Whoosh

It’s December! 🎇✨🎄

Well, for 2 more days anyway 😝 Happy (belated) holidays everyone! Despite the circumstances that we’re probably all in, I hope all is well with you and yours. Hope 2021 will be a good one for all of you ✌

This is my first month of tracking. Main reason I’m doing this is because I hope this’ll help me clear out my backlog a little by keeping myself accountable. My backlog has steadily grown over the years to the point it has become rather embarrassing to look at, especially when I consider which games I haven’t even touched yet at all!

Disclaimer: I suffer from fatigue and have developed cognitive issues due to a neurological disorder. This makes it difficult for me to put effort into anything for any extended period of time. So I don’t know how often or how long I will be able to maintain my quest and this log.

Awesome Games Only event:

A Cjcomplex event! These events help me tremendously to work through unplayed games. The 5 games mentioned below are those that have been extremely well-rated by the community. Do they deserve the praise? Well, let’s just say there’s no accounting for taste.

Linelight

4.0 hours, 7 of 25 achievements
Awesome Games Only

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LOVED the style of the game, graphics and music are both on point. The puzzles, to me, were challenging but in a fair way. However, I can totally see more experienced/puzzle-savvy people finding it too easy. Didn't get many achievements besides beating the game, so I might go back and try to get some more. I wouldn't get it full-price, but in a bundle or when on sale it's a no-brainer for anyone looking for a chill puzzler that they can come and go when they please. Mind you: it's short!


Bit Blaster XL

6.6 hours, 17 of 17 achievements
Awesome Games Only

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It's a very simple shmup, what you see on the store page is what you get; but it does it so well for that price! Downsides: replay value. Getting all the achievements is way too easy, and unless you care about the global leaderboards, which btw have some monstrous scores!, there's not much to do here. If you're interested in a quick shmup, you can't really go wrong at this price.


Day of the Tentacle Remastered

8.4 hours, 33 of 58 achievements
Awesome Games Only

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Oh my. Oh my, oh my, oh my. I'm too young to have experienced the original, but regardless I can tell what a true classic this game is! Some puzzles were way too HUH?! for me, so I did have to cheat a little here and there. Definitely on my list for another playthrough, if nothing else at least I'll be hunting some more cheevos. I absolutely loved the fact that you can turn on commentary from the developers giving you background information on the game. If you haven't heard it yet, I believe another playthrough with commentary on is advised.


Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood

7.3 hours, 29 of 36 achievements
Awesome Games Only

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Hey look, it's another Artifex Mundi HOG. I thought the story was good with ditto presentation. However something was missing for me, not quite sure what though. It just didn't have the same appeal to me that Midnight Mysteries series had.


Escape Goat

7.0 hours, 3 of 16 achievements
Awesome Games Only

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Absolutely loved this one! It's a puzzle-platformer, and a damn good one at that. Having 100%'d Super Meatboy on the Xbox this didn't feel very challenging, but it did have some frustrating moments. Will certainly be coming back to this one later to get more of its achievements.


Monthly in a Month event:

More playing events!

A Short Hike

2.1 hours, 5 of 8 achievements
Monthly in a Month

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I LOVE everything about this game. You play as Claire, a bird. You can glide, climb, run and swim. The game is very short, but there are some additional cheevos to get for replay value. I will definitely be going back to 100% it. Did it! Oh man, I love this game. But even after that I'll probably go back to fly around the map. Absolute gem that should be on anyone's indie radar!


Little Misfortune

5.1 hours, 32 of 35 achievements
Monthly in a Month

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Not going to write too much here as I feel anything would be too spoilery. I loved this game, and will go back to 100% it.


