Officially Annoyed

I downloaded the Bus Out game after I saw it advertised on one of my other mobile games. It sounded like a fun, time-wasting sort of game. I like puzzles like this. But I’m officially annoyed with it.

Why Annoyed, You Ask?

The game is made so users are forced to watch videos to beat levels.

What Happens?

The passenger queue will be moving and buses will be filling up. The player has to be strategic to free the buses when they are needed. Then, a single passenger of a new color will be in the queue. And in order to proceed, the game prompts the player to watch a video to unlock an extra parking space for that color bus. I’ve tried levels repeatedly to avoid having to watch a long, annoying advertisement, but continuously encounter a place where it’s necessary. I’m convinced that the levels are designed specifically so the player has to watch the ads or spend real money in order to beat them.

So, it’s not really a game.

Question: Game developer, is the Bus Out game an advertising platform or a mobile game? Hmmm?

So while Bus Out’s gameplay is entertaining, it is an advertising platform disguised as a game.

Annoying Ads

What’s worse, the ads run on Bus Out are the quintessential annoying mobile app ads that show gameplay from a game that is completely different when you actually download the game, the game is nothing like the ad.

Gossip Harbor and Seaside Escape = Same Game?

Two different games ads currently run on Bus Out’s ad rotation that are clones of each other. The games are blatantly running the same ads for differently named games. This is so annoying!

How do I know the game is nothing like the ads? I played one of the games, Seaside Escape, for a while before I got bored with it.

And there’s nothing in Seaside Escape like the ads where the players rescue some lady from an abusive boyfriend and fix up her shack saving her and her homeless kid from the freezing streets. Seaside Escape has a tropical setting for Pete’s sake, where’s all that snow supposed to be coming from?

Gossip Harbor DOES feature the characters from the game ads, but both Seaside Escape ads and Gossip Harbor ads run with the same game characters and misleading gameplay.

Both Games are Merge Games, BTW

Can’t Skip Ads After 10 Seconds

Many other mobile games I play allow users to bypass ads after watching the ad for a certain number of seconds. I don’t mind that sort of situation as much. I understand that mobile game companies need to make revenue to stay afloat. But ugh, people, let us skip the ads after a shorter amount of time.

When You Press the X…

Another gripe I have with mobile games is how when you finally get the >> or X button to get back to your game, it often starts a cycle where you press the button but the game download screen comes up repeatedly. Do they really think that annoying people with their ads is the way to get people to download them? Spoiler alert: It’s not!

Bus Out Gives No Rewards

Another thing Bus Out does not do is award the power-ups that allow players to shuffle the board. I’m actually not sure how to buy them because nothing happens when I click on them. It takes me to the page where you can purchase coins but I don’t see an interface where you can exchange coins with the tools. So again, the game is funneling users into watching the ads in order to get past points in levels where they will otherwise fail the level.

Update!! Critical Security Issue

Update as of February 2025. I’ve kept playing this game, even though many of the issues I mentioned in this post stand. But a new and more troubling issue has popped up, literally, in the last few days.

What happens is that while playing a level, a popup will force-open and navigate to a highly suspicious-looking website that seems like a malware scan but it’s not. This highly suspect site tells you to buy their software because your phone is infected with a virus. But my phone is not infected. It’s an iPhone. So this knocks Bus Out way, way down in my books. Like, off the page down.

I’m officially not playing it until they fix this issue. This pop-up to a scam website is a critical security issue. Even if it’s happening through their advertising network integration, the popup advert is a deal-breaker.

I cannot continue to play this game with this current issue. It is too suspicious. And I cannot recommend you play it either.

So.. Bus Out is a FAIL

That’s just shady business, as far as I am concerned. So as much as I enjoy playing a game like Bus Out, I love the puzzle aspect of Bus Out, I cannot recommend this game. If they were to address some of these issues and make the game less of an obvious marketing platform/money grab I might reconsider.

