A very-very late summary of past months because time is flying - June&July

My last post was about April, so I have May, June and July to catch up with. Summer is not exactly my favourite season, and it usually has its mark on my lower game count - I just don’t like the heat, so I have way less patience and mental fortitude for gaming, or anything really.
I guess I’ll drop the money spent, new games bought kinda thing, even if I buy little, from the bundles the backlog just builds - and it ain’t making me happier to focus on it and its tracking.

2026 June

After May’s MiaM and Infinite Backlog’s Bingo I played way too many games, I couldn’t really find what to play with so the drop is very noticeable, especially in June.

Mega Mosaic

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SG win from lext
I have little to say about this game. Minesweeper-like game, colours light and dark, finish zones to uncover an art banner of some sort. I had to use the hint button quite often: The game is one big puzzle, as you could strictly just go from known parts, and eventually you get stuck most ways, and the puzzle is just too huge (250x250) to find valid blocks by yourself. It was good for what it was.

Inbeto

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Make colourful bento boxes by adding new elements to the box, moving them around, rotate them, copy them, etc. Can be surprisingly tricky, but I deeply appreciate the simplicity - the box size is clear, the tools you can use is a few and it’s always set for the level, and you know how it should look like. You can’t lost on too big puzzles, or get overwhelmed by choices, as how other puzzles like to do progression. The cat-family story is presented as one (or two?) static picture after each of the 14 worlds, each of which consists of 9 levels if I remember well. So it’s still 95% puzzles, 5% story/art :)

Nuclear Blaze

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Gift from vot4ol
I played a few 2D firefighting flash games, and I always loved them, and Nuclear Blaze also seemed interesting. It’s a wonderful little arcade-y game with its silliness and simple mechanics. Go through levels in a very SCP-coded location, stop fire from spreading, find secrets and hidden cats, unlock secret ending, and have fun. Good balance of knowing your goal and having some freedom how to approach it. Some levels are straightforward, others have extra goals / necessities to do, so they are a little puzzle-y without coming to a screetching halt.
Carefully done by devs who seemed to have fun - absolutely deserving its 96% :)

2026 July

Proverbs

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It’s Mega Mosaic (almost) again! Zones are not uncovering designs, but pixel art depictions of dutch proverbs. Also, every zone is a separate puzzle, so you know each can be solved on its own, which is an upside compared to Mega Mosaic.

Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth-

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SG win from schmetti
This game was on my WL for a loooong time, so it felt like a wonder that I won it. Also, I haven’t read / watched Record of Lodoss War, but a metroidvania sounded really cool.
And it was really cool! The pixelart is are absolutely gorgeous and the animations are detailed and fluid.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t get some references, but the game itself is pretty light on story as it seemed. It’s also pretty light on the metroidvania elements, as there is barely any backtracing needed. But it’s still a super solid experience - you can change between fire and water “states”, absorbing the attacks, like in Ikaruga. Your weapon and equipment/spells have different elements, that different enemies are weak/resistant to. The combat is quite simple but very solid, the archery skill isn’t used too often but very well done. The platforming and the design works really well, and the bossfights are quite fun and challenging. Had a lot of fun even in the boss rush mode, after figuring out them each :) Highly recommended for a fun platformer-brawler-ish game!

Evil West

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A game with some super cool emlements that generally fails to be “good” as of cheap design choices when it comes to actual gameplay.
What could go wrong with a game, where vampires roam the wild west, and a secret government organisation sends vampire hunters after them?
Other than featuring Temu Hugh Jackman, the game really shows it’s AA elements as you play. Corridor gameplay, invisible walls galore, and most of the game features lockdown room after lockdown room after lockdown room. You literally have to climb into “arenas” to fight enemies, kill them all, and move on. That’s 80% of the game.
And for that, the game really suffers in my opinion. The enemy variety is low, yet most enemies have way too high health, or a gimmicky way to fight them / break their shields. You have a lot of tools (mostly gimmicks) in your arsenal, but at the end of the day, most are super situational. Your good old gauntlet, rifle, and later explosives (if upgraded) are enough. Oh, and the game is coded in the way that every weapon uses a cooldown system to reload, and the cooldown only works if you’re in combat. If you kill the last enemy with your shotgun, you have to wait the cooldown in the next combat. Meanwhile between the fights, you can use the same shotgun to blow up up crates and whatnot. Such a jarring, stupid choice :D
The story itself is pretty alright. You can tell some plot twist from hours away it’s as unoriginal, but characters are surprisingly well designed visually and personality-wise too. This world and game just begs for a Dishonored-like mission system from a hub, instead of this rigid and repetitive combat recipe.
Had quite a lot of grief from tanky enemies (I suggest you keep on easy for the fastest progress) and the unimaginative, repetitive combat, while characters and some locations, set pieces and lore elements are the absolute high points. Like with May’s The Ascent, this is a game thats world deserves a different, better gameplay.
(also some enemy designs are just so funny. Who makes special, monstrous foul-bloods through special vampire blood, then hammer random spikes, fence pieces or metal sheets into them? The design is cohesive, but unfitting to the lore and needlessly edgy :D :D )

