Hello, all. Most of the past two months of my non-kid playtime has been playing and writing a 100% Achievement and Full Walkthrough Guide for Curse of the Assassin, a fantasy-themed gamebook (aka., “choose-your-own-adventure”) and sequel to An Assassin in Orlandes. Both of those games were SG wins! :D

If you have the game, then feel free to take a look at the guide and let me know if you have any feedback. If you don’t have the game, but would like to play it and try out my guide, then I have an extra key to the game you can have. I’d just ask that you take a look at the store page and make sure it’s the kind of game you’d like to play, then play the game and give me some feedback on the guide sometime in the next couple of months or so. Special consideration if you’ve beaten An Assassin in Orlandes in Adventurer or Classic mode!

Other than that, I’ve mostly been playing Violett Remastered and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger with the kids, and The Happy Hereafter and a HOG. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger is the second game now, along with Castle of Illusion, that I got through the whole game, only to find that I lack the skill to beat the final boss. In the case of Ty, the final phase of the final battle involves a brand-new mechanic that wasn’t in the game at all until that point, and requires a certain kind of “steering” dexterity that I lack.

Next up, I’ll get back to Seasons After Fall, and then probably Poker Night at the Inventory (an SG win).

Hello, all. This is my April 2017 “monthly report.” Please see my profile for more info.

All of the games I’ve played this month are listed here. I’d like to discuss them below:

Completed games

• Dracula: Origin
  

  12 hours playtime

  no achievements

• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
  

  59 hours playtime

  no achievements

• The Last Dream: Developer's Edition
  

  11 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• Supreme League of Patriots Issue 3: Ice Cold in Ellis
  

  11 hours playtime

  22 of 22 achievements

• The Little Acre
  

  4 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

Beaten games

• Scrap Garden - The Day Before
  

  2 hours playtime

  20 of 21 achievements

• Doors
  

  8 hours playtime

  6 of 7 achievements

• An Octave Higher
  

  12 hours playtime

  1 of 6 achievements

Other progress on kids' accounts

Alchemist
3.8 hrs, 6/18 achievements. A fun little 2D platformer with frequent pickups (usually potion ingredients).
Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim
12.7 hrs, 4/10 achievements. Decent 3D platfomer with a crafting and combat emphasis, some stealthy sequences. Could use some polish.
Scrap Garden
9ish hours, 42/42 achievements. See Scrap Garden - The Day Before (below).

A few notes on this month's games

• Two out of the seven games I played this month were Steamgifts wins (Supreme League of Patriots Issue 3 & Doors) and two others were gifts (Dracula: Origin and An Octave Higher).
• I played some of the games with 5-year-old twins (Harry Potter, The Little Acre, The Last Dream, and Scrap Garden - The Day Before). And also the “other progress” (e.g., Alchemist, Scrap Garden, and Tyrim).

LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7

This was pretty much just mop-up work to get to 100% completion; the bulk of my time on this game was last month. In my previous update, I mentioned that this was the first game that I’ve played co-op with my kids. My daughter’s favorite character was Harry and my son’s favorite was Voldemort (once he was unlocked). This provides a certain insight into my kids…

Dracula: Origin (gift)

This was a wishlist gift from an SG friend. It had stayed in my backlog far too long, but its time had come. To summarize my review, it’s a classic point-and-click game from 2008 with all of the good and bad that entails. If you like the genre, or if Dracula is your thing, then it’s definitely worth playing. It had some great puzzles and nice Dracula environments. Unfortunately it hasn’t been in a bundle for years so it would be hard to recommend at full price (is anything worth it at full price?).

