Tildes' 2023 Backlog Burner: The blaze has ignited!
The event has officially begun! Let's Burn through these backlogs!
Use this thread to post about the games that you play.
Thread etiquette:
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It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week if you play multiple games.
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It is fine to respond to yourself with updates if you're continuing a single game and walk to talk more about it as you go.
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If you are playing Backlog Bingo, feel free to make a top-level post with your card that you edit as you go, while making new posts underneath that to talk about the games as you play them.
Gameplay guidelines:
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Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.
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You do NOT need to finish games unless you want to. The point is to try out games and have fun, not force ourselves to play things we're not interested in.
Backlog Bingo
Thanks to the amazing efforts of our very own @Wes, we are debuting Backlog Bingo! This is a completely optional way to participate in the month.
You can generate a unique Backlog Bingo card from a collection of 73 different categories. Choose the ones you want in your batch, and then use Wes's custom-made online tool to automatically create your own individualized bingo card.
Wes's tool automatically assembles the markdown for your table, so it will paste beautifully into comments here on Tildes. For example:
Bingo Card Example
| Bingo! | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not super popular (e.g. <50 user reviews on Metacritic) | Is one of the oldest games you own | Arcade game | Has DLC | You own on physical media |
| You have to tinker in order to get it running | You got from a bundle | You wanted to play it when you were younger but never did | Owned for more than five years | Has cute, feel-good vibes |
| Co-op game or campaign | From now-defunct dev studio | ★ | Has a non-human player character | Owned for more than one year |
| Not found on any distribution service | You can save/pet/care for animals | Begins with one of your initials | You paid full price for it | Solo-dev project |
| Has an animal player character | From a series you have played | Has number somewhere in the title | Owned for more than three years | Came out more than 5 years ago |
Play games throughout the month to check off categories in the Bingo card. The ★ in the middle of every card is a free space -- there are no requirements for that square and any game you play fits there!
The most basic win condition is five-in-a-row, but, if you're feeling really wild, you might go for a win pattern that's a little more involved. Your choice!
Here's an example of someone "winning" the card above:
Winning Bingo Card
| Bingo! | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not super popular (e.g. <50 user reviews on Metacritic) | ✅ Terminal Velocity (1995) |
Arcade game | Has DLC | You own on physical media |
| You have to tinker in order to get it running | ✅ World of Goo |
You wanted to play it when you were younger but never did | Owned for more than five years | Has cute, feel-good vibes |
| Co-op game or campaign | ✅ Blur |
★ | Has a non-human player character | Owned for more than one year |
| Not found on any distribution service | ✅ Super Metroid |
Begins with one of your initials | You paid full price for it | Solo-dev project |
| Has an animal player character | ✅ Rise of the Tomb Raider |
Has number somewhere in the title | Owned for more than three years | Came out more than 5 years ago |
Bingo Golfing (thanks @Wes and @aphoenix!) is also an option: trying to clear a pattern by counting multiple categories for a single game, thus “winning” with as few games as possible.
Step 3 of Wes's tool includes instructions for checking off games, which has to be done manually. If you need an in-thread guide, you can use the following example below:
Filling in a Square
This markdown:
||
|:-:|
| ✅ ~~Struckthrough Example Category~~ <br> **Bolded Game Title** |
Gives this completed square: (ignore the header row that markdown requires for its tables)
| ✅ Bolded Game Title |
If you can't figure out how to check off categories or you break the Markdown for your table, feel free to ask for help in the comments or PM me and I can help you out!
FAQs
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 our 2022 or 2020 events to get an idea.
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 Wednesday, all through November. 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.
But November has `Big Name Release` coming out. Why *this* month when people will be focused on that new game?
I'm doing the best that I can! A "problem" with 2023 is that it has been an absolutely stacked year for gaming releases. There simply hasn't been a "slow" month. With limited time left, I figured November was at least better than December. Think of this as an opportunity to cut down on your backlog before all the end-of-the-year sales hit.
My Steam backlog is what you would call
biglargehugeexcessivea cautionary tale about the dangers of unrestrained and compulsive spending habits, so I decided to roll a Bingo card with all of the available categories selected, since I could easily slot a game into any of them.I was pretty delighted to see that @Lapbunny's cheeky La-Mulana category recommendation made it in to my batch, because that game has sat in my account untouched for years now. This will be a good excuse to try it!
