This update will be quite extensive, as I stopped writing here several months ago T_T I still came often to make notes on the things I played and kept it in a non public post not to lose track of everything, but as the amount of stuff grew, I was less and less inclined to finally word it & format properly. As the New Year is upon us, I will try to write several months & end of year summary, so that I don’t get crushed under piles of writing backlog first thing next year XD

Overall this year was mixed - I made significant progress compared to last year. 51 games completed/beaten vs 25, so I was twice as much effective (even more so if I take into consideration the length of games I played this year, like Fallout 4 at 372 hours & few 50h+ ones, vs relatively short ones last year). And I’m happy about that. What I’m not happy about is that I wanted to play at least the same number of games that I win this year (not necessarily the exact same ones, but at least 1 game won was supposed to result in 1 win played, so that the wins backlog doesn’t grow). Sadly I came out short, so I will need to do even better next year to balance it out. I bought almost nothing on my own, so that didn’t contribute much to my growing backlog. But this was intended - part of my new year resolutions for 2017 - to focus only on playing my wins, and don’t buy anything (because it would just sit in my library for a year, since wins » all, so I might as well buy that in 2018). And while I did predominantly play my wins (and gifts) this year, I also strayed a bit. It started with me falling into a compulsion cycle again and sinking into an mmo, and then there were some non wins towards end of the year too. Might have been worse though, I might have abandoned playing regular games and had hard time pulling myself out like it used to be just few years ago.

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August

This was the beginning of my gaming downfall, and reason why I stopped posting here. It consumed my life (again). For those who don’t know, The Secret World (which I played intensively ever since it came out in 2012) got retired, and Funcom released a sort of remade version - Secret World Legends. They could have patched in all the mechanics changes & visual updates (downgrades to be exact), but instead they opted to force everyone to level their characters from scratch. I did basically everything there was to do (many things several times over) in TSW, and after 1400-ish hours I was done with the game. So why did I even touch SWL, especially when all the veterans had to re-level their characters and re-obtain / re-unlock many things again? Season 2 is the answer. Funcom promised to finally release Season 2 at some point (something that was already promised for TSW, but w/e), but only for the new SWL client. Also it was crucial to sort things out asap, cause I would lose my grandmaster account status if I didn’t link accounts back in August.

So if I ever wanted to proceed with the story I had to have a max level character at the end point of the current story, preferably decently geared. And yeah, I wanted to proceed with the story - I greatly enjoy this setting, atmosphere, writing, characters, plotlines, and all the mysteries/ conspiracies. So I started playing SWL. At fist it was even kinda nice, to replay entire main storyline in one go (even though they messed timeline in few places), and just plunge myself into that world again. Unfortunately many new additions to SWL turned to be the nasty f2p compulsion inducing mechanics. And even though I was aware of what was happening and could pinpoint precisely because of which elements, I still couldn’t make myself stop playing it long after achieving my initial goal (to have one character Season 2 ready). At some point I just gave up, and went full time on this. On one hand I felt like crap for not playing anything new or substantial, on the other hand around October I finally started to feel like I’ve exhausted all the content (again) and got back to the state I left TSW with (more or less), some steps back (cause SWL still doesn’t have all the original’s content) but mostly many steps forward, as I did several things I didn’t bother to do in TSW (like the Unseen achievements for all sabotage missions).

I should mark SWL blue/ completed, because really, I’ve done everything there is to do twice now, but I still do log into it, and probably won’t stop logging in for a foreseeable future (cause lifetime patron benefits need to be claimed every day - another one of those “we will force you to check up on the game” predatory tactics that I’m aware of, but still feel unable to say “no” regardless, sigh), but I try not to do the dailies/ repetitive stuff anymore. I have intense gameplay moments around the time of events (because completionist & I want all the clothes XD) - there were two already, the Samhain in October, and Krampusnacht in December, but I hope I will be able to finally put it down in 2018 the rest of the time where nothing new is happening. One way or another I will need to do something about it, cause it eats way too much time, and just gets me into this weird emotional state, where I can’t make myself do anything else (like play nice games or write post updates ;)