An Octave Higher (gift)

This was a QUIPS Secret Santa gift from last Xmas. So, I haven’t played many VNs, and I don’t care for anime, but this one didn’t look too bad…plus it seemed to have a musical aspect to it, which helps. At this point, I’ve only done my first full playthrough, where I tried to answer as I “wanted to.” For the most part, it’s an enjoyable game. It has some really interesting world building, discusses the science and technology of magic, class struggles, revolution, academia, music– all topics that I enjoyed. The only thing that kind of killed it for me is that there are multiple scenarios where one of the early 20s-ish male protagonists is having all kinds of romantic thoughts and inclinations toward one of the female leads who is fifteen years old. At one point, one of them commands her to “service him.” She refuses, of course, and later gets to decide if she forgives him or not. You can guess what I chose. At no point do these males even appear to see an issue with going after a 15-year-old. I just don’t get it. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable game.

Supreme League of Patriots Issue 3: Ice Cold in Ellis (SG win)

For time reasons, I decided to skip numbers 1 and 2 and went straight to #3 (the SG win), but really I don’t think it had any negative effect. It’s a good game! The humor and voice acting are spot on. The puzzles were pretty good too. The only issues I had were with the user interface which was rough, IMO. There were several times I knew what I had to do but couldn’t figure out how to do it via the interface.

The Last Dream: Developer's Edition

A nice little HOG…pretty standard fare I guess. It did feature FMV (full motion video) cutscenes, which I’ve never seen in a HOG before, and of course reminds me of old 1990s point-and-click games. It featured “Fragmented Object” scenes (FROGs) instead of HOGs. If you’ve played HOGs before, you probably know the difference; if not, you certainly couldn’t care less. :P

The Little Acre

Quite short and not very hard, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It oozes character, is crafted with love, is very skillfully voiced, and has a nice little story to it. Great game to play with kids, and not a bad intro to point-and-clicks.
There’s a nice little artbook that comes with the game that shows concept art, animation tricks, etc.

Scrap Garden - The Day Before (f2p)

We had just finished Scrap Garden, and it was one of my son’s favorite games…so he wanted to play it too. While we will certainly do that someday, in the meantime I suggested the free-to-play prequel to the game. It’s a good little (free) intro to the full game in case you’re on the fence. It’s a mild platformer where you control a little robot who can pretty much only walk, jump, throw things, and pull levers/push buttons. The last achievement is to get through the whole game without being damaged, which really isn’t that hard, but after about five tries, I wasn’t able to pull it off, so I’ll be happy enough with 20/21 achievements. If you have any skill at platformers, you should have no problem with full completion.

Doors (SG win)

As I said in my review , It’s very simple: if you like logic puzzles, then you’ll like this game. If you don’t, or lack the patience or skill to solve them, then you won’t. :) There’s a fun little Stanley Parable-esque section in the middle to give your brain a break. Warning to completionists (like myself): there is an apparently unattainable achievement just to mess with us. I find this annoying, and wouldn’t have played the game if it weren’t an SG win.

Plan for May

See my Attack Plan. I plan to complete An Octave Higher by finding the remaining endings. I’ll play and likely complete The Turing Test (my most recent SG win) and Shtriga: Summer Camp (a gift). Lately with the kids I’ve been playing A Boy and His Blob, Alchemist, and Cornerstone: Son of Tyrim. With any remaining time I may go after some additional shorter games.

Hello, all. This is my March 2017 “monthly report.” Please see my profile for more info.

All of the games I’ve played this month are listed here. I’d like to discuss them below:

Completed games

• Hue
  

  13 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• Black Sails
  

  11 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Amulet of Dreams
  

  11 hours playtime

  7 of 7 achievements

• One Night Stand
  

  4 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• The Room
  

  8 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• Samorost 2
  

  2 hours playtime

  no achievements

Beaten games

• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
  

  52 hours playtime

  no achievements

A few notes on this month's games

• I’m happy to report that my non-idling game time was 84h in March compared to 63h and 60h for the previous two months. This is because there were no NFL playoffs to distract me (January) and, well, I guess a few more extra days and some cold/rainy weekends in March gave me some extended play sessions with the kids.
• Only two out of the seven games I played this month were Steamgifts wins (Black Sails & One Night Stand).
• I played some of the games either or entirely or partially with (e.g., with an audience of) my 5-year-old twins (Harry Potter, Hue, Amulet of Dreams, and Samorost 2). We did all of the “story mode” levels of Harry Potter together, but I did some of the Hogwarts and other overworld areas on my own.
• This was the first time I have completed a game for the Monthly Theme! Granted, it was pretty much a coincidence…but I’ll take it.

LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7

As you can see, I spent more than half of my monthly playtime with LEGO Harry Potter. If you’ve played the genre, you understand why. We started from ground zero and got to about 80% completion (including all of story mode) this month. I expect to finish off the rest of Free Play mode to get the remaining 20% in April. Harry Potter 1-4 was my daughter’s favorite game, so I’ve been saving this one until they got a little older (5 1/2) and we could try it co-op. So about halfway through (and one at a time of course) I taught them how to play…unfortunately this meant I had to switch from controller to keyboard controls, as I have only one controller. This was a significant but not overwhelming change for me. The harder part was all of the crazy split-screen action which made my eyes hurt eventually. Truly, the game was much more fun in single-player! But I’m glad they got to play and they really enjoyed it. And for the most part they knew what they were doing…switching to the correct character to accomplish certain tasks, etc. So it’s something…

Hue

As I wrote last month, it’s a fun little puzzle-platformer where you choose a “pen color” to change the world’s background color so that obstacles appear and disappear when you need them to. It does a really good job introducing new mechanics and includes narrative sections to move the story along. As I suspected, the difficulty ramped up, but not so much in the “action-platforming” sections as in the “puzzle-platform” sections. (The game contains both kinds.) A few of the puzzles were real stumpers, but I only consulted a guide on 1 or 2 levels. We also needed a guide for 3 or 4 of the collectibles (“beakers”) for that last achievement. Highly recommended if you like the genre.

Black Sails (SG win)

This game has been on my Attack Plan for months, but for one reason or another kept getting pushed back. Nice little point-and-click, somewhat of a “period piece,” if you know what I mean, although it actually plays more like a game from 2009 than 2015. But I enjoyed it. Nice plot and atmosphere…graphics good enough not to be distracting (although as I said they look older than they should). Nice puzzles– not too hard but not too easy. Had to get help twice– once was my fault and one was the game’s fault. :P

Amulet of Dreams

Not the best HOG in the world, but okay. The story is weak, the voice acting is godawful at times, the music is more than repetitive, and the puzzles and HOG scenes are average. But it’s pretty enough. Puzzles were not too hard but will make you have to think at times. The achievements work and you don’t have to collect 357 butterfiles, buttons, morphing pygmies, and hidden paperclips to get 100%. There is a progress-halting bug late in the game, but I was fortunate enough to have a nice Steam friend tell me about it before I encountered it. It’s 100% avoidable if you know how, and you might get lucky and never experience it even if you’re unaware…it depends the order you do things.

One Night Stand (SG win)

Nice little VN with multiple endings. The Steam tags include “Nudity” but don’t get your hopes up. :P It’s just that one screenshot of a lady’s bare back from the Store Page. I got all but two of the endings of my own accord, but used a guide for the rest, as well as some of the seemingly more obscure achievements. In my first playthrough, I got the “You became friends” ending. Story of my life. :P

The Room

It was late in the month and I wanted a short game to round out the month, so I rewarded myself with the first game from my Itching to play list that I’ve played since I joined BLAEO. Loved the game…not too hard, but so fun and rewarding when that next secret compartment opens. I got stuck a couple of times, but never had to resort to a guide. Still took me 5 hours though (the rest was idling time from months ago). Now I get to replay it with my kids….they won’t be able to do the whole thing, but they’ve gotten parts of it and my son in particular is enjoying the locks, secret compartments, and puzzles.

Samorost 2

Actually, now that I think about it, this game might have been on my Itching to Play list, but only because I wanted to play #2 before entering giveaways for #3. I loved Machinarium and particularly Botanicula. This one actually didn’t do it for me as much…not because it’s short, but more because it seemed to involve a lot of careful timing, walking back and forth, and finding hotspots you’d have no reason to mouse over. Oh well…it still had that great art style and animation.