Path of Giants

3.0 hours, 9 of 17 achievements
Monthly in a Month

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Puzzle game where you asssist 3 adventurers to find the hidden treasure. I loved the presentation, the graphics are stellar. The gameplay is very smooth. The puzzles I thought were quite challenging at times. Unfortunately I won't be returning for a while because of the game crashing. That might be just me though, as I couldn't find any comments of other people experiencing crashes. It only took 3 hours to reconsider and 100% it anyway, lol. Lucky not to have a crash 🤞

~~strikethrough~~


Rover Mechanic Simulator

15.7 hours, 24 of 24 achievements
Monthly in a Month

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You're a mechanic and it's your job to fix rovers. Simple, right? Well, yeah it is. Especially when you unlock certain skills that speed up things. The gameplay is very repetitive, and there really isn't much to it besides being a decent timesink and an easy 100%. I don't know why I liked this so much, but I did. If you're interested in the game make sure to watch a gameplay video first, and read through the negative reviews because they are all valid. Truly a hit or miss game.


The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game

0.6 hours, 6 of 6 achievements
Monthly in a Month

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Thoroughly disappointed with this one. I feel bad saying this, but this isn't a game. At best it's a demo to showcase part 2 (below). It's extremely short, dialogue is meh, anything above €1 would've felt like a ripoff.


Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard

1.6 hours, 6 of 6 achievements
Monthly in a Month

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Detective Frog returns, and I'm happy for it! This entry is heaps better than the first game. It's lengthier, has more NPCs to interact with and actually felt like a game. Banks a lot on humour, which is dangerous because not everyone will appreciate it, but I digged it.


Misc:

Extinction

7.5 hours, 12 of 27 achievements
Playing Appreciated

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Not a game I would have randomly picked up, especially not at this price tag. Having won it on PA though, I was of course going to give this a good whirl. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by this rather simple action game. You're Avil, a sentinel, who has made its task to defeat the Ravenii, a fancy word for Orcs. The game is repetitive, the levels all look alike, but it's enjoyable enough to pick up at a (hefty) discount or bundle split.

Will be picking this up for continuation in 2021.


Elvidur

DotT is and will always have a spot in my heart :D. I agree on the illogical side of some puzzles, but that trait is common to most old school adventure games.

Whoosh

So you did play the original then? Did you like the added commentary in the remaster? If you’ve tried it that is 😋

Elvidur

I did play the original like 20+ years ago, and loved it. Then I played the remaster 2 years ago, and disabled the director commentary, I found it distracting as hell :_(

Whoosh

Clearly not everyone’s thing I suppose 😋

That’s so cool! If you don’t mind me asking, do you maybe have some tips for similar classics?

Elvidur

Not at all :D. If you did not play them yet, the monkey island saga is my favourite (1 and 2 are remastered, and 3 is modern enough). You have the collection in steam for cheap.

Another one could be Full Throttle, which was also remastered, or Grim Fandango (This one is way harder, and controls are not for everyone).

Oooor, I also enjoyed a lot the longest journey + Dreamfall + Dreamfall chapters saga :D.

Whoosh

Thank you! 😊 I own all of the ones you mentioned, will be adding them to the short-list for 2021 👍

Cece09

Puzzles in alot of p+c are weird but especially when time travel is involved. I finished it but never did the commentary I know they have it in other games like daedalic ones but it feels like it would be very distracting

Whoosh

Totally understandable, having them running while cutscenes or dialogues are playing would be indeed be very distracting. I usually toggled them when after retracing to already visited areas. I love trivia, so for me it wasn’t an option to leave them off anyway 😋

Ohhh, Daedalic, thank you for the great idea! Those will get on the agenda for 2021 😎

aonrao

Oh so many good games here!
I really enjoyed Linelight, going back to get the yellow and green stars is a good idea. I also liked Path of Giants and A Short Hike!
I don’t know why, but seeing these games here makes me happy.

Whoosh

Thanks for the tip, will definitely give it a go 2021.

Hell yeah! These games made me happy playing as well. I’m just about to boot up A Short Hike again, cause it’s cold and dark here and I find it cheery 😜

aonrao

Yeah A Short Hike has a really warm vibe!