I completed this one right after winning it, really nice pick me up game (which I needed at that time, because SWL brain mush mode, and few failed attempts at playing other games - more about them below). I was smiling basically the whole time I played it :D Samorost 3 might be the best game of Amanita Design yet. I may be biased, and not just because I like Samorost series over the others of this studio (although they all are neat), but probably because I was really down, and this one managed to lift my spirit flawlessly :D Beautiful music, outstanding visuals and plenty of warmth ^_^ Many cute little things, like achievements being ingame objects which generate sounds. It allowed to create some neat or bizarre music compositions when one collected enough of them, not only fun to listen to, but also fun to generally play around with it as a side game. I like nice touches like that. :)

Dynamite Jack - one of the older wins, back when I would enter for stuff that was even remotely interesting; had my bomberman spin-off phase, and this game is probably the worst of the bunch I acquired back then; tried to beat it on two separate occasions, but I might just not bother with it anymore, feels like a chore at this point; I got majority of achivs though
Pyre - played few hours, and couldn’t seem to pick it up again; it looks stunning, it’s polished & well made, and I was so hyped up about this one (cause I really liked previous games of this studio), but it just didn’t click for me at that time. SWL rut might have helped. The fact that I don’t particularly like visual novels & sports games (and this one seems to be a blend of both) was also a factor. Even despite people ensuring me that it’s so good, I would enjoy it regardless. Anyway, I will try to get back to it some other time, give it another chance at more favourable moment :)

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September

I got challenged with it, and managed to beat it. It was mostly a nice, chill trek with modicum of challenge involved, but a bit thin on content so at the end it got repetitive and dragged on a bit. Very pretty though, so I didn’t mind staying there a bit longer than necessary :) Maybe I will come back to it someday for a bit of endless mode, maybe not. Overall, a pleasant experience. Might be tiring if played for too long.

I’ve completed it right after winning it. ^_^ It was a bit different direction than other games from this studio, but Might&Delight did not disappoint - very charming, slightly bizarre too, but in a good way :) The visuals are cute as well (I like that kind of art style:) Bite sized & quite enjoyable for an afternoon :D

I first tried playing it Jan 2016, basically right after I won it, but it was bugged as hell. It crashed consistently around half hour mark, and I was unable to proceed, so I dropped it back then. Recently I came back to check if major issues were fixed, and while it’s still heavily bugged and clunky, it did not have any game breaking bugs this time, so I managed to finish it. :)

One can see there was an art vision behind it, but the execution is very much lacking to put it nicely. Story is meh, and the gameplay is just atrocious - bad combat, bad platforming, bad movement, bad puzzles, bad everything. The graphical fidelity is so weak, that the main character has her head half bald most of the time, cause they even weren’t skilled enough to make a “hair helmet” of sorts (like the old games used to), but decided to stick some weird strands of stick looking things to her. Ugh.

Grim Dawn - got challenged with it, played 22h hours and I’m still in the middle of chapter 2 (out of 4 at that time, I think they added 5th recently) :/ I was expecting something at least as enjoyable as Titan Quest, but it turned out to be too watered down & too repetitive. Then I found out why - it was designed as an mmo, with mico-increments on power level, story points spaced out by with massive amounts of mobs, and filler same-y looking land, ect. When I got this, I was convinced it will have strong single player content, in the vein of Vikings: Wolves of Midgard that I enjoyed few months prior to playing GD, but nope. All the shortcomings of an mmo - endless grind being the goal. So disappointed. It looks nice though, and the atmosphere is great. I will maybe come back to it when I feel like playing hack&slash a bit, but it has very low priority at this point.
I got challenged with a bunch of other games too, but jeez, the person picking those had a thing for repetitive grinders, which I don’t mind every now and then but not bloody 4 in a row. After Flame in the Flood worn me down, and Grim Dawn got me into gaming rut, I just didn’t have it in me to start anything else that month.
Dark Train Demo - I’ve beaten the demo to see if I like the game, cause there was an opportunity to buy steam key for $1 from itch.io. I was interested in the game prior to that. And yeah, demo was really cool, so looking forward to playing it one day. Demo is still available for those interested.
Fall of Light Demo - It’s a pleasing to look at isometric souls-like game, down to bonfire mechanic, combat / movement being slow & heavy as if the character was struggling against molasses instead of air, seamless world exploration without map, dodging bosses to death, etc. It has it’s own flavour, yes, with the darkness and the indigo child of light. It’s not for me though. I already have several games (besides Dark Souls itself) to give me that fine “banging the head against the wall” experience if I ever feel like doing that ;) Demo is also still available if someone wants to check it out for themselves.

