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Steam hours currently = 2,262 hours, minus last year’s milestone of 1,934 hours, which means that (while crossing the 2k hour mark) I logged 328 hours in Steam gaming last year. So, my Steam gaming time continues to decline year over year. And I only have 34 games logged here. I guess I had other things going on this past year.

Over at MobyGames, I managed to accrue… wow, 38 whole points! This seemed strangely low to me until I recalled that I spent a huge amount of time actually approving contributions this year, as opposed to making contributions.

At the very least, I think I managed to finally kick my They Are Billions habit, a significant milestone. Speaking of which, it looks like that was the very first game I played last calendar year…

1. They Are Billions: I was managing my addiction by allowing myself to play the weekly community challenge. However, I would still slip into the mode of playing the survival game, mostly serving the role of something to do while listening to some manner of audio program. I came to the realization that when I play in these increasingly advanced survival modes, it’s essentially the equivalent of idly bouncing a rubber ball against the wall to keep my body doing something as I’m listening to said audio programs. However, in April, after 863 hours, I finally won a 350% game, something I didn’t think I would accomplish. At 965 hours in August, I won at 380% (score of 103,868 points). Sometime in the middle of September, I decided that I was already as good at the game as I ever care to become (vs. could possibly become), and finally hung it up. Strangely, I had managed to log exactly 1,000 hours into the game at the time I decided to quit. I have a feeling that I will never log as many hours into any other game. Or at least, maybe I’m just hoping that’s the case.
2. Two Dots (iOS): I got some mileage out of the previous Dots game on mobile platforms and I saw the sequel in the App Store. Free with IAP. Usually, I try to evaluate what the IAP on offer entails before installing the game. But I could not determine the purchase types for this title. So I gave it a whirl and got through a few levels before I failed to meet the goal after 8 or 9 levels… and I had to wait 20 minutes before trying again, or had the option to pay to give it another spin. I do believe this is the first time I have ever played a game that offered this scenario. Previously, I had only heard of it. Uninstalled the game immediately after encountering it.
3. Plants vs. Zombies 2 (iOS): Plants vs. Zombies on an original iPod Touch was my first introduction to the tower defense genre. The sequel first appeared in 2013. It was free with IAP, but made to be unobtrusive and non-essential. I remember enjoying it quite a bit but eventually lost touch with it. I decided to give it another whirl. Unfortunately, it’s such a horrendously cluttered experience that I can’t even find my way around the menu anymore.
4. Opus Magnum: I appreciate that it played at fullscreen and that changing the resolution had the effect of changing the UI scaling rather than changing the desktop resolution. It is another machine-building game from Zachtronics, in the same spirit of their SpaceChem game, which I very much enjoyed. I rather love the soundtrack too.
5. Stories Untold: Not sure what this is about, but I picked it up a few months ago since it promised some sort of retro-80s nostalgia trip, at least owing to the aesthetics of the artwork. Starting up the game, it seems to be an old school interactive fiction text adventure, played through a classic CRT on an 8-bit computer that strongly resembles a Spectrum ZX with integrated cassette loader (which makes sense since this seems to have been developed by a U.K. dev house). I suspect that there is supposed to be more to the game than just this simple IF game. Unfortunately, I was unable to get very far in the first story since I couldn’t seem to persuade the text parser to allow me walk around the back of the house so I could turn on the generator so I could then proceed inside the house.
6. Observation: This is from the same people as Stories Untold (I probably picked them up in a bundle as they seem to be on sale together frequently). I didn’t have high hopes after Stories Untold, but I took the opportunity to quickly clear it off my “unplayed” list. You’re supposed to play as a space station AI computer. I couldn’t figure out how to do anything and I didn’t care enough to try harder, after the previous disappointment.
7. Peggle Deluxe: This was on sale in a pack with its sequel, Nights, so it was a no-brainer to pick up this addictive casual game and play through it again.
8. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void: I wanted to get back into playing StarCraft II, with the Protoss campaign (Legacy of the Void). I didn’t get too deep into it. Protoss is not the most intuitive faction to play.
9. Mahjong Epic (iOS): Always fun to sink some time into this one.
10. Siege of Centauri: I had this tower defense title on my Steam wish list for quite awhile and it never went down enough in price for me to pick it up. However, it eventually showed up in a Humble Bundle of games that included others I wanted to try, so I finally get to try it. It’s reminiscent of Defense Grid, which is positive. It just annoys me that the game pushes my GPU to 100% no matter what the graphical settings are. I suspect that it isn’t really that taxing; rather that the frame rate might be uncapped. At least the game provides UI scaling.