My goal for the month: BLACKOUT BINGO
That's right -- I want to try to play a game for each and every square! I have no doubt that most of these I will play and move on from in 15 to 30 minutes, but I'm also hoping I discover some hits along the way that keep me interested for longer than that.
Below is the card I'm playing from. Now to figure out where I'm going to start...
Owned for more than two yearsPath of Giants
You've been meaning to go back toThe End Is Nigh
Has no DLCNebula
You chose based on title aloneFrincess&Cnight
Path of Giants - Owned for more than two years
I got this over two years ago, from the December 2020 Humble Choice. It's a port of a mobile puzzle game. You have three characters, and in each level, each character has to get to their respective endpoint. You have to maneuver the characters to help each other through the level but also not leave anyone stranded and unable to get to where they're supposed to go.
The game is well made and interesting. I don't have any complaints about it other than what happened with it is what happens with a lot of puzzle games for me: I played through a few levels and then I asked myself "am I enjoying this?" and the answer was "...meh?" It's not a bad game in the slightest, but it also didn't grab me. I moved on from it.
The End Is Nigh - You've been meaning to go back to
I was a huge fan of Super Meat Boy, so a follow-up flagship platformer from Edmund McMillen should be right up my alley -- right?
That's what I thought back when it came out, but I played it once on my Switch and bounced off of it. That was six years ago (!!!) and I completely forgot why I bounced off of it. A copy of it has been sitting, unplayed, in my Steam library for a while now, undoubtedly from some bundle somewhere, and so I decided to venture back into it to give it a second opinion.
Unfortunately, I still don't like it. For one, McMillen's dark, cartoony, mildly-edgy aesthetic, which I liked twelve years ago back when I first played The Binding of Isaac feels a lot more uncomfortable and childish to me now (e.g. the collectibles in the game are "tumors"). Second, and this is my main complaint: I just don't like the platforming. I can appreciate that they made the game mechanics distinct from Super Meat Boy so that this stands on its own legs, but it's just not very fun for me. I moved on from this one as well.
Nebula - Has no DLC
This is a space-themed Vampire Survivors-style game. You know the drill: super grindy; level up your skills over time so that you can push yourself further into the ever-increasing horde; very mindless.
Unlike other games in the genre, Nebula doesn't really have a lot of cascading, ridiculous synergies that let you feel overpowered. Instead, it's very incremental. You get slightly more powerful over time just as the enemies get slightly more health and become slightly more numerous.
I'll keep playing it because I pretty much always have a mindless game on hand that I play while I'm listening to audiobooks or watching documentaries, and I just finished 100%ing Arcade Paradise so I needed a new focus anyway. If I weren't using Nebula as a backdrop for those, however, I wouldn't recommend it.
Frincess&Cnight - You chose based on title alone
I had mild hopes of going in order on my Bingo card, but when I saw this while browsing through my Steam Deck library, I decided to go out of order rather than try and get through 5 more games (including La-Mulana, lol) to play it.
I chose this based on name alone, because "Frincess" and "Cnight" are words both kind of make my eye twitch. Their spelling bothers me. More than it should.
I immediately became less bothered when I booted into the game (which, prior to this, I knew literally nothing about) and learned that the game is about a Frog Princess and Cat Knight, which moved the titular words from "uncomfortable typos I feel compelled to correct immediately" to "aww, that's kind of cute".
The game is a single-screen puzzle platformer where you control both characters and use their different powers to get both to the exit. The Frincess can use her tongue to pull her to walls/ceilings so that she can walk on them, as well as scooping up Cnight into her mouth, Kirby-style. Meanwhile, Cnight has longcat abilities and can stretch himself to reach higher heights on his own, as well as boosting Frincess.
The game has a cool minimalist aesthetic and neat design, but, much like with Path of Giants, after playing it for a bit I asked myself: "Am I enjoying this?"
I had the same answer as last time too, so I moved on.
I had similar thoughts about The End Is Nigh. I really enjoyed Super Meat Boy (as well as its distant cousins, Jumper 1&2), but couldn't get into this one. I think partly that's due to the different feel of the platforming. But also, I suspect that the large. empty levels, and more depressing theme just turned me off. I couldn't get excited about progressing as I had nowhere I really wanted to go.
