December 2023 - The Gift of Games

Games played this month

• Manifold Garden
  

  10 hours playtime

  25 of 25 achievements

• Two Digits
  

  7 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• A Little to the Left
  

  4 hours playtime

  41 of 55 achievements

• Beat Saber
  

  17 hours playtime

  17 of 26 achievements

• Pony Island
  

  2 hours playtime

  12 of 20 achievements

• RISK: Global Domination
  

  5 hours playtime

  14 of 55 achievements

• Tabletop Simulator
  

  16 hours playtime

  11 of 27 achievements

• The Jackbox Party Pack 4
  

  9 hours playtime

  9 of 20 achievements

• Bloons TD 6
  

  19 hours playtime

  25 of 150 achievements

• Gun Rocket
  

  63 minutes playtime

  no achievements

• Stardew Valley
  

  70 hours playtime

  17 of 40 achievements

Gameplay Summary

This month has been a lot of fun. It has has the most variety, the most achievements, and the second-most gameplay time of the year. I am incredibly thankful that I got to spend a good portion of my down time from work being able to knock out some backlog entries and make progress on longer games, and I hope that I will be able to continue the progress going into the new year. I will be providing a year-end summary of my 2023 game progress, so stay tuned.

Completed: Manifold Garden

After beating the game last month, it was an absolute treat to complete the last couple achievements for this game. I can honestly say it is one of my favorite games of all time, and I highly recommend it. Though I did use a hint-based guide for the no god cube playthrough, it was a challenge and fun nonetheless.

Completed: Two Digits

To round out the year completing an SG win, I gave this puzzle game a go. Technically, I could have written a script to auto-solve the levels for me, but I decided to try it without cheating. I was successful. It is a nice little game with a simple concept, and it’s only a few dollars. It’s worth a try if you like math-based puzzles.

Beaten: A Little to the Left

My mom convinced me to purchase this puzzle game which we have nicknamed “OCD Simulator,” and I have had some great fun speedrunning it after both of us working through it (mostly me watching her play). The concept is simple, but the puzzles give a fair challenge at times. So far, I have beaten the main campaign and began completing the daily challenges. I will continue working through the daily challenges over the next few months (there is an achievement for 100 daily challenges) and later complete the Cupboards and Drawers DLC. This is another game I recommend if you enjoy puzzles.

In Progress Completion: Beat Saber

I spent a little bit of time on this to get some cardio in, but not much to report. I mostly played a few of my favorites before stopping from working up a sweat and reaching a heart rate of 200+. You can expect to see this pop up in later months, especially when I try the OST 6 next month.

Beaten: Pony Island

My friend purchased me this long wishlisted title, and boy is it an interesting game. I have done a first playthrough, but I need to do another pass to get the remaining achievements, which I intend to do as part of January’s gaming. It is a great game, and I recommend it.

Beaten: RISK: Global Domination

My brother convinced me to get this free to play title to play with him, and it is actually a lot of fun. It’s the Risk game from Hasbro that we know and love, but it also includes dozens of unique maps, and premium is inexpensive if you want to play regularly without ads or limited play. My only gripe is that if you play with cross-platform progression, achievements do not sync. If you want achievements on Steam, you need to play on Steam.

In Progress Completion: Tabletop Simulator

This month didn’t see too much activity for TTS, except for an almost 1.5 hour session of chess to earn one of the achievements, with a bonus for not being able to flip the table. I’ll revisit this later during achievement hunting.

In Progress Completion: The Jackbox Party Pack 4

Once again, I had a session of Jackbox with my coworkers for our final virtual happy hour of the year. We played Fibbage 3 Enough About You, where we learned some interesting facts about each other. It’s a fun little getting to know you version of Fibbage, and I earned another achievement out of it.

In Progress: Bloons TD 6

Another month of playing with my friend in co-op matches. I was able to make some progress, though no achievements were earned this month. We tried battling a boss bloon again, and after that I worked on earning badges in easy maps to get an achievement, though that is still in progress.

In Progress: Gun Rocket

This was a win that I thought I could try to knock out this month, though it is proving much more difficult than I anticipated, and I expect it will take some time to complete. It is a 2D game styled and played like old Flash games, but it is incredibly difficult. Unfortunately, I only made it through most of the second set of levels out of 10, so this one may take me some time and patience to complete. We shall see how this goes in a later month, but I am leaving it unfinished for the time being.

In Progress: Stardew Valley

I only played this for a short time with my sister, and since we were starting a brand new world, I didn’t make progress toward any unearned achievements. Not much to report on this front.