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.
Killer Instinct is a fighting game that went F2P last year as a teaser to get people to buy the Killer Instinct: Anniversary Edition DLC that provides balance updates, and everything available in the in-game shop.
I won't be buying it. It's pretty cheesy, and while the single-button combos make my button mashing a lot easier, my hands get tired far too quickly for this to be fun.
January 2, 2024 - Day 367 - RePlay Review
Total RePlays: 12
Game: Mind Scanners
Platform: Steam
Release Date: May 20, 2021
Reviewed: Dec 17, 2023
Original rating: 1 - Nope
New rating: 3 - OK
Playtime: 4hrs30m (5h)
When I reviewed Mind Scanners a couple of weeks ago, I found it icky. I tagged it for the trading cards, and as with many games that have trading card drops, it has to be played to collect them.
I've sold enough of them to buy whole DLCs with the proceeds, so at least it feels like I got something out of the game. Usually this just reinforces my opinion of the game, and makes me more determined to recover the storage space, but sometimes things go differently.
I started playing this last night, and then kept playing it this morning. It turned out that I'd missed a part of the user interface, and thus gameplay, and instead of just turning everyone in mindless zombies, there's a whole gameplay aspect of also maintaining their personalities in the process.
Which took this from icky to "Ohhh, NOW I get it!", which makes my original review a bit harsh. I'm still not a fan of the pixel-art, but the gameplay is actually interesting, and in getting this part of the gameplay right (effectively restarting the game from scratch), the narrative has now revealed itself.
January 3, 2024 - Day 368 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 403
Game: Two Point Campus
Platform: Steam
Released: Aug 9, 2022
Installed: Jan 3, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 60m
Rating: 3 - OK
Two Point Campus is an isometric business management sim, with a cartoon vibe.
January's Humble Choice bundle dropped this morning, and this is the second game, because (unsurprisingly), I've already got the first.
I'll come to that tomorrow.
In the meantime, Two Point Campus has a kind of goofy outer layer covering a business management sim.
It's the kind of thing that could probably suck me in when I'm in the right frame of mind, but I already own the predecessor to this (Two Point Hospital), and after a couple of hours it lost me, and I haven't been back since.
OTXO is a noir-themed pixel-art top-down shooter with roguelite gameplay, and is the fourth game in the January Humble Choice bundle.
The game opened with low-res top-down pixel-art of a train carriage, and as someone gets off the train, they drop a mask that you pick up and are immediately compelled to put on; at which point everything fades to black, and you wake up on a beach like Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception.
You start walking and find a mansion, where a groundskeeper explains to that your loved one who was next to you on the train is now trapped at the heart of the mansion and all you have to do is kill everyone inside.
A tutorial walks you through the gameplay, but the keyboard and mouse controls left a lot to be desired, and I just couldn't get it right with a controller, and I wasn't enjoying myself anyway.
January 6, 2024 - Day 371 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 406
Game: Roguebook
Platform: Steam
Released: Jun 18, 2021
Installed: Jan 6, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 28m
Rating: 4 - Good
Roguebook is an isometric roguelike deckbuilder using hex-based gameplay mechanics. It's game five in the January Humble Choice bundle.
The game has an impressive opening animation that leads you to the "Roguebook". You are trapped in the titular Roguebook, and need to gain brushes and ink to reveal what's hidden in the blank hex tiles on the page as you attempt to reach an exit.
Each of the inks do differing things, with some revealing smaller and larger areas around you, and some revealing (n) tiles in a straight line.
In the uncovered tiles you will find gold stashes, locations where you can donate gold to craft a card, basic & elite fights that provide the brushes and ink.
One of the more interesting things about the game is that Richard Garfield was involved in the development; his name may not ring a bell unless you're familiar with another game he created, a little tabletop game called "Magic: The Gathering".