I'm not sure, but sometimes a game just clicks, and sometimes it doesn't. I think it's fine to recognize when a game isn't working for you though, and move on to something that might.
I was kind of starting to burn through some of my backlog at the end of October, so this is well-timed!
Bingo Sheet
In theory, I should be able to achieve a blackout card with these challenges.
An easier (for me) to parse list of the squares
I love the checklist format you’ve used! That’s perfect for a blackout. I’m happy to see people taking ideas from this and making them their own. Good luck with your games!
Great idea! Sadly I've got a busy couple of months coming up as I'm moving out at the end of the year, but I'm going to copy the bingo sheet and give it a go anyway.
As mentioned in the announcement thread, I'll be playing games of a certain theme/setting that I'd already decided to do prior to knowing/remembering the Backlog Burner was coming.
I won't be doing the Bingo card though since I already know the games I'm playing and unchecking the options that I know to be impossible, per the instructions, drops it to 24 items exactly which will make the bingo card a near instant win.
I think I'll give this one a go as well. I've also accumulated far too much of a backlog over the years, and need some excuses to work through it. I've likewise selected every category, assuming that I'll have at least one game fit the mold.
Bingo Sheet
Begins with one of your initialsWall World
Has number somewhere in the titleCHR$(143)
You can save/pet/care for animalsSonic Adventure DX
From a studio you haven't heard of beforeMain Assembly
By the way, I assume that games can only count for one square, even if they meet the criteria for multiple, right?
That’s a good question! I didn’t even think about the possibility of someone going for multiple squares with the same game until now.
So, in terms of what I intended? Yeah, only one game per category.
On the other hand, in terms of execution, I like the idea of someone going for, say,
an “efficiency win”Bingo Golfing and trying to get a bingo or a blackout with the fewest possible games by stacking categories. That could be cool too — sleuthing out a game that, say, (1) you got from a bundle (2) that’s part of a trilogy (3) in a genre you don’t normally play (4) that came out more than 10 years ago. I think that sort of thing could be really fun.So, officially: it comes down to however the individual wants to do it! One or many — their choice.
Also, just so everyone knows, this is THE @Wes who made the bingo generator in the first place and is already a champion of the Backlog Burner event. (Not that it’s a competition, of course, but you’re a winner in my book!)
Aw, you're a sweetheart! Thank you for putting the event together and coming up with so many categories.
I tried knocking off one of the harder ones, "You have to tinker in order to get it running", by playing Sonic Adventure DX. Unfortunately it worked perfectly first try! I may need to bribe the judges to have them accept the chao garden as "caring for animals" instead.
edit: I'm going to update this comment with some thoughts on the game. I really enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 when it came out, and I played through it again when it released on PC some years back. I struggled some with the camera, but nostalgia was able to carry me through and I still had a good time.
I've no nostalgia for this one, so the camera is a bit of a problem! I actually didn't realize I could control it at all for the first few stages, as it's not on the right control stick but the bumpers.
Unlike Adventure 2, the stage are hidden inside of a larger hub world which I really like. It's surprisingly easy to get lost and lose sight of your objective. I can imagine a time before GameFAQs when people just wouldn't be able to proceed because they couldn't find the next level.
The casino level is just pinball which is hilarious to me. So far the stages seem really varied, though I'm only 2.5 hours in. The voice acting is about what you'd expect for a Sonic game, but the music has a really cheesy tone which I actually find endearing.
I'm not sure if I'll keep going because it is a little rough to play, but I can also imagine another reality where I played this game a ton as a kid and came to love all the weird and clunky designs.
Marking this one down for now!
I elected to go Bingo Golfing for mine - I'm going to see what relatively small number of games I can play to knock out my whole card. I think it's a fun twist, but if it's too easy, I might just start it over or work something else out. Or maybe I'll knock it out a couple of different ways.
“Bingo Golfing” is a FANTASTIC term that I am stealing from you! I love it.
Also there’s nothing stopping people from generating multiple cards if needed, especially with how easy Wes made it! If you finish one, you could always roll another so you get new categories to play with.
Wall World - Begins with one of your initials (funny that)
Okay technically I played this one the day before the start of the event, but I'm putting it in anyways.
