Hello, all. This is my January 2017 “monthly report.” Please see my profile for more info.

All of the games I’ve played this month are listed here. I’d like to highlight most of them below:

Completed/Beaten games

• Face Noir
  

  15 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Papo & Yo
  

  13 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Cross of the Dutchman
  

  11 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

• Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek
  

  11 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Snail Bob 2
  

  8 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

• Over The Hills And Far Away
  

  7 hours playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Refunct
  

  88 minutes playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

Other notable progress

• Marblize
  

  7 hours playtime

  no achievements

• ABZU
  

  2 hours playtime

  4 of 12 achievements

A few notes on this month's games

• I was able to accomplish a bit more in the battle against the backlog considering that large chunks of my weekends were spent watching US NFL Football.
• Only one of the games I played this month was a Steamgifts wins. Two others were gifts, though.
• I played 5 out of the 9 games with (e.g., with an audience of) my 5-year-old twins. Papo & Yo and Enigmatis had a couple scary/spooky sections, but not that bad. Sometimes I’ll say, “maybe this game is too scary for you,” and they break into, “Nooooo! It’s not, daddy!” =)

Face Noir (SG win)

Face Noir was selected by LadyNarayan for the “Play or Pay” challenge from The QUIPS/Beardtopia. It was one of my first SG wins (8th overall). It’s a good, solid game…kind of a throwback even. It feels more like a game released in 2007 instead of 2013, which is both good and bad. Good story, lots of content IMO, but slow walking, low-resolution, and awkward 3D elements. It had a great noir ambiance. It was definitely worth playing.

Papo & Yo

Thanks again, LadyNarayan for a great suggestion! I bought it a long time ago in my pre-SG days, and had it on my Itching to Play list. As I’ve said elsewhere, it was a little strange playing a game about an alcoholic, abusive father with my kids. Fortunately, though, they had no idea…they just thought it was about a boy, his rocket toy, and a monster. There were some fun moments when there were some close calls as the monster chased me around, but I’m not anticipating any nightmares. Also, this game is notable as I’m getting more and more of the kids wanting to take the controller and play (particularly my daughter). They’re not satisfied with just pressing the button to open treasure chests and whatnot. It was just a matter of time, but the fact is they’re really still too young to play most of these games.

Cross of the Dutchman

Fun little action/adventure with some RPG elements, nice little story, fun cartoonish art style. Good for kids viewing. Apparently it’s based on a true story. There were a couple “stealth elements” that were okay, but a departure from the rest of the game. The worst was a timed stealth section…worst for me that is. I’m pretty slow in a normal game, but in a stealth game? Molasses. My only critiques of the game were the save/checkpoint system and it was hard to tell where you could or couldn’t walk based on the landscape– during a timed stealth sequence I’d seem to get blocked by blade of grass or a twig in the road. :P

Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek

This is the first in the trilogy…an older one, but it’s nice that it doesn’t have 350 collectibles to find if you want to achieve 100% completion. Love playing these games with my kids.

Snail Bob 2

Cute little puzzle-platformer. Really quite easy, and not even too hard to control. I’m planning on letting my kids replay it by themselves and I’ll only jump in when they’re stuck or have trouble with a timed element. There’s supposed to be a fifth chapter, but it hasn’t come out yet. I always worry about these things…

Over The Hills And Far Away (gift)

I’m not big into visual novels, but this one looked pretty good, so I had it on my wishlist and my QUIPS Secret Santa chose it for me. Thanks, Muthaf*ckinRick! Nice story, albeit with a predictable ending.

Refunct

Picked it up in the Humble Bundle, and decided to play it right away since it was so short. I actually really liked it. It has minor parkour elements and was a fun little platformer.

Marblize

Picked it up in the Indiegala bundle, and started giving it a shot since it had no achievements. I’ve sort of been on a quest for marble-type games, but the fact is I suck at them. :P This one looks polished graphically, but it lacks polish in controller support and other ways. I got through the first “world” and overall found it pretty fun, albeit challenging for me. It would be fun to watch a real ace play this game. Lots of collectibles and other goals to make it more challenging for the pros. At this point, I’ve essentially abandoned it. I got what I wanted out of it.

ABZU (gift)

Another “Play or Pay” selection, and another Secret Santa gift. :P Not too far into it yet– will discuss in next month’s update. But it’s taking me a while to get used to the controls– no doubt a problem with the player, not the game.

Plan for January

See my Attack Plan. I plan to finish ABZU. I keep putting off Black Sails for one reason or another– but once again, I intend to play it this month. I recently won Stories: The Path of Destinies, so I’ll probably play this one soon with my kids…Feb or March.