September - Week 1 Update

Hey guys! It’s me again. This week has been a very great week for backlog killing - I completed a total of 19 games, which doubles the amount of my previous personal best, 8. It’s not as impressive as it seems however, as the majority of these games are just shorter Indie games. Though, it is my goal to get the smaller ones out of the way first to minimize the size of my backlog as it was starting to grow a little uncontrollably (thanks to last month’s shopping spree) and splitting my attention.

Below is this week’s progress.

Completed Games

• A Date in the Park
  

  48 minutes playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• Cinders
  

  14 hours playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Clock Simulator
  

  23 minutes playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald A Whirlwind Heist
  

  2 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Escape This
  

  6 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• Everlasting Summer
  

  5 hours playtime

  14 of 14 achievements

• Fake Colours
  

  12 hours playtime

  7 of 7 achievements

• Freebie
  

  5 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• GabeN: The Final Decision
  

  7 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• HIS (Heroes In the Sky)
  

  54 minutes playtime

  1 of 1 achievements

• Port of Call
  

  39 minutes playtime

  7 of 7 achievements

• Radiator 2
  

  43 minutes playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• Regeria Hope Episode 1
  

  52 minutes playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Road Madness
  

  11 hours playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• simian.interface++
  

  39 minutes playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Space Pilgrim Episode I: Alpha Centauri
  

  5 hours playtime

  7 of 7 achievements

• SWARMRIDERS
  

  30 minutes playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• The Bottom of the Well
  

  30 minutes playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Under Zero
  

  7 hours playtime

  3 of 3 achievements

I’m not exactly sure where to start, so I’ll divide this week’s batch into three categories: the free games, the paid games and the SG wins. Let us start with the first one.

The Free Games

The Free Games are games that are available on the Steam store for free. They are usually short games that are rather easy to 100%, played and completed to make up for the other games I’ve started that are literally impossible to 100% due to broken achievements (Left 4 Dead 2, Tales of Maj’Eyal, etc), and are therefore dragging my average completion rate down.

A Date in the Park is a point & click adventure game which was initially an easy highlight of the category, before getting knocked down two spots by some other games I completed later on. It’s a pretty atmospheric game with a surprisingly strong plot twist which I didn’t see coming at all until a bit later on. Also you get to name a duck, which was nice. I named mine Cody, after my best friend.

Notable quote from me during gameplay: “Wait a fucking minute.”

Dr. Langeskov is an incredibly well made and entertaining game that is also very easily this week’s game highlight, also currently my top pick for September’s monthly highlight despite being a free game. I don’t think I’ve been this entertained by a game since Borderlands 2. The story was very interesting, and the voice acting was simply outstanding. If you loved The Stanley Parable, you’ll definitely love this.

Note: If you want to play and 100% this, make sure not to open Steam overlay! It bugs the game and achievements won’t unlock.

HIS (Heroes In the Sky) took absolutely zero effort to complete. Just click a button and you’re done. Literally. I actually debated whether or not to include this in the list, but ended up deciding that I should, just to document the progress and potentially recommend this to others who are in need of an extra perfect game.

Everlasting Summer was a game that I started last week, however could not finish due to exhaustion. Despite being a visual novel, this game was actually rather challenging to complete, due to the fact that you need to finish the game about a dozen times for all of the achievements. It was very tricky, too - some paths don’t trigger unless you choose certain options (Ulyana’s, I believe). The story wasn’t shallow though, which was a plus. It had pretty dark turns here and there.. some literally.

Port of Call is an absolutely stunning game which is easily my second game highlight for this week. I was initially pessimistic about the game due to it’s ‘Horror’ tag, but as it turns out it wasn’t all that scary. The story and the gameplay, to my surprise, also turned out to be very interesting, at least for me - I’ve always been a big fan of supernatural-related subjects, especially when it brushes with the topic of afterlife, so I was easily captivated by the game.

Radiator 2 is a, um, game. It features.. suggestive things. Male things. Definitely one of the more interesting titles on the list. The achievements were pretty easy for the most part, and I actually enjoyed Stickshift a lot, mostly thanks to the hypnotic music playing in the background (‘Crybaby’ by Davey and the Chains, in case you’re wondering - it’s like a darker version of Kylie Minogue’s 00’s work). One note though, if you’re planning to play the game - do NOT blow kisses at the cop during Stickshift. I had to wait 20 hours to play again. God damn.

Regeria Hope Episode 1, also known as The Shouting Games, is a game about two attorneys fighting in a case. The game was clearly inspired by the Ace Attorney, except instead of shouting ‘Objection!’ by default, you have three shouts to choose from. I chose ‘Lies!’. It got a bit intense later on when I had a shout-off with the other attorney. It ended with the judge telling us both to shut up. I also submitted a wine glass as a potential murder weapon, which made me realize that I’d probably make a terrible lawyer.

SWARMRIDERS is a fast paced runner game where you basically have to keep running while shooting at things.. that comes from pretty much every direction. The game is easy to 100%, but only if you have the skills. It took me a few tries to get the last achievement, which was to survive for 150 seconds, I believe. I ended up surviving for 170, which I’m actually quite proud about.

The Bottom of the Well was very forgettable for the most part. It’s a post-apocalyptic adventure/survival visual novel.. but not really. It’s really just the main character telling a story about her dream to her friend. It’s rather boring and uninteresting. Easily one of the weaker titles on this list.

The Paid Games

The Paid Games are, per my definition, games with a price tag on the Steam store. The games will be categorized here regardless of whether or not I got them for free (Gleam giveaways) or actually paid for them.

Cinders is a very interesting visual novel based on Cinderella. Although Disney-esque fairytales are usually not my kind of thing, this game’s dark twists captivated me for quite some time. Oh and the main menu is absolutely gorgeous - every time you unlock an achievement, a new thing gets added to the main menu, which was super cool. I wish more games were like this.

Clock Simulator is almost exactly what you expect it to be. You play as a clock and click rhythmically, a click for every second. The game is surprisingly packed with content though - it’s not as one dimensional as it might seem. The game has about a dozen of game modes, which is more than you usually get when you pay for games with similar price tags ($0.99).

Escape This took about ten minutes to complete - it’s just a casual puzzle game with very little challenge whatsoever.

Freebie was a game that’s been given away multiple times both on Gleam and Steam Gifts, I believe - you’d think it’s bad, but it’s actually not that bad at all. In fact, it’s surprisingly decent. It’s lacking in content and highly repetitive, yes, but it’s pretty challenging. Personally I loved it quite a lot, although the later ‘levels’ was very hard until I learnt the rhythm of the spin.

GabeN: The Final Decision was one of the games that I actively avoided like a plague due to how bad it was - but on a second play, it wasn’t that bad. It’s still tacky and horribly made, but wasn’t half as terrible as I thought it was. Steam notes that I got the game on December 25, 2015, so it’s great to finally take out one of the older games and place it on the ‘Completed Games’ batch.

I actually just finished Road Madness an hour or two before I wrote this post, and all I can say is that it’s a very, very glitchy racing game. But that’s not always a bad thing, as I actually completed the game by losing. That’s right. When you lose, your car continues to move.. and if you wait long enough, it reaches the finish line. Eventually. And just like that, boom! Another perfect game. I don’t believe the game is possible to complete by playing normally though - it’s incredibly imbalanced and just.. bad.

Space Pilgrim Episode I: Alpha Centauri is pretty nice. It’s rather forgettable for the most part, though. But it’s one of the better games that came out of RPGMaker. There are like 3 other parts of the game, and I have them all, so I might try doing them soon.

Under Zero’s title represents the rating it deserves. Under zero. It’s that bad. I spent 40 minutes walking around a huge ass map with snow and immobile wolves, then collecting a gun that can’t seem to actually be used to anything as shooting the aforementioned wolves does absolutely NOTHING. Then there was this flashlight which was also useless because a) the game was set at bloody day and b) the snow made it so white everywhere the light had practically zero impact on the surrounding. Horrible. I’m glad this is out of my backlog, and I’m glad I never spent money for this game.

SG Wins

The games I won from SG. Obviously. Currently I’m planning to complete at least one game that I finish from SG every week, or at least work on one - not an ambitious goal, but a lot of the games there take a loooong time to finish (i.e: Mafia II).

Fake Colours is a very recent win of mine - as did everyone else’s. I mean, they gave out 100,000 copies, how could you enter and not win? But yes, it’s a very interesting puzzle game, although my brain gave up on me about 30 minutes into the gameplay. New features just kept popping up and I couldn’t keep up anymore. So I just gave up and followed a guide. But it was a pretty great game.

Another puzzle game and also another of my recent wins, simian.interface++ is a game that is reminiscent of Perfect Angle (which is another puzzle game, in case you didn’t know). Honestly, I have no complaint for the game. It’s simple, great and relatively easy, although some levels could be pretty annoying to complete. I like that they gave me bananas, though.

Started Games & Other Progress

• Relic Hunters Zero
  

  13 hours playtime

  2 of 44 achievements

• Tales of Maj'Eyal
  

  5 hours playtime

  3 of 1629 achievements

• Neon Warp
  

  5 hours playtime

  4 of 14 achievements

This week I started two new games.

The first one is Relic Hunters Zero, which I’ve actually played back in May/April, but never actually progressed in because my keyboard broke. It always came of as a pretty interesting game to me however, so I’m quite excited to start it. It’ll take a while to finish, but it’ll be worth it. Hopefully.

And I’m very proud to say that I have also officially started Tales of Maj’Eyal! The game has been installed in my laptop for a month now. I kept being afraid to start it because, you know, it’s a HUGE game. Starting it calls for a long-term dedication. 1629 achievements - I’m in for a ride. But boy, this game was SO much harder than I thought. I pretty much spent the first hour or two dying and losing my progress. It’s brutal. I’ve toned down the difficulty and I’m currently trying to survive as a dwarf berserker.. or something. I hate melee characters, but it was apparently a great choice for a beginner like me. Currently though, I’m really just using it trying to unlock the arch mage while trying to get a feel of how the game is like.

On another note, I’ve progressed in Neon Warp! It’s not a big progress at all, only two achievements - but that’s actually quite a lot, at least for me, considering how challenging I’m finding the game. Frankly I don’t know if I’m ever gonna finish the game.. but hey, you gotta start somewhere right?

Summary

That will be all for now! Thank you so much for reading, and I apologize for the length of this update. It was certainly a lot longer than I planned it to be. It’s been a pretty productive week for backlog killing and I’m very happy about that! I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up with the pace for next week’s progress.. probably not. 19 games is a lot. However, I do have some games I plan to start and progress in! Namely Tropico 4 and Moonstone Tavern. I have a few other titles on top of my head, but I don’t want to promise too much. I probably shouldn’t be starting new games either, but it’s hard to resist when you just got some of your wishlisted games!

I’m also planning to progress in Tales of Maj’Eyal, maybe even finish off Soul Gambler which I’ve been casting aside this week. I have over thirty games currently installed on my laptop, so I’m probably gonna need to start working on finishing them off before my desktop gets too cluttered. Anyway, that’s all for now. If you’re still reading, thank you! If you’re not, well.. I can’t blame you, really. It’s like a gigantic wall of text. Plus it’s probably kinda boring too. Maybe I’ll include a few gifs from some of my gameplay next week! If I can get a good, light recording software that is.

Anyway yes, see ya on the next update! :]