More Progress

Well, I’m making progress with the backlog again, as well as making some decisions about what to keep in my library. I’ve removed a handful (I think about 6?) more titles from my ‘won’t play’ list that were either unplayable or just not something I can actually enjoy. I also made a category for games that are currently not playable on my machine, but which interest me - something to give another try with different settings when I have time. I’ve been avoiding adding lots of new games, but I still pass on the good deals to friends. I do still have a lot of old classics that I may have played on other devices long ago, and part of me wants to just mark them as complete, but I’m also interested in checking some of them about anew. We’ll see.

Two Point Hospital

Finished off all the base game levels to three stars. I was an avid player of Theme Hospital back in the day, and enjoyed this update.

Lyne

Finished off the main levels (may go back to 100% the daily cheevos) in this relaxing puzzler. There’s something really pleasant about solving these, and it’s a good game to pick up and put down. I ran into a save game bug, but fortunately there’s a way to restore progress from cheevos.

Access Denied

Had this one on the go for a while. Some of the levels are enjoyable, others frustrating - I decided to just look up hints for levels I found boring.

Rusty Lake Hotel

Short, morbid, and enjoyable. I’d like to check out more of these at a later date, but no rush to add more titles to my backlog just yet.

Planet of the Eyes

Sweet little Limbo-esque robot story. I found this one much more engaging than Limbo, though I wasn’t thrilled at the time-padding rotating jump puzzles near the end. I found the game’s story touching.

Devolverland Expo

Forgot to check this out when I first got it. It’s really an interactive Devolver trailer (and not even a new one) but it was a fun outing - imagine if games expos were like theme park rides, and also full of robots.

Batman: The Telltale Series

Decent Telltale stuff. Tales from the Borderlands is my favourite Telltale title, but this was a good enough adventure. Mostly limited for me by my frustrations with the source material, as I find it hard to get really invested in the protagonist. I have the following title and look forward to checking it out.

With all that, my unplayed percentage is down below 25% again. That’s … still a lot of games, but we’re getting there.

Finished Hazardous Space - at least as far as the game has been completed. I don’t expect to see any more as the game has vanished from the Steam store. It’s an entertaining enough side-scrolly turn-based combat/energy management sort of rogue-lite thing. I feel like I missed most of the plot as it appears in a small text box in the corner of the screen while you play.

Finished off The Artifact - a point and click scifi game that reminded me of old titles such as RAMA but much shorter. I had some save issues with this game on the first couple of attempts and got fed up with it, but managed to whiz through it today.

Also finished up Layers of Fear 2. This was a real slog for me, to my disappointment. I really enjoyed Layers of Fear, and I’m pretty into shipwrecks, disaster, and horror… but this just didn’t do anything for me. I found the writing cliched and sort of wooly, and neither the characters nor the horror really grabbed me. I guess it just wasn’t the game for me, maybe because I thought SOMA handled that flavour of creepy much better. The visual design was very beautiful in places though.

Finished The Hex - very good, and got me emotionally in unexpected ways. I enjoy a lot of games-about-games but that’s a particularly good one.

Finished off The Darkside Detective - really enjoyable as a fan of oldskool adventure games. Packed with media references and gaming tropes, and it’s short, pixelly fun.

I’ve been doing some VR gaming recently, and also completed Void Bastards on another platform (good!)

Forgot to log a first playthrough of Beckett the other day (didn’t love it, didn’t hate it), and have also been putting a lot of time into The Blackout Club - a multiplayer quest-based stealth/horror game that surprised me with its depth and replayability. I’ve maxed out my levels and completed most of the quests, so marking it as beaten, but still going back to pick up some of the challenges/items.

Well, I started actually playing my backlog again, though it’s grown and I need to recategorise a LOT of games. Currently playing The Signal From Tölva and loving the world that the creators have built. Even though bundles have left me with a huge backlog, they’ve also exposed me to loads of games that I would never have otherwise played. Now I just need to play more of them.

I’m not doing well at this because:

• I had to go through a break-up
• comfort-bought a bunch of games
• Borderlands 3 came out

So, basically I’m a bit of a mess, further behind on my games, and temporarily stalled. I haven’t given up on beating the backlog though, even if progress will be slower. Gaming can be good therapy.

Beaten: The Red Strings Club

This was a great trip into a cyberpunk world with some really interesting moral quandaries. Short, yes, but the worldbuilding left me full of things to think about.

Beaten: Heaven’s Vault

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Made me smile, broke my heart, filled me with wonder… this is my favourite kind of story. Just amazing.

Beaten: Event[0]

I really loved this game, and I’m already in the middle of another playthrough. Abandoned spaceship, talking to the AI through a text parser via typing into terminals, classic 80s SF setting. Yes, it’s short, but very sweet. Ticked all my boxes.