January’s Stats
aka. Not a very good start
Fellow Assassins, I have to confess that January’s not been the best in my fight against the backlog. Well in general to tell the truth and it impacted my gaming. In the end I mostly played casual stuff apart from 2 really great games for the monthly theme, thanks to the added motivation (hey Kaleith!), just because I just wanted to keep my mind away from real life problems and the added anxiety they generated. At least on the plus side, I started to go through my book backlog and finished as many books in january alone than I did in the whole last year, so that’s something.
How about you, how’s your start of 2018 been?
| Played | Finished | Completed | Backlog+ | Achievements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 7 | 3 | 17 | 121 |
ABC Challenge Progress (18/26)
Finished this month: 3Most Satisfying Finish
Most Exciting Addition
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Viridi
5 hours playtime
44 of 47 achievements
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FreeCell Quest
111 hours playtime
36 of 36 achievements
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Over The Hills And Far Away
2 hours playtime
8 of 8 achievements
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Night in the Woods
15 hours playtime
12 of 31 achievements
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Reigns: Her Majesty
5 hours playtime
4 of 13 achievements
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LEGO® Jurassic World
29 hours playtime
35 of 49 achievements
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Lines
6 hours playtime
18 of 26 achievements
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Rakuen
13 hours playtime
15 of 15 achievements
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Beglitched
3 hours playtime
no achievements
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Solitaire Beach Season
26 hours playtime
13 of 21 achievements
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Dungetris
7 hours playtime
27 of 32 achievements
I started the month with this short VN that was picked for me in the previous Challenge Me! by uguleley. The story takes place during the war of 1812 in North America and follows a wounded soldier gone rogue and a young Shawnee girl. Their paths cross when they both take shelter from the pouring rain in an abandonned barn. I won't go more in details about the plot as I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but even though it was short, it was an interesting and moving story. I definitely recommend it if you like VN for something other than boobs.
Reigns: Her Majesty
5 hours playtime, 4 of 13 achievements
This is the sequel to Reigns and if you played the first one, you know what you're in for gameplay wise. It's the same "Swipe right or left to decide and keep everyone happy but not too happy" mecanics, and it's as tricky as the first one to keep things well in balance. It's even more weird and full of 4th wall breaking moments than the original, and it's fun to pass time. Might wanna consider getting in on mobile instead though, as it's the perfect game when you're stuck somewhere and have 5 mins to kill. Recommended if you want more of the original.
First of the two games Kaleith and I picked for this month teaming event, and boy was it a good one. I had heard great things about this game, but it still managed to exceed my expectations. The design is really cool, the music is good, the characters are really interesting and well written and a lot of them have a back story if you care to look for it. This one is gonna probably make it to the 2018 top favorite, and it's hard to say that in January only. Big recommandation.
FreeCell Quest
110 hours playtime, 36 of 36 achievements
The amount of hours put into this game is probably highly inaccurate as I had it running either in the background or when I was even away from the PC, but I have to admit this game as a LOT of content for a casual freecell/solitaire game. So sure, it's not ground breaking but it was exactly what I was looking for when I got this. So if you want a freecell game with RPG elements, this one is a good pick, and it's packed with content.
Lines
5 hours playtime, 18 of 26 achievements
It's a nice little zen puzzle game, but some times it's a bit unforgiving/random to my taste. I don't have much else to say about it and I don't really give it a recommandation nor a "stay away it's awful". It's more that I think there is way better puzzle games around in steam.
The second game we picked for the monthly theme, and it was another really great one. The game is extremely cute and kind of poetic in a way, but don't let this fool you, it will play with your feels. It's the story of a boy who's hospitalized and travels to the fantasy universe of the book his mom is reading him. At the same time, you also learn the backstory for all the other patients in his floor as he tries to help them get closure. I won't get into more details but it's such a touching story wrapped in an insanely cute universe that I recommend it highly. Like Kaleith told me as we were discussing this and Night in the Woods, how are we gonna be able to top those games?