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October

Because of the SWL full compulsion mode at this point, just a list of fails:

No Man’s Sky - I won this mid September, and even though I was really wanting to play it whole year, when I actually got it, I couldn’t seem to pick it up. When I did start playing it, it somehow didn’t click for me. I tried it out around the release last year, and so many patches and changes were introduced in the meantime, that it’s no longer that chill enjoyable experience I remember :( Will try rolling a good starting planet and re-starting it again. Especially that I don’t particularly like how the flight handles, so I plan to spend as much time on planets as possible. ss
HELLDIVERS - tried it a bit over the free weekend. I got the feel for controls and general gameplay style, but I figured I don’t need another grindy compulsion in my life right now (or ever, since if I’m going back to NMS that’s pretty repetitive too, and then there is more similar Grim Dawn unfinished as well, so I’d rather play what I already have than get on new hamster wheel). Also the Stratagem system is too similar to Magicka spell system, and feels like they were unable to come up with something fresh for their new IP.

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November

I started it last day of October, the day I won & I’m pretty sure I’ve spent much longer in-game than average, exploring everything carefully and collecting every power-up, upgrade, and visiting every vista ^^> It’s a puzzle/ open world/ metroidvania experience, and I’ve enjoyed this game quite substantially. Visuals are simply gorgeous. The atmosphere is great. The world is excellently crafted. Figuring stuff out is satisfying. And even though there is not a single word spoken, it gave me a lot to think about. :)

I kinda had a love-hate relationship with htoL#NiQ, cause vast majority about it is just great. The story is intriguing, layered and every time you think you’ve figured it out, the game unveils new hidden depths. All of that sprinkled with enough vagueness and that Japanese kind of weird, to make you think a lot, even after you’ve stopped playing. :) Visuals are just gorgeous, hand drawn and all. Many puzzles are engaging, and thoroughly varied.

So what was wrong with it? Ugh, controls. You control a cursor (standard mouse pointer), when you click, a light spirit Lumen flies up to it. It never sticks to the pointer, always lags behind and even if you keep the pointer in one place it jitters all around it. All of this causes various issues on its own. But most of the time it’s not Lumen who you want to do stuff with, it’s Mion, the protagonist. And Mion follows Lumen. So you have indirect control squared - main character following light, which follows the cursor in turn T_T Many puzzles require great deal of precision and timing, so most of the time it felt like someone wanted to perform a heart surgery by directing red dot of the laser pointer in general chest area, and have a cat with a scalpel taped to its paw do the impossible XD Much frustration ensued. Add to that random elements in some puzzles and some other requiring lots of trial and error (so much repetition, oh joy), that if not for the whole atmosphere, story and general creepy cuteness that I really enjoy, I wouldn’t probably torture myself with it ;) I’ve managed to get most achievements though, which wasn’t easy (understatement), and collect all memories, find secret stage and get the true ending ^_^

I really enjoyed Figment . It was so joyful, and uplifting. The visuals are so creative & colorful. The puzzles were fun, and while not hard, they were varied and engaging. Overall it was nice to play, and contained many aspects that made me smile most of the time, like for example bosses singing at you insanely catchy tunes while battling them. Hard to keep straight face ;) I had a great time with this :)

In November another Little Nightmares dlc came out, The Hideaway, and as before I couldn’t wait to play it, so I did :) It was more open ended than anything before in game, one could chose in which order to do things. There were few places that could be visited independently. All needed to be solved, but it felt more like roaming than following a set path, which was nice change of pace. Another change of pace was that this dlc was less scary (it featured already known adversary, not so many encounters), and more charming instead - lots of cute Nomes that the protagonist was helping out (and hugging;), and they assisted him in turn. So endearing! ^_^ The environment also felt warmer, with furnaces, coal and such :) Of course it wrapped up with such a tease at the end.. Thankfully the final dlc is coming out in January :)