I'm not a big deckbuilder fan, but so far Roguebook seems to be:
January 7, 2024 - Day 372 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 407
Game: The Red Lantern
Platform: Steam
Released: Dec 9, 2021
Installed: Jan 7, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 34m
Rating: 3 - OK
The Red Lantern is a first-person narrative-driven game about dog-sledding, with some roguelite & survival elements.
It's the sixth game in this month's Humble Choice bundle, and it's an interesting title, that I wouldn't have picked to play.
Making a snow-change, you open the game by meeting a series of dogs, needing to select 4 of them to build a dog-sledding team in Alaska.
Once you've picked your doggos, you reach your destination, and have to make a several-day sled trip to a remote cabin through a procedurally generated environment. The game is the story of that trip.
If you fail, you wake up again in your van, "from a nightmare", and start the sled-trip over, with more resources based on your previous experiences, with your ultimate goal to reach the cabin that's marked by the red lantern hanging outside.
If you're a dog person, this game might definitely be up your alley.
January 8, 2024 - Day 373 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 409
Game: Twin Mirror
Platform: Steam
Released: Dec 1, 2021
Installed: Feb 16, 2023
Unplayed: 326d (10m23d
Playtime: 35m
Rating: 3 - OK
Twin Mirror is a third-person narrative adventure, and is the final game in this month's Humble Choice bundle.
The developers of this game are Don't Nod, responsible for the "Life is Strange" series, as well as "Tell Me Why" (and other games).
In Twin Mirror, you play as a reporter who has returned to his hometown for the funeral of his best friend. His best friend's young daughter believes her father was murdered, and asks you to investigate.
I already owned Twin Mirror, but hadn't played it. It hasn't quite grabbed me as strongly as I thought it would, but it's a game I'll probably poke around a bit more in.
January 9, 2024 - Day 374 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 410
Game: Baba Is You
Platform: Steam
Released: Mar 14, 2019
Installed: Dec 14, 2023
Unplayed: 26d
Playtime: 26m
Rating: 5 - Excellent
Baba Is You is a top-down pixel-art puzzle game. It's like Sokoban on acid.
Each puzzle has a goal. The rules for each puzzle are in each puzzle, as blocks you can move.
For example, there are three blocks "Baba", "Is", and "You".
When these three blocks are lined up, they're active as a statement. You can move one of the blocks, which will break the statement, but also fail the level.
The same level might have "Walls", "Are", and "Stop". However, if you move the "Stop" block, it will break the statement, and now you can pass through walls.
Each level also has a win statement, which is usually (but not always) "Flag Is Win". Your goal is to reach the flag.
Wonder what would happen if you pushed the "Wall" block into the place of "Flag".
Now you have an active rule of "Wall Is Win", and... now you just have to walk over a wall piece, and you win the level.
I really needed a simple game to try and knock over tonight, and this hooked me (and my 11yo, who solved one of the puzzles for me, and now wants the game himself!).
Baba Is You is a wonderful example of a pixel-art game whose gameplay overcomes my resistance to pixel-art, and so it's:
January 10, 2024 - Day 375 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 411
Game: Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
Platform: Steam
Released: May 1, 2019
Installed: Jan 10, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 32m
Rating: 1 - Nope
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is a fantasy-oriented isometric turn-based tactical RPG.
It mixes different art styles, which the characters being almost an anime style, while character portraits appear hand-painted.
It would have been a hard sell at the best of times, but compared to some of the tactical RPGs I've played in the last month, the game didn't have a chance.
Will Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark get to stay on my PC?
January 11, 2024 - Day 376 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 412
Game: Chess Ultra
Platform: Steam
Released: Jun 21, 2017
Installed: Jan 11, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 21m
Rating: 4 - Good
Chess Ultra is a 3D turn-based strategy... chess game.
With a name like that, you'd expect it to have gun battles and all kinds of extreme weapons and it's just a very good 3D chess game with online multiplayer, and reasonably good bots to play offline.
It has several different options for the location of your game, with appropriate sound effects, as well as several difference chess sets you can choose between.
