Bytepath

Bytepath is basically a game of Asteroids on steroids. The premise is mostly the same in that various stuff flies in from the edges of the screen, and you got to shoot and/or dodge that stuff. What sets Bytepath apart though, is it's insane upgrade system. There's several different ships, a few dozen classes, and several hundred passive skill nodes in the form of a Path of Exile skill tree, which it most definitely did rip off, but that's not a bad thing.
These upgrade systems allow for many different paths, allowing you to come up with your own unique way of beating the game. It's quite satisfying to see the synergies between the upgrades play out, and the entire thing is like an incremental game.

Now, what is bad, is that the game kind of fails to do anything with this potential. In fact, just as I'm about to reach the point where I'm just getting these ridiculous(ly fun) synergies up, I also reach the point where I beat the game. You can start over with even more increased power, but there's no real point.
Basically, you need to get to level 40 to win, up to which point the difficulty ramps up at a balanced pace. After that, the game quickly throws everything else it has at you, and if your build is good enough to survive that, you might as well keep playing forever. (Picture related.) I found out I could get to the point where I basically get invincibility off of killing enemies, and that invincibility lasted longer than it took to get it. Couple it with an ever increasing attack speed buff from kills, and I was all set to play until I get bored of gaining points. (As you can see, the points left the screen, my combo counter is over 10000, giving me over 1000% extra attack speed. I'm also at level 100, which is far past the final level of 40.)

Overall, I had fun playing it, but it quickly exhausts itself due to the lack of things to do. In less than an hour, Bytepath becomes a game of just mindlessly holding down buttons, watching as everything before you dies. You stop caring for enemy types and pickups, and you don't really get to feel the potential of this bullet-spewing monstrosity you've created. I would've loved a bigger map, maybe some bosses, and it could have really shined if it actually added a game to the upgrade simulator. But as it stands, it won't make my list. A partial recommendation only - if you want something to do for an hour or two.

PS. This actually opened up my eyes to why Path of Exile might be more fun then I've given it credit for. I haven't looked at it enough from the perspective of it being an upgrade simulator instead of an ARPG.

Music Racer

Sometimes I wonder if I should even post about the bad games I find. And I don't mean just game I didn't enjoy enough, because that's most all of the content here, I mean actually bad games.
Music Racer is someone's attempt at Audiosurf, except I don't think they ever quite hit the point of having at least all the same features in it, let alone any improvements. Curious why I even added this game to my list, since I'm not a big fan of listening to music of my own choice for the sole purpose of playing along to it. That's all this game is, see. The comparisons to Audiosurf are all well and accurate, and this is basically a downgrade on all accounts. I've nothing to say. No use even considering this.

End-of-week Report

Oh boy, Overwatch and Star Citizen free weekends.
I last tried Overwatch during its open beta, and I can say nothing noteworthy has changed. I can of course not deny that it is a well made game and deserves its popularity, but on a personal level, if I wanted to play a shooter, I'd play a regular one without all the twitch-based gameplay, and if I wanted to play a team-based ability spam game, I'd turn to a traditional MOBA. Hence, I've no motivation to play it. This is as close to a review as you're going to get from me.

As for Star Citizen, it is a game about the future, for the future. Even after 200 million dollars and several years of development time, it still seems a long ways off from being a coherent, playable thing. I must say that what they do have so far is very impressive, and if a game of this quality would release in full, it would be absolutely astonishing, but it hasn't yet, so it isn't yet.
It also still has numerous bugs, the user experience is often clunky, and most importantly of all, it's a game for the future, because computers of this age can not run it. With 16GB of RAM, the best last gen i5 CPU, a GTX 960, and a well-optimized computer, this thing is pulling around 20 fps with up to a second lag spikes every ten-or-so seconds. And that's on the absolute lowest settings. Barely playable. If I had to recommend specs? 32GB of RAM, newest generation i7 or better, along with at least a GTX 1070, and all 50-100GB of it installed on an SSD.
But I am most definitely looking forward to playing it in 5 years or so. What they're doing is really impressive. They just have to hope nothing comes along and makes a similar thing faster and releases before them.

Well, that was a fun double mini-review. Onto the regular report.

