Glean 2 Crafting Guide

It's still complicated, though not as much as the first game.

Brief crafting guide summary for Glean 2, most crafting data pulled from Glean 2 Guide Wiki, which is actually more like a guide than a walkthrough. But a few notes on on the above diagram:

• The icons on the top-right indicates what resources are used to craft a certain item and component types. You'll need to have one of the respective blueprint and one of each of the material you are crafting before you can make more.
• Exact number of resources for crafting a certain item are not displayed here, since it might change between patches, and you'll probably be mining enough that it doesn't matter.
• Exact components needed for upgrading are not displayed since it requires another image to display all 112 upgrades in the game but upgrades for a certain part use components from only four categories, if it makes it easier.
• Modular and Mechanism components on the bottom has a number indicating minimum depth needed to find the resources needed to craft it, and require two blueprints to research it, which vary between items. Assuming you already researched the four individual components used to craft it, that is.
• Depth which gas is found is rounded to the nearest 50 depth (like 0-50, 50-100, 100-150), but are displayed as multiples of 40 for the purposes of making the table compact.
• There's a chance that Bacteria can spawn above 140M in Aquatic areas, and lava was seen as high as 130m.
• Uranium is mined from an empty lava pocket.

The tips below are general strategies for maxing upgrades in under 50 planets (the time limitation of the preview):

• Mine everything that you can get to.
• Fuel Reserves, Repair, and Radar Pulse are the only useful things to craft. Don't get Oxygen Refills since you'll need the Water for upgrades, and only Water appears from Chests, and they only appear once at a certain depth. Everything else is late game.
• Find the chests before you leave a planet, since they contain 2 (or more) blueprints each.
• Focus on Plating / Propeller / Cooling first, as they determine what you can mine, then Item Caps, Resource Quality, and maybe Drill Vibrations, as they don't require modulators / mechanisms. Optics is unnecessary as you can craft Radar Pulse fairly early, which does exactly what a high level Optics upgrade gives you.
• You will have to get lava pockets and Uranium even though it's below the safe zone based on the best equipment you can get at the time. I suggest you get some repair nanites, do just enough to get the lava and uranium, and make a run for it.
• In lower depths in Aquatic areas, look for oxygen bubbles coming out of the ground and not from sea grass? Those are locations of Coral Shards.
• You can grab an unlimited amount of Unstable Isotopes and Oxygen by lingering next to a Aquatic chest at low depths.

Americana Dawn: Title Screen

The title screen for AD in the beta, and a portion of the script used to create it. (Resolution at 1920x1080)

Some things, such as title screens, are difficult to program, especially if it is animated. Thankfully, the game uses a scripting system in order to handle maps, and it can handle the menu quite nicely as well.

Only four options exist on the menu right now:

• Start - allows you to start a new game, or load one of your saved games. The game will have another option 'Continue' once you played through the game a bit.

  Although the game was designed for only three save slots, I allow a bit more than that since it's a PC, and some decisions in the game are not reversible (one you go a certain path, the other may not be available entirely). Savegame sharing is allowed but some achievements cannot be gained if you do this.

  AD may have a New Game+ because of it's open-ended nature when exploring the colonies through the various time periods. Your stats, learned abilities, and various non-quest items from previous playthroughs are saved, but they're all stored in a separate chest at your ranch once you get access to it, and you can grab them at your leisure.

• Options - Allows you to change some minor game settings, like key bindings (does not affect some keys in minigames), and language settings.
• Extras - Some other features that were cut out of the game, like Multiplayer. I hear that pledgers who get a grave in the game (which is the $300 tier) will get noted because of their contributions... by helping to shape the in-game world in new, creative ways.
• Quit - does exactly what it does.

Note on the Title: The game natively runs at 720p, which means it won't have the black border around it during normal play.

(Updated 12/21)

Sacramento Holiday Classic

As the last run of the year (for me), it's back up to Sacramento, donating a toy in the process and a free 5K run through a mostly flat trail. It was a bit over two years ago since I last walked part of it on foot.

