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Tildes’ 2023 Backlog Burner: Final Discussion
November is coming to a close, and the Backlog Burner with it!
Post your final updates, your completed Bingo cards, and any closing thoughts you have.
- What were the best games you found from digging through your backlog?
- What surprised you?
- What disappointed you?
Also, another HUGE thank you to @Wes for his incredible bingo card generator.
I'm checking in to report my final game, and my (now successful) bingo card!
Recommended by someone IRLCloudpunk
Begins with one of your initialsWall World
Has number somewhere in the titleCHR$(143)
You chose based on title aloneIn Verbis Virtus
You got from a bundleAporia: Beyond The Valley
You can save/pet/care for animalsSonic Adventure DX
From a studio you haven't heard of beforeMain Assembly
Considered a “cult classic”Okami
In a genre you don’t normally playForgetful Dictator
La Mulana, you wussLa Mulana!!!
First, let me submit my final game:
Aporia: Beyond The Valley - You got from a bundle (Humble CryEngine Bundle 2018)
Something about CryEngine games really do make my hardware cry. And yet, they're always beautiful to look at.
Aporia is a game from 2017 that could have served as a showpiece of the game engine. There are light shaft effects, cloth physics on tapestries, beautiful water effects with working currents. It's a lot of detail for a game that most people have probably never heard of.
I compared the last game I played to Dear Esther, but I think this one begs the comparison even more. Gameplay-wise, Aporia would nowadays be called a walking simulator. There are infrequent puzzles, but they're never challenging enough to stump players. The focus is on visuals and telling a story, which is why I make the comparison.
The story plays out infrequently in the style reminiscent of a puppet show, with simplified characters making discoveries and progressing their civilization through the magics of the world. It's a really unique presentation style that I don't believe I've seen before. Very well animated and designed.
I did find the game a little rough in places. There's no setting to disable head bob, and the menu runs at unlimited framerates (squealing my GPU). I also experienced one crash in my time with the game, though it did seem to auto-save beforehand so no progress was lost.
I think because I wanted to get this last entry in, that a walking sim was probably not the right choice. I wanted something quick and punchy, whereas these games are meant to be enjoyed slowly. That said I'd say if you've got a powerful computer and are looking for something with light puzzles, Aporia could be a good fit.
Okay, I'd like to take a moment to look back the month!
I played ten games in total. Definitely not as many as some of you, but a big increase in variety for me. My favourite game was probably La Mulana. Yes, the puzzle platformer for sadists. As difficult as it is, I was really impressed by its design, and I found the game really started to click after a few hours. It may have been suggested originally as a joke, but I'm glad it was thrown in.
I'd also like to give a shoutout to Cloudpunk. I've played more since my last review and have really come to enjoy the story and characters of the game. I feel there's a little too much walking at times, but it's such a unique visual style and the writing really makes it special.
Lastly I'd like to give another mention to Forgetful Dictator, which is free on Steam. After playing for a couple hours and feeling like a fool last week, I eventually memorized enough of the countries to win a few games. I tested myself again this week, and amazingly the knowledge stuck. If I ever need to point out Paraguay on a map, I'll at least be within the right hemisphere now (Southern, right?).
Some other quick mentions. Main Assembly was much better than I was expecting, and Okami is stylistically lovely. The others didn't leave as strong of an impression for me, but maybe I just wasn't in the right headspace at the time.
Thanks to @kfwyre for hosting this event. I had lots of fun, and honestly needed a push to get working on my backlog. I find I often have the idea that I need to give these backlog games the time and care that they deserve, but that usually just means putting them off instead of actually playing anything. It's a habit I need to shake. This event was a perfect demonstration that sometimes it's better to just jump in and see what happens.
Hope to participate again in the next one!
Can't believe you actually beat La Mulana. I've only ever gotten to ~75% even with guides. The guides contradicted each other and I gave up after doing multiple loops around the entire map. Anyway congratulations to you.
I would have loved to participate in this backlog burner event just for La Mulana, but it wasn't in the cards for me this year. Hopefully next time.
Oh, I'm sorry for the false impression. I only started it last week, so definitely haven't beaten it yet. When I say that it started to click, I just mean that I was no longer failing over and over. ;)
However of all the games I played, it's the one I most want to stick with. I hope to have a progress report in one of our regular "What have you been playing?" threads, in the not too distant future, with more to say.