• Games in backlog: 283 (+4)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 51 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 60 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2-ish

Age of Wonders III

Age of Wonders III, like most 4X games, isn't really the kind you can complete entirely, since you're supposed to just keep starting over until you don't feel like playing anymore. Of course, if you like the game, who knows how long into it that will happen. I would never get around to telling you my thoughts on it at that rate. So instead, I played a little bit of the campaign, won a couple scenarios, and am now ready to impart my gained knowledge.

Hoping you'd know what a 4X game is, I'd jump straight to comparing Age of Wonders with some others of the genre.

• Inevitably, I can not leave out Civilization V, it being the most well-known of them. And as usual, the main difference I would point out is that Age of Wonders focuses a lot more heavily on combat. Not any more heavily than most strategy games of the turn-based nature, mind you, but rather it's Civ that's the odd one out.
• The other large difference, and this time from all others that I know, is that Age of Wonders plays a lot quicker. There's approximately just as much action going on in a single turn, but 40-turn games are entirely feasible, while even the longest ones probably wouldn't pass 200 turns. That is of course assuming all the players are not prolongening it on purpose. I find this a really nice aspect of the game, as it actually allows for games to be completed in a single sitting, or just a few, instead of dragging on for weeks or months. Not that I don't like long games, it's just that it's great to have a shorter option available.
• As a moderate difference, Age of Wonders has fairly complicated units and battle interactions. The battles are played out on a hex grid, and instead of the usual attack, defense, and whether the unit is ranged, each unit instead has it's own set of abilities, and a "character sheet" consisting of potentially dozens of different traits that further shape it.
• There is a rather extensive magic system, which allows for major influence over the world through its use. Terraforming, summons, offensive and defensive spells, and more.
• As for downsides, I find town customization options are heavily limited and boring. There's very few buildings, and their effects are very simplistic.
• Additionally, there is no tech tree in the game, which I believe is a contributor to the fast pacing. Town upgrades and spells dictate how powerful your units can be, and both can get to end-game levels fairly quickly, while skipping lots of lower level stuff.
• And finally, though this would need more playtime from me to confirm, I have a feeling like the balance is slightly off.

Overall, a simpler and faster 4X TBS game than most, but it definitely has a spot on my list for still being pretty good, as well as filling a sort of gap in the genre. Would recommend.

End-of-week Report

Slow progress, and I feel like there's a bunch of games that are nearing completion, but just aren't getting there for one reason or another. When talking multiplayer, I completely blame my friends' apparent reluctance to finish anything. Play it until just before the end, then quit. Baffling.
Have the latest report...

• Games in backlog: 279 (-1)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 50
• of which Early Access: 61 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2

Delver

Delver is like Minecraft. Except it doesn't have mining. Or crafting. I guess it only has the blocky, pixely world with the same kind of first person camera and is, coincidentally, made in Java. (Which, by no coincidence this time, also creates technical problems for the game.) Anyways, it's not a very good comparison, but I'm just feeling tired this time around.

See, Delver's a roguelike instead, and this time rather close to the formula. True permadeath, lots of mystery surrounding the world the first time around, and other stuff, I'm sure. I don't know, I don't have much to say. It's not very fun. It's short, poorly utilizes the height dimension to the point where the bugs (like bad hitboxes) caused by it outweigh any benefits it may bring. That is, except for the nice graphics. I think it does the blocky art style pretty well, especially once you consider the particles and lighting. But the controls were no good, there wasn't much content, and whatever mystery it held for the first 15-30 minutes quickly wore off.
I'll be honest, maybe I should actually be feeling like playing a new game when I do, but I think I wouldn't have thought much better of it anyways. So that's that - it's no good.

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile

Would you look at that, it's The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile - a game from the makers of Salt and Sanctuary. The former was published on Steam a year later (along with Charlie Murder), probably due to the resounding success of Salt and Sanctuary, but it's actually a game from 2011. Overall, not that old, but still worth noting that it came out quite a few years before their big success.

I am immediately reminded of the hyper-violence games I used to play on Kongregate and Newgrounds. Back then, I had no clue what I was doing, mostly just mashing buttons, following a rather linear path to wherever the game guided me. I might have thought that this was just due to being a kid, and not being all that bright at the time, but looking at this game, there really isn't much of an indicator as to what the grander goal is. The camera is zoomed in real close, I'm given no feedback on how much damage I might be doing, how much I might need to do, or what might be triggering the various things that are happening. Luckily if I button mash with just a little bit of sense, I can get through it all while still feeling pretty good about myself due to the visual effects the game gives me.