You can download Bus Out on the Apple App Store and on Google Play Store. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Gaming

I write about gaming frequently here at Fae’s Journal. You might be interested in some related posts.

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What is the Bronze Age Collapse?

Archaeologists and Anthropologists will tell you that the Bronze Age Collapse is one of the greatest periods in history that no one knows about. But plenty of people do. A quick YouTube search will pull up hundreds of videos detailing this time period. I am fascinated with it.

So what is it?

The Bronze Age Collapse, occurring from about 1200 BCE to 1150 BCE, was a culmination of events that caused the demise of many historic and once mighty societies. Multiple forces played into the collapse: environmental changes that caused drought and famine, invasions and/or migrations of people namely the Sea Peoples, the destruction of major population centers and historic cities, and disruptions to historic trade routes that caused bronze production to plummet.

Whole civilizations disappeared, written languages were forgotten, and after, the world was thrown into a dark age while whoever was left tried to pick up the pieces of their world and put it back together. It’s wild stuff.

Who are the players here?

The Hittites, Greeks, Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, and all the other interconnected kingdoms of the day were all involved. Some of them survived, in some form. Others completely collapsed.

Why Did the Bronze Age Collapse Happen?

People far more educated than I have so many resources available that I am not qualified to explain the details. I am not a historian, just someone who loves history.

Warfare Changed

Armies emerged that fought with swords instead of spears so they could take on chariots, the tanks of that time.

Sea Peoples

The Sea Peoples were groups of people appearing from mysterious places across the sea. They arrived to burn cities, invade, and cause mass destruction all over the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Historians now think these people might have been running from drought and famine of their own.

Climate Change

Drought peppered the landscape, and once flourishing farms dried up to dust. This could have been happening for centuries before it was collapse time, but all of a sudden within a few generations the lands that were once fertile and lush were no longer productive.

Fascinating

The fall of civilizations is a fascinating topic that people devote their entire careers studying. And this particular societal collapse doesn’t just encompass the fall of one society, but an entire network of great civilizations that had been around for centuries, all terminating in this one cataclysmic time period. It’s a super interesting point in history to set a story.

Enter Assassin’s Creed

Assassin’s Creed is an incredible IP that can be a launching point for someone to get really into history. I’m talking about myself. I have always found history to be interesting but Assassin’s Creed does something really compelling: It immerses you into the history as part of the gameplay. This makes you feel like you’re a part of the history. You’re surrounded by it. You’re listening to the sounds of the people around you, you’re looking at the markets, the landscapes, the outfits, the people. To me, Assassin’s Creed makes history come alive in a way that just telling a story cannot. And through that immersion, deeply impactful stories can be lived, not just listened to.

And this time period? The Bronze Age Collapse? Legit thousands of stories could be told.

Would this be too similar to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey? Origins?

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey takes place during the Peloponnesian War from 431-422 BCE. Origins takes place in Ptolemaic Egypt from 49 to 38 BCE. The Bronze Age Collapse occurred from 1200 BCE to 1150 BCE, more than 600 years before the time explored in AC Odyssey and a millennia before Origins.

Why Go Back to the Mediterranean?

This region of the world was the birthplace of great civilizations, and there’s so much incredible history to be spun here.

Assassin’s Creed is Alternative History, Remember?

Sure, sure. I get that the people at Ubisoft take real history, and weave some fiction through it to tell their own stories. That’s part of why the IP is a game and not a history software. But what they can do is bigger than that. I have learned an incredible amount of actual history from each AC game that I have played, from the Borgia Italy with the Ezio Trilogy to the French Revolution (bonus: I played the game in French so it was incredible, let me tell you), to the Peloponnesian War. I have immersed myself in both the fiction of the Assassin’s Creed world AND the real history through each game. And I think they could do so, so much with the Bronze Age Collapse.

