Update Thank you for all the comments below. I've tried to include as many tips and fail safes you have mentioned, in this post. I do recommend people read the comments as I may have missed some.
Firstly, thank you to this excellent community my PC is now built and working (pics to come in another post). I thought here are some lessons I learnt in building the PC, researching and other bits I thought would be worth sharing, as a lot of this I never had even heard about. Some will be obvious and others less so. I should note, that I'm not a pro or someone who does this regularly, just someone who spent a while reading around, so feel free to correct/highlight any mistakes, and I'll try to update the post. The descriptions, aren't really meant to be a full lesson about each part and will be lacking a lot of detail, but are more a jumping board for further reading if anyone is interested. For full information on building a PC I highly recommend looking around on YouTube and other sources.
If I get anything wrong, please correct me and I'll update.
On Monitors:

If you are after 144Hz 1440p gaming, use a Display Port (DP) cable, not a HDMI, if you can. As you could be hampering your refresh rate, (https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/features/displayport-vs-hdmi-better-for-gaming) Update Although you could be fine if you are using HDMI 2.1, see link for more details
Freesync vs Gsync. For simplicity, both these technologies aim to match performance on screen with your GPU. Freesync works with Radeon, GSync with NVidia (although some Freesync monitors will be GSync compatible, likewise for the otherway around). It's complicated and due to changes in the standards over the years it can vary from monitor to monitor. Make sure to do research on the specific monitor you're wanting to get/have. If you are buying a new monitor keep this in mind. https://www.viewsonic.com/library/entertainment/g-sync-vs-free-sync-explained UpdateAccording to comments freesync monitors will almost always work with Nvidia. As always, do read around about it.
Windows by default is set to have a refresh rate of 60Hz, if you have a higher spec monitor you can change this to match your monitor in "Advanced Display settings".

RAM (All except point 1 was completely new to me)

2 Sticks of 8GB Ram will perform better than 1 stick of 16GB Ram (https://techguided.com/single-channel-vs-dual-channel-vs-quad-channel/). Also when installing them, put them in the correct channels, check your Motherboard for details.
Your motherboard will prefer your dual channel RAM to be in specific slots. I had an issue where I couldn't get the maximum performance of my RAM which I had placed in slots 1 and 3, but the moment I put them in 2 and 4 it worked perfectly. Check your motherboard manual.
Enable XMP in Bios (This might also be called DOCP or A-XMP). This will vary between motherboards, but if you don't your 3200MHz ram is likely running a lot slower. In my build, XMP wouldn't work till I put the RAM in the correct channels, hope this saves someone the hours I spent finding this out ;) Update You can use Task manager to verify you have done this correctly. 3b. Someone pointed this out XMP may void your CPU's processor (https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/xmp-profile-ram-3200-mhz-and-amd-warranty-policy-for-ryzen/td-p/145798) (https://community.intel.com/t5/Processors/XMP-Warranty-void/td-p/1196241). If anyone knows any more, please message me directly so I can add the details. This was mentioned by someone in the comments and I would rather pass the information and ask you to do your own checking as well.
When picking RAM, frequency matters, but so does CAS Latency. You want high frequency but low CAS (CL) latency. I'd recommend doing more reading about it, if you want to know more I'd recommend doing some more reading, but the "true latency" can be calculated as TL = CL * 2000/Freq. E.g. CL 18 3600Mhz Ram has a TL of 10ns. Update Someone who actually knows what they are talking about found point (4) confusing if not perhaps misguided and I recommend you read their post here (https://www.reddit.com/buildapc/comments/kis9r5/lessons_i_learnt_the_longhard_way_so_you_dont/ggtdudd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Ensure the speed of the RAM is compatible with the board you are looking to purchase (or visa versa).
Motherboards will have Qualified Vendor Lists, listing RAM they have tested and certified to work. This may be worth looking at. Just because your RAM isn't on the list doesn't mean it won't work, or won't overclock, it just means it hasn't been certified to, so do take this into consideration. (I found this in my build, while it was from Crucial and some Crucial RAM was on the QVL, mine wasn't. Thankfully it was fine.)

Motherboards

Newer processors (e.g. at time of writing many AMD motherboards require a bios update for the 5000 series AMD CPU) may require you to install a new BIOS before they can be detected. Not all motherboards can have their bios updated without a CPU installed. When shopping for your motherboard looking to see if it does USB Bios flashback should be considered. This was completely new to me and glad I learnt it in time.*Addition* Newer motherboards don't require bios updates and so won't need this feature, though you will have to check.
Different mother boards are compatible with different CPUs, pick your CPU first
CPU coolers may need different mountings depending on the CPU. When picking your cooler keep this in mind, you may need to ensure there is an adaptor. Additions from the comments
Not all mother boards have connectors for front IO USB-C. If this is important to you and part of your case, it's worth looking into.
Using an M.2 usually disables some of your SATA ports. If you are planning on using all your SATA ports, make sure to check to see if this happens and how it happens on your chosen mother board.
Some motherboards are built with Debug LEDs now that will help you diagnose problems.
If you are after RGB effects, ensure your motherboard is compatible with the effects you want to add. There are 5V and 12V headers, so make sure they match. I'd recommend looking into this more yourself, as I've likely vastly oversimplified. (https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?110272-What-do-5v-and-12v-RGB-cables-look-like-you-ask#:%7E:text=You%20can%20also%20see%20the,as%20shown%20on%20these%20photos)

CPU

Some CPU's have integrated graphics. If you don't want to buy a dedicated graphics card, you need to purchase one of these CPU's. You then plug your monitor into the motherboard.
CPU's have a Thermal Design Power, if you are not using the stock cooler read up on it (https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/tdp-thermal-design-power-definition,5764.html)

Component compatibility

Make sure all your components are compatible. PC Part Picker (https://pcpartpicker.com/) is generally pretty good at this. If uncertain, this is a wonderful community to ask.

Power supply

PC Part Picker gives you a good idea as to how much power your system will need, if not check the graphics card you intend to buy. Not all machines need a 1000W behemoth. Picking the right one will save you money
Power supplies come with a rating standard e.g. Bronze+ etc..., this is basically their efficiency. (https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/what-80-plus-levels-mean,36721.html). I think it's safe to suggest people should at least go for Bronze.
Make sure your PSU fits in your case. I bought an ATX PSU, then decided on the 011 Dynamic Mini case, only realise it needed a SFX (smaller) PSU. I ended up going for a different case. Likewise an SFX PSU may not have the cable length you need or fit as snuggly in an ATX case (source: comments section)
Look into the build quality of the PSU. A faulty PSU can cause serious issues down the line, so it is worth taking time look at PSU Tier lists and review. (Link provided by several commenters https://linustechtips.com/topic/1116640-psucultists-psu-tier-list/)

Tools (OP Note: I've only tried Ninite)

Ninite (https://ninite.com/) Is an easy way to download all the basic programs one tends to install onto a fresh Windows install, without having to go to 10-15 websites. E.g. you can select to install Chrome, Zoom, Steam, OpenOffice all from one installer. If you keep the install, it can also be re-run to update all the software in one swoop.
Patch My PC (https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/patch_my_pc.html) Patches software on your PC (Thank you to the sys admin in the comments for this.)
Chocolatey (https://chocolatey.org/) A powerful command line way to install and upgrade software.

Storage

M2 drives can be SATA or NVMe, NVMe is faster. (M2 drives are generally plugged directly into the mother board, for anyone who until recently was using a hard disk drive and considered SSDs "fancy")
I highly recommend reading this comment (https://www.reddit.com/buildapc/comments/kis9r5/lessons_i_learnt_the_longhard_way_so_you_dont/ggtn00w/?context=3) as it contains stuff I was unaware of.

Case

If your case has bottom intake or exhaust vents, don't put it directly on carpet, as it can block the air flow. (Yup....I did need to be told this ^_^, my previous computer just didn't have any bottom intake, hell it hardly had any intake).
Make sure your mother board, PSU, GPU and all your components fit in the case. This is particularly worth noting if you are going for a micro ATX or a ITX case. Worth noting is to remember to include fans + GPU length, any additional length caused by radiators (if you water cool), the size of your CPU cooler (if you air cool) Additions from the comments
When considering your case, if you are water cooling, "Room for 2x 140mm fans does not always mean room for a radiator as well". Make sure to double check the clearance. Measure twice buy once.

Advice on building (Notes and horror stories from the comments) 1. Many new coolers come with pre-applied thermal paste. If yours doesn't don't forget to apply it, to the CPU (See videos by people with more experience/knowledge than me on what to do). 2. Remember your mother board I/O shield (advice from the comments about making sure to put it in before you install the motherboard, mine came with it attached). 3. Make sure the CPU is correctly installed before you clasp it down. 4. If your motherboard has two slots to install a GPU. One of them (normally the top) will provide better performance. Make sure to use the correct one. 5. Make sure your CPU cooler doesn't block a RAM slot. In making my PC the AMD wraith has a notch on one side with the AMD logo, thankfully I put the RAM in first, so I swiftly learnt that I had to rotate the cooler 180 degrees to get it to fit. 6. If you can avoid it, do not build your computer on carpet (and do not stand on carpet when building) and be aware of static when building. If this is your first build, do some reading around this. Wear a static bracelet and attach it to something grounded. 7. Remember if you have a dedicated graphics card. Plug your monitor into the graphics card, not the motherboard. 8. If you are installing fans, make sure they are in the correct direction. 9. When playing the radiator of your AIO (if you are using one) make sure part of it is higher than the pump (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbGomv195sk) 10. It's often worth the time to read the motherboard manual. 11. This may sound silly, but cables and the sockets on the PSU are often labelled. Be aware of this, it will help you in the build.
More subjective advice

I've been recommend by numerous people to go for Gold+ PSUs, with often being stated that while its more efficient, it will also be better made. Your budget may dictate otherwise. If you look through the comments you will frequently find the advice "don't cheap out on the PSU and go for at least Gold"
For most users if your CPU comes with a stock cooler. It will be good enough. You can always change it later. If your planning to overclock, you likely know more than me, so feel free to ignore. Update According to the comments, AMD stock coolers tend to be considered good enough, Intel, not so much.
A LOT of people below have said "Do not mix cables from different PSU manufacturers." as they are not universal. I don't know anything about this, so do some additional reading if you are considering doing so. Update From further comments this is something to take serious. Update from further comments, the word of advice is "Do your research before using cables not supplied with the PSU you are using."

Further notes from the comments: Below are points I've read in the comments that might be worth drawing to people attention. Please read around the topic if it applies to you. 1. One person has said XMP causes their Oculus Rift to do weird things.
Hope this helps some people. Addition I recommend reading the comments, as many people have put in their own tips/horror stories ;)
Take care all and Merry Christmas.

