the two isbn codes were for German vs English version, since amzn.co.uk doesn't tell you directly.
If you ever wanted Guitar Hero: The Adventure Game book, well, that's his next project.

The Defenders of Dusk: An Interactive Adventure by Dane Barrett Paperback => well since everything is a 2d6 on an 8 or higher do a else do b, this game is not for me. There is zero agency.

Beyond the morning mountains = well, the only information I could find is that it is inspired by the Australian outback (goodread link). Sandbox style, single ending. OOP. Insufficient to warrant a purchase.

Labyrinth - The Lich Lord's Lair = ? (amazon info); no ini, combat is you attack and enemy defends, enemy attacks and you defend. Old school, not my thing.

Blood sword (series of books 1-5)
blood sword 1 : [ amazon ] [ goodreads ] [ youtube]. Even tactical maps.
review: " the complex combat system. But that is easily solvable, just don't bother with it. " I had that exact same reaction when reading VoB. next review (German): ""Heart of Ice" is a story, "Blood Sword" (that applies to all parts) is more of a collection of encounters. In some places I had the impression that the authors had thought up the events while they were writing and were then sometimes surprised by the results themselves (otherwise I can't really explain the 100 sections for the demon logic game mentioned above, and similar "side events" appear in other volumes). Where "Heart of Ice" seems elegant and stringent, "Blood Sword" is much too experimental and thrown together in comparison. That was definitely a big step in the 80s, but nowadays I can only say: read "Heart of Ice" ! And then hope for a successor, because "Blood Sword" is quite disappointing."
GR bulgarian review: "I still didn't like this series and I never understood why they like it - maybe because of the lack of cultural fantasy in Bulgarian. The game was slow and at times confusing. Maybe because I was used to playing more than reading and I got bored of the bigger works, and the western ones were not like the Bulgarian game books - they were not written for the Bulgarian reader."
OK. BS1 is not for me. Perhaps BS2?
Blood Sword 2: kingdom of wyrd [amazon [ goodreads] [youtube] no excerpt this time.
Summary: better writing, better flow, larger footprint. Goodreads: aside from the whining bulgarian, everyone loves it. OK, might pick this one up.

Blood Sword 3: Demon's Claw - should be better right?
[ amazon ][ Goodreads ] [youtube]. [sample] Same dudes, same high rating. One note: " ‘The Demon’s Claw’ takes place across a quasi-historical world reminiscent of the decline of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of Islam. " OK, maybe this one as well...

Blood Sword 4: Doomwalk:
[amazon] [ Goodreads] 5/5 and 4.5 so positive, but useless reviews this time. One note: " his adventure takes most of it influence from the ancient Greek world ". Love that setting as well. Damn.

Fabled Lands series [ amazon ] - [goodreads] - [youtube]. More reviews than expected. You can download the free demo version of FL7, I didn't like it. You can listen to a dude reading aloud FL1-7 on youTube. Couldn't stand it, so I just list it for the sake of completionism.

Valley of Bones [youtube marco] I read the demo. Check for yourself. You can also write jon directly from the website.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tmy4qac5mavj9im/VoB%20SampleBook%20DIGITAL%20FINAL.pdf?dl=0
It's not my dropbox so it can be taken down any day. If you want my errata I can upload them as well. Jon may send you the pdf that you then can print at your cost. In short: Wait until there are 3 more books in this series.

Steam highwayman:
[amazon] [youtube] [goodreads] not my thing. But you have a world that reacts to you. It's just not an interesting world. Part two is very cheap, used. Quotes: " Both my sons (age 12 and 8) have been enthralled by this." Nobody wrote a review, probably his family upvoting him.

Fabled Worlds [youtube] looks promising but unf FF style, and refers to [artichoke dip]. Might be amusing to watch.

And just for the sake of completionism:
Destiny Quest series, not the Varum one, but by Michael J Ward. He also has a forum dedicated to the books, of course I registered as a member. As you can see from goodreads it is his Life Work, and breathes passion and skill in writing and game design. I base this from youtube interviews, email correspondence and reading some of his material.
Destiny Quest 1 => reviewers complain you can break the system by investing in initiative. Also it is too much Diablo 1, constant battles, not enough lore/story. Granted, it's his first, so what can you expect. Michael confirmed the initiative thing in his interviews. So buy this book only to complete your collection.

