Noble Gamer

January 2020 Progress Report

I don’t know that I’m going to do mid-month updates like I used to, but I’m definitely motivated to share my backlog progress each month. This can help me avoid the feeling I had during part of last year that I was spending a lot of time writing or chatting about games compared to the time I am actually playing them.

Stats

Most of my new games I blame on the Humble Australia Relief bundle, but I’m happy that I beat nearly half the games I played this month.

818 games (+51)
75% / 614 never played (+38 games)
9% / 71 unfinished (+0%, +5 games)
12% / 95 beaten (-1%, +7 games)
1% / 11 completed
4% / 29 won’t play (+1%, +3 games)

On-Going Games

    Divinity: Original Sin 2

    Divinity: Original Sin 2

    9 hours playtime

    Started Chapter 2 in a way I didn’t expect, which consisted of fighting teleporting frogs and pulling a spear out of a talking skeleton.  Need to play this more often with a friend of mine.

    Motorsport Manager

    Motorsport Manager

    26 hours playtime

    Trying to save up money for a new factory building is tough when you can’t win a spot in the top 3 of any race.  Balancing that with upgrading parts to stay in the Top 8 so your team can make good money is tough.  Its a great sim, but it does so well simulating things that all that’s left is for me to grind a bunch of races until I raise funds for a new factory building.  I think I’ll pause this until I get an itch to play a sports management sim again.

Beaten

    Unrailed!

    Unrailed!

    5 hours playtime

    Multiplayer-only real time train track builder with train car management between checkpoints. Simple core mechanics with a variety of random extra train cars to choose from. Will definitely play again after it releases out of early access.

    Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition - The Card Warriors

    Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition - The Card Warriors

    55 minutes playtime

    Limited gameplay and broken online play made me refund this game to Steam. Each 1v1 “fight” is 10 rounds of Blackjack played against the house, and whoever wins the most vs house wins. AI is often dumb in betting big and losing early, though it doesnt make incorrect hit/stand card plays.

    SYNTHETIK

    SYNTHETIK

    14 hours playtime
    no achievements

    A unique top down shooter that trades in traditional twin stick bullet hell for variable weapon accuracy based on movement, unlocks over time, the occasional limited time OP experimental weapon, and weapon & ability shops in-game. Roguelike with procedural levels, enemies, and the occasional in-level side mission works pretty well. There’s a variety of abilities & classes for almost any play style, and plenty of unlocks makes progression more tangible.  The gameplay became more addictive than I expected.

    Her Story

    Her Story

    9 hours playtime

    Video based narrative where the gameplay consists of keyword searches to pull up interrogation clips based on their transcripts. Unique story telling and decent twists for me which hinged on which videos you find & watch at various points, while leaving things up to your interpretation. I revealed enough videos for the game to show a prompt that effectively allows the game to “end”. The game should have a mature rating for its descriptions of some sexual and violent stuff, plus some language.

    Battle Chef Brigade

    Battle Chef Brigade

    14 hours playtime

    The most polished Match 3 hybrid game I’ve seen - A must play on sale for fans of Match 3 games or competitive cooking TV shows. Cooking matches consist of an action platformer where you kill monsters and gather what they drop as ingredients, then you arrange, cook, and mix the ingredients. They took the battle chef gameplay concepts almost as far as they can go, just short of having online multiplayer.

Revisited

    Slay the Spire

    Slay the Spire

    56 hours playtime

    I revisited this roguelite deck builder to play through with the new 4th character, the Watcher. Its a stance driven character with some new unique abilities. I enjoyed playing with them just as much as the other characters, but couldn’t beat the game with it like I did with two other characters.

Stuck/Paused

    Retool

    Retool

    2 hours playtime

    A truly indie third person puzzle game with hacking and stealth mechanics. Nothing fancy, but hardly buggy either. Interesting puzzles, though frustrating at times.

    TERRORHYTHM (TRRT)

    TERRORHYTHM (TRRT)

    65 minutes playtime

    Hard to recommend this to anyone but the most hardcore of rhythm games, in the spirit of one finger death punch. Gameplay variety was meh, and hit & miss with my own music. The lowest 2 difficulties are too different for me to be consistently happy with either of them.

    Gunman Tales

    Gunman Tales

    75 minutes playtime

    Fun retro arcade shooter that’s better to play with/against friends. Its really difficult regardless of control scheme, and the map is pretty buggy. Also, it has the best western theme song ever.

Won’t Play

    Beholder 2

    Beholder 2

    16 hours playtime

    The Beta and full version interested me as someone who appreciated the first Beholder, but this is very different. I do prefer that almost everything in B2 is not time sensitive, whereas Beholder seemed to have a time sensitive ending. You play a “choose the right form” mini game to make money, while balancing that with other favors and things that advance the story while you survive, get promoted, and learn more about people. After doing a thing or two for your boss, the game gets a lot more graphic than the first game. I guess I’m not in an emotional place right now where I want to deal with the huge blatant dystopian despair depicted in this game, which seems to surpass that of the first one.

    ШП (ShP)

    ШП (ShP)

    6 hours playtime
    no achievements

    I’m not hardcore into puzzles, so I had to pass on trying to play this more, as its trying to determine patterns and cause/effect out of a bunch of nonsense.

Started Playing

    DESYNC

    DESYNC

    4 hours playtime

    A really challenging FPS with fixed spawns for each stage in a level. Great for people who like leaderboards or a real FPS challenge.  Really nails a retroish tron-type vibe.  Decent progression, unlocking various character & weapon mods or abilities. Hoping not to get stuck later on a level.

    Bomber Crew

    Bomber Crew

    11 hours playtime

    My first combat sim/management game in quite some time. I enjoy fighter plane games, though I rarely play them, so I’m enjoying it so far.  Though the controls take some getting used to for moving the crew around to the right places within the bomber plane. There’s a variety of different outfits, plane parts, and crew abilities that mix things up.

February queue

If I get through these games earlier than expected, then I’ll pull from my most anticipated games to play this year.

robilar5500

With the Watcher, if you get a good back and forth going between calm and rage, she is pretty unbeatable, and especially if you spend some time on the first map and try to beat some elites to snag more relics. That said, she is a bit more reliant on favorable RNG than, say Defect, who is probably the least reliant on RNG with those orbs in play.

Noble Gamer

With the Watcher, if you get a good back and forth going between calm and rage

For sure, that makes it important to get more stance, scry, and/or draw cards to cycle through the draw pile.

she is a bit more reliant on favorable RNG than, say Defect, who is probably the least reliant on RNG with those orbs in play.

Agreed, the Watcher is more dependent on your deck building skills in order to mitigate the affects & risks of RNG.