12.9 AND WIPE ON 24/12/2020 MEGATHREAD

Slay the Spire and its "family"

https://steam.cryotank.net/wp-content/gallery/slaythespire/Slay-the-Spire-01-HD.png
Slay the Spire (StS) has finally arrived to Android! For two years many of us dreamed for this legendary game to be accessible on their mobile devices, and finally the day has come. No need to talk about how awesome this game is, how it basically started a new genre of card-based dungeon crawlers (UPD: or roguelike deck-builders, if you prefer the term), and even about how well or poor it works on Android hardware in its current state (there will be lots of these posts during the days to come). What I wanted to talk about is the impact this game had on (specifically) mobile industry and how other developers were able to utilize this innovative formula in their own products.
Personally, I am somewhat glad that StS release was delayed that much. This allowed a lot of "clones" to be spawned, many of which I enjoyed playing. Some of them appear to be straight rip-offs, but others introduced many fresh ideas of their own, some even surpassing the predecessor's greatness. What the heck am I talking about and how is this even possible will be revealed to you, should you decide to stay on a bit and read through the article below.

General info

First and foremost, let's clarify the important thing: card based dungeon crawlers are not Collectible Card Games (CCGs). Even though they share the same ideas, and some of them (StS included) even have a feature to permanently improve starting cards, or a mode to play with pre-constructed decks, this is not the case for the genre in general. There is no place for multiplayer and PvP battles here: a turn-down for the most, but an undeniable advantage for the rest - only though-out puzzle-like single-player experience which we can pause at any moment and continue when the time is appropriate. Thus, there will never be troubles with downtime, matchmaking, ratings, overpowered builds and other PvP stuff, as there will never be a satisfaction of crushing your opponents with the power of your mighty intellect... The fun of discovering interesting synergies between various card combinations is still present, though.
With this being said, let's quickly look through the core features of the genre, which will be relevant for almost every game we review below: - we must explore a dungeon, which (usually, but not necessarily) consists of three floors with increasing difficulty; - we have limited control over the order in which to face the challenges; - there is a powerful boss in the end of each floor; - we battle using deck of cards, usually drawing new cards from deck to hand each turn; - there is a limitation on how many cards we can play during our turn; - we start with a weak basic deck, but get new cards as rewards for fighting enemies; - there is a possibility to permanently remove (weak) cards from the deck; - successful gameplay strategies revolve around utilizing the synergies between different cards; - there are several character classes, each with their own cards and tactics; - there are often additional items to acquire in the dungeon, providing bonuses and emphasizing specific types of play;
Before Slay the Spire (StS) came out, there was another card-based dungeon crawler called Dream Quest (DQ), which considered by many to be the first game of the genre (at least the first one to make a significant impact). Not sure if the former drew inspiration from the latter, but certain parallels can easily be drawn: in fact, all of the features mentioned in the list above are valid for DQ the same way as it is for StS. The rich plethora of card based dungeon crawlers (both PC/Console and mobile) originated from some combination of the two.
StS, however, can not be considered a clone of DQ, as it introduced a lot of original ideas and spawned its own line of descendants. It is always interesting to analyze each new title to see which of two games was the biggest inspiration, and to group them accordingly. For me the main criteria lies in the core difference in battle system: - in StS, enemies (usually multiple) show their intentions at the beginning of each turn, so we know what to expect and what to play against; - in DQ, the enemy (usually single) draws and plays cards the same way as we do, often using the same abilities and synergies we ourselves can use.
Introductions aside, let's finally get to the interesting part - the games! (Note: Games are listed in alphabetical order to not give any privileges to one over another. For my personal preferences see the comment section).

Dream Quest clones

Call of Lophis takes us on a grim journey through infested lands full of deadly monsters, dangerous traps, and one of the most ridiculous card art I have ever seen. It's surprising to see how dark fantasy elements combine with the humor and gags this game presents. From the gameplay point of view, there is enough card variety and interesting synergies, but it will take a long time to reach the interesting parts. Really: this game just does not know when to end, forcing new and new dungeon locations onto us with basically the same monsters and same approaches to dealing with them over and over. Its the boss battles which crank the difficulty up to over 9000, and if we don't have the right deck by the time we reach them, there is nothing we can do to pull it off. Plus there is some shady business going on with monetization schemes, where even paid version of the game makes us spend money to unlock additional classes and grind a lot to buy permanent improvements. Only truly dedicated players will be interested in dealing with all this nonsense. [...] UPD: Haven't checked on it for a long time - maybe the situation improved somehow.
Crimson Deep is still in early alpha and was not updated for a long time. But the development hasn't stopped, and there is a new major release approaching in the nearest future. It makes no sense to talk about the game till then: the version in the store is too raw to provide any significant gameplay experience, but it would be interesting to see where it goes in the end.
Dimension of Dream is probably the only game that has the same grid-based dungeon layout as DQ itself. This time with full 3D and a possibility to fight only limited set of enemies before facing the final boss (which allows to moderate difficulty as we go, either defeating tougher enemies with better rewards, or to save HP and fight only the easy ones). This game has one of the most interesting battle systems and 6 truly unique classes with deep complex strategies unlike anything we have ever seen (not only the cards themselves, but the order in which we play them greatly affects the outcome). Unfortunately, the English version was pulled from Google Play, leaving only Chinese version for Asian people to enjoy. UPD: Apparently, the game was re-released under different publisher with the title Dreaming Dimension, so there you have it. [...]
Meteorfall: Journeys offers the streamlined approach to dungeon crawling, where all our decisions boil down to Reigns-like "swipe left / swipe right" operation: picking the path, encounter resolutions, and even battles are simplified to utilize this binary choice mechanic. But don't worry: these specifics do not affect the gameplay, still providing enough strategic depth to appeal even to hardcore players. Add here a neat visual style, lots of character classes and their variations, cool card combos, and you get a true masterpiece, which is Meteorfall. [...]
Night of the Full Moon offers a fresh take on a fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, but adding darker elements to it (including werewolves, zombies, mad scientists and cursed cultists). It demonstrates an amazing production quality with top-tier art, beautiful audio support, and intriguing storytelling. Gameplay wise, we have the closest thing to DQ, safe for the grid-based dungeon maps, which were changed to just picking the encounter out of available three. Some people may argue that the game does not offer enough strategic variety, only suggesting a single best build for each class, but you will still get different runs due to the randomness of card and power-up drops. Another argument of it being too easy is completely nullified on higher difficulty levels. Wish the story would develop in a different direction, though. [...]
Spellsword Cards: Origins provides the gameplay similar to the Night of the Full moon, but focuses more on role-playing character development part. Aside from choosing a class, we also get to pick race with unique traits, and a school of magic, greatly affecting which cards will be available to us during the run. The problem here, though, is that monster encounters do not demonstrate a lot of variety, forcing us to fight the same enemies over and over, and the difficulty is rather high, with starting cards doing almost nothing and enemies quickly run out of hand with their devastating attacks, whereas good cards are hard to come by, and even then you will still be devastated on later stages. [...] UPD: Or maybe I am just bad at this game (welcome to comment section for valid strategy suggestions).

Slay the Spire clones

Blood Card offers a unique possibility to construct the dungeon ourselves, providing a pool of encounters of different types: regular monsters, elite monsters, events and shops. We pick a desired encounter from the pool, deal with it and then move on to the next one. Another interesting feature is that our health is defined by the number of cards in draw pile, which limits our tactical possibilities, but is compensated by the fact that we get multiple copies of cards as rewards for fighting enemies. There are a lot of interesting mechanics related to moving cards between various piles, as well as other neat features (like: the Death inevitably arrives in three turns and starts whacking everyone on the field with increasing persistence), but I'll leave them for you to discover on your own.
Card Crusade seemed like a cool idea of mixing classic "roguelike" dungeon crawling with its "deck-based" counterpart, where we explore the dungeon the same way as we do it in Hack, Angband, Pixel Dungeon and other similar games, but use cards to fight actual enemies. In reality though, this implementation just adds a useless abstraction, as the adventuring does not provide any tactical benefits and is only there to inter-connect battle sequences (heck, even breaking pots and chests does not give us any coin, of which developers themselves warn us at the very beginning!). The cards are not very interesting, with next to none cool synergies, and new classes (which should be unlocked by performing specific actions on previous runs) do not provide any major difference. [...]
Card Quest takes us on an epic journey through fantasy lands, where we will perform great deeds as one of the classic RPG hero classes (fighter, wizard, rogue, ranger), each with their own equipment and fighting disciplines. The interesting part is that the cards we use during runs are defined by said equipment, and if we find some new pieces during our adventure, we get to keep them for further runs. Also worth noting that defense cards are played not during our turn, but during enemy turn, which requires us to plan ahead a bit. This being said, the game is extremely hard - it will take a lot of unsuccessful tries to finally reach the end. But the variety of dungeons and possible builds will keep us occupied for long.
Dungeon Tales for a long time was the closest, yet simplified copy of StS mechanics (up to similar cards and gaming strategies), but without certain elaborate features, like upgrading cards or using potions. The basics are left intact though: we still build our deck along the way and face the powerful boss in the end. There are only two characters available yet, but each has a couple of viable builds, so it can keep us invested for quite some time. [...]
Endless Abyss is a close StS clone with very similar character classes (only two so far) and a lot of cards with exactly the same effects. Graphically the game looks very good, but angry monetization, lots of grinding, and forced ads make it almost impossible to fully enjoy. [...]
Heroes of Abyss is a predecessor to Endless Abyss with basically the same core gameplay, but very simplified dungeon crawling part. There is no floor map with choosing our path, nor there are elaborate adventure events: just a series of battles with the boss in the end. The spoils we get after each battle go into improving our starting deck and unlocking new difficulty modes with higher rewards. What makes the game unusual, is that we chose the preferred build right from the beginning with appropriate set of starting cards, without the need to rely on the randomness of card drops. It may be interesting to unlock and compare all the 6 available builds, but once the task is done, there is almost no reason to play the game further.
Heroes Journey provides a different setting for a change: this time we will play as space explorers, who crash landed on an alien planet. Thus, instead of familiar swords and bows, we will be wielding blasters and energy shields: the rest remains the same, up to the majority of cards straight up copied from StS. Unfortunately, this innovative idea was completely ruined by repetitive grinding and angry monetization, forcing player to make dozens of identical runs with the same small card pool, until something adequate is unlocked. Oh, and the game is long abandoned by the developers.
Pirates Outlaws is an amazing rework of original StS ideas in a pirate setting with some changes to gameplay mechanics, such as introducing persistent charges needed to play certain cards, and different buff/debuff statuses that replace each other. There are also some questionable features, such as ship stamina that deteriorates over the course of the journey and leads to game over if not repaired in time, or a quest system, where quests can not be completed in parallel, but instead picking the new quest resets your progress in the current one. Some may also argue that new classes take long to grind for, or expensive to pay for, but with permanent booster pack this should not be a problem. Anyway, the game is highly recommended for any StS fan. [...]
Rogue Adventure offers a twist to usual mechanic: our hand is limited by 4 cards, but each time we use one of them, a new card is immediately drawn to its place, thus we never run out of cards to play. Non-starting cards are common for all classes, but are grouped by type (or race), giving huge synergies depending on how many similar cards we have. Aside from this, the game offers diverse gameplay by providing a lot of different classes, each with its own unique strategies and dynamics, and some interesting items to work around. The developers constantly provide updates with bug fixes and new content, but be warned that new mechanics may break what you are already accustomed for.
Royal Booty Quest started as a straight rip-off from StS with the same classes and abilities, and even cards having the same names. And absolutely atrocious pixelated visuals, which were not possible to look at without eyes bleeding out. Over time, though, it developed its own unique mechanics and interesting card combinations, but the art style did not get any better. However, if this is not a problem, the game is enjoyable to an extent, but since it was not updated for a long time, I doubt it will keeps anyone's interest for long. [...]
Tavern Rumble adds an unusual strategic element - a 3x3 grid, on each units and enemies are placed. The core gameplay remains the same (we still see what opponents are planning to do each turn and adjust our own strategy accordingly), but the addition of the grid introduces another tactical layer: not only we should maximize the damage output, but also plan the layout for our troops to provide the effective delivery of said output, while at the same time establish enough defense to minimize the damage to ourselves. There are a lot of cards and classes to play around, different play modes and a lot of features that are still being constantly added to the game. Some may argue about simplistic pixel graphics or long repetitive grinding, but it is easy to unlock everything within reasonable amount of time, even without paying. [...]

Other Games

Of course, my criteria does not work 100% of the time, as some games are way too different from anything else to confidently enroll them into one of the categories. They either demonstrate traits of both, or implement entirely unique mechanics of their own (which I like the most), while still maintaining the basic dungeon crawling ideas (so a lot of the games you might think of will not end up in the list). What I have in mind is the following:
Dungeon Reels removes the cards from card-based dungeon crawler - why bother, right? Instead, it provides some kind of a slot machine, where each turn three rows spin independently to pick available actions based on what slots we have in our reel. Winning battles awards us with new, better slots to add, each with their own specifics and synergies. Enemies also randomize their moves with slots of their own, but the most satisfying mechanic is the possibility to spin a jackpot with three identical slots for some powerful effect. It is interesting to see this concept developed further, but the game has not been updated for a long time.
Iris and the Giant takes us on journey through imaginary world, inspired by Ancient Greek mythology. Each battle takes place on a grid, where various enemies advance in huge numbers. We play a card from our hand, usually dealing damage to nearest enemy, and then everyone who is still standing and can reach us deals damage in return. There are cards that target multiple enemies at once, as well as ways to play more than one card during our turn, so most of the time we will be deciding which card to play at which moment. The deck has limited size, and if it becomes empty we lose, so new cards should be constantly acquired. There are a lot of interesting mechanics to discover, but the game is very hard and luck based, requiring a lot of trial-and-error to finally reach the end. [...]
Phantom Rose Scarlet has the same basic core, but with completely innovative battle system, not seen in any other game. On each turn there are four positions for cards to be played in strict order, where two of them are randomly filled with opponent's cards, and the remaining two are left for us to fill. Instead of drawing the hand, we have our entire deck available right away, but playing cards puts them on a cooldown, which does not reset between battles, so we constantly face the strategic choice of playing our best cards right away or keep them for later. The game is in active development, providing new mechanics and further developing the story, which is quite captivating here. [...]
Void Tyrant is a bit of a stretch, but still a "card based dungeon crawler", in which we basically play BlackJack against our enemies by dealing card with numbers from 1 to 6 one-by-one from our deck until we stand or bust. Whoever has the highest value wins and deals damage to the loser. There are various supporting cards on top of this mechanic, allowing us to either jinx the outcome in our favor, or to perform various other metagame manipulations. The only downside of the game is the lack of content, as it quickly runs out of interesting things, and since it was not updated for a long time, it is unlikely that anything new will be added in the future. [...]

Conclusion

As you see, there is a lot to play besides StS, so even if you are not hyped by its long-awaited Android release, but appreciate a good intellectual dungeon crawler, you will find something to suit your needs. I hope, even with StS release, new games of the genre will continue appearing on mobile phones, and I will gladly review them and add to the list. If you know any hidden gems (or even trash) that was not highlighted in this article, please share the names and/or links in the comments. I am also open to any discussions on the topic, as I am obviously able to talk a lot about my favorite genre.
Good luck to everyone in all your endeavors.
P.S. I am well aware of games like Dungeon Cards, Card Adventure, Dungeon Faster, Meteorfall: Krumitz Tale, Card Thief, Maze Machina, Cube Card, Card Hog, Fisherman, Relics of the Fallen and other "grid-based puzzles", but do not consider them to be a part of the "family".

On GURPS

I've been seeing a lot of comments and posts in the last couple weeks about GURPS, and a lot of conceptions/misconceptions about the system floating around. I wanted to make a post explaining things from the perspective of someone who runs GURPS habitualy, has written some (unofficial) splat stuff for GURPS, and has played a great deal of other RPGs. Primarily, I want to answer a number of questions I keep seeing pop up about GURPS, some of which are completely valid and some of which seem like common misconceptions.

What does GURPS feel like? What does it excel at? What is it bad at?

The driving force behind GURPS' feeling is cinematic realism. GURPS is not neccessarily a gritty system, though it can be. It's not really a realistic system, either. It's close to both, but what it's trying to hit is that level of realism and grit that you see in well-defined movies or books. GURPS excels at running games like John Wick, The Revenant, The Expanse, Game of Thrones, and so on. It excels at things that are grounded in reality, but aren't entirely based in reality. We all know that John Wick couldn't actually happen, but it certainly feels more realistic than other action movies. Now, GURPS can be a realistic system and a gritty system with some fanagling, but that's not what it is by default, and it's not what it excels at.
GURPS is also a really good choice if you want to run a cohesive game mixing multiple different genres or time periods. Take a look at this image: https://i.imgur.com/wv3eVwC.jpg. Say you saw that awesome piece of art and you wanted to run a game based on it. Alright, well, how much damage does a 5.56 round do to plate armor? That answer is really easy to answer in GURPS, because the entire system is cohesive. Can a fireball blow up a tank? What about a dragon versus a modern aircraft? All easy answers in GURPS. GURPS also does this with good mechanical backing; technically, FATE answers that question, but it does so by making most things essentially the same mechanically.
GURPS is bad at running a number of things. If your game needs to be very cinematic, GURPS isn't a good choice. Can Superman take a tank shot? Yeah, of course he can. Building someone that can take a tank shot in GURPS is not really feasible. In fact, building someone who is better than a man with a .50 cal machine gun in GURPS is not really feasible. Is Superman on the same power level as Batman? Naratively, yes. Mechanically? No. GURPs has little concept of narrative power, only mechanical power, and that can make certain types of games where the narrative power is the important thing feel very bad to play. Don't play GURPS if you really want to prioritize narrative power.
This is not to say that GURPS has no concept of character narratives; it is simply dealt with at character building and grants a mechanical advantage. A character can have disadvantages that grant extra power provided you play them out. These can be physical disadvantages (missing an eye) or mental (such as being a pacifist), as well as some more exotic ones. You can also gain them in play, if, say, you get stabbed in the eye. This gives a great incentive to play a character with narrative problems, but doesn't replace the idea of narrative power quite as ellegantly as some other system; it simply create more multifaceted, human characters than system with no such concept (such as DnD).
GURPS is also bad at running high power level games. Technically, it has suplements for superheroes and master wizards and amazing kung fu fighters. And... it's just not very fun. The rules are really meant for more down-to-earth stuff. The elegance starts breaking down. If you really want to, you can, the rules are there, it's just way more fidly than just using another system.

Does GURPS have a built-in setting?

Yes, it's called Infinite World, but it's honestly not very good unless you want to run something really weird. Practically speaking, the built-in setting for GURPS is the real world. At every step in it's core components, GURPS is attempting to make the system copasetic with reality, and it really excels if you want to run something at least mostly in line with reality. If you stick to reality, GURPS has very few systemic assumptions about what your world looks like other than being like reality. If you start looking into something less defined, like magic or really advanced tech, you're going to have to pick one of the multiple systemic assumptions GURPS gives you access to. Are your spellcasters multitools like DnD wizards, or do they have access to a very small array of spells that they can cast a lot? Is your future cyberpunky, biotechy, star treky, star warsy, etc.? There are defaults for these, but that leads into the next question:

Why are there so many GURPS books?

This is something I see come up a lot. There are a lot of GURPS books. Not small splat books, really big books. You can spend years combing through their library of splat. The important thing to note about this, is that you probably don't need to look at almost any of them. GURPS is not a unified system like Pathfinder, where all the splat books are meant to be compatible with each other and used at the same time, because each has minor modifications. A lot of GURPS splat books aren't really compatible with each other, because they're not meant to be used together. GURPS has one basic component: The Basic Set. Past that, whether you need a book entirely depends on what you want to run. You can really get away with 5-6 books to run pretty much anything in GURPS. To list them briefly:
Basic Set: The core rules of GURPS.
Low Tech: Stuff before the proliferation of guns: Start of History - ~1500AD
High Tech: Stuff after the proliferation of guns: ~1500 AD to modern day
Magic: Running a relatively "normal" fantasy magic system.
Martial Arts: Advanced rules for melee combat.
Gun Fu or Tactical Shooting: Advanced cinematic/realistic shooting, respectively.
These are pretty much all the GURPS books I've wanted my players to use in my time GMing. Per game, though, you really only need a couple books other than Basic Set if you want to run something. If you want to run a martial-focused fantasy game, you need Low Tech and Martial Arts. If you want to run a tactical special forces game in Vietnam, you need High Tech and Tactical Shooting. GURPS works as a series of building blocks that get put together to make a system. If you want to run a certain game, you need to identify what blocks you need, and then put them together. You can use all the books if you want, in the same way you can use all the LEGO blocks in the box if you want, but it's not really what the system is meant for.
When should you buy more splat books? When you want to run a game that requires deeper rules or emulation of another system. If you've been playing for a while, you want to run a horror game, but you don't think the rules in Basic Set are up for it? Don't want to run Call of Cthulhu because you want something GURPS has? Grab Horror. Want to run a really indepth noble social game? Grab Social Engineering. Importantly, there are rules for horror and social engineering in the Basic Set; these books are suplements, not replacements.

Why is GURPS so complicated?

GURPS isn't complicated. It's complex. There's a massive and very important difference in that wording. GURPS has many components, but each component is fundementally simple, can be removed and swapped out if neccessary, and more components can be slotted in if required. One of the reasons I tend to run GURPS a lot is due to how simple and elegant it is in play, because the only person in GURPS who needs to know anything is the GM. If you GM is knowledgeable, he can take almost all the complexity out of the game for the other players. Almost all of my mechanical interactions in GURPS are "What skill do you have for that? Ok, roll it." or "You have Fast-Talk, right? No? OK, just roll me IQ". All the rolls are 3d6. That's pretty much it.
But GURPS combat is complicated? Well, yes. GURPS combat is more complicated than most other systems. GURPS combat is also, paradoxically, quicker than combat in most systems. Why? Because GURPS combat can be incredibly lethal. A good bullet will drop you. A good melee hit will drop you. Combat in GURPS is often over in one or two hits, especially if either party is not wearing full coverage armor or has a major skill differential. You do not spend 10 turns whitling away at the health pool of that fire giant. Combat tends to be complicated because it's important to get it right, and it's important the players feel in control at all times lest they... well, just die. Combat happens infrequently in GURPS and only happens when something is at stake, because nobody wants to risk death for nothing. The biggest combat advantage in GURPS is not mechanical, it's tactical: Recon, ambushes, using your terrain, pushing your advantages and denying theirs. Some combats are practically already over by the time they happen.
I've seen a few people here talk about how limiting they find GURPS because it's hard to create new rules on the fly. I'm not going to say those people have invalid experiences, but I think that perfection can be the enemy of good. Your rules probably aren't going to be as statistically balanced and accurate and so on as the word of god rules, but it really doesn't matter. GURPS strives to have internal consistency, and though it can take a little bit of playing to understand that consistency, you can start effectively creating very detailed mechanics on the fly, because GURPS lets you slot thing in or out quickly and easily. Don't be afraid of creating incorrect rules; at worst, you only have to suffer them for one session, and they're going to be far better than what you can create on the fly in other mechanically backed systems like DnD.

Why, as a GM, would I run or not run GURPS?

Run GURPS if you want to create a system, starting with a framework, and adding things. Run GURPS if you want a system with strong mechanical backing that can be elegant at the right times and detailed at the right times. Run GURPS if you don't like hopping from RPG to RPG and want a single RPG that can encompass all the game ideas you've always wanted to run. Run GURPS if you want a system that reflects cinematic realism, and can be made to reflect true realism with some effort. Run GURPS if you want to mix and match genres. Run GURPS if you want to run really long campaigns with power growth that feels organic and earned. Run GURPS if you want an indepth combat system that feels lethal and tactical. Run GURPS if you want character progression to be flexibe and organic in growth and not have set out builds.
Don't run GURPS if you want the world to mechanically and narratively balance around the characters. Don't run GURPS if you want to run really high power level games. Don't run GURPS if you want to run cinematic games. Don't run GURPS if you want to run a specific setting that there is already an RPG for, play that one instead, it's probably better at that setting. Don't run GURPS if you don't want to buy at least 2-3 books to get your game going. Don't run GURPS if you prefer simple combat. Don't run GURPS if you want "cool" rolls to happen often (3d6 is a very normal distribution). Don't run GURPS if you want your players to create characters in less than a few hours. Don't run GURPS if you want characters to progress disproportionately to the world (1-10 wizard in DnD goes from nobody to a God).
These same arguments apply to the players as well, though in a lesser degree for some. If what I've described sounds fun, seek out a GURPS game (there's an [un]official Discord)! If it sounds horrible, it probably isn't the game for you. Hopefully, in either case, you have a better understanding of the system and why you would or wouldn't want to play it.

Lesser Questions

Does GURPS require a math degree?: No, it's much less mathematically complicated than DnD. If you've played 3.5 Ed. or Pathfinder, it's much less complicated than that. A bit more difficult than 5ed.
Why do GURPS people keep coming out of the woodwork to defend the system? Because we like the system, and most of the times, the criticisms we see are weird to us because they don't at all mesh with our experiences. There are DOZENS OF US!
Are GURPS player primarily old people? No, but they're certainly in the face of the more modern trend of rules-light, narratively driven RPGs. This was the standard once, and WHAT WAS WILL BE.
How do I get into GURPS? Go to the GURPS discord if you're particularly interested https://discord.gg/vk5GtQy. Otherwise, just pick up the Basic Set and one of High Tech or Low Tech, read them, and start running. Seriously, just start running, don't stress the details too much. Get acustomed to the system before buying another five suplements.

After completing my build last week I want to share the story of all the mistakes I made so you can avoid them

I ended up building a computer at the end of 2020 after years of window shopping for prebuilts that I probably would have regretted purchasing. I'm not new to pc gaming as I have a gaming laptop that's approaching 4 or so years old with a little over 1 TB of storage. With the laptop aging and with me wanting a more robust device for music production, VR, and possibly even streaming I decided around July that I probably wanted a desktop that was more capable than my laptop. I knew a little bit about computers but really immersed myself to learn as much as I could. I went from almost seriously considering an Alienware desktop back in July (eww) to taking seriously parts sourcing and looking at builders like VRLA and Redux who seemed to at the very least be transparent about what they were putting into their systems. When I realized there were a few custom things I wanted (massive amounts of storage, Vive wireless vr adapter) I said "f- it" because I was going to have to open up any build I'd purchase from one of these guys to add all the stuff I wanted.
The actual building process was simultaneously less and more involved than I initially thought. It took me 3 days (Dec 25-28) and over 12 hours from opening up my motherboard's box and flashing my BIOS to turning on my computer for the first time. It was also a little stressful since slotting some of my components was more difficult to do than I initially believe. Regardless, despite the somewhat clumsy nature I went about this process, the build worked like a charm and I'm writing this post from the computer. Anyway, I want to go over the highlights to help new builders optimize their process.
Purchasing components
This is an admittedly dumb and stupid mistake but outside of the general research I did to understand building and some rudimentary knowledge of some of this year's newest components PCPartPicker was what I leveraged for information about stock and pricing. This generally isn't a huge deal but with prices being so volatile in 2020 (especially around the last quarter of the year) it means that I overpayed for some things. There were parts, like my 3080 that I was somewhat willing to do this for, but I had no idea how much above MSRP I'd ultimately paid for my Ryzen 5 5600x until it was too late. Here are the the biggest lessons I learned:
Compare across multiple sites. The fact that I didn't know MSRP for my CPU was my fault and honestly if I wasn't using PCPartPicker as my only point of reference I would have known better. And even then, if I'd looked closely at the historical pricing section of the site I'd understand that the prices being given to me at the time weren't necessarily MSRP. This point is more or less also one that is meant to remind everyone to understand the breadth and scope of the tools they're using for research. It didn't help that I was making these decisions in the second and third weeks of December trying to build by Christmas. Last minute decision making can lead to bad decisions.
Give yourself enough time. Kind of bleeding over from the last point, if you have to (or want to) build by a certain deadline, make sure you give yourself enough time. Not only to understand how to build and how computer components work together, but also time to understand price to performance differences between any components you're comparing. And for any of you trying to build soon, I'd caution unless you absolutely need to you just to wait until mid-spring/summer as the selection of parts is set to improve substantially.
Don't get caught up in the hype. With the hype cycle surrounding this year's newest components it was very easy to fall into this. I suppose this was less of an issue for me because my budget had flex room, but all the same no one really seeks to spend as much as they possibly can when building (at least I hope). Initially in my build I'd allotted up to $400 for my CPU and was going to settle on getting a Ryzen 7 3800 with the hope of upgrading down the line. Deep down though, because of the hype surrounding Ryzen 5000 I wasn't satisfied with that, so at the first chance of getting one of these newer chips, I took it without thinking. It was a Ryzen 5600x (with stock cooler) for $445. I thought it was a good deal because a the time I mistakenly believed MSRP was $399. While $445 is cheaper than some CPUs, even Intel gen 10 chips, if I decide to upgrade I'll spend more over the life of my build. And for just a bit more if I'd gone with Intel I could have gotten an i7 or i9 for slightly better performance in gaming.
You'll always learn something that will give you buyers regret. After I paid nearly $300 above MSPR for my 3080 the rumors of 3080TIs became louder. The Ryzen 5000 series will likely be the last of the AM4 chipset so I'm wondering if I should have just gone with Intel anyway. But at the end of the day I take pride in the build I have created and will put my lessons to use if I decide to do another build in the future.
Building: Day 1
I was overprepared in the sense that I had a lot of things I ultimately didn't use. Antistatic gloves, for example, which I ended up ditching pretty quickly because the material kept getting caught on the underside of my mobo which freaked me the hell out. Just purchase an antistatic workspace or an antistatic brace and that'll be enough. I ultimately ended up building on my mobo's box while wearing an antistatic brace grounded to my PSU.
In day one all I really only manged to flash the bios on my MSI X570 Tomahawk with a USB. It took me an hour to realize that although my 24 ATX and cpu power were connected on my mobo that the PSU and mobo wouldn't turn on until I pressed the "flash bios" button with a pen. I initially thought my PSU was defective and wasted a lot of time. After making Christmas dinner I then installed my case fans and rbg halos which also took me over an hour because I apparently didn't understand how fan screws worked... there's not much to say here other than that I'm an idiot (-_-).
Day 2
The bulk of the building took place during day 2. I actually touched the mobo and installed the CPU and other components and put it into the case. One mistake I made early on was installing my CPU before confirming if the heat sink I wanted to use (Cooler Master 212 black) had its own plate. It most definitely did, and so I had to carefully remove the CPU I'd seated and put thermal paste on and place it elsewhere until I was ready to reseat it. The entire process was painful as Cooler Master's instructions were terrible and for about an hour I was under the impression that my motherboard would snap as I struggled to tighten the heatsink. I also struggled to put the cooler fan on the heatsink as the directions for the CPU fan clips were also abysmal. This video really saved me at a point were I thought I'd give up on the build. Nothing else of note happened other than my ram fell out the first time I placed my case upright because I didn't seat it properly.
Day 3
Most of day 3 was mostly installing my graphics card and cables. One thing I learned was since the graphics card was so big and chunky and since it obstructed my view of the slot I was trying to place it in, it's easier to install it while the case is up right. I actually almost nearly scratched my mobo and my M2 drive with my graphics card while trying to align it. I also had to remove my gpu after I'd successfully installed it to clear a path for my exhaust fan cables. It was at this point I'd actually broke the latch in the PCIe slot holding the graphics card because I didn't check if it was still secure. It broke cleanly so I was able to put the latch back into the slot okay.
As for the cabling, that took me over 4 hours because I eagerly began plugging my front panel cables and fans in, only to realize after I installed my PSU that these cables were obstructing where my ATX cables would be coming in.
Once my cables were nearly done, I saw that one of my motherboard screws was missing. A missing screw isn't a big deal, but I couldn't account for where I might have lost it because I distinctly remembered using every mobo screw. I was freaked out because there was a possibility it was in my case, behind my motherboard. But I was so close to finishing that I didn't want to take out my motherboard just for one freaking screw. After 30 mins of retracing my process I resigned myself to removing my mobo out of caution. I undid the cabling I'd started (I was about halfway done). After undoing the 5th screw I started hearing a rattling in my case and after shaking the case the missing screw pops out. I guess loosening my motherboard from some of the standoffs gave the lost screw enough room to roll away. I had no idea it fell in there but I'm glad I caught that before turning my system on.
About an hour later all systems were go. I'm not happy with my cable management but it's good enough. The only other thing that gave me trouble was the RGB in my system. This is mainly because Phanteks isn't very transparent about the types of adapters needed to power its 12V ARGB halos, but after buying their stupid adapter a day later I have glowing fans.
Reflection
One of the biggest things I learned was that it's important to map out the building process step-by-step. I think I ended up redoing things like cabling because while I had a high level understanding of the building process I wasn't really thinking through my next move as I completed each step. But all in all, while I had some difficulties, I'm ultimately proud of myself for doing this and I'm absolutely in love with my machine. I sadly haven't gotten much time to really put my build to the test. I have a few people asking me about temps. Hopefully in the next two weeks I can test that during a dedicated gaming session.
Anyway, while I still don't think building is for everyone, I do recommend that anyone looking for a computer (esp a gaming computer) at least understand computer parts and how they work together so that they actually know what it is they're getting when they go to a builder. To this end, you should probably watch a bunch of computer building videos as if you were going to build and use that knowledge to inform what you buy. Still, regardless of whether or not you go with a builder you shouldn't be afraid of building. As you can probably tell from my story the building process is a lot more forgiving than newbies (myself included) might initially think. You don't have to be a handy person to build. I most certainly am not. I actually struggled to put together the table I built my computer on literally the night before I started building my PC.
For anyone who is on the verge of getting ready to build I've created a YouTube playlist of vids that helped me build as well as my own video featuring my build and my own tips. Let me know if you have any questions.

R/Bujo’s Top Tips on How to Plan When You Have Severe Depression/Impaired Functioning

Hey! So, after the amazing response I got on this post detailing my struggle with planning while severely depressed, I decided to use some extra energy I’ve been having to condense all the answers I got into a master list for easy reference. I was initially just going to make and keep this but then decided that it might be useful to share in case you

didn’t see the initial post and feel this info would help to you, or
did see the post but didn’t have energy or time to read through all the responses.

Feel free to browse the list and see what may work for you if you are in a similar spot.
Things to note:

Some of the advice given here seems to contradict itself (e.g., DO use habit and mood trackers, DON’T use habit and mood trackers) simply because multiple people gave their perspective and some of the things that worked well for some didn’t for others.
I didn’t reference spreads unique to particular people and just focused on the general trends in suggestions – if you want to see descriptions/images of those unique spreads, I’d encourage you to read the original post.
This advice was in the context of my particular situation (which again, you can refer to here) so it might not work for you if you are in a different situation and have different constraints.
Lastly, if you have any ideas that you feel aren’t listed, mention them in the comments. Thank you again for all the support, and enjoy!

WHAT TO FOCUS ON

Prioritize celebrating what you do get done with Done Lists/Tada lists instead of just To Do lists!

Consider ditching traditional habit trackers if you feel they discourage you. If you engage in a positive habit, mark it down! Then you’ll have a total of all the times you did do something instead of a tracker with glaring reminders of when you didn’t.
Aside from habits, write at least one thing you did today, no matter how small (e.g., drank a glass of water)

Track goals in a way that shows what progress you have made even if you didn’t reach the goal

E.g. If your goal was to get to inbox 0, write down the number of emails you did get through even if you didn’t reach 0. Acknowledge progress!

Focus less on productivity or SMART goal setting, and more on taking care of yourself and tasks that contribute to/maintain functioning.

Once you have reached a baseline of functioning again, add goals and tasks outside of this
Have a basic list of tasks you need to do every day that enrich you/are self-care e.g. (medication, hygiene, food and water intake, journaling, fresh air)

Focus on ‘Did I’ goals instead of ‘How Much’ goals (e.g. 'Did I drink water > Did I drink 8 glasses of water?')

The bar for success then becomes when you did something, as opposed to only when you did a certain amount of something.
Can be a good precursor to tracking ‘How Much’ goals once you have reached a point where you are doing the thing consistently.

THE METHOD (SPREADS AND STRUCTURE)

Create simple easy spreads

Low set up time, takes little time to use, and don’t need to be kept up daily
Create/buy stencils of various sized squares, letters or lines that can make the process of setting up a spread easier and faster

Stick to the extreme basics, or the original Ryder Carroll method

Instead of weekly or daily spreads with initial set up, rapid log in your BuJo when you need to (even if that means your entries are scattered across the week or month and don’t have every day accounted for in chronological order)
In this vein, consider avoiding spreads that are dependent on you having accomplished the previous days tasks – this way you can miss days without feeling like that jeopardizes your ability to use the journal.
If relevant, note briefly in your journal skipped days, and why you skipped them.

Use a line a day spread that can give you an overview of your month

one positive line about your day, or
one line about how you were feeling that day

Gamify the structure of you BuJo or self-care tasks
Make it so you earn something if you do your tasks e.g.

in-game ‘points’/XP
a win in a battle/increase in battle statistics
levelling up
real-life rewards

If games are nor your forte, structure it differenlty but implement a reward system to create incentive

create a tree for your habit. Draw it with no leaves. When you do the habit, add a green leaf. If you miss it, add a brown leaf. This way you are incentivized to keep the plant alive and flourishing with more green than brown leaves.
Like with trackers, if you know the brown leaf/green leaf approach might make you fixate on the number of brown leaves (times you didn't do the habit), just focus on adding leaves when you do the habit and when you miss a day or three, don't add anything to the tree. This way the reward is getting to add leaves, and there is no reminder of when you didn't do that habit. Just a beautiful display of when you did!

Use Rolling Weeklies (sometimes called the Alistair Method)

Create an undated master list of tasks to do, keep it in view, and slot them on to do on higher functioning days.

Break down tasks into their smallest manageable increments and tackle those
Instead of ‘do laundry’, break down tasks into:

remove clothes from laundry basket
take clothes to laundry room
put clothes in washing machine and start cycle
remove clothes from washing machine
put clothes in dryehang clothes up to dry
collect dry clothes
fold dry clothes
hang dry clothes

Detach any routines you make from a set time

Focus on establishing the routine before you place it at a specific time or within a specific time frame e.g. do morning routine.
This way you are free to focus on getting into the habit of the routine first without feeling obstructed by having to do it with time in mind. If you do the habit but at varying or inconsistent times, it is then still a success.
Tackle time (when you want it to happen and how long you want it to take) once you have established this.

MENTAL HEALTH RELATED

Track things related to mental health

Start with a few simple basic selfcare things – once the habit is ingrained, add more.
Track mood, symptoms (when they occur, their severity) and try and identify any patters in when and why you may feel how you feel. Also be aware of what coping mechanisms do and don’t work.
If you complete a task while experiencing a symptom, write the symptom on a column on the side of the task – this way you might notice a correlation between a symptom and the tasks you are able to do.
If tracking your mood is too complex (multiple feelings at once) or discouraging (you mark 'sad' every day), stop!

Create a personalized resource on what to do when you feel at your worst (‘When I Feel Like Shit’ list)

Steps to take
Coping mechanisms that work
Self-care you need to keep up on (medication, hygiene, food and water intake)
Bad Thought/Good Thought list (The bad thoughts you are having, and corresponding good thoughts that give a different perspective – consider writing the good thoughts when you are clear headed and feeling good, so that you can reflect on them when you aren’t!)

Track what triggers particularly bad episodes or feelings

This can help you avoid, manage or prepare for the trigger (if it's inevitable)

Create ‘bad day’, ‘okay day’, ‘and ‘good day’ to do lists that correspond with the kind of day you are having

‘Bad day’ – the absolute bare minimum you need to do to take care of yourself
‘Okay day’ – the bare minimum + simple task(s) to get done
‘Good day’ – bare minimum + more tasks that require more energy (might be a good idea to do things that will help you on worse days – meal prep, do biggest cleaning tasks, etc.)

***What would be classified as a bad, okay, and good day is very dependent on your mental health and state of functioning. Some days when I’m really non-functional, a good day is doing the bare minimum. Some days it is just staying alive. So you might categorize this differently than done here!
Forgive yourself for what you don’t or can’t get done – some days are just bad, and that’s okay!
Involve a gratitude practice in your bullet journaling

Doesn't have to be detailed or long - it could be anything from a single word to a couple of sentences. It's a good way of reminding yourself of the bright spots of a particular day.
No standard about what qualifies. If it's that you got through the day, add it!

(Even if you don’t have it) Check ADHD related subs for ideas on how to trick yourself into doing things!

ALTERNATIVES

Focus more on creating a stable routine and less on Bullet journaling and tasks.

Waking up at a specific time
Hygiene (teeth, shower)
Meals
Movement/exercise (even just a walk)
A household chore

Resources and Recommendations

‘Level up your Life’ By Steven Kamb
Zinnia app for creativity and organization
domesticblisters on tiktok gives tips on what to do to keep your life functional cleaning wise
Unf*ck Your Habitat for tips on how to keep your life functional cleaning-wise, with articles on chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and cleaning-related trauma (Content warning for discussion of abuse and trauma)

Thoughts/review on Cyberpunk 2077 after 400 hours gameplay.

Firstly, just wanted to say that the 400 hours is me restarting the game...four times over? I've also not been following this game, I knew it was coming out but I put at the back of my mind, never gave into the hype and only bought the game when a guy from work was talking about it.
Gameplay TL;DR:
Game is broken. By level 50, enemies either did 1 damage or buffed me to do more damage. Some of the guns are insanely fun but break the game. It's fun, but if you want a challenging experience wait till some good addons come out.
Story TL;DR
Main story is quite short, it's not effected by any side quests you just get different endings that you can choose, one ending feels more finalised but open to a sequel/DLC the others either just end (which is intented) or just end on a "To be continued."
Romance quests are very good but the romance is just do quest, sleep with them, end of romance, apart from one character.
Some of the side quests are VERY VERY good however and the overall theme of Cyberpunk is in my opinion, excellent, it's just let down by the main plot.
Bugs/Glitches TL;DR:
No crash to desktop, main problems were only for those strange people like myself who play non lethal but some of the endings are bugged, one of the end cut-scenes is bugged.
Overall TL;DR:
I think if you really really want to play this game, play it. I had a lot of fun and got my moneys worth, though I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm not dissapointed with the end product. If you're on the fence and you're reading this to see if it's worth £40-50 then I would say don't get the game, wait till next year when the modding scene has expanded more and all the DLC has come out, get it on a sale.
When the ending cutscene is bugged and after what...3-4 patches and the lead dev has said how proud he is of the PC version, I would say that it's best to hold off.