The Last Hero of Nostalgaia

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SG win from s4k1s
Surprisingly good Souslike homage. Has a unique world, unique idea, lots of lore, takes itself seriously (hence homage, not parody) when it comes to lore, but you can still find many easter egg-like equipment (Dead Space, Doom armor, just to name a few).
Definitely doesn’t live up to the originals in quality, but it’s a really decently made indie. You unlock extra abilities of items by “remembering them” at a certain location, which prompts quite a lot backtracking - you’re also incentivised to do this by having permanent bonuses linked to the number of remembered items. The game has excellent interconnectivity, but it can get a bit too much if you want to play it like a classic Souls game. Has some wonky animations that you may be familiar with (hello Titanite Demon hitting through environment) if you played originals… so prepare for mace-knights doing a 180 around you, certain wide attacks hitting past its animation, or werewolves jumping around corners and so :D
I enjoyed the demo and I was quite happy with the game too. Was a relatively smooth ride, and I’m not a particularly experienced Soulslike player.

In the three months I’ve dabbled with:
Legend of Mana (I feel a bit lost, and the game doesn’t super resonate with me with its locations and systems)
Crash Bandicoot™ N. Sane Trilogy (started for MiaM, realised how stupid that is :D)
Quake II (Played its multi back in the school, was fun. Maybe the timing is not good, but the campaign fails to grab me, and didn’t want to force it more. Shooting through brown-orange rooms until the level ends doesn’t sounds fun right now)
and maybe a few others not worth mentioning.

A very-very late summary of past months because time is flying - May

My last post was about April, so I have May, June and July to catch up with. Summer is not exactly my favourite season, and it usually has its mark on my lower game count - I just don’t like the heat, so I have way less patience and mental fortitude for gaming, or anything really.
I guess I’ll drop the money spent, new games bought kinda thing, even if I buy little, from the bundles the backlog just builds - and it ain’t making me happier to focus on it and its tracking.

2026 May

In May I went for the Monthly in a Month participation, and also tried to get some entries for Infinite Backlog I think (Why not?), so it was a really active month. Left its mark on the next, I guess it was a mini burn-out?

A Guidebook of Babel

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Interesting point and click-ish adventure game about a version of the afterlife. Has some feels to it, but it’s mostly puzzles - you have an “event map” of events, where columns mean time periods, and rows are different people. You need to uncover information to build a chain of knowledge/events so you can affect later events through butterfly effect. As it’s also presented in a non-linear fashion, it starts out with story ungrounded and design weird (just look at the screenshots), but it gets a lot better as you get accustomed to it. Good if you want something unique.

CROAK CAFE : FROM POND TO PLATE

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Free to play game merge game where you drop food into a “chute”. Two similar items merge into a different one. Combine ingredients to meals your customer orders, get money, pass the level. It’s nice, but I think there’s some inherent frustration with the bouncing items and the random order you get your ingredients to drop. It even has some bossfights with unique mechanics, which is a definite plus. I wasn’t overjoyed with it because of the RNG aspect, but it was mild, the game is relatively easy, and got 100% in ~3 hours while having fun most of the time.

