Alright, picked my first game to play: The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith. I got it in one of the bundles, and it's actually been pinned to my dock on my Macbook for a while now because I wanted to try knocking out at least one game from them. And it seems like it should count for a couple squares.

Playtime should be 3-5 hours according to its listing, so I'll try to get through it tonight barring any interruptions!

Oh boy Hotel Dusk brings back some memories. I'm excited to hear your thoughts if/when you play it.

For my first entry I've chosen Metal: Hellsinger in the "Music/rhythm-focused" category.

I'm not a frequent player of rhythm games, but I am interested by them. They require great focus, and when everything goes just right you can enter a sort of flow state. One where you begin to feel the notes, rather than visually observe them and trying to match timing. As I played, I saw hints of that happening as I got more comfortable with the game. But inevitably something would surprise me and I'd lose my focus.

Despite the heavy focus on rhythm, this is still very much an FPS title. You aren't just shooting on beat, but you need to hit something, too. That's tougher than it sounds! It means you're constantly scanning the area, trying to keep a list of targets to maintain your combo, without leaving so many baddies that you start taking fire, while managing your ammo, while staying on beat.

I've unlocked five of the weapons, and found a preference for the shotgun and crossbow. Maybe because they are slower-firing weapons which means I can skip alternating beats, or maybe just because they do big numbers. The crossbows explosion is very satisfying.

Despite being from a smaller studio, the general production quality of Metal: Hellsinger feels pretty high. The cutscenes are well animated and have strong voice acting. It offers replayability through unlocks and additional challenges. The music is apparently quite good, though I'm not a metalhead, personally.

I did find this one a little fatiguing to play. I think mostly due to the level of concentration required, I could only manage a session of an hour and a half. I expect it will get easier as I get more familiar with the game though. Hopefully I'll be able to fall into that flow state more easily, and learn to maintain it.

My second title was a quick one: The Corridor. A self-described 20-30 minute experience, I figured this would slot well into the "You can complete it in only a few hours" category (hopefully "or less" is implied).

This one is tricky to talk about without spoiling what it does, but I will say it's a small, rather trolly narrative. I did a regular run through and picked up a couple achievements, including one that required some stubbornness on the part of the player (mild spoiler):

I've been trying to think of a genre to describe these games. Meta narrative titles, perhaps? I enjoy the ways they test the limits of their environment, and ask the best kinds of questions about what a "video game" even is.

I figured to give this one a proper go, I'd do a second pass and pick up the achievements I missed. There was some cute dialogue and a couple easter eggs I'd missed, but mostly it was the same on the second run.

So The Corridor isn't as extensive as titles like The Stanley Parable or Pony Island, but nor does it claim to be. It's a short experience, and you can knock it out if you've got 30 minutes to spare.

Vault of the Void is my third title, for the "Has/uses cards" category.

So this is a fun game! My only point of reference for these roguelike deck-builders is Monster Train, which I've played a couple dozen games in, and Slay the Spire, which I've only played once.

One thing about these games is that they are mechanically dense. When you begin the tutorial, it throws a lot of descriptions at you for effects, modifiers, and different procedures. I wasn't ready for the information overload when I first started so I had to come back when I was in the right headspace.

I did come back and complete the tutorial. And then I attempted (and won) a real game on normal difficulty. I'm sure that's nothing for regular players, but I was happy to have come up with a build on the fly and make it work.

Unlike StS and Monster Train, this game has a few mechanical differences that make a big difference. First, block is reactive, not proactive. The enemies will queue up damage for the next turn, so you know in advance how much block you need to stay healthy. It's less math-heavy, and it also frees up your first move for any set up you'd like to do.

The other major difference is in deck size. Other deck builders encourage smaller decks as a means of controlling the randomness of the game. This one requires that 20 cards be in your deck at all times. However, extra cards you've earned can be cycled in and out of your deck between fights, letting you adjust your deck based on the specific battle ahead. This change in strategy might be off-putting to veteran players, but I like that it opens things up as well.

The general gameplay loop is still very much about choosing cards in the most optimal order, as well as choosing a route to progress between levels to optimize loot, upgrades, etc. I'm not actually a huge fan of these route-plotting minigames that a lot of roguelikes employ, which is part of the reason that I've played Monster Train the most, since it greatly simplifies that aspect. However Vault of the Void does offer a very nice route planner that lets you experiment with different paths before committing to them, which is great for learning the game.

I'd say that the game still has a couple of rough edges (for example, I never figured out the potion system because it wasn't explained in the tutorial), but most of the actual card mechanics feel quite refined. It's definitely one worth checking out if you're into the genre.

As a side note, apparently there's an Android version in the works as well. Monster Train announced an Android port years ago but it seems to be dead in the water, so this could be a promising alternative.

I had plenty of options for a "music/rhythm-focused" game that I still need to play through but I went with Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical which I had played a few hours of when it came out last year but never finished.

The concept of "musical where you choose the direction the song goes" is something I loved from the second I heard about it and while it's an ambitious feat that requires a lot of work to be put into it, I think they landed a bit off-key with the execution. Not literally, but I have some nitpicks as an amateur musician that's done some composing in the past where I'm not sure if I'm less tolerant for noticing things that the average person might not care about or more tolerant for things that an average person might not think sounds good but I can see where what they were going for.

There are still several alternate paths I want to go through so I'm not dissatisfied, but they don't hit the high notes I was hoping to hear so I'm good with putting this aside for another few months or more before I do.

I could jump straight to finishing the row for a bingo (already have the last two in mind) but next up is a detour to a different part of my board.

For "from a series you have played" I'm continuing my Final Fantasy journey and I blitzed through the pixel remaster of Final Fantasy III in three days, about 11 hours of play time.

