New Year's Resolution: Clearing My Backlog (The 'Pressuring Myself' Edition)

CALENDAR OF FINISHED GAMES THUS FAR

February 4th-10th: Life is Strange: Before the Storm (Bonus: Robin)
February 11th-17th: Hashtag Dungeon, Tacoma (Gifted game of February)
February 18th-24th: Hatoful Boyfriend
February 25th-March 3rd: Lexica
March 4th-10th: None (Substitute: Hashtag Dungeon)
March 11th-17th: None (Substitute: Summer Nightmare)
March 18th-24th: Paranormal Teens
March 25th-31st: None (Substitute: Extra gifted game)
April 1st-7th: None (Substitute: On a Roll 3D)
April 8th-14th: None (Substitute: Lionessy)
April 15th-21st: None (Substitute: Extra gifted game)
April 22nd-28th: Max, an Autistic Journey
April 29th-May 5th: None (Substitute: Kitty Cat: Jigsaw Puzzles)
May 6th-12th: None (Substitute: Bad Sector HDD)
May 13th-19th: None (Substitute: A Wizard's Lizard)
May 20th-26th: None (Substitute: Extra gifted game)
May 27th-June 2nd: Summer Nightmare, On a Roll 3D, Lionessy
June 3rd-June 9th: Doki Doki Literature Club!
June 10th-June 16th: Drop Alive, Kitty Cat: Jigsaw Puzzles (Bonus: Kitten Adventures in City Park, A Raven Monologue, Frightened Beetles, Door Quest Demo)
June 17th-23rd: Spelunky, Bad Sector HDD, A Wizard's Lizard, Puppy Dog: Jigsaw Puzzles (Bonus: How To Cope With Boredom and Loneliness, True or False Universe)
June 24th-30th: The Hidden Dragon, Aurora Nights
July 1st-7th: The Deer God (Bonus: The Deer)
July 8th-14th: JumpJet Rex
July 15th-21st: None (Substitute: Puppy Dog: Jigsaw Puzzles)
July 22nd-28th: None (Substitute: Aurora Nights)
July 29th-August 4th: Abduction Bit
August 5th-11th: (Bonus: One way to exit, Space Between Worlds)
August 12th-18th: (Bonus: Viki Spotter: Camping, ADventure Lib)
August 26th-September 1st:
September 2nd-September 8th: Gothicc Breaker
September 9th-15th: Pushcat, Six Days of Snow (Bonus: Ablespia, Beneath the Cherry Trees, TREE, So, uh... a spaceship crashed in my yard., Dude Cops, Outside the Lines)

(Substitutes are extra games from other weeks that are swapped into weeks I had to miss due to RL issues. Bonuses are games that were too short to qualify for this list, but that I completed this year.)

hi good luck

Good on you! I hope it works:) I was thinking of doing something similar with my wins, but instead writing a proper review for each afterwards on Steam; so I can keep track of all those I've done and it serve as proof. For the past year or so I've lost the motivation to play games, I always get bored/find no enjoyment. I was gonna wait for this to pass but I guess I have to try force myself through it. So here's to it working for both of us, and if it's okay- I'll post my reviews here if I go through with it. Maybe we could make this a small community thing.

If it helps by the way; I'll be keeping this bookmarked. So know that someones watching you and judging, even if it gets buried!:D

With all that said, dont be too harsh on your progress :] Games are meant to be enjoyed, so take the time to absorb 'em :]

I hope you can nicely cleanup your backlog this year 😃 All the best and Happy New Year!

Good luck Celtic7! I'll be sure to check in on your progress every now and again :)

You should've tried something easier to do like making Youtube's interface good, making people willingly switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10 or achieving world peace.

Something that really helps tracking your backlog is making a specific category in Steam for games that are done. And backing that up in case Steam decides it doesn't like your categories, I think depressurizer can do that.

You spend too much time stressed out, so you are going to create more stress for yourself while at the same time ruining something you enjoy by trying to force yourself to play games? I don't think this is a good idea and will probably result in gaming becoming more of a chore than a fun relaxing hobby. Gaming should be about taking some time for yourself and doing something you enjoy to forget about the other stressful things in your life, not being another thing that needs to be completed on a deadline.