Sadly, I can't say it's very fun to mash buttons and effortlessly kill stuff. This game does just feel a bit gratuitous, and I'm not a big fan of that. It doesn't feel like it does anything more than the free games I got to play 10 years ago, though, yes, I would be comparing it to the best ones of that time, and further, I can't even say I didn't have fun.

Difficult verdict to place here, but I'm afraid it just isn't good enough for my list. However, if you have a few hours to kill and feel like playing something violent, this isn't at all a bad pick. Play it, maybe have some fun, but don't expect too much.

End-of-week Report

Ludum Dare is this weekend, so I have been doing that and will continue tomorrow. Honestly, I understand less and less each year why I'm still taking part in it. It was a really helpful experience the first couple times, but each next time I'm just even more dissatisfied with both the journey and the destination. Maybe solo it would work, but there's just no such thing as an unified vision as a team. If the person whose idea is being made is not a strong leader, everyone else will either suffer or make others suffer due to misaligned goals.
But enough bitter rambling, have a report. Last 3 weeks to go before school begins again. Got to make the most of it.

• Games in backlog: 280
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 50
• of which Early Access: 60 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2

Superflight

Superflight is almost in Steam's top 100 in terms of user reviews at the time of writing, so I expected it to be a fun game. It's a game about gliding in a wingsuit or some such through randomly generated short, blocky, and colorful levels. Gain points for flying close to walls or through loops, stay alive for as long as you can, and get a high score.

Honestly, the gliding thing wasn't half-bad... for the first 10 minutes, but after that, I'm not really sure what to look for in this game. I guess you could practice and get good at flying through lots of tiny holes and near all sorts of walls, but that's such a simplistic thing to get good at - there really are no other features in the game. What's more, if you're going for a high score, just don't take any risks. Fly for hours, days even, taking no risks, and you'll get the top score. Except you obviously don't want to play that long.

I'm really just disappointed in such a highly rated game, but I guess the tranquility factor in this game was appealing to a lot of people. Personally, I don't see it at all, and would confidently suggest staying away.

Space Between Worlds

I happened upon this little free game recently, and something about it captured my attention that I wanted to play right away. I'm glad I did. It's a 10 minute long emotional experience, with basically no graphics nor much gameplay, but it really reminds me of the good times I had playing free Flash games back in the day. It's just the same style.
I'd recommend taking 10 minutes out of your day and playing it, there's really not much to lose.

End-of-week Report

Chugging along, doing things, writing this way too late in the evening...
Can't really think of anything to say, so just have the progress report.

Oh yeah, I missed the goal I set for myself by like 30 games. As we can see from the past 30 days, I'm clearly not going to reach an average of 1 game more played than added per day by the end of this month either. But I have to get through these games somehow. What to do, what to do...

• Games in backlog: 280 (-2)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 50 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 61 (-1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2

PS. Finished watching Trigun. It was okay I guess. Couldn't quite relate.

Shift Quantum

Small world out there. I found Shift Quantum on the Steam store the other day, and I can only assume it's the same folks who made the various Shift games in Flash back in the day. Fun little games, pretty good for being free and what was available at the time. They also made Epistory as it turns out, which I rather liked. Always good to see developers whose games I played all those years ago still there, still making games.

Shift is a puzzle game where you have to traverse a level via platforming. The twist? You can press shift to Shift, which turns everything inside out. What's up is now down, and what's solid is now not. This creates a whole bunch of new possibilities when combined with the other mechanics, such as pushing blocks, collecting stuff to open/move doors/platforms, and even changing the direction of gravity. It's not a very complicated mechanic, but it creates ways to think outside the box, like Portal, except not quite such a stroke of gold.

Quantum doesn't really deliver much anything new except for nicer graphics and sounds, and a bit more gameplay. Overall though, it's still too short for my liking and nothing that great as a game. Good for a free Flash game, not good enough for a paid game. But if you've never played Shift before and like non-standard puzzlers, it might be worth trying out, even if just the Flash versions while they're still available.