Gameplay:
I played purely on Very Hard and tried a no kill playthrough which...I couldn't do all the way due to certain sections of the game but for majority of the game I didn't kill anyone. What I liked about the game is that it didn't say "Oh well, you best get used to the taser weapon or the stun gun, because that's all you get!" like so many other FPS RPGs that offer that, I was using shotguns, sniperrifles, assault rifles, SMGs...anything, really. That's good!
My build:
https://nukesdragons.com/cyberpunk-2077/character?v=1&a=if4ig&s=iiifff44iigg&p=h42h83hd1hg2hh1u11u41ua3uh1b13b32b42b72b83b93bc1bd2be2bf2a01a41a62a81a91ab3ah1ai2aj1ak1al2w01w11w31w63w72wa3wb2wc2n01n21n43n73n82na1nc2nf1nh2s51sc1sk1c01c11c42c61c72c82c93ca2cb1cc1cf2r32e62eb2eh2ei1 If/When I replay, it will either be:
https://nukesdragons.com/cyberpunk-2077/character?v=1&a=a9kck&s=111999kkcckk&p=p02p11p21p32p42p51p61p72p81p91pj1pa1pb1pc2pd2pe2pf2pg2ph1pi1q01q12q23q41q51q63q71q81q93qa3qb3qd2qe1qf3qi1aa1ab3af3s31sa1sb1se2sf1si2sj1c01c11c32c51c61c82c93cb1cc1cf2cg2ch1ci1eh2
I did make my gear and I put all epic armour increasing mods into the slots, then with my weapons all epic crit chance or if they had 100% crit by default, Crit damage. I used Qiant Sandevistan which would slow down time and lowered the CD on it so I could use it every 19 seconds.
To put this into perspective of how this was at level 50, the most damage done to me was the end boss and it was about...20-30 damage, other than that, everything was 1 damage. With Katana and Cold Blood I had about 14-15k armour, with just the Katana it was about 6k and with any other gun it was 5k armour. I got this by upgrading everything to as far as the game would allow which when you hit 50 is just one extra upgrade. My health thanks to the consumable perk and health perk was about 850 to 1k with all consumables. My Cyberware made me immune to bleeding, my perk made me immune to poision, if I took shock damage my armour would increase by 10% and I would take no damage and fire would increase my damage by 10%.
So...I took 1 damage with a 800+ health pool, I could kill everything very easily dealing about 24k damage on some enemies and I could slow down time and kill everything before they could even react. This is on VERY HARD.
"Why complain about it being broken if you broke it?"
Because I was told that the secret ending was very difficult and I was also told, by the game, that in very hard, you have to use EVERYTHING to survive. The problem is the game devs...for some reason...lets you out level all the mobs in the game, at level 50 the only "yellow" enemies were two mechs on the secret ending and the end boss, all of which died super quick anyway because the damage is broken.
The other problems I had and the other reason I hit 50 was I was told "Do the sidequests, they effect the ending." and with the Cyberpsycho being all about keeping them alive, I thought "There's gotta be a moment where she comes in and helps me or someone out." But...nope, you don't get anything other than money. Nothing happened when I did all the police side quests, nothing happened when I did all the races, the only quests that did matter were two side quest chains, Panam and Johnny...maybe the boxing ones.
"But you get tons of cash!"
If you go down the hacker route, it's kinda pointless because you get all your hacks via crafting or random drops from terminals.
"Ah! But you went guns blazing, all guns, must've cost a ton to get all your armour up, weapons and ammo!"
Afraid not. Once you get the epic grenade blueprints you can make your set for a lot of your upgrades, you just buy cans of soda from vending machines and take them apart which doesn't cost that much anyway. The legendaries are a bit difficult, granted and that's why I said the boxing quest chain is actually very useful if you want to play a non hacker route.
Outside of upgrades once you get any weapon mod and the perk that grants a 20% chance to get an extra item when you make gear, you're set as they all use the materials you get from soda cans or random junk items.
General view
I suppose when it's all said and done, I can't say I didn't enjoy the gameplay. I played 400 hours of it. It is to easy and if I wanted to do a "All guns blazing" build again, maybe just stick to epic gear. If we get a new game plus or some difficulty mods that would be perfect, something like enemies using tech weapons more to shoot through walls, more smart weapons hitting you behind cover, more netrunners hacking you all the time and having them stun/blind you or something, just anything other than setting you on fire...a cyberware mod makes them buff you for crying out loud.
One of the main reasons I went the gunner route was because I saw so many great guns I thought, at the time, I couldn't use so...I will say that with my build, all the guns I had, it was a lot of fun, I really really enjoyed it...it's just far far to easy, I wanted something to say "Ok, you think you got this, let's put it to the test!"
Story:
I didn't really know all that much about Cyberpunk coming in, I love Bladerunner and Ghost in the shell, distopian stories where it has a message and hopefully a nice ending.
Cyberpunks story was good, there are some side quests that I will remember, I won't say which ones but I will say that if you like story, it's good to pick them up. There aren't that many of them, a lot of side quest will be just "Kill the dude. Steal the thing. Hack the thing." with a text being sent to you on why you should care, most of the time I didn't really care all that much but those that did offer something a bit more, did make me pause and think about it, even think about them as I walked away from the game on what was the "best" option.
The romances are...ok. There is certainly more effort in Panam than the others, who, do have their own quest lines and they're the best quest lines in the game but Panam, as a romance story line does seem more fleshed out. The others are sadly very much a "Do my quests, then do me, ok see you at the end of the game!" Panam fights alongside you, you both go on a big character journey together and the fact she joins you in one of the best endings says a lot. A bit dissapointing for me, as I liked Judy and one of her endings was very nice but when I saw what Panam got...argh, was frustrating.
The main plot itself is unfinished. If you can be bothered (like I was) do all the side quests, everything, then do the main plot. Not only will you find that during your time the main plot is very short only about...10-15 quests? Of which none of the side quests you can do effect them, at all, no dialogue options that I could see, none of them alter the story a bit...nothing. The endings aren't effected by sidequests either, you get extra endings, two if you do two side quests but that's it.
I won't spoil what the endings contain, but I will say, for the sake of saving your time if you're reading this before doing them, that the secret ending is pointless and lazy. It's basically one of the endings but they removed the NPC's from the ending and just spawn some mechs, then after that you get the same boss fight you would get regardless of the ending and then you get a rehashed ending of another ending and an epilogue from another ending. Basically they just took apart the endings and stuck them together to get the "Secret" ending, you get about...a few bits of dialogue from a character but...it's not that great honestly.
The biggest problem is this is a "The ending will be in the DLC!" kinda game, where, even the main character points out how pointless the whole thing was. I HATE these kind of endings, the only saving grace is that...I HOPE, this is going to be in the free DLC they're doing this year.
Glitches and Bugs:
At this point in time, I came across TONS of bugs. Nothing that crashed me to desktop par once (which is a deal breaker for me if it happens to many times) the only issue I did come across was playing non lethal, where, if you grab a enemy and drop them during stealth...for some reason, they are more prone to glitching and exploding in a bloody mess. If you stand and drop them, make sure the ground is as flat as it can be, you might, MIGHT be ok. The other thing to do is enemies would show the death animation (no breathing) BUT if you pick them up, drop them, turn around, sometimes the animation will change to show they're still alive. If you hit them whilst they're on the ground, even if it's a stungrenade touching them, yes, touching, not exploding, you throw a grenade at them and it bounces off of them, they die.
Cars would smash into concrete, textures would take ages to load, sound would be to loud from time to time, some dialogue had the tech distorted effect some didn't, Tech guns randomly not charging up to shoot...all of which I could ignore as they either didn't effect me to much, I could fix by saving the game and reloading or were just funny.
When the endings are bugged, that to me is very different and that's what made me go from "This is one of the best games I've played!" to "They just stop caring."
So during the "Bad" ending, dialogue wouldn't play I just saw text, I had to reload a save to make it work. On the "Good" ending, during a quest I was told to drive a vehicle and then park it in a tent, the only problem is I couldn't do it because an invisible wall was blocking it and I would just flip over, I couldn't get out to continue the quest or fail it, but luckily you can skip it. Then on the "Good" ending, on the very last cutscene I drove into the sunset...literally into the sunset as the Vehicle was driving on the skybox.
When you haven't even tested the ending, worse, you say "We're proud of our PC version!" it's such a slap in the face, yes, I'm sure these will be fixed...I hope, but I don't want games in the future to be like this, I want a finished game, certainly if you're asking £40 for it. The free DLC better be something decent and not "Paint your car!" but either way, the damage has been done and it's a real real shame. This game deserved to be polished, it has so much potential and there's so much to like here it's just sad to see it be this...messy and uncared for.
Overall:
400 hours of gameplay, do I regret it? ...No? I mean, I've come away disappointed because of how bad some of the flaws are, more so with the lead dev saying how proud he is of the PC version but...I would be lying if I didn't say that if they brought out new game plus, there was some mods that made the game a lot harder...I wouldn't go back.
I will play Male V romancing Panam as I have a very strong feeling that's the "intended" storyline and though my choices won't matter in the end, there would be some things I would do differently. I did enjoy my playthrough, I like Judy as a character I just wished I could do more, like...something as simple as hang out on her couch and watch TV with her would've been fine, doesn't have to be grand and epic, just simple character interactions...which you get through quests with Panam.
Could I recommend this game to others though? Not really...If the glitches and bugs was just the odd here and there, ok, fine, it's an open world game with amazing graphics, sure, you will get some problems..but when your endings are bugged? Nah, it's not acceptable.
Maybe some people can look past it, I would like to but I just feel...like a chump. Here's hoping it gets better, they did say they were working on it more and didn't find it acceptable but...not sure if that's just console, we'll see.

[Mobile Gaming] How the Nyan Cat led to the death knell for a popular mobile game- the downfall of RWBY Amity Arena.

Note: Many of the links are to the Amity Arena Library, a website devoted to the game which includes tracking the history of it through patchnotes and a running history of what cards entered and left the meta. Their website was a valuable resource for this post.