I am not trying to tell you what to do. I often see these threads about people trying to force themselves through their backlog and it always bothers me, so I just wanted to share how I felt. It's your life and your games, you are free to do what you want. Good luck with your quest :)

I don't think forcing yourself to do something is a wise decision. It will just increase your dislike towards games even more, if you 'have to' play them. I think you should find some other motivation.

Look, I have a bunch of indie games in my library, most of it is garbage, but I find it fun playing them for a few minutes and then forming a nice and cheesy review of the experience. So even if the game sucked, I get to write about how badly it sucked, which is quite entertaining for me. Maybe this won't be entertaining for you...maybe you should just look for a different hobby, something you actually like doing. It's okay if that hobby is not related to games. Maybe do some sport-like activity. Or board games with friends...

I also desire to beat games in my backlog, but I don't think you should force yourself to play the games, much less asking people to post a game you have to beat in a week. While theoretically it sounds good, in practice you'll end up being burdened by it.

I suggest to try looking at your library and list the games you want to play, then start working on your priority list from there. At the very least, you'll end up playing the games you'll end up enjoying. Join BLAEO if you haven't done so already, you might be able to spot games that you'll end up liking by looking at others' post

So, an update I meant to post yesterday but didn't. Things started off rocky because I got sick for all of last week. Must have caught something on the plane ride home. X_X Because of that, I actually did not get much computer time (15 hours of sleep in one day for instance, seems legit), which means nothing got accomplished the first week.

That would normally be discouraging for me, but this wasn't procrastination or something I willingly decided, it was a physical problem that I couldn't help. So I'm hoping to recover soon and have the coherency to play soon! The first game I have planned for is Life is Strange: Before the Storm. I loved Life is Strange, and with all three episodes of Before the Storm finally being out, I made sure to grab it on sale. I'm super excited for it! To anyone familiar with Life is Strange and Before the Storm, did you think Before the Storm held up?

Well, that sucked. I got over my sickness and then got sick with something else. Basically I spent all of January and some of February being in a horrible state. So I decided that for this, even though it's kind of silly, I'll be going from February 1 of this year to February 1 of next. Again, if it was something in my control, that'd be one thing, but I can't help being feverish and nauseous and having coughing fits and all that fun stuff. Thankfully it seems to be over now.

Last week, I did finally get to play and finish Life is Strange: Before the Storm, and I've written up my thoughts elsewhere, so I'll copy and paste here because I'm a lazy punk. =P Here it is:

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I should note that there is a bonus episode coming out for people who bought the deluxe edition, which is the one I own. As such, when that releases (the date being set for March 6th as of now), I'll play that as well. But it's an optional episode that I believe has been stated to be rather short and removed from the main game, so I'd call this complete even without it.

Now, time to ramble about my thoughts!

I can't really get into detail on why this game works so well, because to do so, it would require the reader knowing about Life is Strange. Talking about the story and characters of this game would spoil both Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm. These games really thrive on those aspects, so I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't played them. So I'll be as ambiguous as possible.

As a prequel, it works. I think if it was a stand-alone story for someone who hadn't played Life is Strange, it would still be effective and enjoyable, but nowhere near to the same extent as having played Life is Strange. Getting to play as Chloe is great, and seeing characters expanded on in a way that wasn't able to be done in the first game is really nice. They compliment each other well.

The main "problem" is that Before the Storm has three episodes. That means certain characters could be removed without being missed at all. Life is Strange has side characters that aren't necessary, but the cast is large and several can be empathized/sympathized with. Here, the cast is limited. That helps make some characters more pronounced, while others are just there as new people that quickly get forgotten.

That being said, it would have been difficult to expand this to five episodes, and I don't think the prequel needs to be as long as the game it comes before. It just lends to certain parts making me go, "That might have been something cool if there was more time to explore it." There's one character in particular I really don't get the point of and would have preferred not being there at all, but oh well. Most of the new ones were pretty good.

Gameplay-wise, they keep a lot of what made Life is Strange work while putting a new spin on it. Rather than taking pictures of things, you graffiti things. Instead of rewinding time, you engage in battles of wits. You have multiple ways of carrying out tasks, you have major and minor choices to affect the story, and the journal is present while having a different flavor to it. It has a lot of nostalgia while making it feel different. I really like that, and I think it's one of the game's strongest points.

