Tildes' 2022 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion Thread
Use this thread to post about the games that you play!
Also, a quick note about thread etiquette: It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week if you play multiple games. It is also fine to respond to yourself with updates if you're continuing a single game and want to talk more about it as you go!
Previous threads:
What is this?
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!
How do I participate?
Choose a game (or several) from your backlog and play it/them. Then tell us about your experiences in the discussion thread for the week! If you're not sure what you might write, take a look at a previous backlog post or our previous Backlog Burner event in 2020 to get an idea. Also if you want to keep track of statistics across the whole event or anything else like that, go for it!
Do I need to finish the games 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!
What's the timeline?
I will post an update thread weekly, each Tuesday, for the four weeks of February. At the end of the month, I think it would be neat to tally how many collective games we all removed from our backlogs, as well as what the best finds were from our collective digging into our libraries. I expect we'll turn up some good hidden gems, as well as interesting insights.
Do I need to sign up?
You don't have to do anything to officially join or participate in the event other than post in these threads! Participate in whatever way works for you. Also, because this is ongoing, it is okay to make more than one top-level post if you're updating the thread with new information.
I played 3 games in my backlog, those being Return of the Obra Dinn, Move or Die, and Carrion.
I was really interested in Return of the Obra Dinn for its incredibly unique artstyle. From the hour I played of it, the investigation aspect of going back in time and seeing the moment of someone's death was really cool, and the voice acting beforehand was top-notch. I don't have too much to say about it that hasn't already been said by others, but the one problem I did have with it was that it was kind of stressful for me to try to not miss any important clues. The notetaking system seemed really well thought out to properly organize your clues, but it was also pretty complex, and I feel like I still don't really know how it works entirely. I'll probably go back to this game at some point, but at the moment it doesn't really seem like something I want to invest a bunch of time in.
I finally got some friends together to play Move or Die, a multiplayer party game similar to Duck Game, Mario Party minigames, or WarioWare microgames. I first heard about this game in a YouTube video about video game marketing at cons, so I was excited to try it. I liked the concept and the first couple minutes of playing, but my friends and I soon learned that all the other minigames were locked behind a progression and shop system. We ended up having to play the same handful of games over and over again, and these simplistic ones got old rather fast. The game has mutators to spice up the gameplay, but again, the basegame ones are all pretty boring. After we finished playing the first day, we learned that all games and mutators are unlocked when you do local play. So the next day, we fired up Steam Remote Play Together and played a few local games. The unlockable games were far more fun and interesting than the default ones, and the mutators were much more extreme. It was fun for a while! But ultimately, this game's experience was ruined for us because there were just so many weird and bad design decisions that really made the experience unenjoyable. Some of these included:
So overall I would not recommend this game, and I will not be going back to it. It has a good base as a party game, but due to a series of frustrating design decisions, the game isn't really very much fun. I now understand why I saw this game in a video about game marketing and not game design. It's clear that this game is more focused on keeping its playerbase through an endless progression system, various unlockable cosmetics, and tie-ins with other games, Twitch streamers, and TV shows. It honestly reminds me a bit of Deep Rock Galactic in how the developers are very generous with giving new content updates constantly, but don't really fix the existing problems with the game.
Finally, I played Carrion, which was by far my favorite of the games I played. A metroidvania game in the style of a horror game where you are the monster, everything about this game is perfect. The art is great and works perfectly for the collection of teeth, gore, and tendrils that you control in such a fluid way it is honestly really satisfying. The unlockable abilities seem really cool so far, with you sometimes needing to reduce your size (and health) to be able to use previous abilities. And I've heard that later on there's an ability that allows you to possess humans, which I can't wait to experience. The game strikes a great tone of horror movies like The Thing while also being a fun metroidvania. I highly suggest this one, it's a fun time all around. Will definitely be spending more time with it.
I loved the mystery of Return of the Obra Dinn. The process of working backwards through the disaster and piecing together what happened really captured my attention. I will admit to using a guide to piece together a couple clues when I got stuck, but still loved it.
Carrion is so cool. What I also love about it, beyond what you mentioned, is that it's a metroidvania with virtually no platforming. You just ooze and scoot wherever you want to go.
I ran into an unscheduled obsession with Vampire Survivors for a few days that delayed me, but I finished my first game last night: Cyber Shadow
Deimos Rating: 4/5
Details about my rating scale
I try to rate games I play on a fairly vague 1-5 scale:
I really enjoyed this game overall, but it definitely won't be for everyone. They had a very clear goal of making a modern game that feels like an extremely high-quality NES game (specifically a Ninja Gaiden game). If you have fond memories or feelings about classic NES series like Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, and Castlevania, you will probably love this game. If you don't, it probably won't be enjoyable.
