Smythe’s profile


  • Rollerdrome

    12 hours playtime

    15 of 21 achievements

  • SLUDGE LIFE

    7 hours playtime

    14 of 14 achievements

  • Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

    23 hours playtime

    38 of 68 achievements

  • Will You Snail?

    6 hours playtime

    18 of 30 achievements

  • Unpacking

    4 hours playtime

    25 of 25 achievements

January 2024

Happy New Year! Feels a little strange writing that now but this is my first post of the year here.

A decent start to the year, 5 assassinations. Aside from those assassinations, this month I’ve been playing Session, Disco Elysium, Eastward, and Basingstoke. I’m struggling with Basingstoke. I keep replaying the same level trying to make progress but I’m not getting very far! Session recently got achievements, which was a good excuse to go back and relearn the controls. The other two, I’m enjoying a lot but haven’t dedicated a lot of time to yet.

What news do I have…hmmm, not much. Work has quietened down a lot. There’ll be things to do for the next month or two but it won’t be crazy busy for a while (I hope!). I did about 25 hours of an online side job last week in addition to my regular work which drove me a bit crazy. An intense 5 days or so, but it’s done now and won’t come around again for a while.

Steam

Backlog Additions

Three additions, not great but as I assassinated 5 games I’m still making progress! Nobody Saves the World, Dinkum, and ICEY.

  • DAVE THE DIVER

    43 hours playtime

    43 of 43 achievements

  • Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

    22 hours playtime

    19 of 29 achievements

December 2023

A pretty short post for the end of the year. I spent most of December playing Dave the Diver. At the end of the month, I finished that then noticed the current 8 years of BLAEO event and so chose 8 games from that period to work on. The games I chose should pop up in the next couple of posts and in the last few days I’ve started on Metro Exodus and Basingstoke.

I’m sure I’ve other snippets of news but my mind is blank right now and as it’s already January 1st, I want to get this post up! So, just a short update. Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. Another year of assassinations is ahead. Hopefully, I can get my Steam average achievement to 50% this year.

Steam

Backlog Additions

Just two additions this month, despite the sales - Bear and Breakfast which I’d be interested in since I played a demo in the Steam Nextfest, and Tunguska: The Visitation which I was on the shelf about but won in the Steamgifts Winter event.

Progress in 2023
I missed this summary last year, maybe I’ll go back and add the figures. Since I started using BLAEO I’ve made progress, but not so much in this last year so the figure below isn’t very interesting. A little too much buying and not enough playing! The figures for every year are in my profile section of the site.

Beginning of 2023 - 365 games
2% won't play
9% never played
28% unfinished
46% beaten
15% completed
Beginning of 2024 - 407 games
1% won't play
9% never played
29% unfinished
44% beaten
17% completed


  • Garden Story

    13 hours playtime

    19 of 21 achievements

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  • Darksiders Genesis

    21 hours playtime

    20 of 30 achievements

  • Batman: Arkham Knight

    52 hours playtime

    76 of 113 achievements

  • Doom & Destiny

    13 hours playtime

    44 of 44 achievements

  • inbento

    78 minutes playtime

    15 of 15 achievements

  • DREDGE

    21 hours playtime

    40 of 48 achievements

September-November

A long period with no posts again for the usual reason - work being busy. I want to do a separate end-of-year post and should have more time to game in December, so hopefully I can post at the end of this month and break the recent trend of 2-3 month long intervals.

I had a bit of a spending spree recently. A new laptop (no gaming, just everyday stuff away from the office/game room), new TV, new monitor (30% off in Black Friday sales) and some clothes. I’m normally pretty restrained, but felt like splurging a bit!

Not many games were beaten or completed in these 3 months and I got a lot of new ones (-.-;). On the bright side, I enjoyed lots of the games I played. So, time well spent!

Onto this month’s assassinations:

Steam

Backlog Additions

Oh dear, lots of additions. I won Starfield in a competition. Most of the others were from trades but I bought a couple and added Starbound from an old bundle that I forgot about.