Family Man

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After a short prologue, you start the game. You’re Joe, and you owe money to basically the mafia. Get a daily increasing amount, by any means necessary.
Some of your will hate this, as it has a daily time limit, a set number of days to end, and multiple endings that require at least 2? 3? playthroughs. Or three if you mess it up as I did :D
The gameplay is actually fun - there are personal sidequests in the game with “good” and “bad” solutions (and they play a huge role in the ending). There is a morality system (also for the endings), and various ways to earn different amounts of money. You need your time or money to get food for your family, clean the house, and to spend time with your son by getting home before he sleeps. It actually works and is fun, because you get involved in quest lines, you get to know your neighbourhood and you need to plan ahead and think fast. It reminds me of Postal 2 with its neighbourhood and hidden items and shortcuts. Genuinely enjoyed it, but I don’t think I’ll return to it for other endings/achievements with my backlog.

Kathy Rain

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I’ll keep this one short. I’ve had beef with the publisher for not giving the Director’s Cut for owning the game, and while I wanted the extra content, I feel weird about having to pay 3€+ (on sale) to play a bit of extra something I already have. Anyhow, ended up playing it,it looks like a good game afterall.
It is a really well made, moody game with heavy Twin Peaks inspiration, and now I kinda want to play Kathy Rain 2 as well :D

MouseCraft

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Old SG win - a Lemmings-like game where you use tetris tetraminos to add to the level. Later multiple special blocks appear the game, keeping it fresh and varied (new thing every 8 level or so). It’s on the easier side, has charming graphics and it was overall a really nice experience. Feels like a hidden gem with its 200 reviews only. Had no issues with running it I think?

Poi

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3D platformer collectathlon, visit different worlds and get explorer’s medals. It’s a bit by the numbers, and I think it desperately needs a different way to attack enemies than to jump on them (it’s not accurate enough) but it’s not bad. Seems like I missed at least one medallion, either it wasn’t interesting to get, or it bugged out, I’m not sure. Didn’t mean much when there’s still a cheevo for playing the whole game in one-hit-mode. Play it if it catches your eye, it’s an easy-enough game for MiaM, but honestly I wouldn’t buy it if I wouldn’t already own it.

Remember Me

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I have to admit, Expedition 33’s French OST had a great affect on me, so I played Remember Me, that takes place in Neo-Paris, entirely in French, and it was a great choice considering the excellent voice acting.
It’s an early DONTNOD game, from the Life is Strange people. It does a lot of things really well, others a bit… meh?
The worldbuilding is fantastic. Both as looks, and as a setting. You play a bit too much in sewers and corridors, but the game made sure to show you much of the world in different ways. The story is pretty good, but I have a feeling that the ending doesn’t really land - it’s interesting, gives a lot to think about, but the main “story” mechanic is remixing memories… so it’s like timetravel, change thing (a memory) in the past, to change the person’s current thoughts. It’s a bit rough, and I’m fairly sure I’ve convinced somebody that their very living spouse is dead, and that just…works? Also the ending has horrible consequences, but we don’t think about it, task done, happy end :D
And a short note about the “combo-lab” where you build your combos - the base system is like an Arkham-version (controller X to punch, Y to kick) that works well, but the combo building is a system that’s surely advertised with an asterisk (*) after it. You get combos like X-X-X or X-X-Y. You GET attacks from leveling up, like a punch that heals you, a kick with extra damage, and you just organise them into your framework of set order and number of attacks. Ofc your can have a long combo to punch hard or heal big, but technically you change the effect of the combo, not building the combo, as I expected.

Shelldiver

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SG win from DancingXmas.
A simple, cute, light, laidback incremental game that’s a joy to play and can be finished in ~5 hours. It’s not super varied as you shoot different stuff to collect new materials to buy more, but it’s active, it’s fun, it’s without any dirty tricks. Simple in the best way possible. Highly recommended!