So I didn't know it was a roguelike going in! As a result, I was disappointed when I died and lost all of the upgrades I'd bought, but that's honestly on me.
The gameplay loop seems interesting - mine resources and fend off attacks. You then spend temporary currency to balance between faster mining (improves economy), and weapons (helps you survive longer). Between rounds, you can spend permanent currency to buy permanent upgrades.
There's definitely some strategy there, and I can see it being fun to optimize your playthrough, though personally I didn't find the gameplay fun enough that I wanted to invest a lot of time. I put some 200 hours into Rogue Legacy 2, so I know how long these games can go!
Uninstalled this one now. Not bad, just not for me. I'm very particular about my roguelikes.
Main Assembly - From a studio you haven't heard of before
This is a good one! I was itching to play some Trailmakers, which I'd previously tried on Game Pass, but had this one in my backlog and thought "what the heck". It's much better than I gave it credit for. The tutorial looks cutesy and plays a little slowly, but you quickly realize the scope of the joints, properties, and visual scripting. Here's the just one page of the logic for a vehicle I downloaded.
I was hoping for a campaign, but it offers a list of challenges and a sandbox mode instead. There's also some sort of multiplayer, though I've not tried that yet. The editor seems extremely competent, on the level of Kerbal Space Program and other sophisticated games.
I expect to play more of this one.
CHR$(143) - Has number somewhere in the title
This is a strange low-tech puzzle game that I just wasn't in the right headspace for when I tried it. The tutorial wasn't very... tutorialy, and the actual levels seemed to assume a lot of you. I gather the idea is to figure out the logic behind the maps, but I found the need to read a lot of tiny text sort of turned me off before I could really give it a fair shake.
It was made in Godot, so that's cool, and the chiptune music was also rad. Probably appeals to logic puzzlers who fondly remember early PC gaming.
This is so cool! A great excuse to dive into some of the games I've never played in my library and knock out a few
to make room for new ones. Decided to try out the Bingo card and got La Mulana like everyone else. I guess this is the year!I didn't get la mulana, but I'll admit that I took it off my list because I don't actually have it in my library. It does seem a popular bingo option though!
Happy to be taking part in this, and wouldnt you know it i rolled the la mulana tile haha
You got from a bundleDistance
Licensed gameDuck Tales Remastered
I started and finished duck tales remastered. I remember work friends making a big deal about it when it was coming out and i dunno, it was alright. I never played the original, but picked this up years ago so glad i got through it. It was a fun 3 hours but nothing to write home about imo.
I finally played and finished Distance. I thought the folks that worked on it went defunct but looking it up seems like they are still around so i crossed off a different square. I love car games/racing so it was fun and the effects are cool. It was a good time, kind of reminds me of thumper. I wish the trailing camera was less responsive, more springy but there's definitely a lot of scenarios where the camera gets forced around quickly and has to be usable when flipping and stuff but still.
It wasn't anything to write home about back then either.
What the game does well is that nothing in the game is actively bad. It's just a solid ride from start to finish and doesn't overstay its welcome. Now it's fueled mostly by nostalgia and probably didn't need a remaster.
I'm in! But I don't have a huge backlog like a lot of gamers. I'm just not into stockpiling games I'll most likely never play. So I really only have a few games that have backlogged for me.
The first one is Have a Nice Death. I've started it and it's good time so far! I had to go into easy mode to get a hang of things. But I'm going to go back to regular difficulty soon.
Update: I've slowed down on Have a Nice Death. Gonna just finish on easy mode. Not that good of a gamer I suppose 😆.
I started playing F-Zero 99 on Switch too. I meant to pick it up when it dropped, but I forgot about it. That is until this weekend when I tried it at a friend's house. It's really fun!
I'll try to give it a shot this month. Thanks for the bingo sheet @Wes!
I'm going to do a bingo golf version, where I see if I can find a relatively low amount of games to fit the card. Then I'll evaluate and either roll a new card, or find alternate ways to fill out this card.