It's Spring Again

I actually “completed” this a few months ago, but this month I let my each of my kids play it. Even though they’re actually a bit too old for it (funny to think), they still enjoyed being able to do something completely by themselves.

Plan for April

See my Attack Plan. I plan to complete Harry Potter 5-7 and Supreme League of Patriots Issue 3 (an SG win). There’s also a very good chance I’ll at least start The Turing Test (my most recent SG win) and/or An Octave Higher (Secret Santa gift). Lately with the kids I’ve been playing Scrap Garden and A Boy and His Blob, but I’ve been using my son’s account (he doesn’t know he has) so it won’t show up here.

Hello, all. This is my February 2017 “monthly report.” Please see my profile for more info.

All of the games I’ve played this month are listed here. I’d like to discuss them below:

Completed games

• Stories: The Path of Destinies
  

  37 hours playtime

  37 of 37 achievements

• Heaven's Hope
  

  13 hours playtime

  26 of 26 achievements

• ABZU
  

  9 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• Laraan
  

  2 hours playtime

  no achievements

Other notable progress

• Hue
  

  2 hours playtime

  8 of 13 achievements

A few notes on this month's games

• Although it’s a smaller list this month, total game time exclusive of idling was about the same as last month (63h for January, 60h for February).
• The Papo & Yo time was actually from January…the day/month seems to cut off at 11pm local time. Maybe because of Daylight Saving Time? I guess I’ll find out this month.
• Only one of the five games I played this month was a Steamgifts wins (Stories). One other (ABZU) was a gift, though (Secret Santa).
• I only played 2 out of the 5 games with (e.g., with an audience of) my 5-year-old twins (Heaven’s Hope and Hue), plus moments of Stories and ABZU.

Stories: Paths of Destiny (SG win)

This game. Really good game overall, but I’d make one important suggestion: don’t try to get 100%. You’ll enjoy it much more if you don’t, as the last two achievements are very grindy. Worse, if you do a little research like I did on how to make the end not quite so grindy, you end up depriving yourself of much of the enjoyment of the game. In short, it has to do with ensuring you don’t do certain paths that confer a level-up until the end, when levels are more expensive. I also had a couple of issues with the checkpoint system, when it appeared to be saving my progress as I grinded but because I didn’t properly complete a chapter, I lost a full night’s work of grinding. Anyway, the game itself is quite good, but I lost out on the best experience with it because of those damned achievements.

One other sad thing…initially I was playing this game with my kids, and letting them choose my “path.” At one point, it was time to go just as we needed to make a choice. I wanted to ensure that it was saving our progress after exiting to the main menu, so before quitting, I briefly resumed the story. It had saved progress, but now there was no way NOT to choose the next branch and continue the story (short of killing the game process I suppose). In trying to find a way to exit, I accidentally chose the other path, where we do something “unheroic” to the female lead. My son lost it, crying, saying it was a bad game and wanting me to delete it. Needless to say, I decided I’d play the game without them from then on. Poor kid. :P

ABZU (gift)

Well, plenty has already been said about ABZU, so I won’t bore you. My favorite level was the Atlantis section. I had to use a walkthrough to find all of the hidden shells, but I certainly didn’t mind replaying parts of it. I fought with the controls for the first couple of hours until I finally inverted the up/down axis. To my knowledge, this is the first game in which I’ve ever inverted an axis.

Heaven's Hope

Has a lot going for it, but ultimately I’d give this a mixed review. Nice art style, voice acting, some nice puzzles…decent story I guess. But some aspects just drove me crazy, including inconsistent UI, needlessly small hotspots for room exits (such that I twice didn’t realize I could go in a particular direction), overly long monologues (you can skip each line one at a time), several places where you know exactly what to do but not the right sequence/item combination/etc. to accomplish it, and a couple of silly puzzles. By the end I was kind of glad it was over, and the ending wasn’t very satisfying. Still, not the worst point-and-click you can find.

