Week of 23 Jul 2023
“I thought our first kiss wasn’t far behind…”
Achievements Earned In:
- Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition
- The Solitaire Conspiracy
- Maquette
This was a very interesting week for achievement hunting, as my close friend took my daughter and I on a cruise to The Bahamas with her family to try and escape from the horrible reality we find ourselves in since my love died. I planned ahead, bought an easy game to play daily on the ship, and purchased the highest-speed satellite internet package to allow the most reliable connection. Embarkation wasn’t until Monday, so on Sunday I played Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition in the hotel. I only played enough to get one achievement (for finally collecting enough ability nodes) before my daughter and I ventured out into the unknown urban wilderness of South Beach, Miami. It was a lovely time, but stressors revealed themselves on the ship when I tried to unlock an achievement on Tuesday. For some bizarre (and previously unmentioned) reason, all game services I tested are blocked on the cruise’s network! That includes any services provided by Xbox: remote play, cloud play, or even connecting to the achievement server! Incredibly frustrating, so I had to have someone else play a game on purpose on my profile for the first time ever. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, but, considering it was literally one of my wife’s dying wishes, no way was I letting my streak end. I made that choice Tuesday (on open seas) and Wednesday (Half Moon Cay), but was finally able to get a strong enough data signal on my phone in the capital of Nassau to hotspot my laptop to it and quickly earn another achievement myself in this game, this time for finishing up cooking all the meals. As of writing I’m home, so it won’t be much longer before this is completed.
Achievements unlocked: 89 (+2) | Completion: 94%
Before getting on the ship, I used remote play (all of Miami had 5G Ultra Wideband coverage) to access The Solitaire Conspiracy back home and leveled up quick before packing, earning the achievement for hitting level 12. Quick and easy.
Achievements unlocked: 15 (+1) | Completion: 75%
Speaking of the game started for me, they chose Maquette, which was a puzzle game added fairly recently to Game Pass. It’s overall a pretty short and easy completion, but… wouldn’t you know it, the game’s story is one of love. I didn’t realize it at first when I finally got to try it myself on Friday just before disembarking the cruise ship, but there are floating words that spell out the story. This meant that even though I tend to play cloud games on my phone with the sound muted it wasn’t long before the theme of the narration became obvious. So… OW. This might be a rough one to get through, and I may just play the entire game on mute. It’s very short, as mentioned, so it won’t be bad. I guess we’ll see. I do really like the gameplay, though, which so far mostly involves manipulating a model and using the real-world consequences to traverse the environment. I wonder if this is the entire game?
Achievements unlocked: 4 (+4) | Completion: 18%
Perspective!
Highest ratio: 4.38
Self-Mastered (Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition)
Lowest ratio: 1.00
Open Sesame (Maquette)