Destiny Quest 2 = as a "first thoughts", I completed a few quests of part 1 (of 3):
(+) quest system is superb. You start in a town you wandered into, and try to get your bearings, talking to inhabitants, visiting the church etc. You pick a quest with a difficulty indicator: very helpful, thematically from easy quests some villagers did return; from medium quests one or two survived the experience but were in bad shape; so by inference the ones where none returned need some grinding. Some encounters with villagers also open up quests.
(+) Writing quality is superb. With few words Michael paints a picture in your head. None of the doubts on npcs occur. npcs feel natural. They have (hidden at first) motivations. Michael doesn't make the noob mistakes (VoB) of writing that something is dark and ominous. He describes the setting that implies that it is dark. He doesn't make npcs tell shit they couldn't possibly know.
(+) Combat system is superb. Using a d6 (I used an app that I first tested the fairness of) you roll for modified initiative, then who wins gets to deal modified damage based on (your choice of ) skill. You have a few skills, say STR, MAG, and can equip gear that embellishes one vs the other. It's quick, sharp, fun, and you get to spend your potions, day-skills, etc.
(+) How does death work? It doesn't. If you die, you wake up in town fully healed. Think Diablo 2 softcore. If anything, the system is too lenient. Rules say after each encounter you are fully healed, which is exactly what you would do in most vg situations. I missed that, however, somehow, and it got grim pretty fast the further I got on the easy quests.
(+) Loot + items. The usual head/hands/body/feet/neck slots, carry one with stats, and some with active or passive abilities. Equip a new thing, erase stuff from your sheet and write the new. Items are very varied in their effects which gives meaningful decisions. With some luck you can find a safe house with a stash to play loot whore like in video games ♪
(+) Plot. There is definitely the "sense" of a plot, but I can't confirm yet. The things you encounter certainly don't feel random.
(+) There is a tightly written list of pages and pages of skills, effects and such, in neat alphabetical order (or you can download as pdf. PDF is a PITA to print however).
(+) True solo. You can play as 1 or 2 heroes. 1 hero works well.
(+) Mystery: I found a clearing with a witch that was lighting candles, of course in a pentagram fashion. Afterward I was asked to complete the puzzle, it was a triangle of spots, 1-2-3 where the bottom was empty, and how many candles to light in the bottom. The digits interpreted as a number, would point to a section in the gamebook. I never solved that riddle and it made a deep impression.
(+) Variety. I won't spoil, but the quests and mini bosses are quite varied. I quit where the boss would spawn little critters every turn that collectively would eat my hero alive. But it was late in the day and I wasn't in the mood. I haven't found monsters with immunities, but you can bet they will be present, judging from the D2 vibe. Three acts. The maps in the front of the book are b/w but the downloadable pdfs are color, and look very, very intriguing.
(+) Replayability: well unless you play the first time doing all the easy quests then all the medium quests etc, you will have some replay value because the skills (passive abilities/once a day) are different depending on the class you started. For example, my hero class has prescience, very useful but others don't have that.

Destiny Quest 3 = 2 acts. snow and skyrim. Not sure about this one, need to finish dq2 first.
Destiny Quest 4: Raiders of Dune Sea = as far as I can tell, two acts, and exactly what you would imagine, wild west spagetti western desert then arabic desert. Yup: [amazon] => two halves, one western, second arabic. western part is subtle and doesn't lead anywhere but you discover how in second half. Ending is open, and to be completed in a future DQ5. Everybody loves the writing obviously.

Last, but not least, Legacy of Dragonholt. Nikki Valens Magnum Opus. Excellent attention to detail. No grim death, 4 endings. We spent 7 sessions on one playthrough, each 2h, 2p, with pregenerated characters. Gf can't wait on playing again with customized characters. We felt that we missed about 55-65% of everything. Highly recommended, although many reviews point out that the system could have been taken so much farther... (Value ratio = $30/2/2/7 = $1.50)

(buying all is a bit.. much)
TBH the combat seems to be the old school kind, which I don't like. Modern gamebooks take into account what you wear and can use and the net result of that determines your combat stats. None of the above seem to have that.
I mean if you like FF go read FF or lone wolf or similar. I am interested in something with a little more body to it.

(I'm updating this post regularly in the hope it will help anybody)
~~But for now I'll stick with my DQ2, given the current information, I already own the best.~~
~~I am ordering BS 3+4 (+2, not sure).~~
Ordered BS 3+4, period.
HTH

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