Laraan

Originally I was just going to idle this game, but it looked kind of intriguing and not too long, so I started playing it. I don’t usually like low-poly graphics, but I really liked this game and while most of you will probably find it super-easy, I found it just hard enough to keep me working and interested.

Hue

Fun little puzzle-platformer so far, where you choose a “pen color” to change the world’s background color so that obstacles appear and disappear when you need them to. I’m probably less than halfway through…I have a feeling the difficulty will ramp up once I’ve unlocked all of the “colors,” since there will be a lot of colors to choose from in realtime.

Plan for March

See my Attack Plan. I plan to finish Hue. I’ll work on Amulet of Dreams intermittently with the kids (just started it today). I keep putting off Black Sails for one reason or another– but once again, I intend to play it this month as my primary “sans kids” game. I might try to squeeze in Samorost 2. And to go with this month’s theme, I will play LEGO Harry Potter 5-7 with the kids. Years 1-4 was probably my daughter’s favorite game so far. I might tempt fate and let her try to join me in co-op (she’s 5 1/2). We’ll see how that goes…

Hello, all. This is my January 2017 “monthly report.” Please see my profile for more info.

All of the games I’ve played this month are listed here. I’d like to highlight most of them below:

Completed/Beaten games

• Face Noir
  

  15 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Papo & Yo
  

  13 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Cross of the Dutchman
  

  11 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

• Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek
  

  11 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Snail Bob 2
  

  8 hours playtime

  19 of 19 achievements

• Over The Hills And Far Away
  

  7 hours playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Refunct
  

  88 minutes playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

Other notable progress

• Marblize
  

  7 hours playtime

  no achievements

• ABZU
  

  2 hours playtime

  4 of 12 achievements

A few notes on this month's games

• I was able to accomplish a bit more in the battle against the backlog considering that large chunks of my weekends were spent watching US NFL Football.
• Only one of the games I played this month was a Steamgifts wins. Two others were gifts, though.
• I played 5 out of the 9 games with (e.g., with an audience of) my 5-year-old twins. Papo & Yo and Enigmatis had a couple scary/spooky sections, but not that bad. Sometimes I’ll say, “maybe this game is too scary for you,” and they break into, “Nooooo! It’s not, daddy!” =)

Face Noir (SG win)

Face Noir was selected by LadyNarayan for the “Play or Pay” challenge from The QUIPS/Beardtopia. It was one of my first SG wins (8th overall). It’s a good, solid game…kind of a throwback even. It feels more like a game released in 2007 instead of 2013, which is both good and bad. Good story, lots of content IMO, but slow walking, low-resolution, and awkward 3D elements. It had a great noir ambiance. It was definitely worth playing.

Papo & Yo

Thanks again, LadyNarayan for a great suggestion! I bought it a long time ago in my pre-SG days, and had it on my Itching to Play list. As I’ve said elsewhere, it was a little strange playing a game about an alcoholic, abusive father with my kids. Fortunately, though, they had no idea…they just thought it was about a boy, his rocket toy, and a monster. There were some fun moments when there were some close calls as the monster chased me around, but I’m not anticipating any nightmares. Also, this game is notable as I’m getting more and more of the kids wanting to take the controller and play (particularly my daughter). They’re not satisfied with just pressing the button to open treasure chests and whatnot. It was just a matter of time, but the fact is they’re really still too young to play most of these games.

Cross of the Dutchman

Fun little action/adventure with some RPG elements, nice little story, fun cartoonish art style. Good for kids viewing. Apparently it’s based on a true story. There were a couple “stealth elements” that were okay, but a departure from the rest of the game. The worst was a timed stealth section…worst for me that is. I’m pretty slow in a normal game, but in a stealth game? Molasses. My only critiques of the game were the save/checkpoint system and it was hard to tell where you could or couldn’t walk based on the landscape– during a timed stealth sequence I’d seem to get blocked by blade of grass or a twig in the road. :P

Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek

This is the first in the trilogy…an older one, but it’s nice that it doesn’t have 350 collectibles to find if you want to achieve 100% completion. Love playing these games with my kids.

