Yeah, you need to balance, the manual recommends 30% left to spend on first continent and 35% on second. I kept it at 30% though, and even dropped to 25% at the end. Also keep in mind that leaders that get two kinds of units split spending, rounded down, so may be better to choose even numbers, and keep in mind that those categories, the mortal units especially, will advance slowly.
And especially the first battle on a continent feels like quite a difficulty spike, both because it's a new enemy leader with new abilities and units and because all your volunteers from the previous continent are gone, so if you don't replace them you'll likely be much weaker, and no longer capable of even following your previous strategy.

My progress ground to a halt on the second island. I don't have saves going far back so... maybe I'll start from scratch, the game is not bad after all. And this time I would name my character. ;)

Euro 2020 takes away too much of my time. So I will just make a small trip to 1996 and play Summer & Winter: Olympic Challenge.

Arrived safely at Atlanta and had a first quick glance at the Olympic Stadium and the city. Then headed to the first traing ground to start my archery training. All thes RPGs I've played in the past prepared me very well for that challenge and so my first scores were already quite solid.

I should mention that I like soundtrack from Fanatasy General very much, they used classical choral music and it's really nice. But many tracks from the included goodie OST are really quiet...

Indeed, first thing I made a note of too.

And I just managed to win the first battle on the 3rd continent, actually wiping the enemy with my next to last unit to move on my last turn. Lost a troop of healers and my scouts, which were pretty darn experienced, close to full I think, blah, and now could upgrade them, but just replaced and went with it.

Dropping the % to spend even more though, may not be wise...

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Phantasmagoria 2 - A Puzzle of Flesh - DAY 4 & 5
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(The Twilight Zone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5aW08ivHU)

Finished Phantasmagoria 2.

Spoiler: //Seriously, an alien world?// There are two finals. Dark Seed 2 had a more inspiring H.R.Giger.

Firstly, the videos impressed but then, watching again and again the impression is down. Thats a typical game to write in a notebook all the mayus words you see in pictures and sentences.

Genre of Interactive Films raised his splendor in 1996. It was something new to see actors in your PC. First it was only digitalized faces, then was a character put on a screen and finally an entire film divided in pieces. That´s the case, you make click and start a clip. Another click, another clip. :)

At the end is boring because interactive is low. There are puzzles too, find passwords, things like that. The game has his strong points. Visually is perfect, actors are good enough and dialogs, angle cameras, lights,... technically is very professional. Gameplay has his flaws, there are puzles but the most part are videos.

The Curtis personality is the best, treatment of homosexuality with respect and sense. The relation with Therese, the dark perveertions of his soul. These acts will destroy his relation with his girlfriend. We see how Curtis has a job, a flat, girlfriend, and a social life, all is destroyed at the same time that his mind and his world.

Music is good too. There are few locations. Until the end we didn´t know if Curtis is a murderer or a victim of a complot. Wonderful the psychology confidences. The risk was a lot because you are who play the role of a probably psycho.

As a game, 3 stars. As interactive film, 5 stars.

For my last game this year i found Bud Tucker in Double Trouble, a lucas arts style game.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/bud-tucker-in-double-trouble

Sorry, mate. We've never assumed all of us will come back from this journey ;)

Well, same here. Perhaps we should make a next trip (1997) twice longer for this reason (and some other reasons, as vacation time, which doesn't necessarily mean more time for most of us).

While it might give even me a chance to finish a game while the event is going on for that year, I think two months is likely to reduce participation even more...

Meanwhile, I'm doing quite well with Fantasy General, and it's grabbing me enough to play during matches at times, listen to match and play, pay more attention to match when something important happens.
But so much depends on how the map goes, on the one hand which area you pick to attack, for example 2nd battle on 3rd continent had me choose between capturing multiple villages scattered over a large map, so needed cavalry and bombers probably, to spread them out and capture while the rest of the army kept the enemy army busy, and a smaller map with many enemy units and a victory condition of killing the large majority of them. First one was impossible with my army, second was easy. And there's plenty of randomness on the maps themselves, may find yourself in a bad place when you start a battle, or for example maps that have optional reward spots and others that don't, and then start again and have things be significantly different.
And tactics really make so much difference, once you learn just how to play. Problem being that as the game progresses and units get tougher, certain aspects start to have less impact, the raw power of units counting for more, so as you learn, what you learn may become less relevant.
And an annoying thing was in the last battle, today. Seemed easy, map had really helped me with a river in the right place, but towards the end I pushed forward when the enemy was nearly defeated and got my elf chariots surrounded by my own units in all but one hex, and enemy attacked them, they'd have withdrawn, couldn't and surrendered, so I lost those and the magical item they had (why you can't recover those items after the battle if you win I don't know), and didn't like that and tried the battle again... on a worse map (rivers less well placed, enemy forces split in two while the first time around all had been in one block, so I could have all of mine in one block too). But still won, and with no losses.

Coincidences of life. For the 25th Anniversary of Phantasmagoria 2, the actor who played Curtis Craig is conducting interviews with the cast and videos recounting his intervention in the game on YouTube.

Conversations with Curtis

The boy is nice. It's worth taking a look.

Oh noes! There should be a back to the future guarantee or something.

I give up with Bud Tucker in Double Trouble, first part is Ok but in Part 2 there are ilogical and nonsense puzzles, pixel hunting, that´s not funny. Furthermore, it doesn´t help protagonist said you constantly that you have a mosquito brain when you try differents ways. I´ll search a guide on youtube to see the rest of game and go on.

I finalize this month participation with this.

Huh, actually won one of those large map battles too. A lot of tries, but no restarts. Think it's just the third I use mid-battle saves for, and the saves were made when I quit the game, in a single slot, so I just had the one with 5 turns left to work with at the end, and while I had split my forces in three from the beginning and it seemed to go well, there was that one last town that's an objective that I couldn't conquer in time. But I was falling just short, had to be a way, so just kept trying from that point, optimizing the movement of my faster units towards it and the spread of my slower ones to capture what else was left until I found a way to just make it, with the last unit that could get there on the last turn.
What comes next looks even worse though.

To sum up, events like this are the needed push to play those games pending.

In order of likes about games played this month:

1st. Phantasmagoria: A puzzle of flesh
2nd. Ace Ventura (very funny)
3rd. Down in the Dumps
4th. 3 Skulls of the Toltecs (i expected much more)
5th. Bud Tucker in Double Trouble

A big, big thanks to ciemnogrodzianin to the push for organise it, i finally played The Beast Within and Phantasmagoria 2 after so many years.

Finally beat Quake and its two expansion packs: Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity.

What can I say? No wonder it's considered a true classic. The gameplay is still great even to this day. Every true fps fan must play this game once in its life.
Great level design and ost too.

Happy 25th anniversary Quake!! Rumour has it that a new game is in the works. May this franchise return with a bang!!

Well I finished Blood Omen 1 yesterday, a decent zelda-like/hack 'n slash with an unusual premise which sadly overstayed its welcome a bit and had some technical issues. My full thoughts on it:
https://minirevver.weebly.com/blood-omen-legacy-of-kain-ps1.html