EvilBlackSheep

February’s Stats

aka. Another fail against the backlog

Hi fellow assassins!

Another month is over, and I hope it’s been good for you. For me, it was a bit better than January, but still not where I wish it would be. My mood’s been a bit meh from the ongoing IRL stuff from January, plus the fact that I had to cancel my week long visit to GF because of the apocalyptic weather we had this week. Thankfully it’s just delayed to next month (well this month now) and it’s a first world problem, but still it sucked.

On the plus side, I’ve been playing some good games this month, and I really liked the teaming up challenge, it was interesting to talk about the games as we progressed. I also kept going with my reading backlog so not all was lost. So many good indie games are getting released theses days, it’s a struggle not to splurge but I’ve been mostly doing good. My wishlist has not. I’ve been slow on the ABC challenge this month but it’s still ongoing and I hope I’ll do better next month.

How was February for you, any good games you played?


Played Finished Completed Backlog+ Achievements
18 12 8 17 166

EvilBlackSheep
Backlog of Doom

ABC Challenge Progress (19/26)

Finished this month: 1 (Booh!)

23% never played
4% unfinished
38% beaten
35% completed

Most Satisfying Finish

Most Exciting Addition

  • Viridi

    5 hours playtime

    47 of 47 achievements

  • Lines

    6 hours playtime

    18 of 26 achievements

  • Dungetris

    11 hours playtime

    32 of 32 achievements

  • Beglitched

    9 hours playtime

    no achievements

  • Dust and Salt

    5 hours playtime

    10 of 29 achievements

  • LIMBO

    4 hours playtime

    12 of 13 achievements

  • The Norwood Suite

    2 hours playtime

    17 of 17 achievements

  • Dishonored

    27 hours playtime

    34 of 80 achievements

  • Tacoma

    4 hours playtime

    12 of 12 achievements

  • Solitaire Beach Season

    47 hours playtime

    21 of 21 achievements

  • Quest for Infamy

    13 hours playtime

    33 of 59 achievements

  • Gremlins, Inc.

    9 hours playtime

    11 of 100 achievements

  • Fidel Dungeon Rescue

    6 hours playtime

    8 of 23 achievements

  • Fantasy Quest Solitaire

    13 hours playtime

    16 of 16 achievements

  • Gomo

    2 hours playtime

    no achievements

  • FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE

    5 hours playtime

    3 of 41 achievements

  • Papers, Please - The Short Film

    11 minutes playtime

    no achievements

  • Into the Breach

    3 hours playtime

    3 of 55 achievements

Dungetris

11 hours playtime, 32 of 32 achievements

Fun little dungeon crawler where you build the dungeons with tetris-like pieces and have to then progress to it and fill the level's specific objective. Nothing mind blowing but it was light to run and fun to play for the few hours I put into it.

LIMBO

4 hours playtime, 12 of 13 achievements

Played it for a challenge-type event, and it was pretty good. It actually made me want to play Inside, which I'll try to do soon. Very minimalistic art style, yet beautiful and sad. Somebody who had played Inside first thought told me they were disappointed, so better play them in order if you have both.

The Norwood Suite

2 hours playtime, 17 of 17 achievements

Played with Kaleith for the team assassin challenge. Honestly the jury is still not out on this one, my main reaction being: "WTF did I play". Definitely an "experience", not sure if to recommend or not.

Tacoma

3 hours playtime, 12 of 12 achievements

Another game from February's HB monthly that I played with Kaleith. This one was really great and it's a big recommendation if you're into walking simulator with a few puzzles/clue seeking. I loved the whole environment, the characters and the story you put back together itself. One of the highlights of this month.

Dust and Salt

4 hours playtime, 10 of 29 achievements

Dust and Salt is a great "choose your own adventure" game with a lot of reading involved, and some tactical strategy battles to resolve some of the situations. Since I love both it was a great experience, but if you go into it, be aware that there is way more to read than the few battles there is to fight. It does have some replayability, but the main complain I do have about it is that it's pretty short (it's not too expensive though) and it ends in a sort of cliffanger that I was not expecting. If you're mainly looking for a tactics game, that might not be what you should get though, look more into The banner saga or Tahira.

Viridi

5 hours playtime, 47 of 47 achievements

I can't believe I finally got the last achievement I was missing in Viridi. Even though I'm done I keep launching the game a few minutes every day or two to take care of my succulents. I'm kinda attached to my little plant pot now. If you've never tried it and want something really soothing to do, give it a try, it's free to play.