Snail Bob 2

Cute little puzzle-platformer. Really quite easy, and not even too hard to control. I’m planning on letting my kids replay it by themselves and I’ll only jump in when they’re stuck or have trouble with a timed element. There’s supposed to be a fifth chapter, but it hasn’t come out yet. I always worry about these things…

Over The Hills And Far Away (gift)

I’m not big into visual novels, but this one looked pretty good, so I had it on my wishlist and my QUIPS Secret Santa chose it for me. Thanks, Muthaf*ckinRick! Nice story, albeit with a predictable ending.

Refunct

Picked it up in the Humble Bundle, and decided to play it right away since it was so short. I actually really liked it. It has minor parkour elements and was a fun little platformer.

Marblize

Picked it up in the Indiegala bundle, and started giving it a shot since it had no achievements. I’ve sort of been on a quest for marble-type games, but the fact is I suck at them. :P This one looks polished graphically, but it lacks polish in controller support and other ways. I got through the first “world” and overall found it pretty fun, albeit challenging for me. It would be fun to watch a real ace play this game. Lots of collectibles and other goals to make it more challenging for the pros. At this point, I’ve essentially abandoned it. I got what I wanted out of it.

ABZU (gift)

Another “Play or Pay” selection, and another Secret Santa gift. :P Not too far into it yet– will discuss in next month’s update. But it’s taking me a while to get used to the controls– no doubt a problem with the player, not the game.

Plan for January

See my Attack Plan. I plan to finish ABZU. I keep putting off Black Sails for one reason or another– but once again, I intend to play it this month. I recently won Stories: The Path of Destinies, so I’ll probably play this one soon with my kids…Feb or March.

Hello, all. This is my second “monthly report.” Please see my profile for more info.

All of the games I’ve played this month are listed here. I’d like to highlight some of them below:

Completed/Beaten games

• CAT Interstellar
  

  2 hours playtime

  no achievements

• LEGO® Star Wars™: The Complete Saga
  

  39 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition
  

  45 hours playtime

  52 of 57 achievements

• The Dream Machine
  

  25 hours playtime

  no achievements

• The Path
  

  12 hours playtime

  no achievements

• STASIS
  

  19 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• Firewatch
  

  16 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

Other notable progress

None! Just a bunch of card farming, and I started a VN on New Year’s Eve then decided to do something else.

Thoughts on this month's games

• I was pretty much able to achieve what I set out to do this month. I set out to finish Ori, The Dream Machine, Firewatch and The Path. I didn’t complete (or even play) Black Sails, but I finished Star Wars and STASIS, and CAT Interstellar.
• 4/7 of the games I played this month were Steamgifts wins. The exceptions were The Path, Chaos on Deponia, and Lego Star Wars Complete.
• Once again, I played most of these games with (e.g., with an audience of) my 5-year-old twins except for Firewatch, CAT Interstellar, and– you’ll be happy to hear– STASIS.
• As I suspected, Ori and the Blind Forest ended up being the hardest game I’ve ever finished, surpassing A Story About My Uncle. Some of those escape sequences (Ginso Tree, lava escape) just kicked my @ss. But what can I say about it that hasn’t already been said? It’s beautiful aesthetically, has fantastic gameplay, tight controls, a variety of skills and situations, just a fantastic game. I was happy to achieve everything I set out to– everything except One-Life mode, don’t die, play on Hard, speedrun, and don’t use a skill point. I’ll leave those achievements for the pros.
• I won Firewatch from the Actually Playing Games group, and this is the perfect game for it. It’s enjoyable, not too long, pretty, and a wishlist game. I almost enjoyed it enough to replay the game with the commentary on. But my backlog is too big to replay games.
• I played STASIS this past weekend when my wife took the kids to see her parents up North, and I got to stay home, partly because my parents were still in town. It was nice to have long, uninterrupted play sessions to immerse myself into the game. I consulted a guide 2-3 times (and for a few of the achievements), but I liked how everything was pretty much logical and fair. No point-and-click shenanigans.
• The Path predates me joining Steamgifts. I actually played this with my kids when they were only three– which if you know anything about this game, was a questionable parenting decision. But whenever anything looked a little creepy/scary, I’d just laugh and call it funny, and they pretty much followed my lead. I really enjoyed this game…creepy and weird, but with lots of neat discoveries.
• My son really loved Lego Star Wars. I mostly enjoyed it, but there were some sequences that were just not designed for solo play, IMO. For instance, you need to do an operation (Jedi telekinesis) for a long period of time, but any time you get hit, it gets interrupted. The co-op AI is NO HELP in keeping the bad guys off you, so it took me forever to get it done. Overall, I just didn’t like it nearly as much as Lego Hobbit and Lego Harry Potter, the other two Lego games I’ve played. Also, I didn’t enjoy reliving Episodes I-III, the first two of which I actively loathe. And as for Episodes IV-VI, well, I didn’t want to spoil the plot for when we get to watch the movies together. The wife thinks 5 is too young. I wasn’t 6 yet when I saw it, though. So we completed the game, but I’m not inclined to go back and do Free Play and work toward 100%.
• I won The Dream Machine chapter 1-3 on SG, and finished those a few months ago. For some reason, chapters 4 and 5 are MUCH longer. Anyway, I’ve been playing the game with my kids, but I really wanted to finish it this month, so I polished off the last few sections while the kids were away. It also gets pretty grisly…not terribly kid-friendly in places. Oops.

