Announcing the Tildes Backlog Burner event for May 2025: Shrink your unplayed games list this coming month!
It's almost time...
...for another Tildes Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason).
The Backlog Burner for May 2025 will officially begin in two days on May 1st.
If you're new to the Backlog Burner, check out our previous events to get an idea of what's going on:
Backlog Bingo is back and better than ever!
New Category List
In addition to Flux and Flow from the past, we've added a new list: Free!
This one is dead simple: the letters of the alphabet, and nothing more. You have (nearly) complete freedom in how you fill your squares. For example, Half-Life could fill:
Hfor its titleGfor Gordon FreemanFfor First-Person ShooterXfor "Xen is really kind of a letdown, isn't it?"
The choice is entirely yours! Be as strict or as loose as you want to be with it.
We also added nearly three dozen words to the popular Flow set from last time. Maybe you'll roll some of the new additions, like Sly, Maneuver, or Whimsy?
New Site Features
u/Wes, coding wizard that he is, has added some incredible new features to the site:
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Seeded Cards: You can now roll the same exact card as someone else by providing the same seed. It's available on the
Settingspage (just make sure all other settings are the same as well). -
Import/Export: Need to move your card from your desktop to your phone? And then to your laptop? And then back to your desktop? Use the new Import/Export feature to save your card and its progress and move it between devices as much as you want. (Note: this also doubles as a backup tool for anyone worried about losing their card!)
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Behind the Scenes Polish: You won't be able to tell just by looking at the site but there's a lot of backend stuff that Wes spruced up. Better error handling, a custom schema and validator for the category files, proper SVG icons, better mobile responsiveness, etc.
Truly, the site has never been better!
If you participated last time, clear your old card and start fresh with a new one. If you're new to the event, simply go to the Backlog Bingo site to generate your card.
Notification List
If you are interested in participating in the Backlog Burner, please comment in this topic. Anyone commenting/replying here will automatically be added to a notification list for the Backlog Burner, unless you specify otherwise.
Start Planning (or Playing)
Technically the event starts in two days, so you have time to roll your cards (if you're playing Bingo) and plan out what you'd like to play for the month. That said, if you're eager to jump right in, and start early, I certainly won't stop you!
Let's get ready to burn through these backlogs!
Backlog Burner FAQ
What exactly is the Backlog Burner?
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.
How do I participate?
- 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.
Do I need to finish the games that I play?
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!
Can I make multiple posts in the same topic?
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!
Backlog Bingo FAQ
Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will delete your card. You can use the export feature to make backups or move your card between devices.
I'm a returning player. How do I reset my previous card?
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.
Where is my data stored?
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.
What is the difference between the "Standard" and "Golf" modes?
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.
What is the star space in the middle?
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!).
Can I create custom bingo categories for this, or other events?
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!
Hey November 2024 Backlog Burner participants! I'm pinging you to let you know that our April 2025 event is right around the corner.
This is a one-time ping, as I'll be starting a new notification list for the new event with this topic. If you want to be included in the new notification list, please comment in this topic, reply to this one, or DM me.
If you do not want to be included in the notification list for the event, you don't need to do anything.
@aphoenix
@AugustusFerdinand
@CannibalisticApple
@Cannonball
@CrazyProfessor02
@deathinactthree
@Durinthal
@Eidolon
@Evie
@J-Chiptunator
@JCPhoenix
@Pistos
@SingedFrostLantern
@Wafik
@Weldawadyathink
@Wes
@WiseassWolfOfYoitsu
@xothist
Sure, feel free to ping me for the next one.
Count me in, I’d like to be pinged!
Sure, ping forth!
Years ago I got really excited about the Playdate and pre-ordered one, but by the time it actually arrived I... didn't play it much.
But then they had a big Catalog Sale on their games, so I got excited again looking at all the cool titles they have and bought several of them and... didn't play them much.
And then they had ANOTHER big Catalog sale on their game, so I bought several more and... well... you can probably tell where this is going.
So, for my Backlog Burner, I plan to finally spend some quality time with my Playdate!
I'm not limiting myself to only Playdate games to leave my options open, but it's definitely going to be my primary focus.
Also, because @Wes added seeds to the Backlog Bingo site (SO cool!), I'm going to do a seeded card this time, on the off chance that anyone else wants to play the same card.
I'm doing the
Flowset, with no changes to any of the rules or categories.The seed?
Join me for a playdate!(You don't have to play Playdate games to play the card, by the way)
You know what, why not? I was planning on doing a Flow card anyway, and it might be fun to see how we differently interpret the same category names. I've generated a card using the same seed!
The race is on.
I'm in! I'll be busy the first couple weeks of May because we're moving, but I've got a big backlog as always. Turns out thanks to the Itch bundles I've bought, I have like... 2k games technically. And I'm finally figuring out how to get them to work on tbe Steam Deck, which is great because turns out some of them have been on my Steam wishlist for a while.
And I also just dug up my GameCube and Wii as part of the move, so my options have grown even more because I now want to revisit some of those... Not to mention the 3DS... Yeah, I have options XD
Just need to decide which kind of bingo I want to do. Gotta be picky if I go with Flux again, I barely passed some because turns out I had barely any games in my backlog that had aliens.