Yes, I know it's pretty cold during this run, but at least it's not below freezing temperatures as it was the past week, which made practice runs impossible due to the black ice from water sprinklers spilling out onto the sidewalk.

Note: The train is not guaranteed to pass by while you're running under the bridge.

Horizon Christmas Lights

At Lake Tahoe, the Horizon might not be somewhere worth going into, as it looks a bit empty inside except for a movie theater, however the display outside is worth looking at, esepecially when it's timed to music (various Christmas songs, incluing Wizards in Winter).

Now, if only the Montbleu animated their lights as well...

Costco Pizza

There can never be too much pizza to order at Costco.

I don't know whether they're empty or full boxes there, but either way they're still making pizzas and putting them in new boxes. I doubt they're actually full boxes because the sheer weight of each pizza could crush the boxes below.

(at Costco - Sacramento near Elk Grove)

Crystal Story 2: Skill Guide

Here's a list of all the skills for Crystal Story 2 for each character (as of v1.20). A character can pick two specializations for each class tier, and a third after two Class V specialization trees are completed (after around 365k SP total), as well as a fourth specialization at 1.1 million SP, although by this point it's mainly for upping your stats.

D has Slayer I selected at the start of the game, Lina has Thief I, and Mari has Elementalist I.

D	Class I	Class II	Class III	Class IV	Class V
Base SP Cost (per Node)	25 / 40	120 / 210	560 / 840	2000 / 2400	3600 / 3600
Slayer	Fire Attack Bash	Frost Attack Cleave	Barrage	Shockwave	Berserk
Guardian	Guard Attack Up Attack Down	Magic Up Magic Down Recovery	Attack Up All Transfer MP	Concentrate Attack Down All	Magic Up All Reinforce
Thief	Throw Burst 1 Steal	Quick Attack Flee Hide	Haste Throw Burst 2 Sprint	Pilfer Blur	Throw Burst 3 Quicken All
Elementalist	Fire I Water I Lightning I	Earth I Flame Wall I Blizzard I	Storm I Quake I Fire II	Water II Flame Wall II	Blizzard II Fire III
Trickster	Armor Down Poison Silence Sleep	Blind Spirit Down Slow	Poison All Silence All Sleep All	Spirit Down All Armor Down All	Slow All Blind All
Healer	Heal Cure Armor Up	Spirit Up Raise Heal All	Regen Quick Heal Armor Up	Spirit Up All Raise All	Greater Heal Auto Raise

Lina	Class I	Class II	Class III	Class IV	Class V
Slayer	Earth Attack Bash	Lightning Attack Cleave	Barrage	Berserk	Shockwave
Guardian	Guard Attack Down Magic Up	Attack Up Magic Down Recovery	Magic Down All Transfer MP	Concentrate Attack Up All	Magic Up All Reinforce
Thief	Throw Burst 1 Steal Quick Attack	Flee Sprint	Quicken Throw Burst 2 Pilfer	Hide Blur	Throw Burst 3 Quicken All
Elementalist	Earth I Lightning I Water I	Fire I Quake I Storm I	Blizzard I Flame Wall I Lightning II	Storm II Earth II	Quake II Lightning III
Trickster	Armor Down Poison Silence Sleep	Blind Spirit Down Slow	Poison All Silence All Sleep All	Spirit Down All Armor Down All	Slow All Blind All
Healer	Heal Cure Armor Up	Spirit Up Raise Heal All	Regen Quick Heal Armor Up	Cure All Raise All	Greater Heal Holy Light

Mari	Class I	Class II	Class III	Class IV	Class V
Slayer	Lightning Attack Earth Attack	Bash Cleave	Barrage	Shockwave	Berserk
Guardian	Guard Magic Up Attack Down	Attack Up Magic Down Recovery	Magic Up All Transfer MP	Concentrate Magic Down All	Attack Down All Reinforce
Thief	Throw Burst 1 Flee	Hide Quick Attack Steal	Throw Burst 2 Sprint Quicken	Pilfer Blur	Throw Burst 3 Quicken All
Elementalist	Fire I Lightning I Earth I	Water I Quake I Flame Wall I	Storm I Blizzard I Fire II	Earth II Flame Wall II	Quake II Earth III
Trickster	Spirit Down Poison Silence Armor Down	Slow Blind Sleep	Spirit Down All Silence All Sleep All	Blind All Poison All	Slow All Armor Down All
Healer	Heal Cure Spirit Up	Raise Armor Up Heal All	Regen Quick Heal Cure All	Spirit Up Raise All	Greater Heal Regen All