Dishonored

27 hours playtime, 34 of 80 achievements

A huge thank you to Queen Nin for finally motivating me to replay this along with her. It was as good as I remembered and I had a lot of fun to do a completely stealth run. At first, I thought I had screwed the no kill condition by getting rid of the assassins in the prologue, so it was really a huge bonus surprise to see the clean hands cheevo pop up along the others when completing the game. I still have to play the DLCs because I got a bit distracted by FFXII after I was done playing the main story, but I'll get back to it quickly as I want to experience that never played content (I only had the base game on 360).

Fidel Dungeon Rescue

8 hours playtime, 8 of 23 achievements

Another puzzle game where you go through a dungeon as a cute little dog, the trick being you have to score a certain number of points to open the door, but you can't step twice on the same spot. It was really fun, and not as easy as you'd think seeing the cute game design. I'll probably keep playing this one for a bit more as I have still things to unlock and puzzles to solve. Worth the try if you like good puzzle games.

Gomo

2 hours playtime, no achievements

A short and cute point and click from Daedalic that actually reminded me of Amanita Design's games, but sadly not as good. It wasn't bad either, just quite simple. Thanks to Narayan for picking it for me in the January/February challenge me thread.

Fantasy Quest Solitaire

13 hours playtime, 16 of 16 achievements

A friend gave me a key for this game at the beginning of the month, and as I was just done with the disappointing Solitaire beach season that I reviewed last month, I thought I'd give it a try immediately. What a great change. This one was actually a great solitaire game with pleasant graphics and few other casual games stages in between (some of which I liked, some of which I didn't, but the solitaire was really the main part of the game). A recommended one if you're looking for a casual card game to pass time.

Quest for Infamy

ABC 12 hours playtime, 33 of 59 achievements

I really wanted to like this one, which is why I had put it on my ABC challenge list, but sadly the only reason I kept playing was because it was a SG win. Be aware if you're gonna play it that the regular version on steam is bugged when it comes to achievements unlocks, and that you need to install the beta to fix that, but the saves are not compatible between the versions. I found it the hard way, and that was the first time I had to restart. The devs promised an update long ago, but they never delivered, the steam version being seemingly abandoned. The second time I lost my save was kind of my own fault, but it wasn't really clear that you could die starving if you don't have food in your inventory when you wake up, and I had save just after my character woke up because I had to stop playing, resulting of the save reloading just before my character instantly died (and the other was corrupted because of the non-beta). Second fail, and that was past the middle of the story. After that, I just followed along a guide because I was mostly over with the whole thing, but didn't wanna give up a SG win. Can't recommend with the amount of frustration it gave me, but at least the writing was funny.

Papers, Please - The Short Film

11 minutes playtime, no achievements

This was not a game but a movie, and it got added and completed the same day. If you have played Papers, please, I can't recommend enough you check out this short movie. It's both available on Steam and on Youtube (the steam player being still not really the best thing) and it's only 11 min long, but it's really well made. It did make me want to go back to the game actually, so that might happen in the near future.

  • Dust and Salt

    5 hours playtime

    10 of 29 achievements

  • Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 13 achievements

  • FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE

    5 hours playtime

    3 of 41 achievements

  • Tacoma

    4 hours playtime

    12 of 12 achievements

  • The Norwood Suite

    2 hours playtime

    17 of 17 achievements

  • Treasure Adventure World

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 27 achievements

  • Gone Home

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 10 achievements

  • Kingdom of Aurelia: Mystery of the Poisoned Dagger

    0 minutes playtime

    no achievements

  • Fall of the New Age Premium Edition

    0 minutes playtime

    no achievements

  • Snowball!

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 9 achievements

  • Fantasy Quest Solitaire

    13 hours playtime

    16 of 16 achievements

  • Nantucket

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 25 achievements

  • Kingdom Rush Frontiers

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 84 achievements

  • Papers, Please - The Short Film

    11 minutes playtime

    no achievements

  • Dungeon Rushers

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 25 achievements

  • Into the Breach

    3 hours playtime

    3 of 55 achievements

  • Pixel Cup Soccer 17

    0 minutes playtime

    0 of 85 achievements

= SG win - = Gift or Other Win
escollo

Congrats on assassinating so many games.
Btw, look who I met in credits of Oxenfree.

EvilBlackSheep

Thanks! And awwww :3 (I remember I met Nordh too). Did you enjoy the game?

escollo

Yeup, a lot. It is awesome game. There was a problem with text bubbles, ‘cause they disappeared before I could understand them. But I just installed pirate Russian version over my Steam, so I got acceptable localization XD
Also I have to beat it 3 more times for the rest cheevos and ending that’ll break whole time loop. I don’t fully understand how to get it, but I read it is in the game.