Ubisoft Knows the Potential

Ubisoft knows how much potential their games have to get people to learn real history. I loved the part in Origins that let you walk around and learn about Alexandria, etc from a purely historical standpoint, with no violence or hidden blading people (though I love that part of the game too!)

In 2023 Ubisoft partnered with the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford England to explore Odyssey’s depiction of Knossos and the Labyrinth of King Minos and the myth of the Minotaur:

Visit the island of Crete in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and you’ll encounter the ancient (even by Kassandra’s standards) Knossos, one of the oldest documented Greek settlements. Excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in the early 20th century, Knossos was home to the Minoans, a civilization of Greeks that came and went more than 1,000 years before the events of Odyssey. Venture underneath the ancient palace as Kassandra or Alexios, and you’ll uncover the fabled Labyrinth of King Minos, where he hid the mythical Minotaur. While this might be where Odyssey begins to divert from history, the Labyrinth and Minotaur, like most myths, is rooted in reality. In fact, the myth is the subject of the current exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality.

The museum featured an area with Ubisoft’s depiction of the Minoan palace projected on a screen and an interactive display to explore the area. This wasn’t the first time Ubisoft has hammered into the historical elements in their stories and partnered with museums, they also had a partnership with the British Library for an Alexander the Great exhibition.

A Plea to Ubisoft

So there you have it. Ubisoft people, Assassin’s Creed development teams, please! Think about this idea, it’d be so freaking cool!

Also, one more thing. Is Ubisoft Quebec really where most of the AC games are made? C’est pas juste, ça! Je parle français, je voudrais travailler avec eux!!!

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Since childhood I have been into city building games, strategy games and Songs of Syx is like a good melange of those two things. Perfect.

City Builder / Base Building Heaven

This game has everything that makes me hyper-fixate on a game. It’s a genre of game that makes me spend countless hours obsessing over the small details of my city. What is this game, you ask?

Blurb from songsofsyx.com

Songs of Syx is a retro base/city builder inspired by “Pharaoh”, “Dungeon Keeper”, and “Rome Total War”. It aims at fusing those genres, while also adding to the experience. Its uniqueness comes from having huge populations, while still simulating each individual in great detail and providing big maps with 1:1 scale buildings. It’s set in a low-fantasy universe and the gameplay is mostly automated where you let the AI do the mundane tasks, while you focus on greater, more kingly things.

The game can be downloaded and played for free. You’ll find the free version on itch.io or on steam (demo). It’s not limited in any way other than being 3-6 months behind the payed version in terms of development. If you like it and have the means, consider purchasing it to support development. In any case, don’t forget to join the a community to follow development and bombard us with suggestions.

Inspired by

While Pharoah and Dungeon Keeper are named as inspiration, to me this game is most like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld in its ability to micromanage large populations to make a working city.

Start off Small

Early-game can be a struggle. You start off small and have to build up to everything. There are research trees that have to be unlocked so you can build all the types of buildings you need to build the various components your citizens need to be safe, comfortable, and content in life. And boy, do they end up needing a bunch of stuff! You can grow your empire on the world map and have shipments of goods heading to your capital while you build your army up and besiege your enemies. Or you can focus on making a functional society that produces a lot of its own goods in-house.

Game-play in Songs of Syx

Food

You have several options for food production for your citizens. Each species of citizen has a food preference so if you want a society with people from all species in your city you should have a variety of foods available. For example, the Cretonians are vegetarians and don’t want meat. The Amevias like fish, the Garthimis like meat.

In-game, you get food from farming, animal husbandry, fishing, hunting, or from refining raw materials into food or drink.

Farming

You can farm a variety of crops for food, fiber, and medicine for your citizens. Fruit, vegetables, grain, cotton, opiates, and herbs are available to farm in-game. To farm opiates you have to unlock that skill in the research tree. Fruit and veg can be consumed fresh from the field, but grain is refined into bread or brewed into alcohol. Fruit can also be made into alcohol. Cotton is woven into fabric for clothing. Herbs are used to preserve food for rations.