The Exit 8

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SG win from SzymonL
I have little to add after its store page description. Got forward in the metro tunnel. If all is okay, go forward. If something is off, turn back. Do the correct choice 8 times, get to Exit 8 and leave. Took me a leisure hour to get to the ending, finding all the anomalies can take a bit more. (You need them to spawn, and you need to notice them. Easier with a list/guide).
It was alright, and as with Shelldiver, it’s very open and clear about what it is. Well worth getting if you want it, but it’s really not a must play (what a recommendation lol)

The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales

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The Bookwalker is basically a point and click adventure game hidden in different shapes and forms. You enter books in an isometric view, run around in real life in first person, but everything comes down to choices/actions, I think nothing is timed. Game has combat, but it’s really forgiving, most fights can be optimised, and even if you die-die, there is no punishment and the enemy may keep its damaged state too.
The story is interesting, but because of the different books and wildly different chapters I wasn’t as involved as I would be in a proper beginning-to-end story, I’m not a fan of stitched together storylines. I really enjoyed the individual chapters, but it was hard to care about the overarching story of the main character, he was a bit meh. But the world itself is intriguing - unsanctioned writers entering books, and smuggling out items to be delivered in special chests, delivered to shady people? That’s cool!

The Ascent

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This game is baffling.
A semi-mediocre action RPG where EVERY SIDEQUEST leads you through areas where enemies are respawning when you look aside, sometimes crossing regions where everyone onetaps you. I was level 14, doing a “suggested level 6” quest, and the path lead to a region with level 20 enemies that oneshot me. WTF??
The map has floors, and even with an EXPENSIVE fast travel system (the maps are HUGE and filled with enemies), you can’t travel between floors. So you get close to the elevator, shoot yourself through the mobs, get up/down, maybe fast travel again, then shoot yourself through the mobs to your final destination. Then do it again backwards, to hand in the quest. It’s so incredibly stupid, that you get exhausted by the combat, because there is no breather, and you die quite easily. There are no health potions you can carry, there is basically no loot worth taking other than upgrade materials, the same few weapons and augs are dropping throughout the game.
And for a game with this chaotic and badly planned combat comes:
A very solid cyberpunk story,
Fantastic voice acting
Shockingly beautiful, high fidelity art of all characters (only seen in cutscenes/zoomed in to a useless degree)
One of the best cityscapes in the background I’ve ever seen
Complex worldbuilding and lore

All of this makes me think that The Ascent is either built on an already existing IP I don’t know about, or making it into an ARPG was a late thought. It feels criminal how wonderful its “supportive” elements are, and how little thought was given to the main gameplay loop, it’s a shame.

Shape of Dreams

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The most single-player MOBA-like roguelike I’ve played.Tons of unlocks, entirely different characters with fundamentally different gameplay and style, and even these characters have at least two (or three?) different builds, not to mention the extra abilities and modifiers you can collect through your game. Attackmove, animation cancels, skillshots, sidestepping enemy attacks, crowd control, challenging bossfights - it’s just great, absolutely deserving its 94% review rate
Feel free to ask more, I don’t want to bore people who got this far with further mechanics :D

2026 April

It was both a short and long (?) month. Played some longer games, played some really short ones to tick off from my playlist.
Work goes okay, though some global events lead to additional workload; elections were scary upfront, kind of unbelievable afterwards, I still feel like I need an occasional reality check.

So in no particular order:

Chinatris

store page
It was an SG win from the lovely coleypollockfilet, where it was more of a tool to make me pick my own “win”, rather than Chinatris being a central piece. I gave it a try, as the description looked interesting - “Chinatris is a Tetris-like game about Chinese characters where different charactersfall[sic!] to create new ones.” It’s nothing like Tetris, you can’t learn characters because they fall too fast and you can’t read on the side, and you need basic knowledge of order of strokes to even understand how blocks combine. It fails as a Tetris, fails as a learning tool and it’s just frustrating to play.

DOGWALK

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“Explore a hand-crafted winter forest as a big adorable dog and a little kid in tow.” Free, simple, nice, and the whole game was made with photos of the IRL models of the boy, dog, trees, ground, etc. Not super special, but really nice and pleasant for half an hour.

Find Your Words

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Another free game that looked cute, interesting (and short). In the game you play as a nonverbal kid, who goes into a camp where he plays / helps out the other kids. The game’s mechanics is having a folder with pictures for people, locations, verbs, feelings and activities and you combine them. Ian happy. Pigeon mess hall. Obviously it’s not much of a challenge, but pleasantly tickles the part of my brain that’s about language learning. Plus you can try to beat the hide and seek champion, help out a little painter, have a treasure hunt… It’s more laid back and less adventurous than A Short Hike, but has the same lazy, warm summer vibe, that make you start “weird” little quests.

