What I'm playing April 2026 edition

If I’ve been keeping up with my new Backloggd account I mentioned last month, and I think that I have, I have not played a large number of games this month. But that’s because most of them are so darn addictive I just haven’t had time to play anything else!!!

Pokopia

Yup, I’m still playing this and I still haven’t rolled credits on this one, and that’s just fine with me. I know from my wife playing that there’s plenty of game left after the credits roll, and I don’t feel the need to rush anything. I’m happy making sure the Pokemon in my town are happy, and building up houses and stuff. I was hoping this game would be good, but man, I never thought it would be THIS good! I’m really impressed with how good this game is, and how I keep getting distracted from one moment to the next with stuff to do. Oh, I need to make the habitat, so let me go craft this thing, and on the way to craft someone needs something, or I see a shining circle in the water to get a new crafting recipe, or I realize I need to go to another location to get the crafting material, and oh they just finished building a new house there, now I need to furnish it. Everything is just so pleasant from moment to moment, too.

Vampire Crawlers

Wow, I think I like this even more than Vampire Survivors! I didn’t know what to expect with a card-based battle system, but the deck building has me absolutely hooked on this game. There’s a surprising amount of strategy when you start getting some cards and figuring out how to chain them to make the most useful combos. And it doesn’t come with the near seizure inducing eye strain you’d get when you started getting overpowered in Vampire Survivors, so that’s a plus! Love this game!

Retro Rewind

I didn’t play nearly as much of this as I did last month, but I’m still plugging away, working a day to get some money then upgrading the store. I’ve started adding new rooms, and I changed employees to someone who is super fast at re-shelving, which was a godsend. I know in a future update they will let you stock games to rent, which would be super fun, I look forward to that, then my retro rental store dreams will really be complete!

Super Mario Advance

After watching the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, I felt like playing some old-school Mario games! And since there was a good amount of Super Mario Bros 2 content in there (I’m still super happy to have seen Wart once again!) I thought I’d play through Mario 2, but specifically the one on GBA, because they added some extras. I’m trying to get 100% of the red coins in the game, which are a new addition. In each level they’ve hidden 5 red coins, which means even though I can usually fly through the game, I have to take my time and really look all throughout a level to see where they might have hidden a coin away. I like it because it forces me to play a game I know so well differently. I’m almost done, I think I’m at 95% of the coins.

There’s also the Yoshi egg challenge after you beat the game, but I find that a bit too annoying. They hide 2 Yoshi eggs in each level, but they’re in subcon, so you need to use a potion in the right place to find them. It doesn’t really reward exploration because once you use the potion and an egg isn’t there, the potion is gone, so it seems more frustrating than fun to me to find them.

I also played a bit of Super Mario 64 DS for the same reason as Advance, but I might make that a separate post later on!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City

This VR TMNT game just released recently, and while I bought it day one, I haven’t had much time to play it. I made it through the intro level, which lets you play a little bit of all 4 turtles. They each play a bit differently, and I definitely have not gotten the hang of Donatello yet, for some reason I could hit with the bo staff to save my life! It’s gotten some mixed reviews, but as a huge TMNT nerd I could not resist a VR game, so I’m hoping to give it a bit more time in the next month. That is, if Pokopia and Vampire Crawlers will let me!