Graphically, RiME was a feast for eyes - such vibrant colours, beautiful stylized environment, lots of stunning vistas, changing night/day cycle, varied locations. Top notch visuals. :D I did prefer chapter 1 & 3 with brighter palette than the darker tones though :)
As for puzzles, the core game was quite easy, but when trying to find all the collectibles - many of them were tricky to obtain & very hard to spot. Imo there were waaay too many collectibles sets, and only few of them useful (like outfits or lullaby song parts), the rest was collecting for the sake collecting. But I kinda can stand behind making the difficulty dynamic depending on how you chose to play :)
The story was very vague most of the time, but when the reveal came at the end it turned to be very emotional. I quite enjoyed it.

Peregrin was more of a visual novel (with clicking to progress through lines of text) than a puzzle game, which I did not expect. I thought the story would be serving as a background, but in fact it was the puzzles that were very easy and served only to add variety rather than being the core of the game. But turns out I didn’t mind :)
Visuals were on the artistic side, focusing on artwork and aesthetics rather than fidelity. Atmosphere resonated well with me. It was melancholic, with sad undertones, taking place in a world after a cataclysm, exploring how the remnants of humanity filled the blanks of what happened, when most of the knowledge was lost. Generally it was an interesting experience, as the narration is from the point of view of the protagonist and what she and her tribe believe. And then it’s contrasted with what really happened at the end. The story was well put together, and I enjoyed it.

EARTHLOCK was a nice throwback to the old school style of jRPGs. ^^ The mechanics weren’t very complex, but that also meant they weren’t a convoluted mess either, as it sometimes happens with those. That is not to say they were trite either. Generally there were few layers of complexity with stances, super charged specials, paying attention to elemental & weapon weaknesses, talent system including not only passives, but also global modifiers as well as character specific skills. And on top of that bonuses from bonds between characters. Best part of it was that none of that was set in stone - you could swap around party members (for their abilities, as well as different bonds bonuses), you could swap around skills, most of the talents, and switch stances. Which on its own provided quite a lot of variety already. But the game capitalized on that immensely, requiring to swap for different strategies vs different types of opponents. And while fighting regular mobs it was more forgiving, although still quite challenging, fighting bosses was an absolute must to prepare tailor made group wide build against that specific boss. Usually few attempts at a boss were required to get it right. I also very much liked, that overleveling content basically did not provide advantage against bosses, only figuring out the combination of talents, skills, group members & stances, plus carefully considering every move during the battle itself. It was almost like figuring out a solution to a puzzle - neat ^_^

The story itself was so-so, pretty standard. But some of the characters were cool (or cute;) and visuals were really pleasant. There was not too much grind for the amount of content offered, and doing everything including achievements was manageable. Overall I had nice time with it. :)

Pinstripe was quite short, and underlying story wasn’t complex or thought provoking or anything, but the platforming was fun, visuals were really nice, and the overall atmosphere was great :)
I’ve actually ran through it it 5 times, cause achivs were bugged into oblivion - each time I started the game I had to verify file cache (even though there were no errors). I didn’t know of this trick at first, so my very first run didn’t give me any achivs, not even the ending one T_T, then it turned out some achivs won’t pop while doing other achivs, so I needed to repeat for those again and again; anyway you can speed run it under an hour (there is even an achiv for that). I got so good at it that my last run took only 30-ish mins XD Overall I enjoyed it, although I would appreciate it working properly ;)

Slayaway Camp sucked me in, I couldn’t stop playing till I beat the base game. The rest is a bit grindy, but since there are still some extra puzzles left, I’ll probably revisit it from time to time. Overall, it’s a very fun take on slider puzzle, with hilarious theme :D The puzzles themselves are smart, and the extras are on another level of difficulty, in case the base game turns out to be too easy for someone. Lots of murderers & killer moves to unlock, and a minigame where you constantly just slaughter blocky people :D

Parallyzed - an arcade game of sorts, requiring great deal of reflex. Looks nice, but I can’t play it long in one session, cause dizziness and eye strain. Will try beating one level at a time, although I’m at lv12 (out of 24), and it’s already very hard, so I might end up not beating it at all.
SpellForce 3 Beta - played this one for 2h, when there was free beta or something; overall nice and polished, but it didn’t grab me.

