Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet. This event is an attempt to get us to collectively dig into that treasure trove of experiences, scratch some long-standing itches, and knock a few titles off our to-play lists.

It runs every May and November. New discussion topics will go up once a week during those months.

You do not need to sign up in advance -- the topics are open to all. If you would like to be included in the notification list, comment in this topic to be added.

• Choose some games from your backlog and play them.
• Then tell us about your experiences in the discussion thread for the week.

That's it!

Optionally: you can play Backlog Bingo which is a fun way of cutting down the choices you have to make and playing games you might not have normally selected on your own.

Nope! Not at all.

There aren't really any requirements for the event so much as this is an incentive to get us to play games we've been avoiding starting up, for whatever reason. Play as much or as little as you like of a given game.

Try out dozens for ten minutes each or dive into one for 40 hours. There's no wrong way to participate!

Yes! Each discussion thread stays live for a full week, so feel free to make multiple comments in the topic as you play different games. This isn't considered noise -- it's considered valuable participation in the event!

If you've already created a card and wish to start over, click the Settings button in the header to access your card settings. Then click the Reset button, and confirm the prompt. This will irrevocably delete your present card, allowing you to start fresh.

All data is stored by your browser in local storage. There are no accounts, and nothing is sent to the server, so it's privacy-friendly by design. This does mean that you are responsible for not deleting any browser data on wescook.ca, either manually or through automatic cleanups performed on browser close.

Backlog Bingo is open-source, and licensed permissively under MIT.

In Standard Mode, each square on the bingo card corresponds with one single game. Duplicate games cannot be entered into different squares. A winning card would have a row of five different games that each filled in one square.

In Golf Mode, duplicates are not only allowed -- they are encouraged! The purpose of Golf mode is to try to find a single game that will fill multiple categories at the same time. For example: Stardew Valley might fulfill You got it on sale, A solo-dev project, and Has romanceable characters all at the same time. A winning card would have all twenty five squares filled, but possibly only six or seven different games.

That is the "wildcard" or "free space."

In Standard Mode, there are no requirements to fill it. You can choose any game you want! Anything goes!

In Golf Mode, it does not need to be filled. Because Golf is all about stacking up categories on a single game, any game used in Golf would fill it automatically, meaning it has no real function. As such, the square will be pre-filled for you if you play in Golf mode.

The new Free list defaults to having this space turned off. Because you already have full freedom in how you fill the squares, having a free space is redundant (though if you miss it or just like the aesthetics, you can certainly turn it back on!).

Absolutely! The Backlog Bingo app reads in simple JSON files which define the available categories. We've created a couple prebuilt lists for this event, but you're free to tweak our categories, or create completely new ones. You could even use them for books, anime, movies, recipes -- anything!

If you are interested in learning more, you can find documentation on the wiki, and use an example JSON category file. You can also ask for help in the topic!

Colossal Game Adventure (CGA) is Tildes' retro video game club.

Each month we will play a different retro game/games, discuss our thoughts, and bask in the glorious digital experiences of yesteryear!

Colossal Game Adventure is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure. It's one of the most influential games of all time, one of the first text-based interactive games, and one of the first games to be shared online.

What do we want to do with this group? Play influential games; interact with each other through text; and share the love for retro games online!

It also abbreviates to CGA (because we love chunky pixel art), and its name communicates the Colossal amount of fun and excitement that we have with retro video Games in our shared Adventure of playing them together.

No. Participation is open to all.

There is a Notification List that will get pinged each time a new topic goes up. If you would like to join that list, please PM u/kfwyre.

Each month will have a focus game or games that will guide our discussions. Beyond that, there are no restrictions. The philosophy of CGA is to play in a way that works for you!

This means:

• Choose whichever version of the game you want.
• You can use cheats, save states, mods, etc.
• You can watch a streamer or longplay instead of playing it.

If you have already played a game and want a different experience:

• Try a randomizer or challenge run.
• Play a different version of it.
• Play a related game (sequel, spiritual successor, something inspired by it, etc.)

There is no wrong way to participate in CGA, and every different way someone participates will make for more interesting discussions.

Each month the Insert Cartidge topic will be posted on the 1st, while the Remove Cartridge topic will be posted on the 28th.

Nomination and voting topics will happen in March and September (every 6 months).

Schedules are also posted then.

All CGA topics are available using the colossal game adventure tag.

Inserting and removing cartridges are our retro metaphor for starting and stopping a given game or games.

The Insert Cartridge topic happens at the beginning of the month and is primarily about getting the game up and running.

The Remove Cartridge topic happens toward the end of the month and is primarily about people reflecting on the game now that they've played it.

There are no hard restrictions on what has to go in either topic, and each can be used to discuss the game, post updates, ask questions, etc.