May Review

Steam reviews are up for almost all of these games.

• Plague Inc: Evolved
  

  35 hours playtime

  121 of 199 achievements

• Portal 2
  

  15 hours playtime

  27 of 51 achievements

• Democracy 3
  

  11 hours playtime

  34 of 42 achievements

• LIMBO
  

  5 hours playtime

  11 of 13 achievements

• Bit Blaster XL
  

  8 hours playtime

  14 of 17 achievements

• Dead Island
  

  6 hours playtime

  3 of 48 achievements

• Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack
  

  9 hours playtime

  10 of 14 achievements

Unfortunately I cannot write a Steam review for Dead Island. I do not have the definitive version because I got this for free or in a cheap bundle. As much as I do not want to add another game to the “won’t play” list, this strongly qualifies for it.

It is like the developers wanted to make Dying Light, but did not have the budget or support so they just made it with everything worse. I suppose I should be thankful they got a second chance and did a much better job when they actually made Dying Light.

Maybe I would have spent some more time with it had I not already finished Dying Light, but the time I spent was unenjoyable and that’s not how I want to spend my time.

I also got a chance to test out Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD which is a nice little point and click. Steam is still learning about it so it will take some time before it shows up here.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

April Review

Steam reviews are up for almost all of these games.

• Romopolis
  

  13 hours playtime

  22 of 22 achievements

• Megapolis
  

  10 hours playtime

  22 of 22 achievements

• Star Sky 2 - ブルームーン2
  

  6 hours playtime

  29 of 29 achievements

• Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™
  

  40 hours playtime

  47 of 74 achievements

• Balrum
  

  25 hours playtime

  21 of 42 achievements

• Lifeless Planet
  

  12 hours playtime

  14 of 15 achievements

• The Caribbean Sail
  

  46 hours playtime

  29 of 29 achievements

• Plague Inc: Evolved
  

  12 hours playtime

  35 of 199 achievements

I do not have much to write that my reviews have not already covered. The Caribbean Sail had another nice update which added a few achievements as well. I played through the game again for the fun of it, and grabbed screenshots which I had not before. The fantasy update should be coming soon which is expected to be one of the final and larger updates. I am sure I will be playing more of this game in the future too.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

March Review

Steam reviews are up for all of these games (even though I am not done with Shadow of Mordor yet).

• Kingdoms and Castles
  

  17 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Valley
  

  16 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

• Sid Meier's Civilization V
  

  9 hours playtime

  20 of 286 achievements

• Sid Meier's Civilization VI
  

  26 hours playtime

  35 of 241 achievements

• Runic Rampage
  

  12 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

• Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™
  

  18 hours playtime

  17 of 74 achievements

I completed Runic Rampage and as the developer promised after 90 reviews (I was #90) they would add more achievements to the game. I just completed it a second time.
I may play a bit more Civ and I could see myself playing a lot more if I did not own more than 500 games.
I finally have the disk space available to install Shadow of Mordor so I have started that. Combat is complicated but I am started to get used to it.

In the end, a good month because I finished more games than I added - which has less to do with the progress I made this month and more to do with the fact that I only added 1 game.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

February Review

Steam reviews are up for all of these games. Clearly I posted too soon as I have finished 2 more games (I had not expected to). I have added them in below.

Master of Orion took most of my month, but I managed to finish a few other games in the end.

• Master of Orion
  

  97 hours playtime

  98 of 102 achievements

• Tooth and Tail
  

  12 hours playtime

  17 of 38 achievements

• Queen's Quest 4: Sacred Truce
  

  5 hours playtime

  24 of 24 achievements

• Endless Fables 2: Frozen Path
  

  3 hours playtime

  28 of 28 achievements

• Endless Fables 3: Dark Moor
  

  4 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

• Chronicles of Magic: Divided Kingdoms
  

  4 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• AntVentor
  

  3 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• Herald: An Interactive Period Drama
  

  6 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• My Brother Rabbit
  

  4 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

January Review

Steam reviews are up for most games, more to come soon.

Regions of Ruin is really fun. I got it just before the Winter Sale and have no regrets.
Master of Orion needs some polish, but it has what I was looking for.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

December Review

Steam reviews should be posted for all games I have finished.

At the end of the month, slightly further behind compared to last month, still progress for the year.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

November Review

I still have some Steam reviews to write, but here is what I did last month:

I have been going through and deleting games from my profile I know I will not play, so my numbers are better than my actual progress.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

October Review

• Life is Strange: Before the Storm
  

  12 hours playtime

  34 of 34 achievements

• AER Memories of Old
  

  5 hours playtime

  20 of 20 achievements

• Another Lost Phone: Laura's Story
  

  2 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Braveland
  

  4 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

• The Revenge of Johnny Bonasera: Episode 2
  

  2 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• The Tiny Bang Story
  

  3 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Sol Trader
  

  16 hours playtime

  24 of 38 achievements

• Dungeons 3
  

  23 hours playtime

  33 of 60 achievements

Life is Strange Before the Storm - It could have been better, it could have been worse - I guess it is hard to impossible to meet expectations.
AER - A nice, unique 3rd-person exploration/adventure where the protagonist can turn into a bird to fly from floating island to floating island. I found the puzzles nicely moderate in difficulty, and consistently intuitive. Some 3D-platforming sprinkled in mixes things up a bit.
Another Lost Phone - The second game of its kind. Just like the first one, if the top tags (Indie, Casual, Interactive Fiction, Story Rich) intrigue you, you will enjoy this one too. The story in this game is less surprising but no less enjoyable.
Braveland - “Strategy-light.” I played my first (and only) play-through on hard and did not lose once. It is an enjoyable game, and if you know what to expect, you should not be disappointed. Save for the difficulty, it is on par with other with hex-grid, turn-based battle games I have played before. In short, it is casual and enjoyable.
Johnny Bonasera: Episode 2 - Just like the first one, a casual and enjoyable few hours pointing and clicking. There are enough funny moments throughout to make a play-through worthwhile. There is supposed to be a third one, will it too be bundled within 6 months of release?
Tiny Bang Story - A classic I missed out on. Simple (not necessarily easy) and enjoyable.
Sol Trader - Overall, I feel mixed about this game. I kept going back to it, so I got some enjoyment out of playing. It is complex and complicated, and it is more of a social simulator than a trading game. Yes, you can trade, but that does not necessarily seem to be a major focus. It can be tedious at times, which can make the game feel even more boring, and ultimate why I stopped playing.
Dungeons 3 - I am in the middle of it and enjoying it just as much as I expected. There a some really nice tweaks but the overall feel and formula are very similar to Dungeons 2.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

September “Review”

I had a very busy September and, well, made things worse for myself this month.

I guess the good news is that I have 3 less games on my wishlist ¯\(ツ)/¯

August Review

• War for the Overworld
  

  54 hours playtime

  54 of 141 achievements

• A Normal Lost Phone
  

  2 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• Portal
  

  9 hours playtime

  10 of 15 achievements

• 911 Operator
  

  13 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• Rusted Warfare - RTS
  

  21 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Factory Engineer
  

  19 hours playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

I played some more War for the Overworld and finished up the DLC I purchased (My Pet Dungeon).

A Normal Lost Phone had a surprising storyline and I probably enjoyed it more by going into it blind.

Last summer sale (2017) I purchased the Portal bundle and I finally played the first one. It is a fun and (at times) funny game but, admittedly, I did not even try the challenges.

911 Operator was purchased by a friend to test on Linux and it works great. It is a fun “disaster simulator” that brought back memories from years ago, but those memories are too fuzzy to know exactly why.

Rusted Warfare - RTS is enjoyable and I could see myself playing hours and hours with friends like I wished I could back when I had more time (and also no Internet access or dial-up).

Factory Engineer is decent, but nothing special. I would consider it a “conveyor belt simulator” and there are several other games like it out there. If you already own it and like these kinds of games, I would recommend it. If you do not already own it, there are better, similar games available.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago: