nellyneko


December's Theme: Winter



Welcome to one of the most predictable themes this year—and at the same time, our very last theme of the year: Winter. I hope you’re all bundled up, with the hot beverage of your choice by your side, ready to march through the virtual snow. Or you could just jump into your favorite holiday sweater and start up a colorful Christmas game, getting into the spirit (and taking a break from real life Christmas stress). Whichever you choose, be sure to keep us updated on your progress. And if you’re really festive, feel free to share a picture of your decorations with us, virtual or otherwise :)

Games include obvious Christmas-themed games as well as those with a focus on winter. Not included are games that simply have seasons (e.g. where Easter and Halloween get the same attention as Christmas), as well as games set in perpetual winter climates (like skiing games), unless there is a special Christmas/winter level. For games where winter is not the main theme, please provide a screenshot of the winter/Christmas part to have your points count. Points will work just like last month (or even better), simply mark your games as beaten/completed and the list will do the rest. You can find this month’s list of games right here. You can see your current score here (updated every 12 hours).

List of Games
Live Ranking


Santa cape and candy cane sword provided by DownwardConcept.


FAQ

Do I have to participate in this month’s theme?
No, as with every theme, these are merely suggestions for anyone who is unsure about what to play next. If you already have a battle plan for your backlog and/or don’t like this month’s theme, you’re free to ignore it.

What happens if I don’t participate in the monthly theme?
Absolutely nothing.

What happens if I play all the games from the theme list this month?
Still nothing.

I don’t own any of the games from the game list, how can I still participate?
The game list is most likely incomplete. If you own or know of any other games that might fit this month’s theme, feel free to suggest them under the corresponding post.

I already played all the games I own from the theme list, should I play something again to participate?
If it was an awesome game and you’d like to replay it, sure, go ahead. Only replaying it for the theme won’t help you with your backlog though, so if that would be your only reason you should probably think about trying something else instead. (Although, if you have absolutely nothing else to play, you can still do that, I guess …)

I want to make some Christmas giveaways for the group, where do I post them?
If you have some keys lying around and would like to spread some holiday cheer with them, go ahead and make invite-only giveaways and post the links in your comments or posts on here. But if you happen to have some money to spare, maybe consider giving it to an actual charity rather than spending it on a group for people with too many games. You can find out more about various charities during the project for awesome or by browsing Humble’s charity search, for example.

Daerphen

wohoo. New Theme

lmxn

List of games in FAQ still points to November’s list. (:

nellyneko

dang, I forgot there was a link XD thanks for letting me know!
edit: nvm, changed ^^

Lucky Thirteen

Nice, I see Kholat is on the list, good opportunity for me to play that game (bought it in one of the recent HB bundles) :)

uguleley

Poor guy, he keeps getting interrupted from his glass of wine. :I

uguleley

Well, at least he makes an entertaining dinner guest. :D

adam1224

Sorry for complaining, but after a few months I think I should mention instead of just being grumpy about it :D
Could you please make the link to the games’ list more noticeable? It’s just a one-word link at the end of the 4th row of the second paragraph, not even at it’s end. Like above or below the gif, as a bigger, button-like text instead of just being in-text.
Another one would be similarly simple - at the game list you wrote “Post your suggestions for other games fitting this month’s theme as a reply here” but only the title of the theme is there, for the in-depth description of it is in this post’s almost entire second paragraph. Maybe it’s just my pet peeve, but don’t turn this into the Steamgift’s FAQ + Guidelines separation, where I have to check the description again while browsing the game list on the other post while trying to figure out what games are missing. ( Just copy-paste the description of the title there, please :) )

nellyneko

I’ll get around to that over the weekend (I hope), I’m not great with the coding stuff, it’ll take a bit extra time, and was rather busy this week as well as last month, sorry if the posts aren’t that great honestly, I’m glad I managed to write more than 2 sentences there

Lucky Thirteen

A quick question: if I beat a game that is not yet on the month’s game list and is added later, would it count towards my beaten games for the theme?

nellyneko

will still count, yes :)

Lucky Thirteen

Awesome, thanks!

EvilBlackSheep

Quick question, what if I play the DLC for Arkham Origins (which is actually especially winter/snow themed) if I had already beaten the game (but not the dlc so i’ll get new cheevos) and marked it as such on BLAEO. Will it still count towards the monthly theme score?

CleaningSimp twitter

Santa loves Winter!

Starlynk

Just a heads up, the achievement page for Puzzle Agent 2 is apparently a little bit whacky so the live ranking doesn’t update it correctly..

CleaningSimp twitter

I played and finished Puzzle Agent 1 (no achievements in this game), so I marked it as ‘beaten’ 2 days ago - but it doesn’t show in the rankings.

Starlynk

For games without achievements you have to take a public screenshot on Steam for them to count in the ranking.

CleaningSimp twitter

A public screenshot of something in specific like the ending screen, or just any screenshot? o_O

Starlynk

Just any screenshot will work.. I guess it just checks automatically if you uploaded a screenshot for the game in the theme month

CleaningSimp twitter

Awesome, I’ll know for next time! Thank you:)

Mully

time to play summer games for me since that’s my season here. ❤️

nellyneko

Isn’t it always summer where you are? ^^

Formidolosus

I beat puzzle agent 2, but it still says no games completed. Any ideas why?

nellyneko

Did you put up screenshots for it? If there are no public screenshots for the game in your Steam profile, the list won’t give you any points on games without achievements. And it seems you’re not the only one with a missing entry altogether, so there may be some bug or something

Formidolosus

Ahhh no I didn’t, it has achievements though. But it’s showing up now anyway. Even though it turns out puzzle agent 2 and toki tori are both not worth any points. Oh well.

nellyneko

oh yeah, seems only the first Puzzle Agent doesn’t have achievements, sorry

Yindy

I’ve marked Dust: An elysian Tail as beaten like 20ish hours ago, but it’s not shown in the spreadsheet (The game itself seems to be missing, too)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/236090/

nellyneko

the game ist definitely in the spreadsheet, no idea why it’s not marked for you

Yindy

Sorry, it’s me again :c
Seems I’ve got the same issue with Costume Quest.
Or, well, it still shows as 2 games beaten, which I’m 99,9% sure are the puzzle agent games.

New hypothesis: For some reason the spreadsheet hates me/the games I’m playing or is to puzzled by the beaten puzzle agents? :o
(So for clarity: As of now it seems it’s missing my Dust completion and Costume Quest 100%)

escollo

Btw, what does it mean when entry has ‘-1’ or ‘?’ instead of points?

nellyneko

afaik it’s to let you know that no public screenshots were found in your Steam profile for that game and it doesn’t have achievements, so it’s not counted. You’d have to ask revil about specifics.

escollo

Well, I have both for SS3 and Lost Girl and cheevos for Crime Secrets but stll they have only ‘?’.

Garcias

I’ve beaten Farenheit but it doesn’t show any score in the live ranking even though it already marks as beaten. Perhaps it’s due to it not having a hltb link associated?

nellyneko

it might take a while - it’s supposed to update every 12 hours, but looks like some people had to wait a day or two.

Garcias

I guess I’ll wait for the end of the month. Thanks :)

Narayan

I’ve completed the Year Walk yesterday (December 31), but I didn’t have time to come here and post or mark it as completed. Will it still count somehow? Btw, I’m working on a quick post right now. :)