Siralim 2

Siralim 2 is a dungeon-crawler based on randomness and quantity. Basically, what has been done is that hundreds of monsters, items, spells, and other such bits have been created, most have been given some forms of random enhancements and allow for combinations between them to create a near-infinite amount of combinations. Throw these things into dungeons, allow the player the capture and find them, then create challenges that the player has to try to overcome by assembling a proper team.
And this sounds real fine on paper for me. I'm a huge fan of generated content, combinations and synergies, and the emergent gameplay that could and should arise from that. However, I found my time with it to be incredibly tedious.

I'd like to start off with criticizing the control scheme and looks of the game. Rather uncharacteristic of me, as I absolutely love, for example, Dwarf Fortress, which is rather guilty of both of these things.
An easy problem to see is that the game is played with just 6 keys - WASD, select, and back. While it means there's no difficulty in learning the controls, it's quite hindering to get around the menus. And this game requires a metric ton of navigating menus. Mouse selection or keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking S 10 times followed by W 10 times soon afterwards would be really, really nice. if you're going for a keyboard-only control scheme, make it very well optimized. This one is not.
As for the graphics, they're simply charring. While that doesn't really hurt the gameplay, I just dislike looking at them most of the time. I wouldn't complain about graphics that aren't good and don't try to be, but I do complain if they're trying to be more than the author was capable of. Also there's recurring problems with the pixels getting very un-square if any of the viewport settings are just slightly off the default. It's hard to explain, but it looks really bad.

As for the gameplay, I find it to be too much of a grindfest. The huge amount of randomization is good for keeping things somewhat fresh for however long you want to play, or for collection enthusiasts, so if you've got 1000 hours to burn, and just want to do something, it can be a nice time waster. However, if you're like me and desire quality over quantity, then all this nigh-infinite content doesn't matter, since it's not enjoyable enough.
You're allowed to advance at your own pace for the most part, but you can't just rush through everything since you're not strong enough. Grind away at lower floors for as long as you want and you should eventually win one way or the other. I personally would prefer the perfectionist approach, where I take my time to explore everything and look through all the possibilities, but the game throws so much stuff at me all the time, that looking through all my spells, all my equipment, all my monsters is infeasible.
And these describe the two alternative paths through which you should be able to play the game, as well as the problems with them. Either grind or think of the right combinations to get really strong. But grinding is boring button mashing, and thinking takes too long, not because it's difficult but because there's too many things.

Overall, this game may very well be enjoyable to those to whom these things do not sound so bad. It's not very popular, but it is quite highly rated on Steam, meaning the few people who play it, like it. But unless you can go look at what the game is and think to yourself that "yes, this is exactly what I've been looking for", it's not going to be enjoyable. For the record, there's also a third game out in Early Access right now. Much like with the first game, it's mostly just more of the same, but with a few differences, as far as I understand. No major revamps to any game systems or graphics.

End-of-week Report

Still busy with Tales of Berseria, and I also started with Age of Wonders III. The latter has been sitting in my library for forever, and it's surprisingly good. I regret not playing it earlier.
There's always a small problem with posting a review for non-ending games that I don't quit. That's because I always post a review when I either finish or quit, but if I do neither, I should post it at some optimal point between when I've played the most, yet the game hasn't become overly familiar yet.
I'm 20 hours in so far, but I feel like I'd want to play different races, maybe something that isn't the campaign... Explore as many different possibilities as I can.

Anyway, onto the report. The number of games is miraculously still going up. I think this is a sign that I need to just cull a whole bunch without playing them. Maybe if when I reach 300, how about that?

• Games in backlog: 282 (+3)
• of which VR: 18
• of which Visual Novels: 49 (+1)
• of which Early Access: 62 (+1)
• Games reviewed last week: 2
• Games to end-of-month goal: 32 (10.7/day)

Unexplored

Unexplored is a game I added long enough ago that it was when I still wrote about each new game I added to my list. As mentioned, I skipped over it at first glance, but later opted to give it a chance, seeing how various places praised it, mainly for it's unique dungeon generation and content amount. I took my time to play it, quit, then tried again, and quit again. Overall I can't quite say I agree with what I've heard about the game.

