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:

July Review

• Don't Sink
  

  4 hours playtime

  10 of 15 achievements

• Majotori
  

  3 hours playtime

  16 of 16 achievements

• Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
  

  10 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

• The Mooseman
  

  4 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• One Eyed Kutkh
  

  64 minutes playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Dying Light
  

  76 hours playtime

  48 of 68 achievements

• War for the Overworld
  

  29 hours playtime

  31 of 141 achievements

I started July finishing up some recent additions.

Don’t Sink is a fun game that duly deserves comparisons to Pixel Piracy. All of the counters seem broken in the game and there was no sound for me, but the developer claims a new build is coming soon. I could spend more time with this game, but I can’t see it being much more than I have already spent, as I have already seen just about everything.

Majotori is filled with trivia question that are tied together with short stories. It is fun in short intervals, but there is too much focus on anime, cinema, and video games, even through I set those 3 categories to infrequent. The stories are a great way to tie everything together and add some replayability.

Orwell: Ignorance is Strength has an interesting story-rich 3-part series that takes place during the same time as the original Orwell. The branching story lines leave a lot to be discovered, allowing for a lot of replayability (though by the end it can feel tedious trying to reveal everything).

I saw some friends had played & reviewed The Mooseman and One Eyed Kutkh, both were slightly annoying to play, but not terrible overall.

I have finished playing Dying Light but have not yet uninstalled it in case I get a chance to play with friends. This is unlikely so I will probably remove it soon.

War for the Overworld consistently has bad performance in just the main menus. Once in game, it runs fine for a little while but as I expand performance degrades to the point it is nearly unplayable. It really seems like they were too ambitious with this game too, there is barely the opportunity to use all the tools at an underlord’s disposal. On top of that, it seems most of the game is locked away under many DLCs. It is fun, but my first exposure to this type of game a few years ago was Dungeons 2 and that was better all around. Not as expansive, but still complete. I wrote my review last night, and ready to write this game off, logged off with plans to install in the next few days. Then, 2 developers responded to my review. In short, hopefully the beta resolves some performance issues - I look forward to finding out. I told the developer that had friended me:

I really appreciate the attention!
I was ready to uninstall and move on, and now I am thinking about buying DLC (which I never do), kudos to you, your team, and the support your provide

This kind of response makes me happy I have actually bought the game twice - once to give away when it was on sale, and once through humble monthly (which is the copy I kept for myself).

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

June Review

• Victor Vran
  

  19 hours playtime

  29 of 90 achievements

• Scrap Garden
  

  6 hours playtime

  42 of 42 achievements

• Scrap Garden - The Day Before
  

  35 minutes playtime

  16 of 21 achievements

• The Adventurous Four
  

  81 minutes playtime

  29 of 29 achievements

• Placement
  

  2 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Snail Trek - Chapter 1: Intershellar
  

  63 minutes playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Snail Trek - Chapter 2: A Snail Of Two Worlds
  

  81 minutes playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Snail Trek - Chapter 3: Lettuce Be
  

  70 minutes playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Snail Trek - Chapter 4: The Final Fondue
  

  2 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• Poly Towns
  

  2 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Pan-Pan
  

  3 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• Schrödinger's Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark
  

  10 hours playtime

  20 of 26 achievements

• Caravan
  

  13 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• One Night Stand
  

  3 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• Game Corp DX
  

  9 hours playtime

  36 of 36 achievements

• Under Leaves
  

  2 hours playtime

  29 of 29 achievements

• The Mind of Marlo
  

  47 minutes playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• How To Cope With Boredom and Loneliness
  

  37 minutes playtime

  16 of 16 achievements

• OVIVO
  

  3 hours playtime

  22 of 31 achievements

• Perils of Man
  

  4 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• Her Majesty's SPIFFING
  

  3 hours playtime

  25 of 25 achievements

• The Caribbean Sail
  

  35 hours playtime

  26 of 26 achievements

Victor Vran was mostly enjoyable but started to feel grindy toward the end. It just wasn’t fun trying to level up enough (or transmute weapons so they would be better) as I continued. The DLC seems to add about half of the achievements so this will end up being a low % completion game.

Scrap Garden and its prequel were both short & enjoyable. Some of the boss fights were annoying, but they weren’t the worst there is either.

The Adventurous Four is a sequel to Wild Island Quest, which I think I got for free somewhere. It is funny but doesn’t really intend to be - where it is so bad in places that it is funny.

Placement is a fairly small but interesting puzzle game.

I stumbled upon the Snail Trek series on sale a few weeks ago. Just reading the games’ titles I knew I would enjoy the humor - and I was not disappointed. All 4 are fairly short, but very entertaining.

Poly Towns was fairly bland and pretty typical of “Unity Personal Edition” with plenty of graphical bugs and a half thought-out game. Still, I left a positive review because the developer answered an email within hours after I found a minor but game-breaking Steam-related bug.

Pan-Pan had been on my wishlist a while and had a really nice discount so I picked it up. It is short, but I enjoyed my time with this adventure puzzle game as I tried to figure out what I was doing. Most of the puzzles were good, and the sounds were a treat.

I really wanted to like Schrödinger’s Cat, and I really tried. But, no amount of good puns and funny jokes can overcome the terribly loose controls.

Caravan is an enjoyable adventure/trading game. After a slight learning curve the game becomes fairly easy. The first 2-3 hours are a slow struggle though.

Before picking up One Night Stand I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a game that was funny, trashy, silly, or some sort of mix. It was a bit boring (and at times tedious), but it pretty much met my expectations of being OK - nothing special.

Game Corp DX is a cheap game from Endless Loop. It is par for the course in what I expected - fun, casual, enjoyable for several hours.

Under Leaves is a nice, cute hidden object game that met my expectations. Now that I purchased it, I’m sure it will be in a bundle soon.

The Mind of Marlo and How To Cope With Boredom and Loneliness are from the same developer, and interestingly, the free one is funnier than that pay-for. Both were funny enough.

I did not expect OVIVO to be as difficult as it is, but maybe I should have looked closer at the developer’s name (IzHard). It has a a nice flow and great sound/art, I just was not very good at it.

Perils of Man was a cheap splurge purchase (90% off). It is not really anything special, but if you really like point-and-click games, it may be for you.

Her Majesty’s SPIFFING met my expectations - it is a funny satire, and I fully enjoyed it. If you find the trailer entertaining, you will probably enjoy the game.

(some of my recent Steam reviews are here if any one wants to see slightly more detail)

Finally, a shout-out to The Caribbean Sail which had a huge update recently that really added a lot to the gameplay. The developer is great, and really open to feedback from the community. I don’t have a definition of “hidden gem” but this game really needs to get in the hands of more players, as I have sunk (pun intended) many entertaining, casual hours into this one.

Total Progress:

One Year Ago:

May Review

• Grandpa's Table
  

  15 hours playtime

  37 of 37 achievements

• The Journey Down: Chapter Three
  

  4 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Tick's Tales
  

  3 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Crossroad Mysteries: The Broken Deal
  

  3 hours playtime

  25 of 25 achievements

• Persian Nights: Sands of Wonders
  

  3 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

• The Secret Order 6: Bloodline
  

  3 hours playtime

  28 of 28 achievements

• Gunpoint
  

  8 hours playtime

  42 of 42 achievements

• Dying Light
  

  33 hours playtime

  27 of 68 achievements

I don’t expect to make much progress in the next week or so, so here’s a May review a bit early …

I was gifted Grandpa’s Table and, after seriously considering rejecting it (and telling the gifter so), I accepted and got right to playing. It is enjoyable, and a really great puzzle game that should be a lot more popular than it is. In an effort to assist its popularity, I recorded the solutions to all the levels since there was no guide for the game.

The Journey Down: Chapter Three is even shorter than I expected. It is fairly simple, and I know the developers were involved with testers in areas where they found themselves stuck. There was only one time during my playthrough when I wasn’t sure what to do. In the end, it was still fun to play, and nice to pick it up while on sale.

Tick’s Tale is low-budget funny and pokes fun at itself. Otherwise, it is a simplified point and click. I picked up a few HOGs and completed them this month too.

Gunpoint had been sitting in my backlog for quite a while, and it was funnier than I had expected. Really great writing. The puzzles were really interesting as well. Overall, I would fully recommend it. I am only disappointed its successor, Heat Signature, is unavailable for my platform.

Dying Light still has much left to explore, though I’m not sure how much more time I will invest now that I have beaten the main campaign. Exploring the rest of the map doesn’t seem as rewarding as I have found in other open world / adventure games.

Total Progress:

April Review

• Cursed
  

  5 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• BoneBone: Rise of the Deathlord
  

  3 hours playtime

  18 of 18 achievements

• PAYDAY 2
  

  9 hours playtime

  16 of 1076 achievements

• Rakuen
  

  10 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• Aeon Command
  

  6 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• BalanCity
  

  5 hours playtime

  10 of 28 achievements

• Dropsy
  

  8 hours playtime

  30 of 30 achievements

• Runes
  

  14 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• The Little Acre
  

  3 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• Hue
  

  6 hours playtime

  12 of 13 achievements

• Dying Light
  

  16 hours playtime

  11 of 68 achievements

Cursed is like a HOG without the HO Scenes. BoneBone is a poor mobile port.

I won Payday 2 after being convinced it was a different kind of FPS, but there doesn’t seem to be a point to it besides having more money. I gave it a try and am considering it beaten because, as far as I can tell, I have seen everything the game has to offer, just not at its hardest levels of difficulty. I’m sure it would be fun if goals were more obvious (I spent most of the time having no idea what to do), and if I had more dedicated time to be able to coordinate scheduled and play multiplayer.

Rakuen was bundled too soon, as I probably would have purchased it during a good sale. I can’t complain about the price, and it was very enjoyable, exactly as I was expecting.

Aeon Command is strategy light, perhaps multiplayer would provide a challenge. BalanCity was quirky but enjoyable, but would crash just too much. The developer has acknowledged physics bugs but apparently hasn’t decided to address or even exception capture them. I would like to play it more, but simply can’t play most levels. Dropsy is intentionally strange and I enjoyed it about on par with other point & clicks.

Runes is a nice, cheap puzzle game that has gotten very little attention. The Little Acre is a little short but still enjoyable. Hue is a fun puzzle-platformer that I would have liked to explore more if it didn’t force you to do everything a second time in order to do so.

Dying Light was a surprise direct gift a little while ago. I once again don’t understand the appeal of the first-person perspective - it’s so much harder to see your surroundings (and your own feet even). I am giving this genre another chance, and while I don’t prefer the point of view, and the game can be painfully difficult with such weak weapons and strong opponents, I am finding it exhilarating at times and overall enjoyable. I have not yet decided if I will play more than the main story.

Finally, I knew I needed to reclassify my unplayed/never played games and was going to wait until I had been fully tracking progress for a year but it was bothering me so much I had to address it. Obviously, there is a significant change in classification, but overall my “finished” games vs “unfinished” games continues to (slowly) get better.

Total Progress: