Tildes' 2023 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion
Week 1 is done. Update your bingo cards and tell us about what you played!
Q: I missed the beginning of this event. Can I still join?
A: Of course! It's open all month.
Topic 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.
Bingo Sheet
You got from a bundleFallout
Has one-word titleFallout
Has no achievementsFallout
You've been meaning to give a second chanceFallout
Has minigamesOne Lonely Outpost
Owned for more than five yearsFallout
Came out more than 5 years agoFallout
Owned for more than one yearPool Slide Story
From a developer in a different countryPool Slide Story
From a series you have playedFallout
Has achievementsPool Slide Story
Already installedOne Lonely Outpost
Playing the golf-style (one game can hit multiple squares).
Well I got a
BINGOdiagonally just by playing two games: Fallout (the OG one) and One Lonely Outpost. Got a secondBINGOwith a third game, Pool Slide Story.I'm aiming for a full blackout card, though, so I still have a ways to go.
Here's my recap and thoughts on the games:
Fallout
I got Fallout (along with Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics) in a bundle, which are the oldest games in my Steam library. I really enjoyed Fallout 3/New Vegas/4 and have always wanted to go back and give the games a try, but my initial attemps to play them were derailed by technical issues getting them to play on a modern OS. This time, I did some more research, found a pretty good article that led me to install Fallout Fixit and was able to play it with minimal technical issues.
Wow, was that rough. It really made me realize how many of the now-standard basic keyboard controls and behaviors we take for granted and how far basic UX elements have come in 25 years, like how to distinguish named NPCs vs. generic background ones or even simple auto-saves (or confirming you actually want to load when you fat-finger
F5(quick-load) instead ofF6(quick-save). I don't think I ever broke the habit of not trying to use WASD to move the camera.All in all, I feel like I didn't enjoy the game nearly as much as I wanted to have, mostly because I was too busy struggling to get the hang of what are now unintuitive controls. I lost at least a few hours thanks to lack of recent save games (one time by fat-fingering quick-load; one time from a crash-to-desktop; and one time because I literally couldn't find the interaction spot to re-open the bookshelf door after defeating the Master to escape before the nuke went off (that one really annoyed me)).
I have Fallout 2 installed, as well, but after playing the first Fallout, I'm not really enthused about diving into it.
One Lonely Outpost
This is a Stardew-valley-inspired style game with a sci-fi theme that I backed on Kickstarter ways back. I had a short play of it when they had an alpha build available for backers, but there wasn't enough there to catch my interest. It recently went into Early Access on Steam, though, so I've been meaning to get back into it and give it a go. I kind of forgot about it until I started playing it, but something happened during development where the original developers sold it off to a different group.
All in all, I feel like the game has promise... but it has a lot of problems, right now. The pacing really needs to be improved, because there multiple days each week where there's nothing to do that advances the plot or story. And the bugs are also worrisome: Patch #5 was published on September 6th and introduced a horrible stutter that would start happening the longer you played it. Thankfully, Patch #6 on November 6th fixed that stutter, but I'm kind of flabberghasted how that glaring of a stutter got through in the first place.
But now I'm at the point where they're introducing the Fishing mechanics, but the blueprint for the fishing drone is broken so I can't actually craft it.
So, after about 12 hours into it, I guess I'm putting that one back on the shelf. I'm just kind of worried that the game won't ever actually get finished.
Pool Slide Story
I stumbled across Kairosoft games via Google Play Pass and decided to purchase one of their PC releases a while back. They're casual kind of Sim-style games, but it was their
Mega Mall Story 2game that really hooked me (side note: I always wanted a proper Sim Tower successor, and this game kind of reminded me of that). They aren't difficult or anything, just a nice and relaxing game with some cutesy pixel graphics.Not a whole lot else to add to this, as it's pretty much your standard, solid Kairosoft game.
I haven't decided what I'm going to play next, though. We'll have to see what catches my eye tomorrow.
I went for a Bingo Golf card and got a full card in 6 games.
🚕🚀
🚕🧙🚀
🚕🧙🚀😈
🦈
🚀
🍄
🧙
🚕🚀
🍄
😈
🍄
🚀
🚀
🧙🚀
🚀🍄
😈
🚕
🦈
😈
🚕
🚀
🚕🚀
🚕😈
😈
My 6 games were:
🚕 - Crazy Taxi
🧙 - The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos
🚀 - Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo
😈 - DOOM Eternal
🍄 - Super Mario Maker 2
🦈 - ABZU
I have now recommended The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk to several people, and freely recommend it if you think a game that is a cross of Neverwinter Nights, Discworld, and EuroTrip is a good idea. I will certainly be going back to Mario Maker quite a bit, and Abzu is just really soothing to play. Crazy Taxi, Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo, and Doom Eternal aren't exactly for me, and will likely get uninstalled.