La Mulana seems like it could be a great game to play in a group. Everybody working together to find the secrets of the dungeon, and exploring different paths. Could be an event in of itself.
That's a great idea. We could even have a few brave souls (covering different timezones) stream on Twitch.
Congrats on the BINGO!
I forgot to reply to your last update about Forgetful Dictator, but I can second it. It's a fantastic gamified geography learning system. As an ignorant American who couldn't begin to tell you the first thing about the countries on any other continents, I decided to educate myself and played it regularly over the summer until I could readily identify nearly every country on the globe.
Unfortunately, I've since let the habit slide and thus would probably only get maybe 50% of them accurately if I were return to it. Nevertheless, that's still WAY more of the world than I could have told you about before I started playing it. The game is good fun and a valuable use of time. The fact that it's free now is awesome -- it deserves way more attention than it gets.
Also, I'm going to meet your thank you with a thank you of my own: thank you for your bingo card generator. I agree with @aphoenix in that it was a big hit. Your cards had a starring role in this feature! I personally loved how the categories and layout of the card steered me towards games I wouldn't have necessarily picked if left to my own devices. Plus, it was just a fun little meta game in its own right.
I don't think it would have had nearly the same uptake without your work, because assembling the tables by hand (or even using one of the other markdown table generators I was planning on linking before you came along with your solution) would have been cumbersome and frustrating. You made it easy, which let me focus on the fun!
Oh man, I totally installed Forgetful Dictator after you talked about it, going to try it now! Thanks for the reminder!
Edit: okay, this is a delightful game. I was surprised that it took me three attempts to conquer the Americas playing the standard way; I thought I had a better grasp of world geography. There were definite areas where I had travelled and thus knew a bit more (ie. all of North America, and some of the Caribbean), but then central america and the northern edge of south america was a catastrophe. Many a play through of an old board game called Globetrotters was quite the help, especially when I moved on to capitals.
I'm going to install this on my kids' computers and get them practicing.
I'm really struggling with African and Eastern European geography as far as naming countries / capitals goes, and really have issues with any country that doesn't play hockey. I'm learning though! I thoroughly recommend people get this.
Didn't do the bingo card as I only have a few games backlogged.
Started with Have a Nice Death. Side-scrolling beat 'em up rouge-like. Ended up not finishing this. It was fun at first, but then became a bit tedious. Even on easy mode, it wasn't too forgiving as far as health regeneration. I'm not that good at this kind of game, so I just stopped playing.
Next up was Tell Me Why. Another narrative, choice based game by Don't Nod. Shorter than the Life Is Strange games, but I thought the story was good. It had some emotional impact for sure. Apparently I'm the only or one of the < 1% of people to make a specific choice at the end of the game. Which I thought was very interesting.
Finally played through Portal with RTX. I thought it looked it pretty good. It's a classic game, so not much to say other than that. It did crash before the end credits. Aside from that, it ran smoothly. I forgot how short the game was. Knocked it out in a few hours. Fun time though.
All in all, this was a cool idea! I hope it continues next years.
P.S. Now that is finished, I can resume my list of games that I've wanted to buy and play. I purchased Jedi Survivor on the recent Steam sale. That should be a good time.
I've been playing Have A Nice Death myself, I'll write a review when I'm done with it. But an issue with this game, which I've also had with (the mechanically very similar) Dead Cells, is that some of the weapons you unlock are just not very good, so runs actually get harder as you become less likely to get the weapons you want during a run...
That's a good point! There was a run or two where I got great weapons. Then I ran into a boss I've never encountered before. Got trashed because I wasn't ready. Haven't been able to get those good weapons since.
Just be warned with Jedi Survivor that it's still rather poorly performing on most hardware even after the updates (at least as of update 7).
I played it from start to finish, a little over 20 hours I think, without any hiccups fwiw
That's what I've read. I'm hoping it won't be too bad on my 3070.
This was a great backlog burner for me and there were some clear runaway hits.
Favourites
Dungeon of Naheulbeuk - Amulet of Chaos - this was the best game of the month for me. It is silly and sassy, plays very well both as an RPG and as a satire of an RPG. I enjoyed the combat a lot, I enjoyed the characters a lot, and the story was pretty good. I plan to finish this, then will likely check out some DLC.