I enjoy collecting things in games, so having the notes to find/graffiti to mark made me happy. Some of the graffiti is tricky to get, which made it feel like I was actually earning the achievements instead of just having them handed out like candy. Everything felt smooth gameplay-wise, and other than the graphical glitches (which I need to see if it's my settings at fault or not), there was only one glitch I came across, and it was a funny visual. It controlled as smoothly as Life is Strange, which means "pretty good other than sometimes getting a wonky camera angle."

And the music? I had high hopes for it since I love Life is Strange's soundtrack. That being said... it met those hopes and went beyond! Excellent soundtrack, and I can't wait to listen to it at work. Definitely a highlight for me!

I think that covers all my immediate non-spoiler thoughts, so I'll leave it at that. Great way to start off this backlog-clearing challenge! It's been a long time since I was so engaged in a game, and makes me remember what it's like to actually play good story-based games. I was very busy last year and mostly played small games that didn't have much narrative due to lacking time for greater investments. I'm striving to get that enjoyment back in my life this year since I've really missed it, so here's to hoping that I can keep that up!

All right, so I started Tacoma last night for this week's game. I enjoyed Gone Home a lot, and I was very fortunate to win Tacoma from a kind soul on this site! It was the main game I regretted not getting in the previous Humble Monthly, so I was stoked to begin!

I played about an hour and enjoyed it a lot. But when I tried continuing this morning, the game crashed. It seems like this is a common error according to the Steam tech forum. I sent an email in hopes of getting help with it. If that doesn't work, I think I'll literally have to set aside an entire day to play it nonstop since it only seems to affect the continue option. What a disappointment; I was really excited to play some more. Fingers crossed that they get back quickly.

So, what now? I suppose I'll take a look at my other gifted games and try to find another one to play for the time being...

I decided to try The Descendant next. It's a game I won a bit ago, but that my old computer hated. So I tried playing that, and... it still runs like garbage, despite my new computer being much nicer. So cross that off the list for now as an option.

Thus I went to a third game I won here, Stories Untold. I started with The House Abandon, which is story one out of four. It's the only one I know anything about since I saw someone LP that game before Stories Untold existed. I was enjoying it... until it stopped registering my typing. Being a text-based adventure, that kind of ruined things. I had to quit out of it. No idea what caused that.

I might try Stories Untold again, but I just wanted to lament in here about how three games I was looking forward to playing (and showing my gratitude to the giveaway creators) were all potentially ruined by technical issues. Today's not my lucky day. >_>

After getting some assistance from a helpful tech supporter on the Fullbright team, I was able to load my file for Tacoma and continue playing. I finished with 10.9 hours of play because I am the slowest explorer on the face of the planet... or space station, in this case. Needless to say, I was exploring every nook and cranny for items and logs that would expand on the story. This is why I love walking simulators. They tell a story in neat formats that rewards searching and putting together the puzzle pieces. Gone Home did that well, and I feel Tacoma did it even better, though I enjoyed both games about equally.

One of the cool things about Tacoma is that you can call up recorded videos of crew members. These play for certain time periods, which means that by being in different locations and having the same recording playing, you can hear different conversations that are going on simultaneously. There's usually about three groups to split between, though sometimes more viewings will give opportunities for individuals that split off. There's also a cat you can find in every major scene for an achievement, and I found that to be adorable. I like kitties. =3

The art style is cool, and the voice acting was really good. I especially liked the VA for ODIN, the station's AI. Speaking of which, this game avoids the cliche I often see of "the machines are EEEEEEEEEEEVIL!" and thank goodness for that. I liked the character interactions a lot, and the story felt solid. As for the gameplay, well, Unity in its classic "not totally broken like most Steam horror games but still having some issues," as I happened to lose a (thankfully unimportant) pool cue through a wall. I had a couple of issues looking at some items. Otherwise, nothing bad beyond some obnoxiously long "elevator sequences." I guess they were for loading? The loading times were pretty awful. Good news is that it only happens when entering the game to begin with, and if the "elevators" were for loading, I suppose those. But there's only three of them and they lead to major areas, so it's not like you're riding them all over the place.

Twelve achievements were there, and they were a nice mix of "easy to get via story/moving forward" and "do this silly thing that you may not have done otherwise." I tend to hate it when games get overloaded with a stupid amount of achievements, so this was good in my book. ...And I think that covers everything I wanted to ramble about. So yeah, definitely liked it, right up my alley, and I greatly appreciate the user that made the giveaway for it!

So, what's next? I wanted to start it yesterday, actually, but I have the perfect game for this time period of romance. I'll be starting it tonight!