Cape Hideous

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Cape Hideous is quite hideous if you just take a short look at it, but it was such an interesting experience. There is no talking in the game. The story is told through your actions and cutscenes, and you find the story where you can go, it’s small and linear. But if you look at the rough surface, you’ll notice that every screen, every character in the game is unique and has little details to them. The game is rough because of the art style, but deliberate, designed and detailed. The “story” is short, and while so little happens with the ship, there are so many details that makes you think of the people, their role, their routine, etc. It’s just one hour and it’s a wonderful one hour

Plague Inc: Evolved

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Finally finished a run or two in Plague Inc: Evolved, an old-ass SG win from Princeofiowa. The game having too much RNG for my taste, and apparently also a smorgasbord of unfixed achievement issues… I didn’t enjoy it too much, but 9 years ago it seemed interesting. I appreciate the chance to try it out for free :)

Daemonologie

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A fantastic little indie horror that is uncomfortable, terrifying and horrifying at points. There is a witch in the little town, and you have to find them. You talk with everyone, and after they obviously fail to admit or give proper leads, you'll be a good little inquisitor and start torturing people. It's not not nice, and you may know how useful torture is to get out the truth (it really isn't). The dev knows, and uses it as a tool to combine with the oppressive graphics and the grimy looks to make everything both suspicious and miserable. At the game's beginning, ending, and as time progresses, nightly you get to see some absolutely wonderful stop motion art. All black and while, the design and sculpting is great, and there's some professional light works added to it. Check the trailer and if you like it, it will well worth the ~1.5€ price at the next sale.

Bulb Boy

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Yet another horror game, this one is a point and clicky one. It’s interesting, it’s well done, it made me highly uncomfortable multiple times, but it’s best played with the help of a guide, there’s some moon logic involved at some points. You can (and will) die many times, but there are checkpoints at every screen / room. It was free so you likely own it, it may worth playing at an autumn afternoon/night.

The Last Show of Mr. Chardish

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Snowball (Christmasy gift like thing) from Foxpile - as an actress, return to the theatre where your carrier started, and reminiscence about the past pieces of the eccentric Mr. Chardish. Collect paperwork and memorabilia in the threatre (one of them is being bugged and if you don’t know, you need to replay the whole game for its achievements…), and as individual “minigames” you take part and replay the theatre pieces. The robot play (Symmetry) was the best part narratively and gameplay-wise. And those were not created equal, they are different in quality regarding uniqueness, fun, how involved you are. The one that are made up by the worst possible rhyming script is torture, though I think they wanted it to be bad in-universe too? Still hurt to having to hear it. It’s a really pretty game, but its narrative is disjointed between the past (you have newspapers and taped interviews) and 5 shows, and the end throws a choice at you that makes me think even the writer(s) couldn’t really decide how to end the game. So they made you make a choice, but put a save point before it so it’s easy to change it if you don’t like. Pretty, but surprisingly directionless and unsure of itself.

RUINER

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Moving forwards on the “style over substance, and I’ll get beaten for saying this” wagon, the next one is RUINER. Twin-stick shooter / brawler, highly stylish cyberpunk world.
I just feel like its gimmicks got old. The glitchy “somebody is talking to you inside your brain” pictures from the prologue stay for the whole game. The gameplay is entering a killbox, killing everyone there, then running to the next killbox while opening a chest or two on the go to get more xp. Literally rinse and repeat. And as you may guess from the screenshots, most of the locations is either dark, or red, the bullets are generally vibrant and melee attacks are wide and you guessed right, have a big red animation to them. It was generally hard to see even myself in some fights. A C.A.T. collecting side content seems to be buggy and/or you can close yourself out of it, the bounty hunting is done automatically so there’s one less reason for even having a world outside of the combat, and if you ever read, played or watched a cyberpunk media then you’ll roll your eyes at the main story. I guess there’s replayability in score-maxing and speedrunning, but other than that RUINER is more of a stylish, but repetitive and unoriginal game.