Kaz	Class I	Class II	Class III	Class IV	Class V
Slayer	Bash Cleave	Frost Attack Lightning Attack	Barrage	Shockwave	Berserk
Guardian	Guard Attack Up Magic Up	Attack Down Magic Down Recovery	Transfer MP Attack Up All	Concentrate Magic Down All	Attack Down All Reinforce
Thief	Quick Attack Steal	Throw Burst 1 Sprint Hide	Throw Burst 2 Flee Quicken	Pilfer Blur	Quicken All Throw Burst 3
Elementalist	Lightning I Water I Fire I	Earth I Storm I Blizzard I	Flame Wall I Quake I Water II	Lightning II Blizzard II	Storm II Water III
Trickster	Silence Blind Poison Sleep	Armor Down Spirit Down Slow	Poison All Silence All Sleep All	Blind All Armor Down All	Slow All Spirit Down All
Healer	Heal Armor Up Spirit Up	Cure Raise Heal All	Regen Quick Heal Cure All	Spirit Up All Armor Up All	Greater Heal Holy Light

Notes:

• Base SP Cost only displays the cost of learning the first two specializations, and rises as you go though the skill path. Skill cost is 1.2x base SP. There are 20-23 stat increasing nodes per specialization, and the amount of stats gained from a node varies slightly per character.
• Anything in cyan are skills unique to the character.
• Fire Attack, Frost Attack, Lightning Attack, and Earth Attack deal elemental damage based off the ATK stat instead of the MAG stat.
• Guard, Recovery, Concentrate, Berserk, and Reinforce targets self.
  • Guard: Reduces the damage of next attack by half
  • Recovery: Casts Regen (late game this is pretty much useless)
  • Concentrate: Gives ATK Up and MAG Up
  • Berserk: Gives ATK Up, MAG Up, and SPD Up
  • Reinforce: Gives DEF Up and MDEF Up
• Throw Burst 1, 2, 3 are the only skills which allow you to use offensive weapons in your inventory.
• Hide prevents enemies from chasing you when used on the field map for a while (you can still start an encounter if you run into an enemy), and Sprint doubles your movement speed on the map.
• Lightning actually inflicts Wind damage. Don't ask why.
• Holy Light applies Greater Heal to all allies.
• Auto Raise gives the party Auto-Life status, fixed in v1.3.

A good strat would be to get a dedicated buff/debuffer with high speed with the Start SPD accessory (one is obtainable after completing Mercenary Defense Lvl 3) to allow multiple turns at the start of battle to buff the party's defenses and speed, and the other party members for offensive attacks and possibly debuff the enemy.

Focus less on stat gains and more on desired skills when deciding what class to give your character. When choosing between two stat gains always go for the HP/MP increase, since the other stats are easier to get via equipment + upgrades and the only increases to DEF or MDEF are accessories or buffs (in the latter case it's a 25% damage decrease). Bosses (and many enemies scaled up when Wanted X Quests / Hard Mode is activated) are capable of one shotting you / entire party otherwise, sometimes before you can even make a move.

I don't have exact specifications at the moment on how many of each upgrade are present when going through each class specialization. The table might be more useful on the wikia for this game, but the visual graphic that will soon replace the above tables will remain here.

One Cent Book at Fry's

I don't think I need to explain this further.

At first I'm like 'there's gotta be some strings attached', like the other software in the discount pile scattered around Roseville Fry's claiming a total cost of zero dollars... after the mail in rebates. There's that discount label on the book, so it's legit. No tax on this either.

Meanwhile, there girl's dolls in areas where books would normally go, and men's cologne products in the children's book aisle.