Bear and Breakfast, inbento, The Case of the Golden Idol, DREDGE, A Story Beside, DAVE THE DIVER, Will You Snail?, Unpacking, Starbound, Cult of the Lamb, Starfield, Journey to the Savage Planet


  • Mail Mole

    5 hours playtime

    25 of 31 achievements

  • Children of Morta

    19 hours playtime

    38 of 45 achievements

  • Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

    47 hours playtime

    59 of 59 achievements

  • Kaze and the Wild Masks

    12 hours playtime

    11 of 25 achievements

  • RESTLESS SOUL

    7 hours playtime

    30 of 30 achievements

  • Chicken Police

    7 hours playtime

    31 of 31 achievements

  • Terror of Hemasaurus

    11 hours playtime

    30 of 30 achievements

June-August

My longest streak of not posting. I’ve pushed the boundaries of laziness even further. My previous two-month break has been extended to a three-month one. No single reason. A very busy period at work and an 18-day trip to the UK are probably the main reasons. A few other minor things, but I probably should’ve limited it to a two-month gap.

Work - Pretty stressful, to be honest. My sleep and sanity suffered a bit too, but nothing too serious. It’ll be quieter until about mid-September so I can relax a bit. From September things will get crazy again.

UK trip - Not really a holiday, as I was mainly visiting family and friends. There were a few more touristy things thrown in there as my gf came with me. We managed to time the trip as some rail strikes were happening which threw things a little. Thankfully a friend could drive us on the two days that trains were canceled, but that was one more thing to think about! I enjoyed meeting friends and eating a lot! It would be nice to have another trip to a beach resort or something but unlikely anytime soon.

I started writing this mid-August during a week’s holiday from work, which meant I had time to look back at the games and think a bit. I’m back at work as I finish writing it, but not too bad at the moment. Aside from the games listed below, I’ve been playing APICO (relaxing, fun, slow progress), Good Night, Knight (I’m stuck, need to go back to this), Roboquest (Nice for short bursts of gameplay, no achievements), Darksiders Genesis (it’s alright, actually added it to my account by mistake!), Rollerdrome (great fun!), and Garden Story (enjoying this one too and seems to be quite a lot to do).

Onto this month’s assassinations:

Steam

Backlog Additions

The period June to Aug wasn’t too bad for my library with only a handful of additions. I’ve assassinated some of the additions already and am playing others:

Disco Elysium, Haiku, the Robot, Garden Story, Terror of Hemasaurus, Kaze and the Wild Masks, Rain World


  • Olija

    5 hours playtime

    10 of 10 achievements

  • Spiritfarer

    33 hours playtime

    28 of 39 achievements

  • Luna's Fishing Garden

    3 hours playtime

    14 of 14 achievements

  • Cozy Grove

    68 hours playtime

    56 of 70 achievements

April-May

Oops, a two-month period again. I wasn’t even sure which games I was playing in April when I started writing this post! I had to search back in my Steam playtime and work it out. Hopefully, I got them all. I’m not even sure why I didn’t post. I guess I didn’t have much to report on as I still don’t a month later.

So, other happenings. I turned 42 during this two-month period. I didn’t do anything special, a meal with my gf but nothing much else. I kept it on the down-low at work too, so only one person with a good memory remembered and gave me a present. Work has been up and down. Getting up before 6am every day to go to the office isn’t great, but I’m much more productive in the office, the work is better in person, and I’m much more sociable. There has been a lull at work this week, but I’m gonna be busy again from Monday. This busyness and just a general lack of attention for longer games means most of my recent gaming has been on the Steamdeck. Short bursts during my commute or before I go to bed.

