I wrote some plans for this month for the first time and well. It worked partly. I indeed get 100% in Left 4 Dead. I started playing it like 7 years ago (not on Steam at first) and never expected that I will come to this point. I like this game, so much memories connected with it. I also managed to beat base game of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (all achievements without DLC = Real Platinum God) and stepped into the Afterbirth DLC. It seems to be a fun experience from what I’ve already seen :D And I even finished Oxenfree which is just an amazing game at least from the narrative and art/visuals point of view. Now I want to replay it a few times to see how much my choices really matter. And it feels like they matter a lot! Characters are very alive! So yes, enjoyed it a lot.

And now about the sad part. I didn’t beat and didn’t even start a single game for monthly theme :( Bad Crystal. Also, I started Broken Age for Play or Pay event, but also didn’t manage to finish it in time… Though I think only 1-2 hours remain out of 10-11 needed for it. Very neat and nice game. The quality and amount of work which was done for testing and animations and everything feels just incredible. So it’s another big recommendation from me. I will finish it soon, I hope…

Other notable mentions: started The Secret World (my first MMO RPG) and it seems like a really nice one. Started Paladins. It’s surprisingly fun and good for short plays. Also played Broforce for the first time and experienced the madness of 4-player coop. I will need to return to it later for better look. Some other games + multiplayer were played, but that’s not much new to say about them, unless retelling some exact fun moments which I can’t think of at the moment. So, that’s it. Have a nice month assassins :)

• Left 4 Dead
  

  174 hours playtime

  73 of 73 achievements

• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
  

  227 hours playtime

  190 of 276 achievements

• Oxenfree
  

  11 hours playtime

  8 of 13 achievements

• Broken Age
  

  13 hours playtime

  21 of 45 achievements

• The Secret World
  

  8 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Paladins
  

  11 hours playtime

  11 of 33 achievements

• Broforce
  

  2 hours playtime

  2 of 17 achievements

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Of course it’s not everything :)
Plans:
1) Finish and 100% Broken Age
2) At least one game beaten for monthly topic
3) 3rd Play or Pay event I think. If you’re in The QUIPS or Beard-topia you should join for sure!
4) And maybe something else, but probably I will spend too much time in Isaac + in new games I got recently: Crypt of the Necrodancer, Civ 6, Enter the Gungeon, … RIP backlog xD

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Last but not least. Enjoy some giveaways. We all have backlogs, I know, but maybe you will find something interesting for you here.

Just for the sake of not skipping it at all. It shouldn’t be so delayed, I know. So, just in short: spent too much time in multiplayer games (and continue spending…) and in Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Other than that I finished Schein (thanks to Play or Pay event in Beard-topia & The QUIPS groups) and completed Zup!, Star Sky and Voxelized (yeah… launched it, now it’s off from the list, I hope forever) in October.

Schein - platformer with a lot of nice ideas and interesting mechanics which missed a proper design (in a lot of senses: game design, art design, sound design, tech design after all - it lags at some places). So yeah, good game, but very (VERY) irritating at some points.
Zup! - short casual game for the sake of achievements (they represent letters and numbers mostly). It’s fun. Can be completed in 20 minutes.
Star Sky - interesting experience. It’s a very relaxing game. If it can be called a game. You have 3 options: to stand still, to walk in one direction or to run in the same one direction. With only this you explore the night. Charming.
Voxelized - I think everyone knows enough about this game. No comments.

• Schein
  

  11 hours playtime

  19 of 21 achievements

• Zup!
  

  2 hours playtime

  118 of 118 achievements

• Star Sky - ブルームーン
  

  2 hours playtime

  18 of 18 achievements

• Voxelized
  

  70 minutes playtime

  1 of 1 achievements

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New section: plans for the month! They are rather humble, so be kind to them:
1) As always, I want to finish at least one game for monthly
2) 100% in Left 4 Dead
3) 100% base game in Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (so that I can mark it as “finished” and move to beating of DLC)
4) Finish Oxenfree
5) 100% in Awesomenauts (very doubtful…)

Completed Lucius (from monthly theme). Surprisingly fun game :D Yes, it has a lot of bugs, poor optimization, some not very logical solutions and animation is weak at moments. Still it was indeed an interesting experience and I enjoyed it. I find it good actually that all events are happening in the same manor. Loved the atmosphere of being a maniac boy, especially in the first part of the game. Closer to the end it feels darker and more serious. Until the final battle during which I was just laughing. Also, a bit unexpected ending (for me).

