December’s Stats
aka. Xmas is a backlog conspiracy.
I was doing SO GOOD with mostly not adding games to my backlog this month… AND THEN… Christmas happened! Sure, I had won a few short games and traded a few extra keys, but nothing major… until xmas day. And then everything went down the drain, the backlog additions tripled in a matter of 2 days. On the plus side, I have already beaten the very short ones, plus I didn’t buy anything for myself during the sales so far. Picking the “most exciting addition” this month was crazily hard.
What about you, how did your backlog evolve during this last month of 2016?
PS: Trying a new format since I’ve not been updating much during the month. Please let me know what you think about the new Assassinations Report section if you have time to check it out, I’m considering keeping it this way in the future. Report format shamelessly stolen heavily inspired by Deer’s current model, I hope he’ll forgive me.
| Played | Finished | Completed | Backlog+ | Achievements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | 16 | 14 | 21 | 542 |
Most Satisfying Finish
Most Exciting Addition
-
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
50 hours playtime
38 of 50 achievements
-
Plantera
14 hours playtime
29 of 29 achievements
-
Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily
5 hours playtime
24 of 24 achievements
-
Batman: Arkham Origins
48 hours playtime
35 of 60 achievements
-
Road Not Taken
14 hours playtime
14 of 20 achievements
-
Hexcells
4 hours playtime
6 of 6 achievements
-
Hexcells Plus
20 hours playtime
6 of 6 achievements
-
Hexcells Infinite
17 hours playtime
7 of 7 achievements
-
Puzzle Agent
3 hours playtime
no achievements
-
Costume Quest
10 hours playtime
21 of 21 achievements
-
Puzzle Agent 2
2 hours playtime
52 of 52 achievements
-
Richard & Alice
5 hours playtime
21 of 21 achievements
-
The Magical Silence
40 minutes playtime
1 of 1 achievements
-
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
3 hours playtime
12 of 12 achievements
-
Zup!
63 minutes playtime
118 of 118 achievements
-
Zup! 2
48 minutes playtime
229 of 229 achievements
-
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)
6 hours playtime
19 of 19 achievements
Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily
5 hours playtime, 24 of 24 achievements
Exactly what you'd expect from an Hidden Object Game from Artifex Mundi: pretty, relaxing and not too long to complete. Not their best storyline, but not the worst either. Just your average HoG.
Batman: Arkham Origins
48 hours playtime, 35 of 60 achievements
Went back to Arkham Origins for some collectibles/achievements hunting, as well as playing the Cold, Cold Heart DLC. I had as much fun as when I first played the game and the DLC story is nice, even though quite unsurprising if you know Mr Freeze backstory. Overall a very enjoyable replay.
Road Not Taken
14 hours playtime, 14 of 20 achievements
Don't let its cuteness fool you, this roguelike-puzzle is more challenging than it looks. As for most rogue likes the good thing is an individual run doesn't take too long, but if you're going for all the achievements, it might get more complicated that you'd thing (and sometimes a little bit luck-based sadly). I might revisit that one in the future.
Hexcells
4 hours playtime, 6 of 6 achievements
Hexcells Plus
20 hours playtime, 6 of 6 achievements
Hexcells Infinite
17 hours playtime, 7 of 7 achievements
I'll talk about the Hexcells trilogy as a whole as it's just more and more of the same game (with sometimes new mecanics) but boy was it good. It's a more elaborate and interesting combo between minesweeper and picross on an hexagonal grid of various shapes. I found it very addictive and I'm wondering about getting Squarecells from the same dev. Anybody played it and have an advice on it?
Plantera
14 hours playtime, 29 of 29 achievements
Not much to say about it, as it's a clicker/idle game with cute farm animals. Enjoyed it but there is not much gameplay to it.
Costume Quest
10 hours playtime, 21 of 21 achievements
I only went back to get that last achievement that I was missing that only unlocks on Xmas, but the game is finally 100%.
Puzzle Agent
3 hours playtime, no achievements
I had been wanting to give a try to this for a long while. Even tho the graphic style is a bit... rough to say the least, it was a nice short game. It's more close to the **Professor Layton** series than to what Telltale usually does, but it's great if you like puzzles & riddles.