I've rolled a new card, and will continue with this card doing non-golf bingo likely for the remainder of the month.
The New Card
Have you played Journey? ABZU was made by the same people. Journey was just so much better imo, but ABZU isn't bad.
I haven't played that; I'll keep on the lookout for it in bundles or sales though! Thanks for the recommendation.
My recommendation is to not look up anything about the game at all. It's seriously an incredible experience and a game that I think everyone should approach with no knowledge about it at all.
A game to add to the board:
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen - had to tinker in order to get it running. I did two types of tinkering - I tried to get my old SNES hooked up, and I also then gave in and got an emulator and played via the emulator, which also took a bit of tinkering.
This might be my favourite game of all time, and I am enjoying playing through again. It's a strategy game where you send units out to conquer maps; you directly control where the units go, but you do not directly control the units in battle, other than to give them some tactics to follow, such as "target the opposing group's leader" or "finish off weak opponents first". Each character in your army has stats, and you control a leader who is your representative, and there's a fairly complex story as you take over the world, and a variety of endings. I won't give this a rating because it's so engrained with nostalgia that I don't think I'm a fair arbiter of how good the game is.
My Goal: Non-Golf Blackout Bingo
Owned for more than two yearsPath of Giants
You've been meaning to go back toThe End Is Nigh
Has no DLCNebula
Begins with the first letter of your usernameKill It With Fire
From now-defunct dev studioSaints Row: Gat Out of Hell
You chose based on title aloneFrincess&Cnight
Not found on any distribution servicePrey (2006)
Has one-word titleLinelith
Part of a trilogyFrog Detective 1: The Haunted Island
Previous update: Path of Giants, The End is Nigh, Nebula, Frincess&Cnight
Kill It With Fire - Begins with the first letter of your username
This is a first-person shooter where you have to kill spiders lurking in household settings by using increasingly ridiculous weapons.
I liked it for what it was and probably would have kept playing it, but after an hour of play my motion sickness was triggered pretty badly and I had to go lie down afterwards to try and settle the queasiness and disequilibrium. I stopped playing it after that.
Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell - From now-defunct dev studio
A product of the now-defunct Volition.
I played and enjoyed Saints Row: the Third and especially Saints Row IV. I'm not a huge fan of the GTA games, but this series' embrace of the absurd made it fun for me. The use of superpowers in IV especially was particularly enjoyable.
The game feels like it was planned as a DLC but then elevated to a full standalone release. It's pretty much Saints Row IV with a hell skin. Flying around and getting the collectibles is fun, and the game is essentially nothing more than a checklist of different missions. I'm not done with it yet, but I'll finish it. It's good mindless fun.
Prey (2006) - Not found on any distribution service
I'm getting this in for this category on a technicality, because I am technically playing it on Steam, but I also got it on Steam long after it was unavailable.
I learned earlier this year that the keys included with physical copies of the game will activate on Steam. These are, of course, very hard to come by -- you have to find a sealed copy of the original game! I took a gamble on an eBay listing earlier this year claiming to have a factory sealed copy for a reasonable price. I was fully expecting the listing to be a lie OR the key to simply not activate (the game was removed from Steam in the mid 2010s).
To my surprise: it worked! The box genuinely was still sealed, and the key in the box activated on my account (which is good, because I no longer have a disc drive and wouldn't have been able to install the game from the DVD even if I wanted to).
Anyway, as for the game, I now understand at least one of the reasons why we haven't seen it re-released: it has a lot of licensed music. At the beginning of the game there's a jukebox where you can select multiple songs. I saw "Heart" and played that, before realizing that it was THE Heart and the song that started playing was their famous hit "Barracuda".
The game is impressive in hindsight. It is almost overflowing with neat ideas. It had portals before Portal! There's gravity manipulation and phasewalking and interesting weapons (conceptually, though not in execution). Unfortunately, it also doesn't ever do too much with these ideas. They're more gimmicky than anything, and the shooting gameplay itself is nothing exceptional (even by the standards of the time).
I put three hours in and then moved on. I'm glad I played it, and I genuinely think the game would have been mindblowing in its time.
Linelith - Has one-word title
This is a cute, short, clever puzzle game. The entire game is about completing line puzzles (think The Witness BUT PLEASE TEMPER YOUR EXPECTATIONS WITH THAT COMPARISON). I didn't like it much initially, but then I figured some things out, and I liked it a lot. I technically "beat" the game in 45 minutes, but I still have a lot of unsolved puzzles. I will probably go back to try to finish some of them.
Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island - Part of a trilogy
This is a short, cute game. Great for kids -- underwhelming for anyone else. There's hardly any "game" there. You talk to a few people and find a few items and then it's over. It has charming characters and amusing dialogue, but it feels more like a proof-of-concept than a fully-fledged game.
I was hoping to get a couple more games prepared before leaving my update comment, but it's starting to look like that won't happen this week, so I'll share my lesser progress.
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
Considered a “cult classic”Okami
Okami - Considered a “cult classic”
So I'm pretty sure Okami is considered a cult classic. It's been on my backlog for years now, basically since its original release, and I'm happy to finally check it out.
It's been interesting so far! Definitely a game of its time, so the tutorials feel slow and drawn out, and the controls and camera are a little wonky. I'd make a comparison to the early 3D Zeldas, where the controls weren't really ideal yet and you still had fixed cameras in buildings/interiors.
I was able to improve things some by maximizing sensitivity in the settings. I also installed a third-party mod to tone down of the painterly effects and "ghosting", which were honestly giving me some nausea. I considered registering this one under "requires tinkering to get running", but technically it ran fine out of the box.
So far I'm loving the general aesthetic and art style. The "ancient hero of legend" trope is an old one but a good one, and there's a unique enough spin in the role that you play. I'm not sure about combat yet because I'm still early enough that it's not gotten interesting or difficult yet, so the jury is still out there.
Some of the game's writing/design seems weirdly sexist? There's a character that's a bug and hides in women's blouses, rudimentary jiggle physics, and a kimono with an exposed derriere window. I'm assuming that last one was for comedic effect, but as I said, it definitely feels like a game of its time.
I'm not sure yet if I'll finish this one. Okami is a game I've always wanted to play, so I do want to give it a proper chance. There's some motivation to keep moving to the next thing with this backlog challenge, but at the same time I think the goal is probably to find cool new games, so I don't mind slowing my roll if I find something interesting. I'll give it some more time, and we'll see if the overall style and design win me over, or if I'm defeated by the early-era jank.
I'm not doing bingo (and I technically started on this, well, in January) but I have played/started a couple games on my backlog this month.
My mission this year was to catch up on games that I've let pile up while I was addicted to playing R6 Siege and Apex and doing grad school. Now that I'm mostly back to playing single player games, it's been a lot of fun to clear through games that I've been interested in. A lot of these came from bundles or Epic free giveaways or on Xbox Game Pass.
Some of my favorites from this year (that are at least a year old):
Psychonauts
Psychonauts 2
Inscryption
Alba: A Wild Life Adventure
Bulletstorm
Sleeping Dogs
A Short Hike
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Fortress
Uncharted 1-3
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Moonglow Bay
Disappointments:
Every new Wolfenstein after the 1st "new" one, but oh man was Wolfenstein: Young Blood just... Really awful.
Road 96
Adios
The First Tree
The Darkness 2
Maneater
There are several other games that I thought were fine but unremarkable, including The Spectrum Retreat, Superliminal, The Lion's Song, and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, and some games I'd add to either list but came out this year.
Speaking just to the games I've played in November, I recently finished Death's Door, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was challenging but not overly, rewarding when you played patiently, and had a lot of charm. There were times I got really frustrated with needing to loop back through difficult sections and I thought that the final boss gauntlet was a little too obnoxious, but on the whole a strong game.
I also started on Ghosts of Tsushima, which I wasn't really sure I'd like because I'm not huge into Japanese culture or in 3rd person open world games, but I'm liking it so far. It looks stunning on PS5 and a high end TV, and the story has been interesting so far. A side note: my wife doesn't like watching me play this one due to the amount of blood when you kill someone haha.
I also started on Tunic, which is a really great love letter to the classic Legend of Zelda games, which I've always been more partial to than the BotW games (maybe an unpopular opinion). I'm enjoying it so far, but getting frustrated by some of the enemy encounters and needing to retrace my steps.
Finally, I just started on XCOM 2 on Friday and died on the first mission after the tutorial about 6 times which I thought was kind of embarrassing. I definitely need to learn the tactics in this one more.
Burned through Evil West so far of my themed list.
Not a bad game, but don't go into it expecting anything groundbreaking gameplay or story-wise. It's very much on rails, not overly difficult, not a lot of strategy involved, probably 90%'d it in this one playthrough. Couple of bugs that necessitated exiting the game and restarting to resolve (all SFX suddenly stopping), but nothing game breaking, thankfully it autosaves often so you never lose much progress.
Looks good, voice actors are pretty good and it's almost entirely voice acted (very little reading of the little pieces of lore you pick up needed), overall mindless fun beat-em-up. If you want a western-themed Doom-like then feel free to pick it up somewhere south of $10.
Playing Hard West 2 now, enjoying it so far and I enjoyed the first game. I could be wrong, but it feels like it'll be shorter than the first game.