• Lucius
  

  43 hours playtime

  58 of 58 achievements

Didn’t make much progress in fighting my backlog since I was mainly playing two games during the month: The Talos Principle (started in August; absolutely loving it) and The Binding of Isaac (43 hours in August).

• The Talos Principle
  

  34 hours playtime

  14 of 40 achievements

• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
  

  115 hours playtime

  149 of 276 achievements

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And yet I managed to complete one game (at the very beginning of the month) - The Silent Age. I wanted to play it for some time and monthly theme finally made me to start it. It’s a nice point and click and if you don’t get too serious with all aspects of the plot you’ll pretty much enjoy it. Funny responses to character investigating something or combining objects are particularly noteworthy - that part is very well done :D

• The Silent Age
  

  10 hours playtime

  24 of 24 achievements

A very delayed post about very good game – Alien: Isolation. I finished it somewhere in the middle of July and started playing it in May :D So it was indeed a slow walkthrough.

Let’s start from May. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this game, but sadly was almost unfamiliar with Alien universe. I’ve seen Alien vs Predator, maybe even the second movie as well, but I’ve never really watched the original series. Of course I’ve seen some fragments here and there in the childhood, but that’s all. So before starting the game I decided to watch movies. Chronology of my acquintence with Alien:

• first launch of the game; “Wow, so detailed! Look at this graphics, this lightning and particle effects! it’s one of the first games played on relatively new PC“. 2-3 hours spent studying the very first location (and mission) consisting of the small ship.
• first movie watched; “Wow, I think I saw this spaceship somewhere before!”
• back to game after a few weeks passed. New game. “OMG, this first location is actually an accurate copy of Nostromo!”
• few hours later and every hour of playthrough until the end: “I’m in love with the game!”

While I was playing it I watched Aliens (2nd movie) and Alien 3 at different moments, so I became well familiar with the universe. It’s very close to the original and expands it in such a pleasant way. Can’t name any other example among movies or games. Then was a big pause until July, when I finally finished it and currently I’m hunting for a few remaining achievements.

I must say that it’s a wonderful game. For me it feels like it takes the best from Alien series (good sci-fi, realism, atmosphere), Bioshock and Batman: Arkham Asylum (in sense of some gameplay features, mechanics, gamedesign). The sound is brilliant. I could walk back and forth to the door just to hear the sound of it. The sound of motion sensor, the sounds of various technics - they are so harmonious and so well done. No wonder that among numerous awards it got a few for best in-game sound.

It took me about 40 hours to finish the game (5-10 additional hours could come from me being away while in game). I think, it can be done twice faster, but it’s still a rather slow game. If you get used to your role, you think 10 times before standing up and stopping crouching even when you hear nothing around you and game design suggests that there will be no enemies right now right there. That was the way I played this game :) Another aspect making the game slower and more difficult was me attempting to explore all discovered locations not to miss any materials or collectibles (still missed quite a few). In the end I had tons of unused equipment (all equipment and almost all ammo was actually maxed out :D). And sometimes it meant a lot of unnecessary for surviving troubles.

I absolutely recommend this game! I had a few technical issues, but I believe they were caused by my non-standard PC build (didn’t have troubles on modern gaming laptop). Even if you don’t like horrors, try it out. It’s much more than horror. If I sound like I’m too excited about the game, it’s because I really am :D A true masterpiece, one of the best games I’ve played. 10/10

P.S. Thank you if you read this mindflow till the end. Couldn’t start writing about it for a long time. I might edit some parts when I see extremely bad writing and mistakes.

• Alien: Isolation
  

  55 hours playtime

  47 of 50 achievements

July is over in any time zone already and that means IndiePendent Relaxation is over as well . Hope you all had a good time, feel refreshed and relaxed.

This month numbers are smaller than from June, which can be the result of people relaxing in real life. 33 people dedicated July more or less to playing of 64 games.

The most played games were Hook with 7 players, Gone Home and Lyne with 6 players both.

I had doubts of how to count Stardew Valley as it’s rather subjective in sense of finishing, yet it gives a lot of points. After trying a few ideas it was discovered that top 3 remains unaffected by the fact if Stardew Valley is counted in or not. Here is the absolute top 3 of this month: tso184 with the 1st place, then EvilBlackSheep on the 2nd place, and Daerphen on the 3rd. Each of you will be “player of the week 10 days” for 10 days in that order. You can check below for details or on the link.