Animal Husbandry

Animals are domesticated and kept as livestock. Aurochs look like cattle and produce meat, leather along with the livestock resource that is used to make more fields of livestock (I sort of think of this resource like baby animals in a box). Entelodont are like hogs and produce meat. Globdiens look like lizards and produce eggs and meat. Onx look like sheep or goats and produce cotton and meat. Balticrawlers are the strangest of all the animals that can be farmed. They look like maggots and Garthimis farm them (or Argonosh).

Mining

Mines are important to source raw materials. Many things can be mined for resources. It is possible to mine stone, clay, coal, (iron) ore, gems and sithilon. Use stone to make buildings and as a construction resource. Fancier goods require cute stone. Use clay to make pottery. Weaponry requires coal and ore made into metal bars. Ore is a component for a ton of things. Make jewelry with gems. Sithilon is a rare resource that is useful for trading and some species are really obsessed with it. Looking at you, Dondorians.

Refining

Raw materials often need to be refined into usable components for other things. Grain is refined into bread, cotton is refined into cloth, grain and fruit are refined into alcohol, and ore is refined into metal. You can also refine wood into charcoal if you do not have coal deposits handy.

Crafting

One you have raw materials and refined materials, it’s time to craft more specialized goods that your citizens need to live comfortably and succeed in the geo-political sphere that you find yourself in. In the Bowyer you produce bows, Carpenters produce furniture and at some level you can make warhammers and shields, jewelry is produced at the Jeweler, cut stone is produced at the Masonry shop. Mechanics make machinery, paper is made at the Papermaker, rations at the Rationmaker. Smithys produce your weapons, tools, and Tailors make clothes.

Logistics

You also have to move all these goods around and store them. This can be one of the most challenging parts of the game to balance. Warehouses have to collect goods around them. Version 66 which I am currently running has managed this better than previous versions with each warehouse able to set a radius to manage how far away its goods should be collected from. You also need to ensure that buildings have the supplies they need to make goods. If workers have to go long distances to procure supplies the efficiency at which you produce supplies is diminished. So it’s important to also employ haulers to keep a steady supply of goods on hand.

Health

Your citizens need to be taken care of so they won’t get sick. Once you unlock the skills you can build hospitals and physicians, but even before that they can get sick. You also need to give them access to wells for water, and hearths to keep warm in the cold winters.

Homes

Obviously, your little guys need a place to live. You can build longhouses for them, or houses or apartments. They can each hold different numbers of citizens. Most of the time, species like to live with other members of their species around them. You can set permissions on dwellings so only certain species can move in. If you allow mixed species units the citizens get into brawls and unnecessary deaths can occur. So it’s best to keep buildings of separate species so they will live more harmoniously. Low happiness can still lead to brawls, though.

Religion

There are four religions in the world and your citizens will want to be able to worship freely at an establishment of their choosing.

Entertainment

All this production and worship and work gets tedious so citizens need to be entertained. There are speakers to spread the news, stages for actors, and fight pits. A Grand Arena can be built for en masse entertainment, but it’s later in the game because it requires an inordinate amount of cut stone and weapons. It has to be a big building.

Other types of buildings

There are water pumps, military buildings, schools, laboratories, breeding facilities and more. But those are the basics.