Onto this month’s games:

Steam

Backlog Additions

The additions are easier to check than the games I played as I can check back in my Steam account activation history. The list of shameful additions are:

Chicken Police, Teslagrad Remastered (I haven’t finished the original and thought the remastered version would replace it, but alas it’s another entry in my library!), Rollerdome, Restless Soul, Aground, Apico, Metro Last Light, Good Night, Knight, Mail Mole


  • A Short Hike

    7 hours playtime

    12 of 12 achievements

  • Battle Chef Brigade

    17 hours playtime

    16 of 25 achievements

February-March

A two-month update. Not that I haven’t been playing, I just hadn’t really finished any games at the End of February. Actually, not much better now but I’ve never been more than one month late with an update and I’m not about to start now!

So, the games I’ve been playing but not finishing are:
Mudrunner - Finding this frustrating. Completely different from my expectations! Guess I’ll do the bare minimum I can to call it ‘beaten,’ or snap and uninstall!
Grounded - fun but big and needs a lot of time.
Deathloop - enjoying it a little more, but obviously not enough to actually finish it. Need to get back to it.
Spiritfarer - decent progress on this, but based on achievements I’m nowhere near the end.
Cozy Grove - takes about an hour a day to do the ‘tasks’, so no way to up the pace.

Although a lot of time has passed since my last post, I don’t have much to write. Guess I’m in a bit of a gaining lull at the moment. Playing, but not massive amounts of time, just an hour here and there. I used a lot of holidays at work in March and will be heading back into the office every day from next week, which will seriously reduce my gaming time, so I’m unlikely to make much progress in the coming month. I live further away from the office than pre-Covid days and have been working mainly online for about 3 years, so it’s gonna be a shock to the system.

Onto this month’s games:

Steam

Backlog Additions

More additions. A mixture of bought games, gifts, one freebie and one win. My bad start to the year continues as the number of games increases and my completed percentage drops:

Sludge Life, Roboquest, A Short Hike, Spiritfarer®: Farewell Edition, MudRunner, Luna’s Fishing Garden,


  • Super Blood Hockey

    24 hours playtime

    33 of 33 achievements

  • The Last Campfire

    7 hours playtime

    22 of 22 achievements

  • Witcheye

    5 hours playtime

    13 of 25 achievements

  • Wildfire

    20 hours playtime

    40 of 60 achievements

  • OlliOlli World

    22 hours playtime

    31 of 54 achievements

January

Another new year begins and the continued war on my backlog continues. After a brief period at 48% completion I dropped back to 47% during January as I started a few new games that have dragged my stats down. I’ve been using BLAEO since 2017 and while there is a clear improvement in the percentage of beaten and completed games over the years, recently I’ve been adding more games too and the number of unplayed/unfinished isn’t changing much (I update the stats in my BLAEO profile each month/year so it’s easy to see).

Today was a mixed month. Time off work and access to the Deck increased my playtime a bit, so I was able to beat/complete quite a few games, but I also added to my library. The most surprising of these additions came from BLAEO itself! I voted in the Game Awards 2022 on the site as I do every year and then kind of forgot about it until I was informed that I won a game from the winners list. So, thank you again Skanda. I opted for Hardspace Shipbuilder, a game that I’ve been interested in for a while but never took the plunge and bought.

Work is about to get busy. There’s be at least 2 weeks with lots of work and probably quite a lot of unpaid overtime (working from home while there’s construction going on at the office and overtime won’t be logged!). Hopefully, I can take a few breaks during the day to balance things a little, but I imagine my gaming time will drop a little. My side jobs are busy at the moment too - Good for my wallet but not for gaming.

Onto this month’s games:

Steam

Backlog Additions

A perfect storm of sales, gifts, wins, and trades means I added nine games to my account!Two of these are in my list of assassinations this month, but still a bad start to the year.

The games are - Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Rebel Cops, Imposter Factory, BattleChef Brigade, Witcheye, OlliOlli World, Grounded, Zero Sievert, and Travellers Rest.


  • Cyberpunk 2077

    97 hours playtime

    34 of 44 achievements

  • Eldest Souls

    12 hours playtime

    27 of 50 achievements

  • Terminator: Resistance

    14 hours playtime

    26 of 36 achievements

December

Finished off the main story of Cyberpunk 2077 this month, which took me a while. I spent the remaining time beating the other two games below and playing Super Blood Hockey. I’ve almost got all the achievements in that game, but a few more to go. Hopefully, it’ll be part of next month’s report. A decent month of assassinations but no completed games this time.

I received my Steam Deck this month. Japan was way behind Europe and the USA with the release, but there are still a few countries waiting, I think. Australia for one, maybe a few other Asian countries. Anyway, good so far. I’m trying not to allow it to lead me into gaming in every free minute! So far, I occasionally play on my commute (but still try to use most days for studying) and will sit in the living room playing a bit while my partner watches TV. Still not very social, but I chat between games and she’s doing her own thing anyway. It’s just nice not to be locked away in another room all the time.

I’ve done my usual statistics update in the profile section of this site. I bought a lot more games than I have in previous years, so my progress as a whole with my library on BLAEO doesn’t look great. The fact that I added 55 games to my account and my stats look pretty similar to last year is good though, I think. Also, I’ve resisted the urge to just play new games and have cleared some older titles, and my overall completion percentage on Steam is up to 48%. Hopefully next year I can clear 50%!

Anyway, onto this month’s games:

Steam

Backlog Additions

I think the only game I picked up this month was Sleeping Dogs. An old game that I had a feeling I have a key for somewhere but not sure where. I’ll probably find it now I’ve bought it! The Steam Sale is still going on and other are a few games I have my eye on, so maybe I’ll cave and get a couple in January. For now, though, limited additions, which helps my stats!


  • TOEM

    7 hours playtime

    48 of 48 achievements

  • Sheepo

    7 hours playtime

    12 of 18 achievements

  • Tinykin

    12 hours playtime

    43 of 43 achievements

  • UNSIGHTED

    35 hours playtime

    26 of 42 achievements

November

I spent quite a lot of time playing Cyberpunk 2077 this month. Enjoying that so I’ve been doing mainly side missions and taking my time. Other than that, I cleared 4 games from my assassin’s hit list! I really enjoyed all the games too, so a nice month of gaming overall.

Had my 5th Covid vaccine this month. The usual day or two of headaches and achy limbs after but nothing too bad. I’ve felt a bit coldy aside from that recently, so not much exercise. Instead, I’ve been watching the World Cup and drinking beer! Getting lazy so I’ll have to get back in the gym soon and build my good habits again.

Anyway, onto the games:

Steam

Backlog Additions

I won Eldest Souls on Steamgifts and picked up Cozy Grove at the end of the month, so not the worst of months. I resisted the sales and so overall this month my backlog is -2.


  • Buddy Simulator 1984

    7 hours playtime

    22 of 30 achievements

  • Nuclear Blaze

    4 hours playtime

    20 of 20 achievements

  • Narita Boy

    11 hours playtime

    34 of 34 achievements

  • Mayhem in Single Valley

    7 hours playtime

    34 of 40 achievements

  • Celeste

    70 hours playtime

    28 of 32 achievements

October

A more successful month, 5 games assassinated and 2 of them completed! Whoop!

A few days before the end of the month as I’ve just finished Narita Boy and I don’t want to forget to upload this. I’ve been pretty slack in recent months.

Aside from gaming, not much going on. Kind of surviving rather than living life to the fullest. Just going through the motions at work, gaming and doing stuff locally on my days off. I’m looking into a trip back to the UK now that Corona restrictions are pretty much lifted in Japan (pretty slow compared to other countries) but the flight prices are putting me off a bit. It’ll probably be next Summer.

Steam

Backlog Additions

I finally took control of the buying and just got one game this month - Dying Light Enhanced Edition. Pretty difficult to get a good deal on a version of this that runs in Japan, but took the plunge. I’m sure it will sit unplayed for a few months and will be free somewhere before I get to it!


Statistics