Solitaire Beach Season
26 hours playtime, 13 of 21 achievements
This game was the big disappointement of the month (and I was expecting so little out of it). First of all, this is not really a solitaire game but a match 2 (like mahjong with cards?) while I was expecting more something in the mecanics of Chef Solitaire. My second big problem with the game is that it seems like extremely random in the set up of each stage to the point of not checking if the thing is actually solvable. And I don't just mean oh that card is on top of the same card it needs to be paired up with so i'm stuck, but even sometimes not having the correct numbers of pairs (Literally there is no unturned cards on the board, yet there is no card in your pile or on the board matching the last gold card...). I got it for a few cents in a bundle, and finished it for the sake of it but I definitely don't recommend it, there is way better solitaire games on steam.
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What Remains of Edith Finch
0 minutes playtime
0 of 9 achievements
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Lines
6 hours playtime
18 of 26 achievements
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Life is Strange: Before the Storm
0 minutes playtime
0 of 34 achievements
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Blackwell Deception
0 minutes playtime
0 of 18 achievements
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Battle Chasers: Nightwar
0 minutes playtime
0 of 48 achievements
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Rogue Wizards
0 minutes playtime
0 of 18 achievements
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Mystery of Unicorn Castle: The Beastmaster
0 minutes playtime
no achievements
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Solitaire Beach Season
26 hours playtime
13 of 21 achievements
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Mahjong World Contest
0 minutes playtime
0 of 26 achievements
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HIVESWAP: ACT 1
0 minutes playtime
0 of 44 achievements
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Headlander
0 minutes playtime
0 of 31 achievements
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Beglitched
3 hours playtime
no achievements
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Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?!
0 minutes playtime
0 of 101 achievements
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Pang Adventures
0 minutes playtime
0 of 9 achievements
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The Red Strings Club
0 minutes playtime
0 of 19 achievements
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Agent Walker: Secret Journey
0 minutes playtime
0 of 16 achievements
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Tiny Tales: Heart of the Forest
0 minutes playtime
0 of 20 achievements
This comment was deleted about 6 years ago.
How about you, how’s your start of 2018 been?
Terrible, insofar as gaming is concerned. Only 1 Complete Subjugation :p kill so far.
I bought Night in the Woods during the winter sale. Everyone’s praising it so I wanted to try it, but after playing it for a bit, I didn’t feel like playing more so I asked for a refund. Now I’m not so sure if I just wasn’t in the mood for some light platforming or if I wasn’t in the mood to play anything at all (aside from Attack on Titan). Anyway, I can always buy it again later when I’m finally in the mood for it. I’ve tried a bit of Ghost Recon Wildlands but I’m not getting hooked so guess I’m still not in the mood to play anything.
Just finished reading 40 volumes of Attack on Titan manga (including spin-offs) but I still want to rewatch the anime (for the 3rd time). That shouldn’t take too long. I’ll probably go back to gaming soon-ish.
I remembered we talked about you refunding Night in the Woods, so just so you know, the plateforming is really light (well you have to jump a little to access some hidden places but really not the focus mecanic of the game). I just checked and you played Oxenfree, it’s more like that or even lighter plateforming. The story was really enjoyable to me though.
I guess it’s very possible to just not be in the mood. Like I said, I’ve mostly played mindless games this month and felt pretty unmotivated about anything else (except for the ones I’ve played for the team challenge, as we were motivating each other).
Yeah, I remember talking to someone about it. Just wasn’t sure who it was. XD
Is Reigns included in Reigns: Her Majesty? If not, which one is better in your opinion?
Agreed with Lines, there are levels that you cannot win, no matter what. Not a big problem, unless you’re going for those 100 wins streak, DAMN! That was infuriating! >:(
Reigns is not included in Reigns her majesty. Honestly I liked both, Her majesty maybe have a few more different cards, a few extra mecanics and more 4th wall breaking stuff but overall I’d say they’re equally good (and both the same cheap price).
For Lines, I got overly frustrated at some point (I think the tying levels) where i was trying to get gold (10 in a row) to unlock the last levels and every time i was reaching 8 or 9 in a row, I was getting one of those unsolvable ones that was resetting my streak… I’m still not sure if I’ll manage to have enough patience to try for 100% cheevos on this one.
Thanks for the info :) it looks good but I don’t know if it’ll become repetitive/boring by playing both. Also, I’m seriously thinking about getting them for Android (after I get a smartphone, obviously) :v
Happened to me too :\
Well, they’re not hard.. there’s just a lot of grinding involved. I’m still playing a match or two daily (when I remember) yet I’m still far :\ only time will tell =P
I think android (or ios) is definitely a good choice for both Reigns games, as the gameplay is made for it (mainly swiping left or right). Plus you can then play anywhere.
I’m pretty much trying to do the same thing with the slow grind to the achievements I’m still missing in Lines. It will take some time but at least i won’t have to get overly bored.
Ahh man sorry about the bad start, I think we all have months like that, when real life just sucks it out of you a bit and even games feel a bit off. To be honest I found myself a bit like that this month, and even though I still beat a good number of games, most of them were games I started long before, so in a way it felt comforting returning to those. But you’ll get your groove back I’m sure.
Thanks for your nice words, I’m sorry you didn’t have a very good january either. It seems to be more common than I thought actually. Let’s hope February will feel better for everybody :3
Hey if nothing else it’s the shortest month, so there’s less days for things to go wrong.
Indeed!
I think that even though you had an off month, you’ve got a lot done! That’s great. I’m so glad you enjoyed Night in the Woods c:
All those games you were gifted look amazing - I am particularly excited for you to play Edith Finch.
If it makes you feel any better, I really appreciate the work you put into your posts. They’re laid out very cleanly and I like how you present all your information. The work you put into it shows!
Aww thank you, I appreciate your kind words. I’m really excited to play Edith Finch actually, I only heard/read good things about it. I’m also very curious about the Red String Club.
Night in the Woods was really deeper than I thought it would be, I’m curious to have another playthrough with the alternate choices, but I’ll wait a while as the game is not really on the short side.
I’m curious about Red String Club, too. I hope to pick it up someday.
Oh, yeah. I played it immediately once it came out, before anybody knew anything about it. I was part of a discord server about finding all the achievements, and I think it took a further five or six months before everything was tied up nicely. There’s a lot here! But it’s so good.
Sheepy and I went into the game knowing pretty much nothing too, and we were glad we did. We did not expect any of that, it was great :D
Sorry to hear about the rough start to the year, but hopefully the games (and books) helped you find a bit more peace of mind. And to be honest, I wouldn’t call 7 finished games a bad backlog month at all!
How about you, how’s your start of 2018 been?
Ehh, it’s been one of those “come and go” months, seemed to be over pretty quickly. Not a lot has been happening gaming-wise either, but at least the few games I played were all pretty sweet. Like you I played mostly something casual, including my second playthrough of Journey on PS3.
Thank you, gaming and reading did help me to kind my mind semi-sane during the whole thing, so it’s something.
I guess we don’t have to always play “hardcore” games anyway, whatever fits with our mood is fine. Journey is really nice, did you play abzu too?
Definitely! I can personally say that the older I get the more I enjoy frustration-free games. ^^
I’ve played Abzu too, the feeling is just as great! Very chill, with similar aesthetic style. Which isn’t surprising after I learned those two games share the same art director. :)
We should open an old cranky people club, I feel like that a lot too :D
Hey there, you’ve got all my warm feelings sent to you as I read you’ve had a bad 2018 start.
How about you, how’s your start of 2018 been ?
Nothing special for me in January, except those January sort of cold but really gloomy days got on my nerves and I miss sleep. Gaming wise, you’ve read my post : tl;dr “I plunged back in Terraria” ! ;-)
While I’m here, I love the nifty way you arrange your posts : those colors and tabs are really classy and reader-friendly.
One last thing : you know I ventured into one of your favourite game, Steamworld Heist (on 2nd difficulty level for now), and I wondered if you had some advice to give. I’m used to XCOM-like turn-based games but I was surprised for example SH enables XP farming by letting replay (endlessly if you want so) past levels.
Thanks, both for the compliment and for the warm feelings :3
Terraria is a huge time sinker, goes well in the category with Stardew Valley & co, so it counts as “A LOT HAS BEEN DONE”
As for SH, like I told you on steam, feel free to ask if you have more questions :)
I had Lines in my WL just because it looked like a nice zen game. When it was bundled I double checked the actual gameplay and I had the same impression, it just looked a little too random to be fun >_>
Not much to say about the other stuff (we played the two big ones together after all :3) but you made me bump Over The Hills And Far Away up a few dozen spots on the wishlist
hey Kaleith!