Bingo Sheet
🚕🚀
🚕🧙🚀
🚕🧙🚀😈
🦈
🚀
🍄
🧙
🚕🚀
🍄
😈
🍄
🚀
🚀
🧙🚀
🚀🍄
😈
🚕
🦈
😈
🚕
🚀
🚕🚀
🚕😈
😈
🚕 - Crazy Taxi
🧙 - The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos
🚀 - Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo
😈 - DOOM Eternal
🍄 - Super Mario Maker 2
🦈 - ABZU
My second game that I've tried out is The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos. I selected it randomly as the 92nd unplayed game in my library.
In terms of bingo golf, this is a step down from Crazy Taxi. In terms of enjoyability of the game, this was a big step up. This is a fun, silly, cute, brash, vaguely naughty (sort of?) dungeon crawler that seems pretty D&D 5E inspired. I think it's based on an actual game that somebody ran, but I don't know that for sure. The first hour or so of the game is pretty fun and it does a good job of introducing you to the relatively in-depth systems of the game. There is a heavy tactics aspect to the combat, and all the characters shine in different ways. I haven't progressed very far, but I can see myself sticking through and playing the full campaign for this game.
If you like Fantasy RPGs with turn based tactics combat and really wanted that as a cartoon, then this is that game. It feels sort of like Nickelodeon Neverwinter (Late) Nights.
Playtime: 1h 15m
Rating:
4/56/5The ratings change: it gets an automatic +2 for a tip loading screen which just said, "'OOK OOK' - a librarian, somewhere." I'm a simple man, I see discworld references, I pile on approval.
For my next game I'm looking at Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo.
Game 4: Doom Eternal
And some repeats:
I understand why Doom Eternal has high ratings - it is a slick game that feels like classic Doom, but done in a modern way. The controls felt really natural; I knew what everything would be before it was explained to me by the simple tutorial levels. The art is incredible - in an early level there is a time when an enormous demon is in the background and it is unsettling, and the common foes are also creepy as hell. I don't think this is necessarily for me; as I get older, FPS games are less and less enticing. I'm going to keep it installed for a bit and try to progress a bit more, but the almost 100-gig install is really something. I'm guessing that's just about all textures.
Playtime: 1.5hrs
Rating: 4/5
I don't think my card can be done in five games - my remaining goals are:
I will have to think on this a bit. Physical media probably means a switch game that I own but haven't played, so I'll have a look at those.
Edit: I have some ideas:
I don't think I can get better than that, so it looks like my Golf number for the card will be 6.
My first entry on the list is Crazy Taxi which is a pretty good choice from a Golf Bingo standpoint.
I played a lot of Simpsons Road Rage, and I expected it to be a bit more like that. This was a lot more manic, and there was no story; just pick up and drop off. The graphics are not good by today's standards, but I can see the appeal. I played a half dozen 3 minute attempts, and I think that's sufficient. This is definitely a 1999 Sega game, and it feels like one. It's still fun, but not really for me at this stage of my life.
Playtime: 30m
Rating: 3/5
I decided to immediately attempt to tackle the Nth random, and came to The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos, so I'll be installing that and giving it a try next!
Crazy Taxi is one I remember playing on a physical arcade machine. With an actual steering wheel and shifter, the frenetic gameplay seemed to work really well! When I play it now as a PC racing game though, I agree it doesn't hold my attention for very long.
I haven't played Road Rage, but I played a fair bit of The Simpson's Hit and Run and really enjoyed it. There's definitely more variety, story, and unique set pieces to explore than something like Crazy Taxi. Still, somebody had to do it first!
Oh good point, it is also an arcade game! That updates my bingo golf score a bit; I imagine it'll be the best single game that I play.
Now that you've pointed out Hit and Run, I actually don't remember which one is which and if I played that or Road Rage. I was actually really surprised at Crazy Taxi, because I recall a friend telling me that whichever Simpsons game I played was basically a 100% ripoff of Crazy Taxi, but it had a lot more game to it than what I have now.
If I count it as an Arcade Game, it's a one-game columnar Bingo!
A win?! ALREADY?! Looks like Bingo Golfing is the way to go! 😁
In all seriousness, it’s a shame that Crazy Taxi 2 never made it to the PC or other consoles. I played a ton of it back on the Dreamcast. The original feels like a barebones prototype by comparison. It’s still the same basic concept and doesn’t do too much more than the original, but it has different maps and better challenge levels than the first. It also adds a “Crazy Hop” to your moveset which opens up a lot of opportunities. In general it feels more “complete” than the first, and I say that as someone who also loved the original.