Mobile gaming has taken off like a wildfire since the advent of the smartphone boosted the average processing power a phone could carry. Initially it took the form of crossing over older, more easily runnable games onto the mobile market to... mixed success, but in recent years we've seen both the West and East use mobile gaming to replace the old fashioned movie tie in game. It's easily accessable, has a much wider reach than consoles or PC, you can take it on the go and standards are inherently lower for mobile games than they are a full 60 dollar game.
Since the 2010s, mobile gaming has shifted to what's called the "Freemium" module. The game itself is free to download and start playing, but is insideously designed with obnoxious paywalls or artificial limiters put in place to limit how much you can play each day. If the game is part of a pre-existing franchise, additional money can be made through a premium currency or a chance to obtain high-powered units by rolling a ~~slot machine~~ random chance mechanic. And thus, gacha gaming was born. This sub has had several threads in the past on high profile gacha games, such as the monolithic Fate Grand/Order, Pokemon Go or Genshin Impact. One of the more popular things to roll for in gachas as a consequence is wallpapers for your homescreen, especially for high-grade units as they're usually animated to move a little bit on the homescreen. Today we're looking a low to mid-tier gacha game that rose and fell with the advent of one catgirl. Let's talk RWBY.
RWBY is an online web anime made by Rooster Teeth focusing on four prospective monster hunters who get embroiled in a world-spanning shadow war. It's of debatable quality in matters of animation, combat, voice acting, story, worldbuilding, romance, and it's kind of a little racist if I'm being honest, but one of the major positives of RWBY is that the series tends to have good character design. Series creator Monty Oum set in the guidelines for the show while making it that most if not every design should be made to be cosplay friendly, hence why most of the outfits have things most costume designers haven't heard of like... pockets. And Rooster Teeth, above all else, likes making money. So they know people like RWBY's character designs, enough so that in 2017 plans were made to release a gacha game themed around RWBY called Amity Arena, which would be developed by Korean company NHN Entertainment.
Amity Arena is a PvP tower defense game. Each player controls two turrets and a tower and has three minutes to use units themed from the show to destroy the other player's structures. Whoever took out more wins, destroying a tower is an instant victory. When the game launched, it had three tiers for units- Common (generally held for mooks or low-tier characters in the show), Rare (roughly protagonist-level or elite mooks go here) and Epic (High tier characters usually with an active ability that did lots of damage or stopped enemies in their tracks). The game launched in October 2018 to generally positive reviews from both mobile game players and RWBY fans alike. Fans were happy to get a lot of new official art for the characters in the game and the base gameplay loop was fun. Criticism at the time was largely themed around the lack of content besides PVP matches and some issues with the meta but overall, the launch went well. Each month, the developers would add new units, including popular characters like Neopolitian, Cinder Fall, Zwei the dog, and more.
But everything changed with February 20th 2019, which introduced Neon Katt, the titular catgirl (RWBY characters are themed around fairytales, except for Neon, who is themed around Nyan Cat, and her partner Flynt Coal, who is themed off a potentially racist joke made by Rooster Teeth).
Neon is a character from RWBY Volume 3 who's part of a team that RWBY face during a tournament arc. Her partner, Flynt Coal, was part of the game at launch, and Neon would join him a few months later. Neon in the show is a cocky fighter who taunts the heroes and zips around on rollarskates, which in-game is represented by Neon skating towards the nearest enemy structure to her and hitting it, while all units within a radius of Neon are taunted and provoked into attacking her above all other targets unless they-selves are coded to hit structures. On its own, not a bad idea for a unit, but Neon came with four big caveats:

Neon was the fourth corner of the square that became known as the Artillery Arena meta, which saw Neon, Cinder (who had an AOE ability she could use which was wide enough to hit a turret and tower and single-handedly killed the entire launch meta of using fragile swarm units), Zwei (an on-summon high damage AOE on any part of the map) and Penny (another AOE ability that instead did chip damage and locked a location down) turn the game's meta into a chip game. Every player ran at least one of the above cards, if only to counter the others. Neon was the universal counter in being anti-swarm and the hardest to stop, especially at launch where her taunt range was so large, it could grab units from the other lane.
Neon launched with a unit weight of "Heavy", which meant that if she was behind a unit she could push it on her way to the turret. This launched a sub-meta where Neon was placed behind a larger unit such as the Ursa (which like Neon was a unit that focused on structures but was made slow to cover its tankiness), to push them towards the turret faster. This was called Disco Bear. They eventually patched this so Neon phased through units by making her a lightweight.
Neon couldn't die. She was invincible until she hit a structure, which combined with her taunt meant that Neon was very annoying to fight and could lock down an entire lane of the battlefield by being placed well and taunting enemies to let you prepare a counter.
Neon was a very cheap unit to summon. Amity Arena uses a mechanic called "Aura" where all units cost a certain amount and it recharges over the match- for instance, protagonist Ruby Rose has a Rare card that costs four Aura to summon, while Weiss Schnee has two rares that cost three and five. Neo only cost two Aura, which made her one of the cheapest units of the game and thus disproportionately powerful for her cost and easy to cycle through your deck so you could spam her.

From the word go, Neon is an unpopular unit; she's clearly overbalanced and elements such as the Disco Bear glitch have players thinking she'll have to get knocked down in a nerf- she'll either be made slower, more expensive, or able to die pre-hitting a structure, right?
Neon doesn't show up in the next patch. Instead, before she's fixed, an entire new class of units called Legendaries are introduced, and this is where the game goes full gacha. Legendaries were meant to represent the highest tier characters in the game, the ones who were either the most popular characters or the highest-tier fighters in the show. Or in some cases, the popular ships such as combo cards for White Rose (Ruby/Weiss), Bumblebee (Blake/Yang) and Flower Power (Ren/Nora). Legendaries, representing their value, were impossibly rare and had an infinitely small chance of actually appearing (The most reliable method was to buy the premium chests and hope you'd roll a Legendary, which often cost tons of money), and if you did get one, there was no way to guess which Legendary you'd actually get. Some such as White Rose and Adam were high tier units, others like Hazel or Checkmate were... kinda broken at launch. The playerbase isn't happy at this, especially as free to play players are left out in the cold and reliant on the game giving them high tier units effectively out of pity.
Neon would get a small nerf in the April patch which lessened her taunt range and killed the Disco Bear meta, but her invincibility would be left untouched, even as players submitted feedback regarding how to make it more efficient. The official Amity Arena discord has a weekly feedback section on Tuesdays where players could submit up to four suggestions on how to nerf/buff units and general requests for quality of life such as "Can this character get a new skin from this part of the show," or "Can we have an option to lower music volume that's not just muting all music?" (they never did add that second request) Neon would then remain in this state until the November patch, despite constant weekly requests for a Neon rework, and all it would do is make Neon functionally mortal, in that she had a flat shield bar of 20 that would be lowered by one for each attack before the next hit would kill her. Neon could now die... but your chances of actually doing enough damage to stop her were slim, and regardless, you were now at a serious Aura defecit.
It took seven months for this one unit to get a substantial nerf, all while the game added new units every week and the number of units being affected by patches each month began to gradually sink. To round up some of the major issues people had with Amity that developed throughout 2019 alongside Neon's general existance making life hell:

Common units were meant to be chump fodder, but could level up the most amount of times with a level cap at 13. This meant longer-term units that had a long time to level such as the Xiong Family card, the AK-130s the Beowolf Pack, or the White Fang gunners, could become shockingly strong if players grinded the money up to reach max level.
A pre-existing divide between free players and players willing to burn money IRL to get access to premium currencies led to a huge disparity in play. Free players have long complained about how hard it is to scrounge money together to level up units at higher costs as even the basic currency of Lien is hard to get large quantities of (you get a certain amount every match win but otherwise you need to burn the Schnee Premium Dust currency for the highest payouts, but SPD is also needed for shop resets, buying crates or unlocking cosmetics). The developers used to do frequent double weekends where all gains were doubled for a weekend, but these became less and less frequent as time went on. Legendaries only added to the divide, as their rarity was bad enough for players willing to spend money (one player, known as one of the largest whales in the community, in trying to get Sienna Khan, reported burning nearly nine hundred dollars on her, while taking nearly six hundred to get the Ice Flower card).
One actual counter was born to fight Neon in the Argus Shield, a stationary unit that existed solely to stall units and take damage. At 2 Aura, it was the first structure to counter Neon, which allevated one of the primary problems with Neon in that no way to counter her was cost-efficient for an enemy player. They buffed the Wall to 3 Aura eventually which killed that hope, and all this happened before Neon's November nerf.
The Summer of 2019 saw a large number of defensive units released; alongside the Argus Shield, several different units were released themed around turrets for the technological kingdom of Atlas, such as the Beam Turret. The Atlesian Burrow Gun was the straw that broke the camel's back and made for a miserable meta as the Burrow Gun would only appear (and be available to take damage) when a unit entered its range. These three units together were all very overpowered on launch and led to a large exodus of players sick of defensive and chip-based metas, especially as what few offensive units that were good enough to counter these metas (such as Professor Port and Adam Taurus) were often nerfed into the ground within a month of release.
Also around this time it became apparent that the developers were unable to meet the quotas that Rooster Teeth was forcing on them. The social media team admitted that a certain number of units needed to be in the game in time for Winter 2019 when Volume 7 was set to start, and as the year went on more and more game-breaking bugs were being found in units, or they were at best horrifically undertuned or overpowered. The Apathy was perhaps the largest case of this, as an unfound bug pre-release meant that the Apathy (who have a passive ability that let them self-duplicate) had no cap on their power, meaning that they could immediately overwhelm defenses and in the case of some phones, be such a resource hog the phone would crash. Many Legendary units were especially guilty of being under-tuned due to low Legendary availability meaning they were simply weren't powerful enough to compare with high-levelled units. Checkmate's ability simply didn't work at launch, and Neon made several more such as Hazel Rainart a joke. May Marigold's invisibility bubble would have been an interesting game changer... were it not for a bug that made it that units placed in the bubble still played their sound lines, meaning players knew what to expect. Things were so bad that when Flower Power launched and wasn't broken or needed an emergency patch, the playerbase were shocked.