Given my complete lack of chess games on Steam, it was nice to just kick back and play chess for a while. Chess Ultra is:
January 12, 2024 - Day 377 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 413
Game: Rain World
Platform: Steam
Released: Mar 28, 2017
Installed: Dec 4, 2023
Unplayed: 39d (1m8d)
Playtime: 18m
Rating: 2 - Meh
Rain World is a 2D platformer, set in a post-apocalyptic world, where you play as a "slugcat" that's been separated from its family, in an intro that's almost as depressing as Stray's intro.
The character animations are great, and the environmental design is very well done, but after 15 minutes of shimmying up and down poles and through pipes, while trying to find food and avoid predators, I wasn't really enjoying myself.
Apparently it only gets more difficult moving forward, so it looks like this was a swing and a miss.
198X is a 2D pixel-art pastiche of 1980's arcade games. It's a bit hard to characterise it other than that.
At the start of the game you're inexplicably dropped into a beat-em-up with a different name, and very little context.
This is one of the times that reading up on the game before I played it might have helped. It took me about 10 minutes to beat that stage, only for the actual game to reveal itself, which is a game about arcade games, and a coming-of-age story.
The pixel-art in this game is gorgeous. It captures a mood incredibly well, and combined with the music and voice talent, the game's backstory is well done. It's a pixel-art game where the pixel-art is actually art.
The game is built around five different kinds of arcade games that were popular in the 1980's.
Which is where I ran into problems. The second game is a side-ways scrolling sci-fi shooter, and I was always terrible at this kind of game.
Which means that's where I got stuck, repeating the same section of the game, and dying around the same point each time.
All things considered, I'd like to try and continue playing, but I'm not sure if I'll get past that section to find out.
January 14, 2024 - Day 379 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 415
Game: DOOM VFR
Platform: Steam
Released: Dec 1, 2017
Installed: Aug 10, 2021
Unplayed: 887d (2y5m4d)
Playtime: 18m
Rating: 3 - OK
DOOM VFR is a VR FPS, and the first time I've reviewed a VR game. My list last year excluded VR games because I didn't have my VR headset set up on the new system.
It's notable that Bethesda really gave VR a red-hot go, with Fallout 4 VR, Skyrim VR, Wolfenstein Cyberpilot, and DOOM VFR.
I bought all four when they were in a ridiculously cheap bundle, and I've had mixed experiences. I've tried Skyrim VR (which I found frustrating), and Wolfenstein Cyberpilot (which tried to so something different).
I hadn't played DOOM VFR or Fallout 4 VR, so that's one more to go.
DOOM VFR follows the Cyberpilot model of setting the game in the existing game world, but doing something different to an existing game (unlike Skyrim VR).
Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problem that a lot of VR games do: "How the hell do you move?"
Gorilla Tag solves it by moving like the top half of a gorilla & loping with your hands, which makes sense.
DOOM VFR uses teleportation, which feels clunky, because it is clunky. In addition, on the Vive controls, the right thumbpad in most games is used for turning.
However, Bethesda chose to use it for a weapon wheel, which means that to turn, you actually need to turn. Most PCVR headsets are wired, which makes this a great way to get tangled in the headset cable - which I did.
As far as the actual gameplay goes, it does a reasonable job of giving that DOOM atmosphere; I got freaked out by mobs several times, and screamed out loud in fright when my hand hit something in the real world that I assume was the tower fan.
I was going to describe Clustertruck as a first-person game of "The Floor is Lava" while jumping between moving trucks, and then discovered that's exactly how the devs describe this physics-based platformer.
You start each level on top of a moving truck and you need to get to the goal at the end of the convoy as fast as possible without touching anything that's not a truck.
It requires pinpoint timing and coordination, two things I am lacking.
Unfortunately, while it's well executed, I did not enjoy Clustertruck; it's a:
Legend of Keepers is part management sim, part turn-based strategy, part roguelite.
Turns out that all those dungeons that gamers raid are managed by the "Dungeons Company".
As a newly hired Dungeon Manager, it's your job to place mobs, hazards, and occasional spells between those so-called "adventurers" and the treasure at the end of the dungeon.