A little humble prize for all who participated: click. Hint hint: it might be good for next monthly theme. And 2 more prizes: click, click.

August theme should be up very soon, so stay tuned. Thank you for participating and enjoy the rest of summer!

Please post your entry using the format below. Post it only after you actually finished a game this month.

• Has achievements: TITLE_1, TITLE_2, TITLE_3…
• Does not have achievements: TITLE_1, TITLE_2, TITLE_3…

Replace:

TITLE with the game title. For example, Stardew Valley.
APP_ID with the game ID. For example, 413150, taken from http://store.steampowered.com/app/413150.
PROFILE_URL with your profile URL. For example, http://steamcommunity.com/id/crystalight or if you don’t have a Steam ID, http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996066202/.

* **Has achievements:** [TITLE_1](PROFILE_URL/stats/APP_ID_1), [TITLE_2](PROFILE_URL/stats/APP_ID_2), [TITLE_3](PROFILE_URL/stats/APP_ID_3)...
* **Does not have achievements:** [TITLE_1](PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID_1), [TITLE_2](PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID_2), [TITLE_3](PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID_3)...

You can separate finished games from completed if you want, but it’s not necessary.

If you replayed a game that has achievements and didn’t get new achievements or had already gotten all of the achievements, add it to the “Has achievements:” section, but use the link PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID and post screenshots as proof. Same goes for “Does not have achievements:” games.

If it’s not possible to take screenshots of a game using Steam, take screenshots normally and upload them to Imgur, linking the Imgur page instead of the Steam one.

And of course don’t forget to regularly post on the site’s activity feed to show your progress.

Ranking
List of games
Main post

You can check which games are in your library and which are new additions with the Relax Checker (by revilheart). If you used this script in previous month, it got updated. More detailed information about the script can be found here.

Last update: 2016.07.14, 17:38 UTC

UPDATE: I will be offline from 08.07.2016 to 14.07.2016. You’ll need to wait for your suggestions to be added when I’m back. The ranking should work automatically. If you see any problems with it, you can contact revilheart. Have a good summer :)

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• 12 Labours of Hercules II: The Cretan Bull
• 12 Labours of Hercules III: Girl Power
• 12 Labours of Hercules IV: Mother Nature
• 12 Labours of Hercules V: Kids of Hellas
• 12 Labours of Hercules
• 80 Days
• A Bird Story
• American Truck Simulator
• Among Ripples [Free to Play]
• AudioSurf 2
• AudioSurf
• Auditorium
• Banished
• Blueprint Tycoon
• Borealis
• Botanicula
• Bottle
• Cat Goes Fishing
• Catch a Falling Star
• Christmas Adventure: Candy Storm
• Collisions
• Colours of Magic: Aqua Teeter
• Dear Esther
• Depth Hunter 2: Deep Dive
• Divide By Sheep
• Drizzlepath: Genie
• Drizzlepath
• Eufloria HD
• Euro Truck Simulator 2
• Euro Truck Simulator
• Everyday Genius: SquareLogic
• Evo Explores
• Farm Frenzy: Heave Ho
• Farm Frenzy: Hurricane Season
• FEZ
• Finders
• Floating Point [Free to Play]
• Game Corp DX
• Gone Home
• Grandpa’s Table
• Grass Simulator
• Grow Home
• Hare In The Hat
• Hero of the Kingdom II
• Hero of the Kingdom
• Hexcells Infinite
• Hexcells Plus
• Hexcells
• Hook
• KAMI
• KNIGHTS
• KWAAN
• Little Inferno
• LOOP: A Tranquil Puzzle Game
• Lucid
• Lumini
• LYNE
• Machinarium
• Microcosmum: survival of cells
• Mind Games
• Mini Metro
• MOAI 2: Path to Another World
• MOAI 3: Trade Mission Collector’s Edition
• MOAI 4: Terra Incognita Collector’s Edition
• MOAI: Build Your Dream
• Mondrian - Abstraction in Beauty
• Morphopolis
• Mountain
• NightSky
• Osmos
• Perfect Angle VR - Zen edition [VR only]
• PERFECT ANGLE: The puzzle game based on optical illusions
• Pixel Puzzles: Japan
• PixelJunk™ Eden
• Pool Nation FX Lite [Free to Play]
• Pool Nation
• Proteus
• Qbeh-1: The Atlas Cube
• Quell Memento
• Quell Reflect
• Quell
• realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
• Refunct
• Samorost 2
• Samorost 3
• Shu’s Garden
• Siege Wars
• SnakEscape
• Solar 2
• Sparkle 2 Evo
• Sparkle 3 Genesis
• Sparkle ZERO
• Splice
• Stardew Valley
• Strata
• Submerged
• Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
• Tengami
• The Four Kings Casino and Slots [Free to Play]
• The Plan [Free to Play]
• The Rollingball’s Melody
• The Tiny Bang Story
• Thomas Was Alone
• Three Digits
• To the Moon
• Train Valley
• Two Digits
• Unium
• Viridi [Free to Play]
• Windosill
• World of Diving
• World of Goo
• XenoBloom
• ZeGame
• Zen Bound 2
• Zenge

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Submission
Ranking
Main post

It’s almost the middle of the summer, some of us may be on vacation these days. Actually it’s a good time to take some rest, relax from things that make you tired, try new things and make little changes. Also it is the month when quite a lot of countries got their independence – 24 countries in overall. With this being said we present you our new monthly theme: Relax IndiePendently!

It consists of approximately 74 indie games which were marked with relaxing tag on Steam. Games like Osmos, LYNE and Stardew Valley can be found among this list of all compatible games. This month we decided that it will be a fixed list with not so many games as you could see before. Even if you finish all your games from this category, you still have huge backlog of other games. Aren’t we all here because of it? :) Finishing all your games from the monthly theme should still leave you time for other games and activities. It’s summer after all :)

UPDATE: Anyway, now you can make suggestions of other games for the list! Please, do it in comments to the list of eligible games, here. You can suggest the games you finished (finished main story before this month; doesn’t mean obtaining all achievements, endings, etc). If your comment gets at least 1 “+1” from other members, your game gets in the list. If you played the game before this month, but not enough to finish it, you can suggest it as well, but then you’ll need 3 “+1”s. If you have never played the game you’re suggesting before this month, but believe that it’s fitting, you can still make a suggestion. The game will be added if it gets 5 “+1”s. I hope it will work good :)

All entries must be submitted here before July 31, 23:59 UTC. You can post all finished/completed/beaten games in one comment and update it with new additions until the end of monthly theme.

For your entry to be valid, the game you play must be listed in the list above.

Here you can see overall statistics (I will update it irregularly, so, please, be patient). Ranking system is taken from the previous month. It is based on difficulty and time needed to finish the game.

There might be some giveaways for all participants. Ranking is made mainly for fair and clear competition, but it may lead to additional GAs as well depending on the final results.

List of games

Submission

Ranking

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P.S. Big thanks to Downward Concept for the theme logo and revilheart for all the scripts and help with formatting! Bottom image is taken from this artist.

Please post your entry using the format below.

• Has achievements: TITLE_1, TITLE_2, TITLE_3…
• Does not have achievements: TITLE_1, TITLE_2, TITLE_3…

Replace:

TITLE with the game title. For example, Stardew Valley.
APP_ID with the game ID. For example, 413150, taken from http://store.steampowered.com/app/413150.
PROFILE_URL with your profile URL. For example, http://steamcommunity.com/id/crystalight or if you don’t have a Steam ID, http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197996066202/.

* **Has achievements:** [TITLE_1](PROFILE_URL/stats/APP_ID_1), [TITLE_2](PROFILE_URL/stats/APP_ID_2), [TITLE_3](PROFILE_URL/stats/APP_ID_3)...
* **Does not have achievements:** [TITLE_1](PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID_1), [TITLE_2](PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID_2), [TITLE_3](PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID_3)...

You can separate finished games from completed if you want, but it’s not necessary.

If you replayed a game that has achievements and didn’t get new achievements or had already gotten all of the achievements, add it to the “Has achievements:” section, but use the link PROFILE_URL/screenshots/?appid=APP_ID and post screenshots as proof.

If it’s not possible to take screenshots of a game using Steam, take screenshots normally and upload them to Imgur, linking the Imgur page instead of the Steam one.

[Ranking] (in progress)
[List of games] (in progress)
[Main post] (in progress)