*Shrug*

Trying to get better at dropping games I'm not having fun with and not forcing myself through them, and I guess Myst III is next up on the chopping block.

Not because I think it's bad or anything. The panoramic interaction scheme here is the best and most intuitive the series has seen yet, and the bits of story I've seen so far have been fun, and some of the puzzles I've done have been neat as well. I'm just not really locking into the vibe as much as I did with Myst. Feels too trial and error with the story being too forward.

I think Myst [original] works the best for me since you're piecing together everything, not just the puzzles. Once Riven comes along, the Myst series now has capital L Lore and it's not so mysterious anymore, just fantastical (as well as the puzzles being far too difficult/trial-and-error-y for me to be able to parse without a guide). That lack of mystery is heightened to a fever pitch here, to the point where the "Myst" name stops really making a whole lot of sense. I can tolerate old school trial and error-y point&click puzzling through gritted teeth, but it's hard to really justify it in my head when the atmosphere isn't really as opaque as the puzzles (to no one's surprise, I am not the biggest point & click fan lol).

It does just feel like more of the same to me, only not as good. If you're ride or die for this series coming out of Riven, then that's probably still pretty dope, but I tenuously like Myst and tenuously dislike Riven, so there's not much going for me here.

Rusty's Retirement is a unique and honestly cozy-style idle game about farming and growing crops. While I enjoy certain aspects about what it brings to the table, I've ultimately found myself retiring it way earlier than I anticipated.

While it is an "idle" game of sorts, it requires a lot more maintenance than I was expecting from one of these games to where I never feel like I could just boot it up and then just look at it every once in a while. I always felt like I needed to pay attention and make sure I had things set up right because if I didn't pay attention for a while, I'd be left with no crops and therefore the game is basically doing nothing.

I really loved the "side/bottom of the monitor" window and I hope to see more games in the future that do this because I already see a lot of potential. But, as much as I love this windowed aspect, I would've also really enjoyed a way for me to position it the way I wanted to rather than just sticking to either bottom or the right side. Especially since once you pick an orientation, I found myself to be stuck with it and no way to change it.

- I honestly was able to unlock most of the items (non-crop related) relatively early on and once you get everything there is to offer, the game just kinda slows down a bit too much and some of the permanent upgrades you do get I feel didn't really add too much to the game overall or at least to where I was moreso just saying "okay, so they do this. Neat."

I don't know honestly. I wanted to enjoy this more than I did, but I found this to be a weaker idle game for me personally. Maybe it's also just the theme. I've never been the biggest fan of cozy farming/crop style games as I find them a bit of a slog, so maybe that has something to do with it too.

I still think it's worth a try though if you're a fan of idle games or cozy farming simulators. Maybe you'll enjoy it more than I.