Unexplored is an action roguelike. While it might seem like sort of a new idea in its execution at first, I would rather say it's very much a copy of some of the earlier roguelikes I've played, offering nothing new in itself. (Admittedly, I haven't played many old games, but some, still.) Of course, it's moderately impressive how the game quite faithfully manages to translate this experience into a non-tile-, non-turn-based system.
While I've nothing bad to say about the dungeon generation, I really saw nothing special in it. Maybe it's because it actually allows for cyclical routes and has a bunch of interactions between objects in different areas? Sure, the average dungeon generation algorithm I've seen just about anywhere is rubbish, so this one is more impressive in comparison, but it's still nothing special.
As for the content, I'm again not sure what it was being compared to. Compared to the average rubbish roguelike (or action roguelike, often in the form of some sort of shooter), sure I'd say there was a reasonable amount of content. Compared to something like Dungeons of Dredmor or Binding of Isaac? Not a chance. The various weapons got repetitive fairly fast and classes had basically no variety (because they were mostly equipment-based, there is no skill system in this game).
Finally, I find the melee system to be somewhat poor, although this could just be personal preference. Games with good (action) melee combat are pretty hard to come by because of how difficult it is to handle collision, swing speed, "cooldowns", etc.

Ultimately, while Unexplored doesn't seem like a bad game, it's pretty mediocre. Sure it's somewhat unique in being action-based, but otherwise I saw no new concepts being introduced in this game, nor any mechanics being executed particularly well. I can't quite say if you should or shouldn't spend your time trying it, considering most people seem to rather like it, but I rather did not like it.

Catmaze

So, Catmaze is a metroidvania. It looks nice enough from the pictures and the short gameplay videos on the store page, but once you start playing it... It's terrible.

It really feels like someone was just given a basic list of things that they had to implement gameplay- and art-wise, they did that, and then left it at that. To say that there is no polish is an understatement. It just really feels terrible to play this game. All the movement, the enemies, animations, attacks, (action) feedback, it's all so badly made. To give some examples:
I feel like I'm jumping on the moon. When I run towards a ledge to make a jump, I just fall down 9 times out of 10, and I dare say I know how to time my jumps in a "normal" game. Stomping down on a barrel, not only does it feel like I'm falling softer than a feather, the barrel doesn't crash and break, it's more like it awkwardly dissolves. The bouncy yet clunky animations feel like the character is both drunk and doing half-squats all the time. It would be more faithful to the gameplay if they just replaced all sprites with half-filled balloons.

Not a very formal approach this time, but honestly, I don't feel like this game deserves better. One of the worse games that's made me believe I might want to try it, and I don't suggest you do. Stay away.

End-of-week Report

Absolutely not going to reach that goal. I'm barely moving forward. Oh woe, how will I ever finish my queue if even months of free time barely make a dent. I figured a helpful tactic is that I play multiple games at the same time whenever I'm going through any longer games. This way I don't have to choose between burning myself out on playing something for more than a few hours a day every day or "wasting" my time playing stuff not on the list. Considering the amount of hours in a day and how often I'd want to play something, I'd reckon 5 or so games at a time wouldn't be too many.

It's always fun to think of an excuse every week why I got so little done. Y'see, I was learning about image resizing this week, and I thought it'd be an easy thing, but suddenly it was connected to signal processing and that rabbit hole was deeper than I could have imagined. So that ate a few days.

• Games in backlog: 279
• of which VR: 18 (-1)
• of which Visual Novels: 48
• of which Early Access: 61
• Games reviewed last week: 1
• Games to end-of-month goal: 29 (2.9/day)

2.9 games per day? Nice joke.

Just Shapes & Beats

Just Shapes & Beats is just that - shapes and beats. You are a specific square. Your goal is to get a specific triangle. Avoid other shapes to the beat of the beats in a bullet hell fashion for a while to reach your beloved tri-angled friend. It's a simple concept, and a simple game.

Not much to say, but I suppose I could make a few disjoint statements about this game.