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December

In Verbis Virtus is a game where you cast spells using your voice (microphone is required). Part of the reason why it took me so long to even start it, was because it felt stupid to shout at my own computer. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it when someone was around. The game is visually stunning. Not so much in the graphics fidelity department, but it’s rather about the fantastic use of colour, as well as very imaginative surroundings - lavish & very ornamental. The game was lore rich (if you dug deep enough) with nicely constructed background. Story itself however was simple, but touching in the end. I was happy that In Verbis Virtus didn’t rely entirely on its speech gimmick, but there was an actual game there - an exploration puzzle (reminiscent of Myst, but in no way as hard, although the puzzles starting obvious turned to progressively harder, with some very hard closer to the end, and I needed to check solution on some after all).

Even though the overall feel was positive, this is my my first and last game with voice commands. It started out well, I was surprised it generally recognized my voice/ accent. Then the game got more complex, and then it added combat, and more and more spells, and the voice recognition got stupider - what was not an issue with handful of spells (probably because the rest was locked at the early stages) became an issue later; the game started executing the wrong spells, so situations like teleporting into lava instead of placing a fire mark became irritating, and also shouting 3-4 times the same attack spell over and over while in combat, but the game didn’t react to any of it, so dead naturally because of it, grrr.

Overall In Verbis Virtus did a really good job of emulating a feeling of being all powerful mage, not only being able to bend the world to your will (and the fact that player needed to speak out the words of power instead of pressing buttons, just intensified that feeling), but also being all scholarly & intelligent - discovering all the secrets & being smart enough to solve ancient puzzles, as well as constant thirst for knowledge and a desire to peer under the veil. All those elements fit well together. But in the end the constant errors in spell recognition became a major nuisance, and also made the game much harder in the frustrating way. I’m glad I played it though. And imo if someone would like to try a voice command game, this would be a good choice, because of everything else being well made and nicely put together. Still, one is enough. I tried it and I know the voice command playstyle is not for me ^^>

Once I realised that due to holidays, and other things I won’t squeeze in much more gaming in December, I bought Voodoo Garden for myself, an idle game. I had it wishlisted, and it was on discount, also end of the year, so my 2017 gaming resolutions were disregarded. Overall it was cute, with cool theme, and manageable amount of content (not one of those endless ones). I ran it in the background for few days, with probably not even 4 hours of me paying attention to it. Unfortunately it might have had a memory leak or something, cause after several hours it always slowed down significantly and required a restart. I won’t be “playing” much idle games in future, but this one was nice.

An unexpected, thus very pleasant holiday gift of a wishlisted game - thanks Akantha! ^_^ Very, very short one though. I’d beaten it right after I got it, in 21mins. Then I beat it again (probably around 15mins this time), then idled some ;) The music and atmosphere were nice. It was especially enjoyable to leave it running at the end credits and listen to the tune. Very chill experience that aims to be on the bizarre side, with some social commentary maybe. Although I picked up slight amount of condescension (like if the devs regarded people with goals, carriers, focused or obsessed with some things, as sheep maybe? who even though don’t understand or even ridicule the protagonist, but decide to follow her as every other trend?)

Divinity: Original Sin 2 - I’m 51 hours in right now. Started playing it around the beginning of the month, and this was what I was playing for the most part in December when I had time. I wanted to beat it before the month ends, but alas - not a chance. Of course I’ll continue to play it first thing next year, cause the game is just great. Larian Studios at its best. There is so much stuff packed in there, and I’m being very thorough about it - it brings me great joy discovering as much as possible of what this game has to offer ^_^ ss
Reigns - played few sessions of it, really neat concept, quite enjoyable & engaging. The achievements are bugged for me though, so the game did not register my over 50 years reign, among others *pout* I’ll be trying to get the sequel, on account of it being more or less the same, but not bugged. Also the All-Mother underlying theme in Reigns: Her Majesty sounds more interesting, than the devil one they have here. ;)
Legrand Legacy Prologue (Pre-Alpha) it looked borderline promissing, and the demo is still available if you want to try it, but for me it lands in the “kill it with fire” category XD