BLAEO — Backlog Assassins Extraordinaire

Super Blood Hockey

24 hours playtime

33 of 33 achievements
The Last Campfire

7 hours playtime

22 of 22 achievements
Witcheye

5 hours playtime

13 of 25 achievements
Wildfire

20 hours playtime

40 of 60 achievements
OlliOlli World

22 hours playtime

31 of 54 achievements

January

Another new year begins and the continued war on my backlog continues. After a brief period at 48% completion I dropped back to 47% during January as I started a few new games that have dragged my stats down. I’ve been using BLAEO since 2017 and while there is a clear improvement in the percentage of beaten and completed games over the years, recently I’ve been adding more games too and the number of unplayed/unfinished isn’t changing much (I update the stats in my BLAEO profile each month/year so it’s easy to see).

Today was a mixed month. Time off work and access to the Deck increased my playtime a bit, so I was able to beat/complete quite a few games, but I also added to my library. The most surprising of these additions came from BLAEO itself! I voted in the Game Awards 2022 on the site as I do every year and then kind of forgot about it until I was informed that I won a game from the winners list. So, thank you again Skanda. I opted for Hardspace Shipbuilder, a game that I’ve been interested in for a while but never took the plunge and bought.

Work is about to get busy. There’s be at least 2 weeks with lots of work and probably quite a lot of unpaid overtime (working from home while there’s construction going on at the office and overtime won’t be logged!). Hopefully, I can take a few breaks during the day to balance things a little, but I imagine my gaming time will drop a little. My side jobs are busy at the moment too - Good for my wallet but not for gaming.

Onto this month’s games:

Steam

Super Blood Hockey

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A rare sports game in my library. I picked this up in 2020 on a whim and enjoyed it, but never really stuck with it. I got a Steam Deck in December and this was one of the games I thought would be good on the move. I’m resisting using it in all my free time, but it’s nice to occasionally play on a train or in a different room in my apartment (I can pretend to be more sociable!).

I played on Easy mode (no difficulty-related achievements and I’m basically not a skilled gamer!). Once I worked out a few strategies to score, I could win a fair number of games and with a bit more practice I was winning most of them. It looks like a simple game, but there are quite a few things to consider - player stats, type of player, health, training, drug use, etc.

For achievements most of my time was in career mode, I guess. Then the tournament mode, which I needed to win with every team. The final two achievements that took me a while were 100 wins (just amassing them rather than difficulty) and having 3 fatalities in the same game - this required brain-damaged players, a certain play style, and me starving them a bit to ensure some serious injuries!

I’m quite surprised that in total I only played about 5 hours, but as most of the matches were pretty short I guess it makes sense. 100% of achievements and into the Completed category.

The Last Campfire

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Fairly recent acquisition and another game that I thought would be good on the Deck. Better graphics than the pixelated Super Blood Hockey, so the Deck’s fans were whirring away a few times but on the whole, it was pretty quiet and it ran very well.

The game looks really nice. Kind of cute graphics. The game itself is pretty simple. Wander around finding puzzles, solve the puzzles, and go to a new area. There were a handful of puzzles that caused me some problems. Some trial and error and a few times I just stopped and stared a bit before the eureka moment hit!

Witcheye

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Had this on my wishlist and received it as a gift just after Christmas. Fun little game. Kind of a platformer but you’re a floating eye, so there are no real platforms or jumps. Hmm…. adventure then, that works.

The control scheme takes a bit of getting used to. You push a direction and the eye continues on that path until you press a button to stop it or push in another direction. Simple, but pretty different from other games. I kept forgetting that there was a stop button!

Reading through the reviews, I saw claims that you should go straight to ‘hard’ as easy was too…easy. I guess I’m worse at gaming than I thought! A lot of levels are pretty easy once you know the enemy’s patterns. I guess I got through about half of them on the first try but when I met a tricker level or boss, there was quite a bit of repetition. I was going for all collectibles, which meant I had to search a bit more (and got killed more!) and it took me over 5 hours to beat the game on ‘easy’. I should probably try it on hard, but as there’s a ‘severe’ mode, boss rush, and speedrun modes, there’s no way I’m going to 100% this one. So, a respectable 52% and into the beaten category for now.

Wildfire

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Another game I played on the Steam Deck. A pixel platformer stealth game. Picked this up based on the look of it and positive reviews really. I didn’t know much about it.

With most stealth games, I take the least stealthy option. So, basically, I ignore the stealth part whenever possible just because I find it easier and more fun. I played this game in a similar way. The nice thing about it was stealth was not a requirement to beat any of the levels, it was more of an added achievement to gain skills or level up. Each level has a main objective, an optional objective, stealth, and a speedrun goal.

While I got a few of the stealth and speedrun goals in the early, easier, levels I won’t be able to get the later ones. There are co-op achievements too, so no chance of me getting 100%. The main story has been completed, the credit screen has been viewed and I am categorizing this as beaten with 66% of achievements.

Olliollie World

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I have the original OlliOlli game but was never very good at it and didn’t get very far. I don’t remember if it has the same control scheme, if it does I should probably go back and try and play a little more.

This was much more fun than the original. It’s a completely different style, with prettier graphics, but it felt less infuriating. The gradual introduction of different controls and level elements as you progress worked well for me and kept me interested. There are a crazy amount of achievements. I’m sitting at 57% at the moment. While some of the remaining achievements will be difficult….very difficult…or even impossible for me to get, there are some that just need time to put in more hours and they’ll come with normal play.

I really liked the visuals, the music was pretty good and while it gets tougher as you progress through the levels, it never felt like I needed the reflexes of a teenager to beat them. Just a little practice and remembering where hazards are. The challenges and the online, daily ‘league’ competition mean there’s a lot of playtime still left here.

I’ll probably keep this installed for a while and dip into it every now and then. It’s good for a quick game or two and I’m not sick of it yet. It won’t be one of my main focuses though and as I’ve completed the main game, I’ll classify this as beaten and just chip away at a few other achievements for a while, I think.

Backlog Additions

A perfect storm of sales, gifts, wins, and trades means I added nine games to my account!Two of these are in my list of assassinations this month, but still a bad start to the year.

The games are - Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Rebel Cops, Imposter Factory, BattleChef Brigade, Witcheye, OlliOlli World, Grounded, Zero Sievert, and Travellers Rest.