July’s Stats
aka. An unexpected small victory over the backlog
Hello fellow assassins, it’s that time of the month again. July started really slow for me and I accomplished nothing in the first half of it but playing Borderlands 2 and Subnautica before taking a well deserved week of vacation. When I came back home however, I managed to finish Subnautica and play a few other shorter games, which made the fight against the backlog somewhat successful this month.
I also came to the realization earlier today that the reason I’ve been stuck for months (years) now at the same stage of my ABC playlist was because I don’t feel like playing those 2 remaining games right now, but Blue also helped me realize it was ok to just give up on them and start a new list that I’d actually play instead (Thank you Blue 💙). So I’m retiring the list for now, I will play those games eventually, but let me present to you the ABC Challenge 2.0. Hopefully this one will get finished.
While making the list I noticed games that, either in early access or episodic have still not been completed for what seems to be year. Any games you have given hope seeing completed?
I hope you all have a good August, see you in a month!
| Played | Finished | Completed | Backlog+ | Achievements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 96 |
ABC Challenge Progress (24/26)
Finished this month: 0 (RIP - Now retired)
ABC Challenge 2.0 Progress (0/27)
Most Satisfying Finish
Most Exciting Addition
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She and the Light Bearer
3 hours playtime
13 of 15 achievements
-
Borderlands 2
58 hours playtime
35 of 75 achievements
-
Subnautica
52 hours playtime
17 of 17 achievements
-
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
123 hours playtime
59 of 93 achievements
-
Glass Masquerade
5 hours playtime
32 of 32 achievements
-
Detention
4 hours playtime
5 of 8 achievements
-
Mushroom Cats
3 minutes playtime
24 of 24 achievements
-
Mystery of Unicorn Castle: The Beastmaster
4 hours playtime
no achievements
-
INSIDE
5 hours playtime
14 of 14 achievements
-
The First Tree
4 hours playtime
13 of 14 achievements
-
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales
3 hours playtime
2 of 39 achievements
Subnautica
52 hours playtime, 17 of 17 achievements
This took me long enough, but I finally finished Subnautica. This was such a great experience and a refreshing twist on survival/craft games. I won't say too much about the story itself, as I feel the interesting part is for everyone who wanna play it to discover it by themselves, but unless (and it's a big unless) you are phobic of underwater environment (I've read some people found Abzu panic inducing), I strongly recommend the game. I'm already missing the experience.
Detention
3.5 hours playtime, 5 of 8 achievements
Girlfriend got me this game during the past steam sales after playing it herself, and I was pretty excited of playing it myself. Yes, it looked a bit scary, but she promised there was no jumpscares (I'm a wuss with those) and the story sounded intriguing. I won't tell you too much into it either because it's part of it to discover the mystery behind it, but it was visually really interesting in a disturbing and creepy kind of way. I think I'd have enjoyed the game even more if I knew more about Taiwan's history, but I still recommend the game if you don't.
She and the Light Bearer
3 hours playtime, 13 of 15 achievements
I won this from Skatrzoo on SG and it had been on my wishlist for a while so it was really nice to finally play it. The game is an extremely cute point and click with a story based around nature and ancient folk tales. It's very pleasant and the puzzles were all well balanced. It was on the shorter side but totally recommended. The only sad thing about it is that it has limited profile features for a reason I fail to understand (when some garbage games pass those mystery requirements all fine).
Mystery of Unicorn Castle: The Beastmaster
4 hours playtime, no achievements
Finally came around to play this HoG I won quite some time ago on SG, and it was just meh. Not awfully bad, but far from the best HoGs I've played. Nothing much to say about it.
Mushroom Cats
3 minutes playtime, 24 of 24 achievements
This free game is only 3 min long to completion, but it has the most adorable design, so if you like cats I suggest you download it and give it a try. As I said, worst case situation, it's only 3 min of your time.
INSIDE
5 hours playtime, 14 of 14 achievements
Inside was an horrifying yet beautiful and well made game. Think about it as a great improvement on the studio's previous game, Limbo. There is a bit of exploration involved but mostly some linear puzzle/plateforming. I have to admit though, except conveying that horrifying feeling, the story itself grew more and more confusing, and I didn't really understand it at the end (even less with the secret ending).
The First Tree
4 hours playtime, 13 of 14 achievements
I wanted to have great things to say about this game, but I only have one: it is a great game for eye candy screenshot extravaganza. Apart from that, the game is a short yet extremely tedious experience, and I don't recommend it at all. It's inversely proportionally enjoyable as it is beautiful. And it's very beautiful. The game tries to convey some touching message but it's delivered in such a way that I couldn't get emotionnally invested in it (And i'm someone who cried playing that free captain spirit adventure FFS, I'm an easy target for those. NOTHING.). Add to that some quite awful plateforming, tedious collectibles and stupid mechanics to artificially extend the gameplay time and you have it. My recommendation: watch at other people's screenshots but stay away from playing it yourself.