Plan for January

See my Attack Plan.
I expect not to have as much playing time this month because of the NFL Playoffs. :) But I’ll finish Black Sails and 1 or 2 VNs, I’ll play and maybe complete a game or two with the kids (haven’t decided which yet). But I’m guessing a pretty quiet month.

Hi! So I’m pretty new around here…I actually joined (I blame tso184) just at the end of October, so this is my first “monthly report.” Please see my profile for more info.

All of the games I’ve played this month are listed here. I’d like to highlight some of them below:

Completed/Beaten games

• The Walking Dead: Michonne
  

  6 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

• The Purring Quest
  

  9 hours playtime

  23 of 23 achievements

• An Assassin in Orlandes
  

  13 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Chronology
  

  9 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Projector Face
  

  6 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• Tenrow
  

  6 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• Chaos on Deponia
  

  20 hours playtime

  27 of 34 achievements

Other notable progress

• Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition
  

  38 hours playtime

  38 of 57 achievements

• LEGO® Star Wars™: The Complete Saga
  

  30 hours playtime

  no achievements

• The Dream Machine
  

  19 hours playtime

  no achievements

Thoughts on this month's games

• I won all of the games I played this month on Steamgifts except for Tenrow, Chaos on Deponia, and Lego Star Wars Complete.
• I played all of these games with (e.g., with an audience of) my kids except for Tenrow, Walking Dead Michonne, and An Assassin in Orlandes.
• I love Ori and the Blind Forest. It will end up being the hardest game I’ve ever finished, surpassing A Story About My Uncle.
• I kinda suck at platformers, and neither of those games is easy, IMO. I even struggled at times with A Purring Quest! But the kids and I loved it.
• TWD Michonne was enjoyable…it did seem a bit….shallow? It didn’t seem like your choices affected your relationship with the players (e.g., “Samantha will remember that.”).
• Chronology was really a lot of fun. Great for the kids, but made me think, without being too hard. Polished.
• I played Tenrow start to finish during two of the World Series games…maybe Game 6?
• The kids and I have been playing Chaos on Deponia for a long time, in small chunks. We finally finished it! Now I can play Goodbye Deponia (an SG win), though I think I’ll do that solo so that it may go faster.

Plan for November

See my Attack Plan.
I hope to “beat” Ori and get all but a handful of achievements (I do not have the skill to 100% it). I ought to finish The Dream Machine and The Path. I don’t expect to have beaten Lego Star Wars Complete, but it’s possible. I hope to have completed Firewatch and hopefully Black Sails. Anything else is gravy!