Much like with Final Fantasy II I ended up taking advantage of the quality of life features in the remasters to minimize grinding and the war of attrition that later dungeons turn into, which I wouldn't have minded as a kid with time to spare though we never got this one in the US until 2006. The introduction of the job system here isn't perfect but I think it's good for its time and made for a solid foundation that later entries would build upon.

The story here is again nothing much to write about, still a basic "save the world from darkness" plot with the playable characters having next to no personality of their own, but I appreciate it as a stepping stone toward greater things.

I've already started on my music/rhythm-focused pick as well as I'm now going for the top row on my card, but more on that once I'm done with it in presumably a few more days.

Chop Goblins - You can complete it in only a few hours

I figured I'd kick things off with something short and sweet. Or maybe short and funky? As far as bite-sized boomer shooters go, Chop Goblins does a have a certain sweet charm to it, for whatever that's worth. It's a retro-aesthetic FPS from David Szymanski, creator of DUSK (and other notable games of late). I don't have a ton to say about this game, other than it took me ~45 minute to plow through a playthrough of it, and that was with a little bit of secret hunting. There are no saves or checkpoints, so this approach is very much intended by David, per the blurb in the store page description -

Chop Goblins is a "microshooter": An FPS designed to be completed in a single sitting, without sacrificing depth, variety, or creativity in its gameplay and level design. It's a game you can play for less than an hour, or replay for many hours. Need something to distract you from work, boredom, or grinding in other games? Take a Chop Goblins Break, with a fun and satisfying FPS campaign that only takes one sitting to fully experience.

I'd echo what David wrote above - it's a fun little romp that feels great and doesn't overstay it's welcome. I'm looking forward to some additional playthroughs of this in the weeks to come just for funzies, but I've got a backlog to burn through!

Edit: I kept installing and booting up other backlog games, and as a palate-cleanser between them, I just keep doing more playthroughs of Chop Goblins haha. After 5 hours of total playtime, I got all the achievements, but am looking forward to more playthroughs. It is a really solid experience - very tight controls (to be expected from a David Szymanski game), fun weapons and gameplay loop, the inclusion of mirror mode and remixed levels with lots of little secrets peppered throughout. I played DUSK ~5 years ago, and it (along with DOOM '16) is one of the main reasons that I fell hard into the boomer shooter genre. Between DUSK and Chop Goblins, it's clear that David knows how to capture the perfectly distilled essence of the genre and put his own spin on it. Highly recommend this one.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD - From a series you have never played

I'm well aware that, while this is technically an Oddworld game, it plays nothing like the first few entries to the classic series. That said, I picked up Stranger's Wrath in a bundle a few months back and figured I'd give it a try.

The Oddworld games always lived in the periphery for me. I grew up with several consoles, the original Playstation included, but the mid-90s was very much a time of picking out games that stood out on the rack at Blockbuster, not because there was any critical merit to the title. It's why I have probably over 100 hours in both Buck Bumble and Glover for the N64, but never picked up an Oddworld game. Those games had cool characters on the front - dudes with attitude. The front cover of Abe's Oddysee looked sad, and a little creepy. So while I've always been aware of the Oddworld series, I've never tried one until yesterday.

Stranger's Wrath was being sold in a "retro FPS" bundle, which, in retrospect, was a little misleading. Yes, there are first-person controls to aim your crossbow, so while it is literally a shooter that is sometimes in the first person, it doesn't feel at all like an FPS. Your crossbow ammo is varied and used to solve traps, activate devices, distract enemies, list goes on. The ammo is also made up entirely of little critters you have to capture in order to refill your ammo, which is a clever and cute approach to the system. There are some damage-dealing ammo types, but it's certainly not the developer's intent for you to play the game using that single ammo type for all encounters. Rather, the intent seems to be to seek out the ammo types you need, collect enough to approach encounters the way you want to approach, and handle combat in a relatively hands-off way, since you'll almost always be outgunned in the traditional sense.

At any rate, the world of Stranger's Wrath is a fun mix of third-party action-adventure / platforming with some light combat and exploration. I put several hours into it over the last day, completed a few bounties and enjoyed the story I encountered, and I think I'll call it good there for now. It seems like the sort of game that would have grabbed me and held on tight 20 years ago, but at this point in my life I don't know that I have the time or patience to work my way through 10+ more bounties to call the game "completed."

What a more interesting way to start off the bingo card is with Supergiant Games's first indie title, Bastion, to fill the Recommended by someone on Tildes category. Given that I recently joined this website, I had to search for a post about game recommendations to stumble across of one that I actually own.

It's an action RPG game where hand drawn worlds materialize as the protagonist marches on while the narrator dynamically (and sometimes cheekily) commentate on what's happening around him, even down to weaponry skills and implicitly pointing out where to go.

I like how the game keeps me on toes by overwhelming me with seemingly chock-full of enemies, yet manageable with effective tactics such as hitting with a close range weapon and dodging. Which makes for an engaging gameplay experience without necessarily being difficult.

The only complaint I came across while playing, is that the camera for the most part is a bit too zoomed out, which can make distinguishing certain foes and objects trickier on busy-looking areas. Was it originally designed to play right next to a PC monitor? Perhaps...

So far, I cleared two stages and reached Level 2 and have yet to see more gameplay elements, enemy variety, and whatever else the game has to offer. Since I appreciated everything I experienced during the first hour, I'll consider beating Bastion sooner than later, which will last around 8 hours for the main campaign according to HowLongToBeat.

Ok, picked my first game: Life is Strange (Complete Season). It falls in the "started but never completed" category because I played episode 1 years ago and never circled back. Will be back with my thoughts.