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She and the Light Bearer
3 hours playtime
13 of 15 achievements
-
Detention
4 hours playtime
5 of 8 achievements
-
60 Parsecs!
0 minutes playtime
0 of 40 achievements
Hollow Knight <3
I made another list \o/ Thanks for the extra motivation/approval to abandon the old list and start anew. <3
That picture is so pretty I’m going to die!
Nice to see you win the fight against Backlog this month. :blobpatsheep: Some heckin nice games finished this month!
It’s from She and the Lightbearer, which I recommend. It was both pretty and relaxing to play.
I guess I’ll have to find this Skatrzoo guy. :evilcult:
That’s a nice list you’ve got going for your ABC Challenge 2.0! Quite liked Just Cause 3 and Vampyr myself.
Thank you, I’m pretty excited to get at it again, versus I was delaying and delaying those 2 games left on the old list :)
I really love the way you have set your post out! So organised. Also…is that the Rebel Alliance symbol on your backlog of doom tab? :P
Yeah, I was thinking the same! Very organised and it’s looking good =)
Well thank you :3
Would you mind if I steal some of it? =D
Not at all, some people are just using it as is and didn’t even ask about it ;p
Thanks! I tried doing my own with the basic HTML code for tabs, but turns out it doesn’t work on BLAEO (at least not properly). And I’m not that HTML literate, so can’t make my own code =D
Thanks a lot :) And yes it is (or at least I assumed it was when I picked the symbol from there). I realize there is quite a lot more now but it was pretty limited back then when I first made my template, and I thought it was somewhat fitting (Considered the empire first but the icon didn’t look as good in small) ;)
Oooh that’s cool! I might have to steal this idea… ;)
But yeah I thought it was the RA symbol haha
No worry. There seem to be a lot of them now so good luck browsing them all :p
haha yeah - do you use the code they give or save it externally? The code given doesn’t appear to work
Like this: Weird this one is not working…
That is the one i use in my posts that is working…
Change fas to fa in the first part of the code maybe? That’s the only thing that is different. Nope
Edit: That doesn’t seem to work for the newest ones… I’ll ask mandrill, he probably knows more why the old ones work but not the new.
Thanks! I’ll have to just play around with it and test them. Cheers :)
It might be that we have an older version installed on the server, I asked mandrill, we’ll see what he says.
Thank you for that :D
So, apparently BLAEO is still running Fontawesome 4.6 so mandrill said most of those icons will work, minus a few (i guess the ones in the what’s new in 4.7 section won’t).
I hope it helps :)
Thanks for checking! I’ll see how I go on next months :P
I agree with your review on The First Tree. After playing it for a while and realising it’s not going to get better, I had the luck to refund it. I could never sit through that game–it’s very tedious. It would be better if the fox could move faster maybe, but this way it was just boring.
And I’m glad you liked INSIDE. It’s on my backlog as well.
I got it from a bundle (which i got mostly for that and another game) so I was like “now that i’ve endured so much, I’m just gonna finish it” but boi was it tedious. And pretty. And tedious. But mostly what kind of turned me off the most was the poor storytelling and the absence of coherence between the fox and the narrator telling his story, which ended up making me care for none of both.
Inside was pretty good despite my non understanding of the ending/late part of the story. At least gameplay wise it’s solid and well made.
Any games you have given hope seeing completed?
I won’t believe Kentucky Road Zero will be completed until I see the final episode come out. It’s supposed to be released soon but it’s KRZ, the delays are almost legendary at this point.
For a more serious answer… Probably Fault STP and 2:side below. Fault :sadness:
it has limited profile features for a reason I fail to understand
Every time I play a good game that’s not picked up by BLAEO a kitten cries a single tear. Valve please :cry:
[the whole The First Tree review]
I could have written that with the same exact words, except I actually abandoned the game less than an hour in. So infuriating :tableflip:
Fault :sad:
Every time I play a good game that’s not picked up by BLAEO a kitten cries a single tear. Valve please :cry:
RIGHT? Nairi is also profile limited, it’s driving me nuts.
I actually abandoned the game less than an hour in. So infuriating :tableflip:
I should have seen it coming when Laura was ranting all the way along when she was playing it tbh. But noooooo i insisted on playing it cuz i bought the bundle for it.
I love underwater games but Subnautica has combat right? I saw screenshots with a shark and the player holding a harpoon. This was an instant deal breaker for me.
It doesn’t really have combat actually. You’re mostly supposed to swim away, because except for the tiny little fishes all the others take so much attempts and it’s purposefully tedious for you to not go and kill them. There is a repulsion gun and a gun that slows time around enemies (both letting you escape faster if you were in a pickle) but even those I didn’t have to use much. It’s mostly crafting/exploring/discovering the plot.
In addition to what EvilBlackSheep said, there’s also Creative mode, where you can’t die. If you’re interested only in the story, exploring and building stuff, you can play on that mode.
Does that mode affect the achievements? I just don’t wanna kill fish, I wanna enjoy their company and not run away from them or kill them. That’s why Abzu was special for me since I could swim freely with them. Subnautica at its essence sounds very interesting to me but it feels like it has extra stress added to it just for the sake of it.
Sorry, no idea. I’m playing it on Epic, so no cheevos.