Puzzle Agent 2
2 hours playtime, 52 of 52 achievements
The direct sequel of the first game, the story sends you back to finish cracking the mystery where the first game could have felt a bit incomplete. More of the same but if you liked the first one it should be just right up your alley.
Richard & Alice
5 hours playtime, 21 of 21 achievements
Since it was in the monthly theme list, I decided to finally finish that game ~I had started playing 2 years ago, shame on me~. Truth is I had to start all over as the reason I had stopped in the middle was I lost my save in a HDD crash. I'm still a bit on the fence about what to think of this game. The game is not bad, don't get me wrong. The story is even interesting and touching but overall I wasn't much surprised by the pseudo plot twist and it fell a little flat to me.
The Magical Silence
40 minutes playtime, 1 of 1 achievements
I won this game on SG this month and as it was short, I decided to play it immediately as it looked intriguing. Well there is not much to it. Yes, visually it's neat, but that's it. And the ending... WTF was that. I'd rather recommend you keep your euro/dollar and pick up Mandagon, which is free, well crafted and yet way more interesting.
Zup!
63 minutes playtime, 118 of 118 achievements
Zup! 2
48 minutes playtime, 229 of 229 achievements
I received both of them as a Xmas gift from a fellow assassin as they were sitting on my wishlist, and since they're so short, I played them almost immediately. Do not expect much gameplay from those, it's just a serie of extremely simple puzzles, but the main point of the game is to unlock the crazy amount of achievements that you'll then be able to use to customize your steam profile. Yes you read this correctly, that's even how the devs market their game after all.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
3 hours playtime, 12 of 12 achievements
This was more of a replay, as I originally played this on Xbox 360 when it was released, yet it still got me the second time around.
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)
6 hours playtime, 19 of 19 achievements
This game was such a missed opportunity in my opinion. The idea behind it is so great: share traditions and a whole culture through a video game, both with the game's story but also each collectible unlocks a video teaching you something new about the said culture. I really found that part well done and really interesting. And visually, the game was really pretty. So why a missed opportunity you're gonna ask? Well the gameplay was so clunky that it kind of ruined the whole game for me. I guess it didn't help that I'm not a huge plateformer fan and that I played stronger plateformers this year, but a fellow assassin posted a similar opinion about it this morning, so I guess I'm not alone in that boat. What a shame, it could have been an amazing game.
-
The Flame in the Flood
0 minutes playtime
0 of 36 achievements
-
Between Me and The Night
2 minutes playtime
0 of 18 achievements
-
Broforce
2 minutes playtime
0 of 17 achievements
-
Dungetris
0 minutes playtime
0 of 32 achievements
-
House of Snark 6-in-1 Bundle
0 minutes playtime
0 of 10 achievements
-
Highlands
0 minutes playtime
0 of 27 achievements
-
The Magical Silence
40 minutes playtime
1 of 1 achievements
-
Braveland Pirate
2 minutes playtime
0 of 26 achievements
-
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
0 minutes playtime
0 of 60 achievements
-
Valkyria Chronicles™
0 minutes playtime
0 of 20 achievements
-
Zup!
63 minutes playtime
118 of 118 achievements
-
Zup! 2
48 minutes playtime
229 of 229 achievements
-
Tyranny
0 minutes playtime
0 of 50 achievements
-
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
0 minutes playtime
0 of 44 achievements
-
Orwell
0 minutes playtime
0 of 27 achievements
-
Dishonored 2
0 minutes playtime
0 of 50 achievements
-
Dragon Quest Heroes
0 minutes playtime
0 of 50 achievements
-
Violett
0 minutes playtime
0 of 22 achievements
-
Elder Sign: Omens
0 minutes playtime
no achievements
-
Daily Chthonicle: Editor's Edition
1 minute playtime
0 of 8 achievements
-
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
0 minutes playtime
0 of 30 achievements
Assassinations Reports? Well they’re a short but informative reviews, quite helpful as I think.
Valkyria… I won this game a year ago but it’s still in my backlog. In the part that I called “i definitely play it but not right now”
Thanks for the feedback. :)
And I have that same category you’re talking about, it’s part of the reason my backlog grew out of control!
I like the Assassinations Report section, although my OCD can’t get over the fact that it doesn’t have the same format as the other categories :D
Anyway, I think I was doing pretty good this sale as far as new games go, only bought a few of them. Thanks for asking ;) I did win several games on SG lately though, can’t stop entering those nice giveaways hah!
Thanks for the feedback. Sorry for your OCD though. I was finding that the way it was before was a bit redundant with the played category, plus I had no space to give my opinion on the games :/ I’ll try to harmonize the sections if i can ;)
Congrats for your recent wins, it’s always nice.
I bought Squarecells during the sale and finished it almost immediately, but felt that Hexcells was way better. A huge part of it is because the game area is really tiny and it’s hard to differentiate between cells you’ve marked and cells you haven’t - which makes it much more tiring on your eyes. (It has a dark mode but didn’t help much.) I also had to guess in some places, which never happened with Hexcells. I can’t help feeling it could have been much better. D:
Also, I was going to start Costume Quest on Christmas Day so I could get that achievement.. but I forgot ;__; Seems I’ll only play it next year then.
Psst - Markdown tags aren’t parsed in Assasination Report :P All the custom HTML is interfering with it.
Thanks for the feedback on squarecells. I was a bit afraid of exactly what you report, so i’ll wait til it gets bundled i guess, and play the endless mode of hexcells infinite.
Awww sorry you missed the day :( I had put a post it on my calendar to be sure to do it, and yet i almost missed it with family stuff and all that. You can always change your clock date on the pc but i wanted it to unlock on the correct day so :/
Thanks, I had noticed and removed the Brothers spoiler but i had forgotten some bolding. I need to test and find where it comes from XD
Deer forgives you… because he was inspired by someone else, too =D
Didn’t add much to my backlog in December - just a few games, one win, one free game. Finally bought Mass Effect 2 (I had it only in Origin) =) I think I’ll add some games today or tomorrow (I hope to win something from SimGive event).
I have two or three Batman games in my library, but I never have the right mood to start them (same with Hexcells) =(
Thank you <3
Hey that’s nice you’ve got the backlog growth pretty tamed :) Good luck for the giveaways you entered from your event :3
I feel you for not being in the right mood for a particular game, I often feel the same, even for games i really wanna play.
This comment was deleted almost 8 years ago.
Xmas and sales are the worst time for our backlog ;p
I didn’t add much in this last month, but overall, I did add a lot of games to my backlog :(
December additions: Back to Bed; Zup! 2; Murdered Soul Suspect; Borderlands: The Pre Sequel; Tales from the Borderlands; Mafia II; Tormentum - Dark Sorrow and last but not least, Dark Souls III. Also bought but kept them in inventory: Hitman GO, Karma Incarnation 1, Life is Strange (complete season), and To the Moon. Urgh, seems more than I thought actually D:
Congratulations getting 100% in Costume Quest. I like and hate these event achievements that we need to wait an specific event to get them ;p
Also, despite additions, congratulations with your progress… nice games you played. And, I think you should keep this new and really nice Assassination Report. Really liked it, is short, but still helpful :D
They are indeed. On the plus side you added a lot of great games, and a few short ones. So overall you should be good and have a lot of good gaming ahead.
Thanks, I hate those kind of cheevos, especially because I kind of refuse having to switch my pc clock to get them, but it bugs me not having them. And thank you for your feedback about the new section, I think i’m gonna stick to it :)
I tried Puzzle Agent for the monthly theme but I abandoned it almost right away. I wish there was a way to skip the slow and clunky animations and just get from a puzzle to the next. Good luck with the backlog, there’s a lot of juicy stuff you added in the last week of 2016
I agree with that, but I still enjoyed the puzzles :3 And thanks, my friends got very generous indeed. Note that I already finished zup! and zup! 2 ;p
My plan was merely a distraction to pull you away from your REAL backlog
Well you did, for almost 2 hours, you evil cat :p
really nice,
well worth the wait..
Just in time too, I ran out of cookies.
Looks like you will have some awesome games to play soon. like Broforce and Valkyria Chronicles :P
Somebody kept interrupting me, it’s not entirely my fault ;p
And I can’t wait to play all the games i got lately :3