I started out figuring I'd be bored, and was kind of into it by the second round. I'm not sure if it quite hits my "good" level, but it comes close, so Legend of Keepers is (for now):
January 17, 2024 - Day 382 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 418
Game: Felix The Reaper
Platform: Steam
Released: Oct 18, 2019
Installed: Jan 17, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 15m
Rating: 4 - Good
Felix The Reaper is an isometric puzzle game.
You play as Felix, a newly hired "reaper". Reapers enter the mortal realm to ensure that those who should die... do.
The game opens up with your mentor explaining the job to you, and as... OK, the voice actor for the mentor is doing an incredible Patrick Stewart impression...
...this is uncanny...
...OK, I need to Google this.
Oh. It's ACTUALLY Patrick Stewart!
Sir Patrick Stewart OBE, Shakespearean thespian, Jean Luc Picard, and Professor Charles Xavier, is playing a middle manager in the Ministry of Death.
His newly-hired charge, Felix, is already questionable; given his penchant for dancing while going about his job, as well as the fact that he's in love with Life, he's not off to a great start.
The puzzles themselves are amusing with a side of macabre. Felix shows up, time stops. Felix must get object A to point B, all while manipulating the sun so that he can remain in the shadows the whole time, and object A can be involved in a pre-ordained death (by order of the Ministry of Death).
It's gloriously silly, and the presence of SirPatStew is the icing on the cake.
January 19, 2024 - Day 384 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 420
Game: Suzerain
Platform: Steam
Released: Dec 5, 2020
Installed: Jan 19, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 18m
Rating: 0 - Nope
Suzerain is part visual novel, part political simulator, and very quickly demonstrated to me that I want nothing to do with politics.
I've started trying to hack down my list of unredeemed keys, a piece of mental load that I've decided to try and get rid of.
I recognised the name of the game, but nothing else, so I had no idea what the game was about, or what I was getting myself into.
You play as Anton Rayne, the newly democratically elected President of a country that's moved from a kingdom around the time of your birth, through a civil war as you reached adulthood, to a nation in crisis as a democracy in the 1950's.
If politics is something you do enjoy, this might be the game for you, but turns out it's really not my cup of tea.
The further I got into the game, the less I wanted to play; deciding the fate of a nation was hard enough, but the political machinations required were painful.
Suzerain seems like a well developed game, but for me it's a big:
January 20, 2024 - Day 385 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 421
Game: Battle Chasers: Nightwar
Platform: Steam
Released: Oct 4 5, 2017
Installed: Jan 20, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 22m
Rating: 4 - Good
Battle Chasers: Nightwar is an isometric RPG with turn-based combat.
It was literally the first game in the spreadsheet, and the name put me off, but I decided to just get it over and done with after yesterday's disappointment.
It's a party-based system, which uses a character switching mechanism while exploring the world, so that you're only controlling a single character at once.
It seems to have a reasonably well developed storyline, and it's kind of fun. Turns out Battle Chasers: Nightwar is:
January 21, 2024 - Day 386 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 422
Game: AI War 2
Platform: Steam
Released: Oct 23, 2019
Installed: Jan 21, 2024
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 27m
Rating: 1 - Nope
AI War 2 is a "grand strategy/RTS hybrid", involving fighting back against an AI that's taken over a galaxy.
Reading other reviews of the game, it certainly sounds like a game that I'd like, but they don't reflect my experience of the game.
Over time I've concluded that I'm not really wired for this kind of RTS game. They very quickly become overwhelming, which I think is an aspect of #AuDHD. There are so many different moving parts to try and follow, and I tend to hyperfocus on one aspect, which doesn't work terribly well in a lot of RTS games.
In this case I found the tutorials overwhelming. There was so much to keep track of, and so much going on, that I started to feel stressed out.
In the tutorial.
From a design and execution point of view, AI War 2 seems like a really good game, however from the point of view of whether or not I'd enjoy playing it?