One thing I like about Crazy Taxi is that there actually is a small amount of movement tech in the game. It’s not explicitly told to the player ever (maybe it was in the manual, or on the physical arcade case?) but there are certain button sequences for speed dashes and quick turns and whatnot.
I hadn’t played it in over a decade but when I booted up CT2 on an emulator somewhat recently, I instinctively started my run with a Crazy Dash to get a quick start, and I was kind of blown away that my muscle memory still held onto that for so long (and that I didn’t consciously do it).
I remember being blown away by CT on the Dreamcast. It looked so shiny and hi-res compared to the PS1 and N64 I'd been playing before it. Also the game had peak late-90's skate-punk-rock song All I Want by The Offspring on the soundtrack. There was a handbrake turn or something too, that you could to to instantly turn around and zoom off again. It was really hard to pull off, and almost always ended up with me crashing into a tree or something.
The actual game was... kinda bad though. I mean, it was fun, but what I enjoyed most was exploring the locations. The tight clock meant you could only go so far before having to pick someone up, and after a game over you always started in one or two locations. There were areas of the map you could barely visit they were that far away. Half the time the people wanting rides were totally unreasonable, expecting you to take them miles away in seconds. The arcade roots of it making the game too difficult in a quarter-guzzling way, I suppose. When GTA3 came out just a couple of years later on the PS2, it was almost exactly what I wanted: a Crazy Taxi without the clock (plus a load of other stuff, of course), letting you explore the city at your leisure. It even had a taxi-driver mini-game in it.
Oh the joys of a sick day! I picked a third game - Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo which also ticks a lot of boxes.
This one could cross off 10 boxes; the current leader!
For the game itself - it's Galaga. It's fancy Galaga, but it's still just Galaga, and honestly I think pure Galaga might be slightly better. It felt like it was pretty unoptimized, because even though my PC is generally in pretty good shape - the bottleneck for me is that I "only" have a 2080 - it felt sluggish. It was fun if you like Galaga. I'm going to keep it installed and introduce this sort of game to my son. It's still a good game, especially when you consider that it's something like 100Mb (compared to the second game I installed Dungeon of Nahewhatever which was 10Gb). Fun, simple, fast to install, easy to understand, some cool ship options. Overall, it was decent, especially since I think it was a single person developer - blast and damn, I did not have that on my bingo card!
Playtime: 20m
Rating: 3/5
I'm not going to pick a third game yet - going to go back and play the Dungeon game a bit more while I think about next options. Edit: I lie, my next game will probably be Doom Eternal, one of the few games in my backlog I got as a gift. Usually I play the gift games.
I have completed a card in 6 games.
Game 5: Super Mario Maker 2
This is a delightful game, and my kids were super happy when I put it in. I didn't realize that they had spent a whole bunch of time crafting levels, so I played a bunch of their levels, then made a couple myself. It's simple, fun, and very cool. I don't know why I never popped it in before this. The alt games that I was thinking of - Super Mario Odyssey and Breath off the Wild - are also games that I should probably actually play. My rating is "pure Nintendo".
Playtime: 1hr
Rating: 5/5
Game 6: Abzu
After installing and trying this I realized that I had played this before, but it is a very chill game, and was one that I found pretty enjoyable. It's definitely a better fit for me these days than Doom: Eternal, though I think Doom probably has better mass appeal, and is overall more slick. This one was a delight, though, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to explore the ocean.
Playtime: 45m
Rating: 4/5
I will probably either roll another card, or make some adjustments to keep trying games. Or heck, I might just go back to playing Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, because it's fun and silly.
Likely not going to roll a bingo sheet (but if I remember this weekend I might). Just going to try to get back around to playing (and hopefully finishing) Celeste! I’d gotten I think about 3/4ths of the way through and then got distracted by Baldur’s Gate 3…
Already installedOwned for more than five yearsFrom a developer in a different countryHas “Super” in the titleHas punctuation somewhere in its titleOwned for more than three yearsHere I go! I'll start tonight and just post responses to this with the game and what it ticks until I hit Bingo.