You'll also need to have a high tolerance for difficulty. I finished the game in just over 8 hours, and had 247 deaths. That means that, on average, I was dying about once every 2 minutes. There are some really difficult sections that I had to retry many times, and I definitely got pretty frustrated on some of them. That said, none of it ever felt unfair, and a lot of it was just needing to be patient and careful instead of trying to rush through harder sections. Finding good times to use abilities made a big difference too, some parts became much easier with a few well-timed abilities. I think they probably could have been a little more generous with checkpoints in a few areas, but it was all achievable overall and felt good to make clear improvements on sections until I was able to get past them.
They absolutely nailed the style of the game they were going for. The pixel-art and music are both exceptional, and the levels, enemies, and bosses are well-designed and interesting. I missed a lot of secrets (finished with 67% items), but the ones I ran across were neat too. The story was nothing special, but that's not what I'm playing for, and they did a good job of the NES-style cutscenes.
The general gameplay feel was great, and I especially think the set of abilities was well-done. The dash-attack was definitely the highlight for me, and the ability to parry projectiles opened up some new approaches (though I wasn't consistent enough with it to rely on it for much). I wasn't a big fan of the pogo-stick-ish attack, but there was really only one section it was needed heavily (and that was one of the ones that I had the most trouble with).
So that was a good first game for me (and if anyone else is interested in it, it's currently 30% off on Steam/Xbox/eShop for a few more days for its first anniversary). My Backlog Burner theme is "indie 2D retro side-scrollers", but I haven't decided what game I'm going to play next yet. Something less difficult.
I noticed several other people on my steam friends list playing Vampire Survivors too. How is it? Is it really bullet-hell-y or more RPG-ish?
I wouldn't compare it to either of those, it's more like an extremely simple roguelike. The entire game is a constantly-getting-stronger swarm of enemies moving towards you, and you just control your character's movement while all of your abilities auto-attack. Enemies that you kill drop exp gems, and every time you level up you get to choose an upgrade. The whole game basically comes down to seeing if you can keep increasing your power faster than the swarm's increases. If you can last 30 minutes, you win.
It's way more fun and addicting than it has any right to be, for how simple it is. I'd definitely suggest trying it out, it's only $3 and everyone I know that played it has gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it. I played a lot for a few days, but still do a random run here and there, and will definitely play more as they keep adding new stuff to the game (it's in Early Access).
There's no bullets, as almost all the monsters just walk straight towards you. You choose your upgrades, but aside from that the only control you have is walking around. All abilities are on autofire. For such simple controls, there's remarkable strategic depth. The monsters do get very dense by the end of a run, but it doesn't need the sort of reflexes I associate with bullet hell.
Oh, nice. I am absolutely terrible at bullet-hell games. I have decent reflexes, but my brain can't handle the visual overload in them, so I have trouble dodging everything being shot at the character. So hearing that it's more strategic than about reflexes/dodging has increased my interest in giving the game a try. Thanks!
Gris - this sure is pretty. It's also pretty boring. I love the way it looks, and I don't need walls of text to get a story, but this is not really keeping me engaged. Too simple, too sparse. Unlikely to finish.
Ancestors: Legacy - This was in my "unplayed AND single player" dynamic collection, even though it seemed familiar, and it turns out that I've played this before. I started the game and it already had saves on it. No idea where the gameplay time went in Steam, but I still put more into this. I appreciate the way it measures health for a RTS. Each person in a squad is a pip in a life bar, and each pip has its own health state. Each pip can degrade from green to red to gone, and I'm fairly certain "gone" is irreplaceable, while better state can be healed. I don't think I've ever seen this method of health tracking in an RTS, and it's certainly better than some alternatives. I played this with a controller, which is interesting for an RTS.
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 3 - A lot of what I liked about Dawn of War 2 was the small scale, squad based combat. Dawn of War 3 goes back to the mass number of units of Dawn of War. It's fine. It's an RTS. I played the first mission. But it's really funny that their way of dealing with healing is to drop health packs on the map, and healing a unit doesn't restore individual unit health. If your unit is 90% dead, it'll have one space marine, and picking up the health pack will teleport in several more marines. I don't hate this game, but I don't know think I'll continue.
Alice: Madness Returns - This is a game I've wanted to finish for a long time, so I've added it to this endeavor. It's tough to get back into. I forgot how this game worked, and my save loaded right before a mini boss. I died a lot and it was fairly frustrating. Once I got past that, I managed to get stuck again in an optional arena fight. After getting past the first frustrating wave and finding it's followed by a second, more frustrating wave, I let this one go. I got back on track and now I'm just cruising through corrupt Wonderland. It's okay. I have some fond memories of American McGee's Alice. I think I'm just finishing this to cross it off the list.
