I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.
For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".
Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".
I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).
I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.
I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.
One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Feb 9, 2018
Library Date: Dec 24, 2019
Unplayed: 1105 days (3y9d)
Playtime: 19m
This game came in a Humble Choice bundle, and it had two things going against it:
Pixel graphics
Platformer
I was there for 8-bit & pixel graphics the first time around. My first "gaming" computer was a PC XT clone with an amber monochrome monitor. Our only gaming was a pong clone.
I think these are the reasons I lack rose-coloured glasses for that era of gaming.
It's a 2D platformer. Like many #autistic folks, my fine motor control is not the greatest, nor is my hand-eye coordination. Platformers have been one of the major sources of frustration for me over the years, as I regularly mashed the wrong keys on the keyboard.
Which turned out to be a part of the problem.
When I got to grips with an Xbox controller to play Forza Horizon 4, it was an eye-opener, not just in terms of racing, but also for platformers.
Aegis Defenders is a 2D platformer mash-up with a Tower Defense game. Explore, find the target, defend it, upgrade, rinse and repeat. It remains to be seen whether I'll want to come back to it repeatedly, so for now I'm giving it a rating of:
Apr 10, 2023 - Day 100 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 107
Game: Kingdom
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Oct 22, 2015
Library Date: Mar 22, 2018
Unplayed: 1845d (5y19d)
Playtime: 68m
Kingdom is a pixel-art based, sideways-scrolling strategy/resource management game. Pretty much everything I dislike, in a single package.
As soon as I saw it load in, I was sure I'd be clock-watching, just itching for my 15 minutes to be up.
An hour later I was still playing.
Sometimes the gameplay is so good, the art disappears, and this turns out to be a great game, but you have to work for it.
It does very little to hold your hand; the first ten minutes were spent trying to intuit what was going on.
You're a king or queen, mounted on a horse. You can ride in either direction, and pick up and spend gold coins, and... that's about it. You cannot attack or fight back if attacked.
You use your initial few gold coins to hire a couple of beggars, and build a tiny village.
The tiny village allows you to provide each person you hire with a tool (hammer) or a weapon (bow & arrow).
During the day, the armed villagers kill rabbits and earn gold coins for you, while the working villagers can build defenses. At night, the armed villagers defend you. Each new day, you earn more gold coins, and the cycle continues, for just one more day.
My initial impressions of Kingdom were wrong; it's: