The Little Gamer That Could greatmastermario’s profile

Hi everyone! My name is Great Master Mario. I am working to ever so slowly defeat my backlog, no matter how long it takes. I started my journey through Play a Game You Won on Steam Gifts (PAGYWOSG) events, and I hope to clear out my SG wins and then move on to my remaining backlog.

In my free time, I spend a lot of time with family, and I am active at my church (Roman Catholic). I also enjoy hiking/biking when the weather is nice, and I love to play tabletop games, including my collection of 50+ unique Monopoly variants. I work full time as a software engineer, and I also occasionally contribute to the open source community when I am off the clock.


February 2023 - A Slow and Short Month

Games played this month

  • Super Hexagon

    7 hours playtime

    6 of 6 achievements

  • Ballpoint Universe: Infinite

    3 hours playtime

    9 of 27 achievements

  • World of Warships

    349 hours playtime

    21 of 45 achievements

  • Beat Saber

    14 hours playtime

    16 of 26 achievements

Gameplay Summary

This month has been fairly sparse on gameplay, with limited hours and limited games. In retrospect, it makes sense given how busy I was with work, family life, and generalized lack of intrinsic motivation to actually play games, but I managed to pull off a couple goals by the end of the month.

Completed: Super Hexagon

After over 10 years of owning the game and several hours of gameplay dispersed through that time (many of which were on the DRM free version I got from Humble Bundle before I got Steam), I finally beat the last level. There were a couple agonizing points where I got within a couple seconds of beating the game, but in the end I completed it less than an hour before the Play a Game You Won on Steam Gifts event ended. This is a title I will likely visit later to try to improve my scores, but I will likely take a break.

Beaten: Ballpoint Universe: Infinite

This one was agonizing to beat. I tried working on it a couple months ago until I hit a roadblock where the game just crashed whenever I played a certain level. I found a workaround which involved switching back and forth between the main build and a beta build, which was tedious but manageable. I did like the game when it worked, but I do not recommend it if you do not already own it. I will likely revisit this later to get the remaining achievements.

In Progress: World of Warships

This month’s update is fairly similar to last month. I have continued making progress toward unlocking the next Japanese Aircraft Carrier, but progress is slow. I would rate myself an average (maybe even somewhat below average) player given my playtime, but that does not stop me since this is a common pastime with my friend. Hopefully I will have more of an update next month, so wish me luck on my sailing (and flying).

In Progress: Beat Saber

This one has an even smaller update than World of Warships. I think I played one time for only about 15 minutes, so I can’t give much of any progress. Here’s to hoping I’ll get more cardio in next month so I can give you all an update. I guess I also bought the latest DLC songs from Imagine Dragons yesterday, so there’s that. I’ll test them out and provide an update after March ends.

January 2023 - My First Post

Games played this month

  • It Takes Two

    14 hours playtime

    20 of 20 achievements

  • Caster

    2 hours playtime

    no achievements

  • 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel

    83 minutes playtime

    no achievements

  • Factorio

    2 hours playtime

    0 of 38 achievements

  • Super Hexagon

    4 hours playtime

    5 of 6 achievements

  • Beat Saber

    14 hours playtime

    16 of 26 achievements

  • World of Warships

    343 hours playtime

    21 of 45 achievements

NOTE: Playtimes might be slightly off since this post is late. Oh well :D

Gameplay summary

Completed: It Takes Two

This month was the month I both beat and completed It Takes Two, a fun cooperative game with a somewhat depressing story. I played through the whole game 100% with a friend of mine to take a break from our usual game (World of Warships). I highly recommend this game if you like puzzle platformers.

Beaten: Caster

At long last, I beat one of my oldest Steam Gifts wins. Though I recommend the game, the ending is slightly frustrating from a story standpoint and left the game feeling unfinished. It also takes a little configuring to get the sensitivity just right, but that’s minor if you figure it out early enough.

In Progress: 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel

This one is a doozy. My friend and I (same as It Takes Two) tried to go blind into a game, and we spent nearly the entire 83 minutes of playtime making a spaghetti of alternate timelines trying to figure out the rules without a significant strategy. I will play this some later when my brain hurts less.

In Progress: Factorio

As a gift from a certain Secret Santa on the Play a Game You Won on Steam Gifts (PAGYWOSG) Discord, I started working through this gem. Though I have spent nearly two hours and have only completed 60% of the tutorial, I can tell this is right up my alley. As a software engineer, I have optimization baked into my thought process, so it will be a fun challenge to work on clearing this over the coming months.

In Progress: Super Hexagon

One of my favorite ways to kill time and compete with family, this game is one that I am so close to yet so far from completing. I have gotten to the point where seeing the speed of the final level is easy, but precision pressing the keys to move is sometimes an exercise in both reflexes and patience at the same time. This is one of the games I will continue playing as part of the backlog category for the February PAGYWOSG event.

In Progress: Beat Saber

Being the only VR game I have played for a good chunk of time, this is the first month I have (tried) to get myself organized and get some sort of exercise regimen in place. I spent time both trying to work through Hard difficulty levels on my own, including the Camelia songs, and playing some friendly competition against my mom. This will be a recurring item in BLAEO posts, so I will try to come up with noteworthy achievements as part of this recurring item.

In Progress: World of Warships

This is another item that will take some time given how long the achievements will take to complete and the nature of it being an online free to play game. This is the main game my friend mentioned above and I play during our time online, so you will hear a lot about this. This month’s achievements include finally unlocking an Aircraft Carrier along with general grinding toward unlocking more ships and completing campaign missions. As with Beat Saber, I will try to come up with unique progress points to include each month.