Aces and Adventures - this is actually available in a bundle that kwfyre posted about. I described this in a post as Slay the Spire crossed with Hearthstone (the PvE adventures only) crossed with Poker. It's got a really good mix of all three, and it's a close second place for me. There are multiple modes available depending on how much time you want to spend, there are lots of things to unlock, there are card packs to open - but no purchases! - there are daily play modes, there are multiple classes to check out. I have really been enjoying this.
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen - I plan on finishing this, going for the "World" ending. This was probably my favourite game as a kid, and and I feel like it has held up pretty well. When I'm done, I might do a playthrough going for the Devil ending, or for one of the endings where you take over power for yourself. I enjoy fiddling with the the units that you send out, and I like that the tactics are macro-managed instead of micro-managed (ie. you don't pick the attacks, you just pick individuals to put into units, and they have specific attack patterns based on where you put them in the unit).
Disappointments
Doom Eternal was really good, but I was disappointed to find that it just wasn't for me. I might reinstall it at some point and try it out again, but I think that I'm just not great at shooters anymore, and it was really dark and grim.
Crazy Taxi was an unfortunate letdown. I think it was really a product of its time, and now it is very underwhelming. I think a new game in the same vein could probably do pretty well though.
Surprise
I played way more racing games than I would have though - Crazy Taxi, Rocket League, Turbo Golf Racing - and even though Crazy Taxi was a bit of a disappointment, I still enjoyed racing more than I thought I would. I'll probably play more of the other two, especially since my son has been enjoying them.
I was hyped for Cities Skylines 2, but was glad that I waited on getting it, and opted instead to reinstall CS1; I was surprised that CS1 has more concurrent players on Steam than CS2 for the last little while.
Looking Forward to
I talked about three favourites that I'll be playing more of, but I'm also planning on doing some more Unpacked and also doing some more of the Portal multiplayer. I'll probably finish off my super mario levels as well, and do a bit more of that over christmas.
My Final (Winning, sort of) Bingo Card
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
Has punctuation somewhere in its titleRun Build Pew!
From now-defunct dev studioSaints Row: Gat Out of Hell
You chose based on title aloneFrincess&Cnight
Not found on any distribution servicePrey (2006)
★Iron Lung
You got it on saleUnpacking
Has one-word titleLinelith
Has a non-human player characterHaiku, the Robot
From a developer in a different countryChernobylite
Hasn't been re-released, ported, remade, or re-released in 20+ yearsScreamer 2
Part of a trilogyFrog Detective 1: The Haunted Island
From a series you have playedFrog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard
All updates:
Winning, sort of
I originally planned for a blackout bingo, fully expecting to demo a bunch of different games for maybe 20 minutes each before moving on. Instead, I ended up choosing games that mostly gripped me and ended up putting a good amount of time into many of my choices. This is a good thing, because it meant I was largely playing games that I enjoyed rather than bouncing off ones I didn't. That's also why I'm not mad about not getting a blackout bingo. I'll settle for my standard five-in-a-row diagonal.
Highlights
Iron Lung really impressed me. Solid, well-executed minimalist horror. It's hard to give a blanket recommendation for it, as I think a lot of people would actively not like the game (and I totally see why and think it's fair), but if you're one of the people for whom its formula works, then I think it's a great formula.
Linelith also impressed me. I almost bounced off of it early, but I'm glad I didn't. I started playing, did a few puzzles, and then went "okay, sure, this is fine" and didn't really feel much for the game. Had I stopped there I would have missed out on the cleverness that makes the game interesting but doesn't come about until the back half. I went from wanting to bounce off the game to fully 100%ing it instead.
Chernobylite might not have staying power, but at only a few hours in, I'm really enjoying it. I can see how its formula would wear thin over time, but it's not fair for me to judge it by that metric just yet. It's got the survival crafting loop that's satisfying mixed in with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout-inspired maps.
The Others
The rest of the games I played were all good in their own right, and I wouldn't call any of them bad -- just not necessarily for me. The Frog Detective games would be great for kids, and Nebula and Run Build Pew! are both serviceable bullet heavens. Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell is a re-skin of Saints Row IV with less content, which is fine by me, because I get the fun of replaying SRIV without as much of a time committment.
What's Next
I'm not going to continue my bingo card with one exception:
La Mulana
This event (and especially @Wes's writeups) inspired me to tackle it, so it'll be something I dive into somewhat soon.
Beyond that, however, I plan to tackle (some of) a secondary set of games that I uncovered as I went along playing my Bingo Card. While searching through my library for titles that would fit different categories, I kept finding stuff that I wanted to play but that didn't necessarily fit what I was looking for in that moment. I started adding these to their own category in my library, and I now have a pool of 80 different games that I'm keenly interested in, curated from my
thousandsuh, large collection of unplayed games.Before all that, however, I have some games to finish. Run Build Pew! is going to get another dozen hours or so out of me, and I need to finish out Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. Also, I'm only just beginning on Chernobylite, so it might be a good month or so before La Mulana gets its due.
The Next Event
As for the next Backlog Burner, I'm going to try to figure out the format and timing. I think the Bingo cards were successful and something we can iterate on, and I'm going to take a look at the release calendar for next year and see if there are any particular lulls that we can shoot for.
Additionally, this is unrelated to the Backlog Burner specifically, but I can throw out a teaser: I have a plan for a sort of "gaming club" for next year similar to the Album/Movie of the Week series we have here. I think it would be too limiting to try to focus everyone on a single specific game given that the barrier to access is a lot higher for games than it is for books and movies, so I have some different ideas for allowing us to participate individually while all driving in a common lane, so to speak.
I didn't get too far into my planned games as I ended up getting really absorbed in Ghosts of Tsushima, but I did play Tunic and Death's Door from beginning to end. I think I preferred Death's Door although I really admire what Tunic was shooting for. I'm just not a huge Souls-like fan and didn't realize it was going to be what it was. That game was extremely fucking hard and I got pretty frustrated at some of the bosses, and even some of the other base enemy encounters. I just hated needing to run through the same sections I kept dying on.
I also picked Rocket League up for the first time in about 5 years. I never played it all that much but I felt an urge to give it another shot as a competitive sports game I didn't need to try too hard at. It's a nice 20-30 minute little decompresser for me at the end of the night. I'm bad and I know it and I'm also not trying to be good, so it's fun.
Meta: Please mark this as off-topic so it doesn’t get in the way of people’s actual contributions to the topic, but I’d love to hear any feedback people have on the format/duration/timing of the event. I’m always experimenting with different things, trying to see what works and what doesn’t, so it’s good to find out what people liked and didn’t like so that I can hopefully roll out something better next time.
I think the Bingo card was a big hit (thanks @Wes) and I really enjoyed that. I also thought it was great that it was optional - I did the first half with a bingo card and then the second half I left the bingo card behind, and I felt like both were in the spirit of the event, so I really liked the guidance, but also the freedom to do whatever.
It was a standout event for me again, and one of my favourite Tildes things. I got into a few games that will likely be what I play for the next couple of months (maybe years?) as a result, so thank you, as always, for putting these events together. I know that any of us can do it, so I am especially appreciative that you do it.
I'm happy you had a good time! Your positive feedback on the previous Backlog Burner is actually what kept the flame alive for me to run this again, so thank you for that. I did it because people like you enjoy it!
I'm wildly busy/exhausted with a new-ish kid, so I never really figured I would actually get any game done - I couldn't finish one game, let alone at least five... But this and especially the bingo card did prompt me to think about my backlog. So it got me to pick Super Mario Odyssey back up for a good 10-15 hours, then got my wife playing it, and as a bonus people got memed into vicariously playing La Mulana for me. So I consider this a success!
I would say if there are other creative ways for people to look at a prompt and slot the games into them it certainly helped me figure out things to play. I'm sure doing bingo every time might get tiresome, but there have to be plenty of ways to arrange that kind of setup with enough heads together.
If it’s in the cards, definitely recommend a steam deck or switch or anything portable with a newborn! I just escaped Hades for the first time with my 10 week old on my chest.
The format felt good to me. The duration was long enough to give me time to try new games without feeling stressed about it, yet still short enough that I didn't feel compelled to put it off. One month feels about right.
As a suggestion, how about an opt-in system to ping those participating in each weekly thread? That could be a good way to make sure everybody sees the new threads, and encourage those who "fell off" to get involved again.
I'm glad the bingo card was successful. The creation of all of the different categories definitely got me thinking about which games I'd been sitting on, and how they might be categorized.
I do think a few improvements may be possible for the bingo card. For example, having "like" categories, where the generator won't select categories that are too similar. In my card, I got three different categories that were "Owned for more than X years". Grouping those up could help introduce a little more variety (on an individual level, though it'd technically reduce variety between players).
I don't think I mentioned it, but I did make a few settings possible. For example the number of rows and columns were configurable, though only in code. I also made the star in the center tile optional. I left it in because the bingo card example you showed had one, but maybe you'd prefer an extra category instead? Originally I assumed it'd count as a free space (no game needed), but I thought it was funny that you saw it as a wildcard (any game fits here). Though I suppose that does avoid an easy four-game win.
Did you feel that editing the markdown was too difficult or technical? I keep thinking about ways of "saving" your bingo card on the site, and then letting you edit it by entering game names to re-generate the card when needed. I'm curious if that's over-engineering the problem, or if it'd actually be helpful for people.
I definitely didn't have time to build a full system like that before, but if you give some notice before the next one, maybe we can come up with something better.
One final time, thanks for putting this event together. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad to have participated.
The ping idea is solid and definitely something I can do for next time.
And I agree with you that categorizing the categories would help. My original plan was to just have enough categories that hopefully collisions of similar ones wouldn't happen, but of course, randomness doesn't work that way!
I originally hadn't intended to have a free space at all, but when I saw your star I assumed it was a wildcard (and loved it!). Maybe that could be a toggle for future ones, and people can choose whether to do it as a free space, wildcard, or simply another category? I'm big on giving people parameters but also being flexible with them.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I do think that editing tables in markdown does kind of suck. It's why your generator was so useful in the first place! I'm not sure about the logistics of saving the card, but if that's something that's doable and that you would enjoy putting together, it would probably be appreciated. The last-minute-ness of this one was because I genuinely didn't expect someone like you to swoop in and save the day with your own bespoke system (thank you again, by the way!). I'd be thrilled to collaborate with you in advance of the next one if that's something you're up for.
Definitely! I bet we can come up with some fun ideas, and smooth out the whole experience even more.
I think you've hit the right balance here by providing some parameters, but being flexible with it. Especially when it came to playing regular bingo or bingo golf. It seemed like two very popular but opposing ideas, so it was good to have both options available.
I think it could be fun to offer a randomizer feature too. That would allow somebody to click [Random] and have it select a random (unfinished) category from their bingo card. This could be used to spark some inspiration, or even enable a more strict rule variant where categories must be played in that random order. That'd be even more like a traditional bingo game. In that variant, having the free star in the middle would be very welcome, I think.
Rather than enforcing anything via the tool, it'd probably be best to list some suggested rulesets, and let people modify or implement them as they see fit.
I'd be happy to discuss some ideas with you to find the right balance of freedom and control, without making it too complicated to use. And we could probably brainstorm some more categories for next time, too.
I assume December will be busy for most, but let's try to get together at least a month before the next one. Does that sound good to you?
If for some reason I should be hit by a lorry before then, the source code for the first version is available, and fairly easy to tweak. It would just need to be forked and rehosted.
I love these ideas! Once I figure out what the schedule looks like, I’ll PM you at least a month in advance. I appreciate you helping out and sharing your expertise!
Also, in the event that the murderous lorry decides to go after me, let me state for the record that all of the events I do here (Backlog Burner, Timasomo, etc.) are things I see as owned by the community and not by me specifically. They are Tildes events, not kfwyre ones. If anyone else wants to run one of them or do an offshoot or whatever else, I’ll be thrilled with that (even if the lorry didn’t get me and I’m still around to see it!).
Hey, thanks for the bingo card generator - I just used it for my December gaming and I really love it.
Can I suggest a few more categories though? This is what I found going through my own backlog:
Thanks for the suggestions! @kfwyre came up with the whole list of existing ones, but I'm sure more ideas will be welcome for the next iteration of the bingo card generator.
I didn't participate, but I loved the bingo cards and loved the idea. For me personally, the current format doesn't work - for some months, I already have a very good idea what I want to play, and I like to play games to completion if they interest me. However, I would absolutely take part in a yearlong/weekly thing, and plan to use a bingo card next year for when I don't have a good idea what to play next. Thanks for organising this!