EvilBlackSheep

Yeah I still have to go back to it for another playthrough for the “true” ending

skanda

Wait, what? :o

escollo

It’s magic

Trent

12/13 achievements in Limbo in 4 hours! That’s impressive! =)

EvilBlackSheep

It’s a pretty short game and I died a lot. Hence i’ll never get the missing cheevo (you need to finish the whole game dying less than 5 times)

escollo

It’s not very hard. Just finish game few times and you’ll avoid the most of the traps easily. Timing in gravity puzzles at the end could be hard, but it’s not very hard too

EvilBlackSheep

I don’t think I have the patience to replay this several time to learn the pattern though, it was ok but not THAT much (mostly because i don’t love plateformers if I have to play them too long)

Trent

Steam says it took me nine hours, and I didn’t get the DING! achievement (hidden egg in the dark, iirc).
Then again, I suck at these games. :p

EvilBlackSheep

That one was such a pain. It took me almost an hour alone just to get that last hidden egg. ;___;

Formidolosus

Fidel dungeon rescue, up the list.
Quest for infamy, down.
And yes the papers please is unquestionably the best video game movie ever. The only one that has ever managed to properly capture the spirit of the game.

EvilBlackSheep

papers please is unquestionably the best video game movie ever

Agreed, that was basically my review on steam! I wish they’d make a full feature movie out of it, but maybe it wouldn’t be so good.

Kaleith

The only games I played from this month’s report are those we played together soooo… yeah :3
I wonder what you’ll have to say about Beglitched, maybe next month?

Also, I got mentioned in 100% of the reports this year, I should start asking for royalties

EvilBlackSheep

I’m still playing Beglitched, it’s way more challenging than I first thought, but it’s really enjoyable. Hopefully I’ll be done by the end of the month and write about it in the next report yes, but in any case it’s not abandonned.

Or maybe should I charge you for the free advertisement?

Kaleith

Or maybe should I charge you for the free advertisement?

Trilled Meow

I didn’t know there was a film about Papers, Please. Interesting. I sucked at the game even after printing out a cheat sheet, but I know that was kind of on purpose to add to the oppressive atmosphere.

And that’s too bad about Quest for Infamy. It’s on my ABC list too, and I played it a little like a year ago. Hopefully I’ll remember to keep your misfortune with starvation in mind.

EvilBlackSheep

It just got out this past week I think! It’s really short, check it out.

If you install the beta first and remember to always have food in your inventory before you go to bed (which is explained nowhere), you should be good. It’s not bad in itself and the writing is funny sometimes, I just got really frustrated with it.

Adelion

Hmm. So there is some kind of “beta” patch that ALL achievements are gonna work in Quest for Infamy? What about already unlocked in-game achievements? Can I get them again? I started playing the game and after one or two hours I unlocked the first in-game achievement which didn’t trigger in Steam. I stopped at that moment because I don’t like to support lazy attitude from developers. But it is a SG win so I could be arsed to return if there is a work around. Can you help me Sheep?

Also the last Limbo achievement isn’t that hard but certainly annoying. With 5 deaths it is more generous than some other games. I think the problem between Inside and Limbo is that while similar they have different emphasis. Limbo certainly is heavier on all sides concerning action, execution and puzzles. And puzzles also give a better aha effect although they rely a bit to heavy on trial by death. Inside is more about the “trip” although it seems to have a rater giant meta puzzle.

EvilBlackSheep

So, the password and details of the beta version for steam are available here. Sadly, it doesn’t work retroactively AND the save from the main branch isn’t compatible so you have to restart anyway (hence my first restart). If it hadn’t been a SG win, I would have dropped it to be honest. I hate that the devs are still active on their own forum but they dropped the steam version after promising a version 2.0 (basically a finished version of the available beta) about 2 years ago and then just disappeared. Shit attitude all around.

Adelion

Well, I knew about the version 2.0 and was also in their forum. But I didn’t have the feeling that they were active even there. At least in the Quest for Infamy sub-forum. I think they are working on some kind of other game right now. Starting anew would be no problem as I am at the beginning. But if I understand correctly that one already unlocked in-game achievement is unobtainable now?
But yea, I understand if they don’t have time or ressource but stopping communication without prior addressing of such problems is annoying.

EvilBlackSheep

I had no problem with that, as since you restart from a clean save, nothing has been unlocked. Or at least I didn’t encounter the problem (but i’ve only done one playthrough so i didn’t 100% it yet. That being said, I unlocked the cheevos that didn’t unlock on steam with the non-beta version, if that’s your question)

Adelion

Hm, I am still a bit confused. But I might be willing to take another look at this game. As soon as I finished the stuff which brings me more enjoyment :P

EvilBlackSheep

All you need to remember is install the beta before you start playing again. (And remember to always have food in your inventory before going to bed, unlike i did)