ANNO: Mutationem

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BEAUTIFUL art, fantastic worldbuilding, side quests have no connection to much of the worldbuilding or your quest, weird “go there, then go there” first half of the main quest with barely any combat, and the second half of the main quest jumps the shark - it is 80% combat and 20% “who the fuck are they and what’s going on”. There’s literally a cutscene, where at [LOCATION] C and G talking about S (There’s also a Castor, but they are not C, why would they) and you have no idea where, when it is, and who any of these people are. But they are cooooooooool.
A game that starts out an investigation ends up an anime-inspired (sub-par) spectatle fighter where the game shows “cool” scenes to you, as a player, unknown characters monologue to eachother, and there’s a doctor cybermonkey in a labcoat that doesn’t get addressed in any way. Most of the story is in random computer terminals in the second half of the game, that you can read between fighting enemies constantly, using the same 2-3 attacks at most.
There’s more on Steam in my review, I had to write this chaos out of my head: review on Steam

Metro 2033 Redux

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We’re at the final finished game, can you believe it?
I tend to mistakenly set up a Stockhold-syndrome-like relationship between games and myself, trying for achievements, while also taking the game too seriously (I tend to immerse myself too much) so I’m scared, don’t want to be touched by that scary-ass mutant, and I’m looking around for keys and notes. This was the trend with Metro 2033 too, so thinking back I like the game a lot more than I liked while playing. I read the book, knew what to expect, but tbh I was not ready for the supersmall FOV and some of the choices. I tried to make sense of it on DIscord, it’s weird. It’s like everything is too close to the protagonist, Artyom. He opens doors while pushing his face to the door. Every document is read so closely that he either can’t see past 20 cm, or the game was designed to be played from afar. I could read most of these things from metres afar. Idk, it’s just one of those things that made me feel that there’s something unconsciously deeply wrong with the presentation, but that doesn’t seem to be a universal experience.

Games I started but haven’t finished in the month:
Door Kickers
Jet Set Radio
It Is Ticking
Double Kick Heroes

9 new games if I counted it properly

• 3 from bundles I already bought, three free, one gift)
• 1 SG win - Shelldiver from DancingXmas
• 1 bought (Pizza Frenzy, 0.99€ :) )
  11 games fewer in backlog

2026 March

A Cat & His Boy

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Game-boy styled, basically a children’s game. Easy to follow story, small map, it’s perfect for gamers starting out, or people who want to reminiscence about the good old days. Was nice until it lasted, but not really an oustanding game because of its own limitations (length, graphics, music), despite being made with lots of care. Was an SG win from Gelweo.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

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Finished the story, still collecting energy to carry on with postgame stuff. Workload and a recent sickness made it difficult. Also as it often happens with the end of a big RPG, it’s really hard to find one’s place, and return to the game (or go on to a new one). Was an SG win from xxxka.

Firewatch

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Really nice almost-walking-sim game, with actual gameplay, and great pacing. There is backstory, there are actual, real time events, there are dialogues, and there’s a reason for doing the rounds. Nice music, beautiful environments. Not an action game by any definition, but it was really nice to play it on the Deck.

Legends of Savvarah: Children of the Sun

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Interesting visual novel in a “world” that’s ripe for unreliable narrators and sensitive topics - Rich and plentiful empire in the middle of nowhere; godlike ruler who’s both hated and loved, depending on who you ask; questionable history and vilified outsiders; and a race created to serve, in war as soldiers or as house-slaves. Many achievements for repeated runs and choices, different endings through narrative web and choices. The dev has multiple games in the universe that are supposed to have referential connections maximum, and are standalones. While VN is not my favourite genre at all, the worldbuilding was compelling and got a lot more interesting as I played further - I may look out for the other games too.
Was an SG win from Ateszmadman.

PowerWash Simulator Shrek DLC, Wallace and Gromit DLC

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It’s a good way to pass time with my GF, while we listen to a podcast. Not even I’m convinced that Powerwash Simulator is a “good game”, but it’s really good to pass time, if one’s looking for doing that.

Activated games: 3 (of which 2 is SG wins)

bought:

Powerwash Sim DLC x2 - finished
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader pack for Voidfarer and Deluxe content (That OST!)
Bought Core Keeper + Smalland for GF as well for future multiplayer
Bought 5 games for 3€ at Build your own Spring Bundle (2026), which is a big questionable, as I haven’t activated anything yet. But Cape Hideous and The Space-Eating Croc looked interesting and short to balance out the purchase for me quite fast. Eventually they’ll :)

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

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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.