Assuming this doesn't break the rules, I had chosen this game to check off "Has Super in the name" and it's doing some heavy lifting here:
Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP. I have no clue how I got it. It's an interesting point/click game with interesting music (not checking the music box), by Superbrothers, a Canadian studio, I've had for at least 5 years, chosen for the title alone that has been installed on this computer forever. I actually plan to finish this, as it is split into four "sessions" intended to be sat down and digested separately, the game even tells you not to play too long.
Rule: “Has Super in the name”
Game: Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP
That easily checks out for me! But again, how you interpret the rules is entirely up to you.
Personally, I think you’re doing some solid Bingo Golfing.
They gave that game away like candy. I think I own it three times from separate bundles.
I'm down to join this bingo. I started Sniper Elite 3 last night just by chance so might as well use that to kick it off.
Has achievementsHas an aggregate review score below 70Has number somewhere in the titleI also have an excessive amount of Steam games thanks to Humble Bundle, so I've gone ahead generated a bingo with everything enabled.
Bingo Sheet
Golf Plans
BioShock comes very close to getting a bingo all on its own, taking the entire center column with the exception of Solo Dev project. I bought it over 10 years ago back in 2013, and it is the 10th game I added to my Steam library.
For FFXVI, I'll be doing a NG+ run of the game to get the last two achievements I need for the platinum trophy. Not looking forward to grinding XP to be honest.
I'm not a big arcade racing guy, but I've been getting more into motorsports in general recently and I'm going to be competing with a friend on the leaderboards for it, so that'll be fun!
Voidspire Tactics is a game that I've been meaning to finish for a while but just haven't gotten around to yet. I'd estimate that I'm around halfway through the story? Excited to finish it out and move on to some of the developers newer titles.
I thought that Towns was an interesting idea, and I wish the developer had stuck with it. As it stands right now its just abandonware, and is somehow still listed on Steam. I've actually owned it for slightly longer than Bioshock, it's the 8th game in my Steam library.
Garfield Kart.
I think I'm going to try to golf it, and if I have time left in the month afterwards see how much I can get done by limiting to one game per slot.
Going to be starting with Bioshock! Bounced off it the first time I played it, been meaning to get back to it for about a decade? Better now than never I guess!
Oooh, I like that you've planned out the golf in some detail. I've been going one at a time, thus likely hampering my good golf score.
Oh NOOO, I didn't get my own cheeky La Mulana slot! What an absolute travesty, oh sadness.
BINGOOOO!
No worries -- seemingly everybody else did! 😂
Also, it definitely fits the "cult classic" category if you're really wanting to make sure it ends up on your grid.
@Lapbunny is personally responsible for dozens of hours of suffering!
This is a great event. I have over 30 games I've been meaning to play! It's weird the almost guilty feeling you get from having that kind of list. So what I'll be doing is randomly selecting games each weekend of November and giving at least an hour to each one. I'll post a semi-review for each one.
Bioshock 2
So I played this game close to when it came out. I had loved the original Bioshock, it was one of those pivotal games in my childhood. When I first played Bioshock 2, it had never captured me the same way the first one had. So after putting my entire backlog on a wheel of names I gave it a spin and it was the first one to pop up. To be honest this game was the first one that had ever given me that sense of "You should have finished this." that a backlog of games does, and was almost the reason I set out to do this community event. Upon giving it a couple hours of time, I found it to be what I remembered. A lot more lifeless than Bioshock, you're just kinda plopped into rapture, the characters involved don't feel as important as the first game. It almost feels like someone took the concept of rapture and just kept saying "And then, this happens."
The age of the game doesn't help. The controls are extremeley oversensitive, the actual gunplay relies on this massive reticle that feels like you're suggesting your rivets or bullets go in a general direction as opposed to actually aiming them. As much as people seemed to dislike the pipe minigame for hacking, it has been dumbed down into almost a QTE. I want to like the story, but it just seems far more shallow than the first game. I'm hoping that revisiting it now will put my mind at ease, that I'm not missing some huge cultural moment, and that I can move on to the other games in my backlog. I'll keep it installed until I'm satisfied that it doesn't have something mind blowing to show me.
Hopefully not too late to the party :)
Will be quite busy this month and don't have a huge pile of games I've never played, but I'll go for a line to see if I can find gems!
My bingo card
Setting this up late