2026 February

TLDR: finished American Theft 80s, played Expedition 33 and Deep Rock Galactic.

Deep Rock Galactic]

(store page)
has it’s long-awaited Season 6 update, so the game returned to the selection for a good while.

I "continued on" with Expedition 33

store page
a lot (89 hours) , but got to a point in the endgame when it just took so much energy, effort and planning to find an angle towards progress (other than to go back grinding) that I set the game aside for a while. Both the game and I needed some time to breathe.
The game is stunning. I could play it completely blind, only seen a few pictures, and not even trailers, and it’s an amazing expeditionrience with its story, design, music and overall world and tone. Though the “criticism” about it being super parry / dodge focused is 100% valid. If you don’t like it, there’s an accessibility option to skip it.
So, it just feels good to having developed the ability to balance playing a game, and taking a break from it. I’m sure it helps with my long-term appreciation.
Also, I was so afraid that I’ll get motion sickness from the fast camera changes in the game. None of that happened!

American Theft 80s

store page
Is a somewhat clunky thieving simulator, that’s just so full of charm and things to do. Anything linked to stamina sucks, the driving is a method of transportation (including the stolen goods) so don’t expect a GTA-like complex experience. The game’s focus is on handcrafted locations, NPC schedules, and playing around them, stealing stuff, selling it, and progressing through a story. A story, that honestly kind of sucks, but eases you into the game and the mechanics nicely, without overwhelming you with options and tools.
I really enjoyed my time with it (including a sandbox mode which has the goal of ~break into a lot of houses, be clever).
The 73% review rate is in the “good, but with obvious poblems” , but it’s 90% off currently, and I absolutely recommend getting it if: you’re interested in playing a car burglar while yeeting out TVs from the 2nd floor, then following it as there’s no fall damage, and random shenanigans like that. The mechanics are relatively abusable :) But if stealth is not your poison, just skip it, it’s faaaaaaaaaaaaar from a must-have title.

Activated an old key (that turned out to be working) for Poker Night at the Inventory (2010 Original Version), and Augment Anthem for beta testing.
Bought the Fanatical charity bundle, but haven’t activated anything from it (yet), nor from HB monthlies (yet).

2026 January

Finished games - 9:

• The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I
  Prologue to The Last Show of Mr. Chardish, which was a Christmas gift / Secret Santa snowball. Running around solving light puzzles while reliving the past.
• SturmFront - The Mutant War: Übel Edition
  Standardish, not really outstanding arcade shooter. The worldbuilding found in notes is leagues more interesting than the game itself.
• Quell
  I still have two Quell games, I may drop them from the backlog. 60ish levels of “slipping on ice” puzzles, with barely any new mechanics given. It’s pure puzzling in the worst sense for me. Not fun to play, not fun to solve, and even if there are guides around, why would I waste my time with it? (Also the games mention something narrative to go with the puzzle, haven’t found any of it)
• Showing Tonight: Mindhunters Incident
  Old, not well done hidden object game. Low poly objects, moon logic puzzles, and just boring “rotate the item into the silhouette” puzzles.
• Alpha Polaris : A Horror Adventure Game
  While obviously works better with a guide for ease of play, Alpha Polaris definitely has charm in writing and characters, and an interesting story. I enjoyed my time with it.
• Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut
  Anything to be said is spoilery basically, you have to kill the Princess. There is 131 achievements. There is much that can be done in this choose your own adventure-type of game, as you may know. Got to an ending, definitely want to chip away at least some of the others.
• West of Loathing
  Minimalist looking game with insane amounts of puns, wordplay, references, jokes and absurdity. The world is slightly crazy, but the worldbuilding, story and RPG systems are all coherent and well made. Pretty simple and approachable, really well done game.
• Vampire’s Fall: Origins
  Another Secret Santa snowball. As we discussed, not a bad game for ~2€, lots of content. Tbh, not too good content. Includes a DLC/Expansion, it got so stretched out and repetitive that I decided I had my game finished with the main story.
• Double Cross
  Yet another Secret Santa snowball. I wasn’t really fond of it to be honest. There are so many more platformers that are more accurate, where random inputs don’t vanish… the story is nothing special, the levels has a strong “premade” vibe to them, using tilesets and not always working them together too well. Difficulty was relatively mild, but same later levels are as much harder, as they would belong in a completely different game. (Still not too hard, but laid-back easy game turns into “lean forward and stop talking to concentrate” type of a deal.

Bought / activated games: I have an active HB Monthly subscription (prepaid for a year+, so it doesn’t count as purchasing), eventually I’ll activate a game or two from the January bundle, but otherwise I plan to minimalise the buying habit.

• Double Cross was a gift on January 1st
• Won Absolum
• Activated Dordogne
• Activated Along the Edge - was free on Steam.

So spent 0€, activated 4 games, finished 9.