As with previous events, my participation will be limited, but I would love to join up again. Thanks for the ping!
I'm in!
A shame that I JUST started tackling my backlog earlier this month (Fire Emblem 4 and Yakuza: Like a Dragon) but there are so many titles in my various game libraries that really could use a few hours each of my time...
Bingo sounds fun, but I want to focus on getting games off my "actually really really need to play/try a bit of" list. I just went down my Steam library (dating back to 2013 but I didn't really have spending money until 2017) and picked out the following:
backlog items on the "i really want to play this in 2025" list in purchased order
Erenshor (thanks to it being mentioned on Tildes recently!)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance (also Tildes mention)
Project Zomboid
Fields of Mistria
Resident Evil 4
Machinarium
Disco Elysium
Control
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
Dredge
Pathologic 2
Tamashii
Heaven Will Be Mine
Yuppie Psycho
System Shock 2 (original)
Outer Wilds (I am not blind to the core mechanic, but otherwise know nothing about the game)
Buddy Simulator 1984
Hotline Miami 1/2
What Remains of Edith Finch
I'll probably close my eyes and spin a wheel or something. Or maybe attempt a bingo card anyways using just the list above?
Once again, I'm down for a smorgasbord of video games spanning across multiple console generations. Turns out that the
Freeset goes through the entire alphabet, as does my 600+ untouched games backlog with just their titles alone.This time, I let the Backlog Bingo generator randomly place letters on a 5x5 card, and then I play through A to Z in that order. The one missing letter is
Xdue to space constraints, but that's fine since I only have a handful of these games under that category. Here's how my card looks like:J-Chiptunator's Bingo Card (Custom/Free, 0/25)
So, I went ahead and picked my games for it. The vast majority of these are beatable in 10 hours or under according to the How Long To Beat website, so I wouldn't often need to spend more than a couple of hours or so to get the gist of them. Which will help me a lot on filling the spaces and maybe beat some of those games in the process.
While waiting for PixelFX to materialize their Infinity Switch product, I acquired Lotharek's W-Hydra2 SCART switch to simultaneously connect a dozen of retro consoles. Its automatic video signal detector ensures that it selects the correct input SCART port and then pipe it out to either my RetroTINK-5x or OSSC Pro daisy-chained to Morph 4K.
Although that substantially cut the time it takes to set up one console, I still have to endure a bit of plugging and unplugging shenanigans. Some of my consoles output only composite and/or S-Video, which OSSC Pro can't accept. I also lack an HDMI switch that supports over 4 ports, and don't like seeing a wire jungle sitting between my controller and the monitor. Oh, and inserting a single AA battery for a certain 00s era handheld.
With all that in mind, I hope that May 2025 is the one time when my bingo game goes much smoother than my previous ones. See you in the coming days for my write-up of my first game.
I think playing from A > Z and seeing how that naturally fills up the board is a brilliant approach. It feels very in the spirit of bingo. So I'm excited to see how yours evolves over time!
Well this is fitting timing for me. I recently played with some of the categories in Steam to get a bit more organized. One of the categories I made was "unplayed" which led me to realize I've never played near-exactly half of the games in my steam library - roughly 340 games.
This led me to playing Samorost 2 and What Remains of Edith Finch after having them in my library for several years, which was "ok" and "absolutely wonderful" respectively
I was considering if I could try playing 1 new (to me) game a day for a year, marking the ones worth playing properly as I go. But aiming for a month seems a lot more plausible.
Oh wow it's been half a year already. I've apparently finished 16 games between now and then, but I haven't had much writing/posting energy so I hope the event helps reignite that spark to get my thoughts down.
Planning to go for Flow again. I've got 1 work from home day now, so I hope for marginally more progress.
I have a couple of weekend-spanning events I'm going to in May and not as much free time to sit at home and play games, so I unfortunately won't be participating normally this month.
Alternatively, you could find one game you really want to play and see if you can spin up a golf card where you get a one-game bingo...
The Free list can also, with a little creativity, be used for pretty much any purpose. Someone could play a single game and fill it in with quest names, characters they meet, achievements, etc.
Ooh, this is exciting! I'm definitely in, assuming I'm willing to take a break from Blue Prince by tomorrow.
Little late to this, but sure, I'm in. I'll create a card later today and edit this comment with it.
EDIT: And away we go
deathinactthree's card
You're not late at all! Today is the first day! You've still got a full month to slack off ahead of you.
Sign me in!
First time for me, so a bit confused, but we'll see how it works out.
Kefir here!
The short of it:
Play games, and talk about them in the discussion topic. That's it!
The slightly longer of it:
If you want to gamify your picks, you can make a Bingo Card and then "play" that by picking games that fit different squares. It's a meta game for your gaming. Totally optional though.
If you have any questions, just feel free to ask and either Kefir (@kfwyre) or myself will get you sorted. You can also see Week 1 from our last event in November to get a feel for how this thread will grow as games start getting played.