Races

In Songs of Syx, eight species inhabit your cities as citizens. They are:

•  Cantors –
  • Cantors are impossible to keep happy, and hard to get to come to your city. In all my play time (nearly 400 hours) I have only gotten one Cantor in my city as a war captive and when I emancipated him he immediately left. I was bereft. They are nearly immortal, living 8000 years. They’re very strong, making them good to have around if you are a military power. They do a massive amount of blunt-force damage. But as they are hard to attract to your city I have no experience with them.
•  Cretonians
  • Cretonians are peaceful citizens who like to farm, prefer a vegetarian diet, and are pretty submissive. They’re generally easy to have as a majority because they don’t get whiny and complain about everything.
•  Dondorians
  • These guys are like dwarves, I guess. They like to mine and work in skilled labor. They don’t like to farm.
•  Garthimis
  • Little bug-man hybrids. These guys are sort of cool but they also are easy to exploit as miners.
•  Humans
  • Smart species, humans like to do science, and skilled labor.
•  Amevias
  • These are lizard-man hybrids who are good at fishing and like the water.
•  Tilapis
  • These guys are like elves and enjoy nature, herding, and circular/organic buildings.
•  Argonosh
  • Like the Cantors these guys are hard to attract to your city. I’ve never had one come to my city. They can also do massive blunt force damage.

One of my goals is to figure out how to get the Cantors and Argonosh species to naturally want to come to my city. But I don’t like to look up walkthroughs or guides because I like to learn the way the game works organically.

Small Following

Songs of Syx is one of the best city-builders, and very much in the same spirit as games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld. Despite that, it has a much smaller following than other games like it. As of publishing, its highest player count on Steam was 2956, so many fewer than Rimworld’s nearly 62k peak player count.

Songs of Syx did get a lot of attention earlier this year when a gaming content creator made a video playing it, but I still marvel at the fact that it’s got such a small following. In my opinion it’s one of the most engaging games I’ve played in recent memory.

Songs of Syx Guides?

There is a really good wiki on the Songs of Syx website if that’s your thing. If you like city building games, or strategy games you should get this game and check it out. It’s very worth it!

I post about games I like on my blog. I enjoy No Man’s Sky, Fallout, Assassin’s Creed and games like that.

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Assassin’s Creed 2

Assassin’s Creed 2 is the beginning of the Ezio trilogy and took such great leaps from the first game, expanded the understanding of the story line and really became the AC franchise that we now know and love. It’s one of my favorites in the whole franchise and playing it is still a good time. I love Ezio so much and spent so much time on this game. One of the best in the whole series. It’s free only for PC players from the Ubisoft launcher. You only have until April 17th to snag this gem for free.

Journey

Journey is a unique adventure game that I loved so much. It is moving in a way I can’t really explain adequately. It makes me tear up to think of this game and how the story is told. There is no language in the game, it’s told through visuals and music. You are on a journey in this game and have to figure out how to get to the next place by interacting with your environment in unique ways. It’s free until May 5 on PS4. Get it, it’s so incredible.

Uncharted: the Nathan Drake Collection

These games I have played the least of even though I already own the collection. They are games that I have on my list TO PLAY I just haven’t yet.. because they’re not totally my style of game but I’ve liked what I have played. Adventure with Nathan Drake on his many quests! For free now!

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With a universe that is seemingly endless, and planets that are gratifyingly large, No Man’s Sky makes me really feel like I am exploring in space. I am playing through the Artemis questline right now and woah the writing. Let me just say the writing in No Man’s Sky continues to blow me away with its complexity and depth.

I’ve been exploring a wild planet that is glitched or something and it has a ton of lore terminals. It is BOSS. The writing in NMS is really well done. Hours and hours and it is still surprising me with things. This person on Reddit found a similar planet full of lore terminals while playing No Man’s Sky.

What I love the most…

What I love most about No Man’s Sky is finding a new group of planets and landing on them for the first time. When I found the planet full of lore terminals my mind was genuinely blown. What was this and what is going on? The terminals spit out some amazing details, all 21 of them. They have something to do with the Artemis story. Not entirely sure what yet, but it’s really freaking cool!

What about you? Did you play NMS at launch only to be disappointed by it? I have played since launch and have been there for all the bumps and turbulence but they have REALLY turned it around and it’s such a cool game now. I strongly encourage anyone who likes exploration games like Minecraft or Subnautica or things like that to check it out.

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