Week of 26 Jul 2026
“You hear a moan from the thickets.”
Achievements Earned In:
- Vigour
- Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
- Shift At Midnight
So, at first I used Vigour on Sunday to extend my streak again while I worked on my blog and cleaned and did other adult/parent things. On Tuesday, though, there was an issue with the achievement system and I got worried. There are currently two “systems” for achievements, one for the old platforms (Xbox 360, Windows Phone, Games for Windows LIVE) and one for the new ones (Xbox One and onward). I’d been playing a game on the old one, so to cover my bases I grabbed a quick achievement on here, too, completing the game finally! It took me almost three months to finish up a game that takes maybe 20 minutes normally.
Achievements unlocked: 10 (+2) | Completed
Oh, you’re welcome!
Now time to get on those games from my 2026 TrueAchievements Bean Dive! I didn’t have to think hard as not only is Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara a fairly short completion (TA’s estimate has it at around 12-15 hours) but it also counts for one of the July Targets! This is a compilation of two arcade games from the ‘90s: Tower of Doom and the sequel, Shadow over Mystara, and boy do I not like them. Being games made for the arcade, they play very unfairly at times, and it just never felt very fun playing them. There’s even an optional boss in the first game (necessary for achievements) that kill insta-kill you multiple times before even revealing the health bar. Can you imagine if you were using actual quarters and got railroaded into that nonsense?! I’ll give it to the sequel, as it plays and handles better overall. And they’re both a neat attempt at somehow boiling down a TTRPG to an arcade cabinet, bite-sized experience. Even with any pros to be found, I just could not finish these fast enough. Luckily, they’re pretty easy games, too, since you have infinite credits and can even die to refill your spell slots and abilities. The most annoying part of the completion is collecting all the “treasures” (aka picking up every single item in the game at least once) as some drop in only some situations or certain locations. I was blessed to have picked up the vast majority of them just by playing through a bunch, so when it came time for clean-up I had the random stuff down and just needed to go to particular chests and bosses. Anything that removes some RNG! Started Monday and completed by Thursday!
Achievements unlocked: 24 (+23) | Completed
I cast Thunderbolt! Rolling for damage!
Another week, another horror game, apparently! This past week saw the release of Shift At Midnight into the Game Pass library. Since I was between games for a minute, and after checking that the achievements seemed both doable and weren’t unobtainable, I decided to recruit the pals, TommyToday and Gh0st Who Walks, to co-op another one! This is essentially one of those Papers, Please-likes, but you are running a convenience store in a world where doppelgängers walk amongst us and will murder you if served (for some reason). It’s a really simple premise, and it’s actually a lot of fun. Achievement-wise, it’s very easy and I think we may have already gotten what could be considered the hardest achievement, which is for getting to the end with both the sheriff and your beloved pet alive. You need to actually serve some “doppels” and cause a hunt to make the money needed to save your pet, so that’s really all that makes it difficulty. A nice and (oddly) relaxing time! Excited to go back for the other two playthroughs needed.
Achievements unlocked: 8 (+8) | Completion: 80%
Ma’am, before you do whatever you’re thinking, could you please… not?
Rarest Achievement:
Scavenger in Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara [4.98]
Most Common Achievement:
First Blood in Shift At Midnight [1.00]