Remaining unplayed backlog games (so far): The Sexy Brutale, Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter, Lost Planet 3, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (newly added)
I had the exact same experience. What a beautiful game, for 10 minutes. I think that there has to be a bit more of a hook.
My son requested that I try out Hydroneer, which is a mining sandbox game where you dig for ore and gems to get money so you can more efficiently dig for ore and gems so you can more efficiently get money.
The game has been in my backlog for a while, and I've shared it with my son and he has been enjoying it. His enjoyment probably stems from some Let's Game It Out videos - he loves that channel, and he really likes to try out game-breaking things that he sees, so one of the first things we did was try to find a way to generate "infinite money" by blowing up fish. It did technically work, but it was time consuming; I ended up spending some time showing him another "hack" to get infinite money, which was just selling the fish instead of blowing it up.
There isn't currently any multiplayer, so when we play "together" we're just playing two single player games near each other, but it's still fun to do that. We've both got little mining getups, and he has liked showing me the ropes, being the one who knows the game a bit more.
It's a cute game - the world is nice, there's stuff to try to figure out, you can make custom houses and crafting areas. The mining itself is a bit grindy, but it can be fun and relaxing. It's a cool indie game, and the guy who made it is pretty active with the community and quite approachable. It's well worth the 9 bucks I think I spent on it.
Well, shit. Lost Ark being released has thrown a massive wrench in my plans for the Backlog Burner. I suspect the games I played in the first week are all I will get through until everyone (including myself) gets burned out on Lost Ark. C'est la vie.
You played enough games in your first week to count for the whole month! It was genuinely impressive to see all that you tackled. Don’t feel bad about diving into a fresh new game in the slightest!
CyberTaxi
40 minutes, worked perfectly in Proton 6.3-8
This is apparently an homage to an old game called Quarantine that I never played. They're both first-person driving car combat games. This one is very janky (probably by design) but also has a bit of old-school charm to it. It felt like the kind of game I would have put a lot of time into back in the 90s. Can't really say I recommend it, but it hit a nostalgic note for me in a good way.
Seven Doors
45 minutes, completed, worked perfectly in Proton 6.3-8
A straightforward first-person game where there are seven different challenges you have to overcome in order to win. I didn't love this. I ended up looking up the solution for one of the puzzles; the others that I didn't look up weren't so much fun as tedious; and there's one room that's cycle-based but everything is on cycles of different lengths so you have to sit around waiting for them to line up or die a lot trying to rush things. The game was mostly unfun, with little payoff.
Inked: A Tale of Love
60 minutes, worked perfectly in Proton 6.3-8
I really, REALLY wanted to like this. The game is an isometric puzzle adventure and has a gorgeous, hand-drawn, ballpoint pen aesthetic that I haven't seen in a game before. Unfortunately, it's rough around the edges. The controls are a bit clunky and non-rebindable, so I spent a good amount of time dealing with their finickyness which inhibited my flow in the game. The game also runs into the issue where it's technically competent and well-made, but it just isn't that much fun. I have a soft-spot for this game, but I didn't end up feeling compelled to complete it.
Post Void
12 minutes, worked perfectly in Proton 6.3-8
This is a rapidfire arcade FPS similar to something like Devil Daggers but with a way over-the-top psychedelic aesthetic. Your health is constantly draining and you have to kill things to stay alive. As such, you pretty much run through the levels without stopping, twitch shooting at anything that moves. I liked what I played and how the game forces you to go fullspeed constantly, but the fast movement and wobbly screen triggered my motion sickness pretty badly, so I couldn't continue playing.
Island Saver
1.5 hours, still in progress, worked perfectly in Proton 6.3-8
I'm really surprised by this one. It's a free game that takes a lot of cues from Slime Rancher. Instead of farming slimes, you're instead cleaning up an island and feeding its wildlife. The game seems aimed at kids and is outright didactic in places. To open a bank account, for example, you have to create a PIN which you then have to remember and use when you unlock other branches. It teaches you about deposits, interest, and taxes. Even though it's aimed at kids (and I think it would be great for them), it's genuinely a well-made, chill game that I enjoyed as an adult. I played it while listening to an audiobook and plan on finishing it out that way.
Don't Escape Trilogy
1.25 hours, still in progress, worked perfectly in Proton 6.3-8
I've only played the first two games of this but will be tackling the third soon. The games take the form of a sort of reverse escape room, where you're attempting to lock yourself into somewhere rather than get out. Unlike many other point-and-click puzzle games, this one does have different outcomes and failstates. At the end of each game, after you've fortified your stronghold, the game shows you how the actions you chose hold up, and you either succeed or fail based on that. As such, you're meant to play it multiple times and try out different solutions. The mood and conceit of the game are quite dark -- it reminds me of the Rusty Lake series, but less fantastical and more down-to-earth.