Hey that’s me. Hi!
Yeah there’s better puzzle games on steam to go for the meh ones.
Nothing “impressive” as I am running out of games but I’m enjoying the hell out of the ones I’m playing and that’s what matters to me in the end <3 I did acquire a new game into my account though which is a pretty big deal for me because it was way too expensive compared to the playtime it offers but I have 0 regrets :P I was gifted SAWKOBAN by a generous soul but sadly I can’t focus on it on my main account as there are a few glitched puzzles so I’m messing around with it on my alt account. Still no response from the developer which is quite worrisome.
Congratulations on your progress thus far and please don’t be so hard on yourself. You are doing great. Sometimes all we need is that one short casual game to make us enjoy ourselves during tough times in our real lives.
Thank you for your kind words Lenor :3
What is that game that you got and that is good?
Also I wanted to tell you, I don’t know if you saw but the dev of Ghost of a Tale posted an update about the game being almost done on their dev blog and that it will most likely be released at the beginning of march \o/
The House of Da Vinci. I initially sent the developers an email kindly asking for a free key in return for a bunch of reviews written on Steam, BLAEO and my blog. I actually really sold myself well but I received no response :P The game got a discount like 2 days ago so I jumped on it even though it’s very expensive for me. It’s been the number 1 game on my “invisible wishlist” so I am letting this go for now :P I refuse to feel guilty for paying that much money on it even though the game is only 5 dollars on mobile versions but 20 dollars on Steam with seemingly no difference in quality etc according to reviews from people who played both versions. The game is fantastic though as I am a massive fan of mechanical puzzles and I happen to like Da Vinci too :)
I did read that announcement about Ghost of a Tale and trust me, the hype is real ^^ I told you before that I purchased the game but I refunded it as I had control related problems but a recent patch fixed those and I bought the game again during some sale :P I AM PREPARED for its full release!
I was gonna ask this but I forgot, I came here to edit my first response but I saw your reply so I’ll add the question here instead: What was your favourite book among the book backlog you mentioned in your opening paragraph?
Oh the game does look very interesting, I’ll keep an eye on it as it seems up my alley! Thanks for the rec. And yes 20€ seems a bit stiff for a it if they sell it for 5 on mobile. Sometimes I wish I had a tablet as playing games on my “old” smartphone is taking a lot of space, draining the battery and most of the time not that comfy on a small screen.
You and me both, it’s been so hard to not touch the game while in EA i was excited to read it was finally almost done :D Let’s hope it’s as good as it promised to be.
As for the book… Tough choice as I mostly read stuff I liked this month. Out of the complete list my favorites were The Dry (an australian mystery/thriller) and Meddling Kids (that one is an hommage to both ScoobyDoo and Lovecraft), but I really liked most of them except for The Girl Next Door which wasn’t badly written but was way too fucking disturbing, even for me (mostly cuz it’s a fictionalized version of that real case).
Oh thanks a lot for the book recommendations, my book backlog has gone absolutely insane but it’s still nice to add new titles to it.The Dry definitely looks like something I’ll be interested in so I’ll take a note of it. I know what you mean about The Girl Next Door, I heard the book when they made a movie of it and I vowed to stay away from it. There is enough negativity in real life.
The House of Da Vinci is a much better and more detailed and slightly more complex version of The Room in my own personal opinion :)
You’re welcome, it’s nice to share when you find a book you like. Do you have a goodreads account? I find it useful to find new stuff to read when I see what my friends are reading sometimes. Yeah I read the girl next door for a group book club thing but really it wasn’t my thing. The other 5 were all enjoyable on different levels.
I do have an account but I am not really managing it so it’s probably quite outdated.
Sent a friend request, in case you decide to update ;)
I also find useful on goodreads to check out lists that contains a book you really liked. Sometimes it gives you great ideas of similar stuff you might like ;)
Added you, thanks for the tips :)