Unfortunately, the Novemember patch did little to stop the problems with Neon, and a new problem would rear its head for Christmas: Jinn. This unit embodied many of the problems players had: She was a Legendary so it would be hard for free players to get her, and only added to the sheer number of Legendaries that were out there. She was another structure card, and she was horrifically broken. Stopping time for seven seconds in an area around any friendly units, Jinn broke the game overnight, with players horrified at how little playtesting she'd clearly had. Most chip units now couldn't damage structures as Jinn simply could stop time and freeze the turret for the duration of the attack. And to make matters worse? She cost two Aura, meaning it was very easy to cycle a deck and start Jinn spamming.
And yet at two aura she was still one of the only cost-efficient Neon counters... until they patched her to be worth three Aura instead. Talking of the feline menace, January saw Neon get a HP nerf that set her shield at 14. Finally, Neon could be realistically be taken out, still at an Aura defecit but at least it can be countered and now they just have to raise her Aura- why are you buffing her game?
Less than a month later, Neon got, of all things, a buff. Her HP shield was set at 20, and her attacks now did double damage. This is around the point where a lot of players begin to suspect the developers aren't listening to feedback and more long-term players dip out or drop the game. Neon got touched one more time in April, which slowed her down (which itself was a problem as Neon's lessened speed on spawn simply made her better at generating aggro), she dealt 10% less damage and made it somewhat easier to hit her enough to kill her, but a new problem was on the horizon. Because Neon was now no longer the game's White Whale for patches.
Meet the White Fang Gunner Barracks. Added in September 2019, the Barracks fell under many player's radar simply because they were horrifically undertuned. Their gimmick was that every few seconds, a White Fang Gunner would spawn, with three spawning on death. In April, as Neon got her last appearance in the patches, the Barracks got a huge buff and became the centerpiece of the meta; they now spawned two Gunners, which made them immensely valuable for just five Aura. You could overwhelm many anti-swarm units before they had a chance, and shred your way through turrets.
The Barracks would then go six months before this overtuning was rectified, barring one nerf in August that lowered their health to try and stem the tide of units. To sum up every other thing that went wrong during the year meta-wise:

The playercount was getting so low that players were able to make lists of the AI bots the developers had in place so lower-level players had a challenge (Amity breaks up players by a trophy system where you gain trophies with every win, and by this point most of the active players were in the 2500 to 3500 range. This also meant new players steamrolled through the lower levels only to hit a brick wall in the 3000 range, with the only reliable solution being to willingly lose matches until you were in your optimal range and grind victories until you reached a certain level.
The patches became more and more threadbare, going from 8+ units getting changed each month in early 2019 to three units at most getting changed in 2020 patches outside of the anniversary patch going back to the golden days of eight. The only area where they didn't get more threadbare was in the cosmetics and emotes that the developers were cranking out, all of which were only available through hours of grinding or premium currencies. This was despite the fact that the units were being released slower, going from once a week to once a fortnite.
The majority of units added in 2020 were Epic or Legendary tier, which were the hardest to get for free players unless they got lucky and they were added to the store (and if they had the lien as a Legendary in the store costs a flat 40,000 Lien). One Common and four Epics were released compared to twelve Epics and seven Legendaries. The release of Moonslice Adam especially was annoying for this regard, as Adam already had a Legendary released (at least for Team RWBY, each of them headlined a Legendary when it came to the team attack cards), and this was clearly done to pander to Adam's fans again as his first unit saw a spike in interest in the game. The math was done and showed how artifically scarce Legendaries were made.
The undeovertuning was still in play. Colossus is seen as one of the worst cards in the entire game because of its gimmick. I have literally never seen anyone play it. Flynt became overtuned and now he's a staple thanks to his trumpet's AOE attack being able to hurt turrets and shred most units. Launcher Nora was an especially overtuned unit thanks to her high-damage constant AOE barrage and long range meaning she could annhilate most anything if given enough cover. Even after patches she's still dangerous. September saw the White Fang Dropship Formation added, which was widely seen as a terrible unit and done as an emergency addition because the planned unit for September in the Grimm Seer had to be cut last minute for technical reasons.
The game has barely had significant content added since launch, with the primary gameplay still just being PVP. Barring Battle of Beacon (a mode where you can play as Ruby and Weiss and fend off Grimm which most players just use to grind chests, and no, they still haven't added Blake or Yang) and Plaza (a lobby where you can dress up as a character and run around Beacon), the game has added no new features and quality of life content players have requested since launch (rerolling in the shop, Superior Crates having guaranteed Legendary spawn rates) have been released at a snail's pace (you still can't reroll Legendaries if you're looking for a specific unit). Academies where players can unite to trade units and chat still lacks features that have been requested for years such as the ability to delete messages. And Plaza immediately went to hell because players were doing erotic role play in the chats and after people came forward with proof that minors were being sexually harassed in the Plaza or being coerced into side-channels, the dev response was to... just turn off the chat entirely instead of banning the accounts or implementing moderation. This also removed the chatlog which deleted a lot of the evidence of said harassment.

As OctobeNovember comes in, the players are getting more and more furious. The weekly feedback includes a near constant demand for an acknowledgement from the developers given how often it feels like the feedback is being ignored. The social media team get caught several times hyping up how the coming patch would address player concerns, only for said patch to lack those units. The meta has been locked down to the Xiong Family, Flynt, Launcher Nora, Spider-Mines and the hell-cat herself in Neon. Everyone runs at least one of these, people run meta decks not because they want to, but because it's the only way to have a chance of victory.
And then in December, things implode. The patch for the month was set to launch on December 10th with the monthly event missions. But when the clock rolls around, the event missions (which usually take about two weeks to do if you're doing as many as you can a day)... has a six day timer. And the update doesn't come out. The art team doesn't release new unit art. The shop has no special timed bundles. There's no patch notes. And then the Twitter team who've been hard carrying the game through... actually talking to the players and acknowledging the grievances they have... admitted that they don't know what's going on either. The best guess is that the devs have come down with Covid, but no statements to confirm or deny this leave it as guesswork. The timer eventually got reset and people could do the event, but then on Christmas itself, another issue.
Ruby has appeared in the plaza on Halloween (her canonical birthday) and Christmas, and if you go talk to her you get free stuff. But on Christmas people, people discovered that Ruby was talking as if you'd already talked to her. Because they hadn't updated Ruby yet for 2020. She still thought it was 2019 so if you'd talked to her then for goodies, she had none now. They patched it eventually but a lot of people didn't see this fix before the timer ran out to get the free stuff.
Some have resorted to memes to cope with the fact that the game just seems to have died out of the blue. Others have been trying to desperately rally the players and find a way to save it. Some resorted to friendly mockery of the whales who'd spent thousands on a game that seems to be dying (seriously though gacha games need to curb this shit but they won't because whales are godsends for their bank balances).
If the game doesn't get an update in January then two months without new content will mark the end, and the already significant playercount drops will only increase. And it's hard to say if any one thing could have turned Amity Arena's fate around beyond just "Have a better balancing team who can respond better to feedback." Neon began the time of death, but by the time December rolled around the meta was in a horrifically toxic place where if you wanted to make any progession, you had to get down and dirty with the pigs. The team just constantly failed to balance problem units outside of their emergency hotfixes of Jinn, and more often then not they went after units and buffed or nerfed them at random going off playcounts to determine what needed fixing instead of the actual written feedback they were getting. It's clear from the references to the show and some of the attempts to reach out to the community that at least one person in the team genuinely wanted to make the good appealing to RWBY fans, but somewhere during the game's lifespan, they lost their way. Less focus needed to be put on how to milk the players, and instead focusing on making a game sustainable and enjoyable enough to warrant the cosmetics and emotes. The game's failure ultimately isn't on the playerbase. It's on the people who were actually making the game who chose to slack off because they thought it acceptable to do so.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: HOT OFF THE PRESSES, I JUMPED THE GUN
Had I waited one more day, my story would have had a far more sudden ending, as the game just announced its shutdown for January.
RIP.

Old Austin Tales: Forgotten Video Arcades of The 1970s & 80s

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.
There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.
But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.
I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction.
If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student.
But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades.
It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples.
Forgotten Arcade #1
Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe
June 15, 1975

ARCADE ENTHUSIASM
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.

March 3, 1976

ARCADE ROBBED
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.

First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
Forgotten Arcade #2
Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road
May 15, 1984

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.

I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4
Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St
Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St
August 23, 1983

Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."

Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade.
We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants.
Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7
Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall)
The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf
March 4, 1982

'Quartermania' stalks South Austin
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."

Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Forgotten Arcade #8
Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway
February 25, 1982

Arcades fighting negative image
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.

This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area.
At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh
That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story.
I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:

Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.

The gameplay looked like this.
Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982
Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982
Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984
Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989
Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003

where to buy a slot machine video

The other persons who buy real slot machines are people who take this slot machines for their home entertainment. Such people are basically slot fans or players who know how the slot machine work and now buy a old, vintage, used or even new real slot machine and put them on their living room or any place of their choice for non commercial use. Slot machine distributors also tend to have by far and away the largest range of second hand slot machines too so you are always going to be able to pick and choose from a number of different slot machines to buy when using their services. Buying a Slot Machine Online. Many auction sites are going to have a small category on which you can buy slot machines, but do keep in mind that you will need to have some form of guarantee that the slot or fruit machine you do buy from websites such as ... To get started, visit a retailer like Slot Machines Unlimited, a well-known slot machine dealer and wholesaler based in the US. The family-run business sells used machines that are refurbished to... All Slot Machines Come With A Year Warranty Life Time Tech Support. All Slot Machines Are Various Colors From Casino. FREE Packing For Any Machine on a pallet or Crating Cost $75.00 to make sure of no damages on your slot machine . IGT Slot Machines, BALLY Slot Machines, WMS WILLIAMS Slot Machines, KONAMI Slot Machine, Aristocrat Slot Machines. Buy Slot Machine and get the best deals at the lowest prices on eBay! Great Savings & Free Delivery / Collection on many items Gameroom Show sells pre-1940s vintage slot machines in excellent, working condition. These rare antique slot machines are also known as “one-armed bandits” because they were originally operated by one lever on the side of the machine as opposed to a button on the front panel, and because of their ability to leave the gamer impoverished. Gameroom Show sells multi-slot machines, Watling ... One of the best places that you should look to buy a slot machine if you are in Las Vegas I sat one of the many slot machine distributors that are available throughout the State, due to them supplying new slot machines to casinos they often have a large number of older slot machines that they have taken away from such venues. What you will also often be guaranteed of when you do purchase slot machine from a slot machine distributor is that the slots themselves will be in full working order ... Buy any IGT 3902 17 Inch Video Slot Machine Or 31 Game Gameking $799.00.There's a Crating Fee On each Machine $75.00.We Have The Best Prices! huge inventory Of slot machines In Stock . Christmas Special: IGT I Game Plus 3902 Only Special: Get your orders started now so there are no delays getting you your games. You can buy IGT S2000 slot machine parts are online stores like ebay, Amazon or realslotmachinesforsale. These parts can help you refurbish or restore your old slot machine and enhance the efficiency of a slot machine due to its constant wear and tear. Whether you want to buy a few used slot machines for your home or need to stock a casino, Slot Machines Unlimited can help. Furthermore, we carry machine parts, casino chairs, slot machine stands, signage and more. When you purchase from Slot Machines Unlimited, we strive to make sure your order meets your needs.

How And Where To Buy A Real Slot Machine - Casino.org Blog

where to buy a slot machine

where to buy a slot machine - win

Zynga Poker Chips

The official BitBandit.eu subreddit!

does anyone know where to buy a silent hill slot machine

Lessons I learnt the long/hard way, so you don't have to.