• It seems to be designed as a party game. It basically lists every single form of possible multiplayer option on Steam, and it has a literal party mode, where you can leave it running as background music, and people can go play to the tune of the currently running track, if they wish to. There is no actual gameplay difference to multiplayer though, at least as far as I understood. Couldn't really test.
• The beats are pretty good.
• I feel the attacks/hazards aren't telegraphed well enough. On one hand, this lengthens the game by making you have to somewhat memorize a level, and both forcing and allowing you to spend more time listening to each of the tracks. On the other hand, it feels kind of shit to get hit by something you couldn't see coming at all. All the time.
• It is kind of just a downgrade from regular bullet hell games, because it lacks attacking back, most forms of score measurement, any sort of upgrades, and possibly more. Your movement isn't really tied to the rhythm either, only the enemies' attacks, so the advantage of the music aspect is mostly, but not entirely, lost as well. A-and, well, further... Regular bullet hell games often have pretty good soundtracks anyways, so...

Overall verdict - not recommended. The music is good, but the gameplay is very basic and uninteresting. Might be a bit more fun with friends, but I'd recommend some other bullet hell game instead of this.

End-of-week Report

Slightly slower week this time. I had a few things that took time, and I also found a game I've actually been playing for a few days now - Tales of Berseria. Almost quit because of the absolutely atrocious KB&M support, but heck, ain't no way I'm going to let a game be playable with a controller, but not without one. It's definitely better than it's predecessor, but at least I decided I'm not going back to play that.

Did I really estimate 29 games in 17 days? That's... going to be tough.

• Games in backlog: 279 (-1)
• of which VR: 19
• of which Visual Novels: 48
• of which Early Access: 61
• Games reviewed last week: 1
• Games to end-of-month goal: 29 (1.71/day)

Space Pirates and Zombies 2

I think it's been about 6 years since I played the original Space Pirates and Zombies. I played it over the span of a few months, starting multiple games, getting bored before I finished any, but then coming back to play some more a while after. It definitely wasn't one of my favorite games at the time, nor now of course, but I still played it a considerable amount.
So I was a little bit sad seeing its sequel, Space Pirates and Zombies 2 in Early Access with bad reviews, but I decided to hold off on playing it until it got out of Early Access. I don't know how long ago that was now, but it doesn't matter. The game has come out, it's reviews have considerably improved, and I had just rolled it from my list to give it a try.

As much as I'd love to just get to the comparison between the two games, I feel a brief description of what the game is is in order. I do know that all those years back I was thrown off by the name of the game, as neither pirates nor zombies were (and still aren't) really up my alley. Luckily, the title mislead me. SPAZ is basically just a half sandbox, half spaceship fighting game. You start off with a pathetic piece of space garbage, and you fly around mining, trading, fighting, and pillaging to keep getting stronger. The game has an open environment (or "world"), a randomly generated map, enemies, stations, and parts, making it reasonably much a space sandbox.

When I entered SPAZ 2, I expected at the very least the same enjoyment I'd get from starting up the original after all this time. So when it had been a couple of hours, and I wasn't really feeling it, I stopped to think why. Clearly my first thought was that this sequel is just worse. However, maybe it was just my mind making the past better than it was. So I took another look at the first game, and tried to see where along the lines they might have messed up to ensure I wasn't just biased.

The first difference anyone would notice, is that SPAZ 2 is in 3D. This might have made a world of difference, if the gameplay were not so sadly still locked onto a 2D plane. I would assume this was intended as a visual improvement, and while I can't say it failed, I can surely say that not only was the effort not worth it, it was overall a negative, since the gameplay suffered due to it. The third person camera made navigation and recognition difficult, and on top of that, I had no idea if my shots were going to reach the target, or if I could/should move further/closer.
The shooting problem was "fixed" by an automatic fire mode that just shot at anything in range, prioritizing your attack target. This fire mode was so efficient I would be severely gimping myself if I decided to switch to manual instead. The downside? That is literally half of the fun of the combat portion of the game, ruined. I had been demoted to just being a pilot.
Further, it would seem like there is just less content overall. Less items, ships, possibilities... More time spent in the less fun map view. Some awkward ship-building system, that, while giving me more options, also made progress feel a bit more hollow. It's just not an improvement over the original, and if you ask me, it really should be.

If anything I wrote sounds like fun, go try SPAZ instead of it's sequel. While I can't say the original was super exciting, captivating and all that, especially now due to its age, the sequel is just a downgrade, and not worth your time.