11. When Ski Lifts Go Wrong: I saw this in a Humble Bundle and it was the only game in the bundle that looked interesting. Fortunately, it was on sale for cheap on Steam at the same time. It’s like a physics puzzler where you are trying to construct minimally strong ski lifts, lest the skiiers, um… die. “Fail fast,” as they say. Regrettably, I couldn’t figure out how to get past the second level in the tutorial. It seems like a game bug that others have also reported on the Steam forum. At least I got an achievement out of my brief play session, for committing manslaughter against 5 skiiers.
12. Styx: Master of Shadows: I’ve had my eye on this one for awhile and it finally came up on sale cheap enough that I bought it. It’s a really good experience– from the very start, it automatically detects the best graphical settings and runs fullscreen. I think the story is strong with just the right amount of bizarre fantasy worldbuilding. I’m rusty at the core stealth gameplay but I’m still having a lot of fun with it. At 4.5 hours, I finally finished the first mission, which I’m led to believe was essentially the tutorial mission. So I’m not sure how plausible it is for me to consider ever finishing it. Also, the story cutscenes after this first mission have a jarring change of art style which drove me nuts.
13. Resident Evil 4: There was a Capcom publisher sale in April which reminded me that I already have this game in my library, which makes it the 3rd time I have purchased the same game. I bought it on its original platform (GameCube) in 2006. I purchased a digital edition of it on the PlayStation 3 in 2011, which was an upgrade in that it added widescreen support to a previously 4:3 aspect ratio game. Then I purchased this Steam version which promised to be the most HD version yet. I was easily able to get it running at full 4K and I guess it looks pretty good– not great.
14. Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Beyond Oasis: I decided to dust off this large collection of emulated Genesis games and continue working through alphabetically. This game had a great intro. But the game play struck me as a bit too RPG-ish, which was not something I was looking for in a quick play session.
15. Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics: Bio Hazard Battle: This is more like it! After bailing out of Beyond Oasis pretty quickly, I dove into this title, which turns out to be a pretty creative little shoot-em-up game that features giant bugs (both antagonists and protagonists). It was challenging but still a lot of fun; it became a little easier when I recognized that the powerups were there to be collected and not avoided as indestructible objects on the playfield. There is some unconventional shmup game play in that you have some companion weapons that fly near you, but whose aiming direction is influenced by the opposite direction in which you are flying.
16. Beyond Blue: From a pack of Earth Day Humble Bundle games. Really beautiful underwater game, especially at 4K.
17. Zen Pinball (iOS/Android): I launched this on my iPad to play a round of the default freebie board. Then I tried to see if I could access some old boards I purchased a long time ago. Nope. But I could access them on the Android version. Turns out that I purchased about 1/2 dozen boards nearly a decade ago. However, Zen Pinball doesn’t allow transferring purchases between platforms. Later on, it was the first game I booted up on my new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 phone. I have always enjoyed this game but it’s hard to play on the new phone because the screen is so tall and skinny, making it difficult to play in portrait mode. Landscape mode is more playable, but you don’t have the benefit of seeing very much of the board.
18. Infectonator: Survivors: I listened to an audiobook called The Junkie Quatrain, essentially about survivors trying to make it in a ruined city full of zombies. It reminded me of this game, so I went back to play it. I had a good time but I eventually had to put it down as it got too repetitive and frustrating for me.
19. Super House of Dead Ninjas: Just another romp with a fun old game.
20. SimplePlanes: A bundle of HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle And Stick)-enabled games showed up on Humble Bundle and tempted me. So I bought a Logitech X52 HOTAS and wanted to see what I could do with it. I started with this game because, well, it had simple in the title and I wanted to start easy. This game has you building planes and then flying them. I got through the building tutorial but I was unable to get the HOTAS to work with this game.
21. DCS World: This is a game that uses the model of giving away a little bit (in the form of a few different military aircraft types) and then having an enormous amount of DLC for purchase (many other aircraft types). This is when I started to figure out something crucial– I don’t know anything about flying. I need to figure out some way to learn the basics and flying and how that applies to flight simulation software.
22. Elite: Dangerous: Another big reason I wanted to try out a HOTAS– flying in this game is supposed to be a natural fit for the control scheme. Again, I couldn’t get too deep into it because I am just not competent at flying yet.
23. Masters of Anima: I got the impression that this was a puzzle game or tower defense game. It’s not quite either, at least during my brief playthrough. It has some interesting art styles happening. The cut scenes remind me of Disney’s Hercules. The game engine and graphics remind me more of StarCraft II, mostly of the Protoss variety of graphics. I think the game has more in common with games like God of War and Darksiders, though.
24. Blaster Master Zero: I recently learned of this series of upgraded remakes/sequels of the original Blaster Master game. I put a lot of time into the original Blaster Master game on the NES. This game reminds me of DuckTales Remastered in that it’s an improvement in the storyline of the original. The graphics are a little too low-res, but it’s still fun.
25. Velvet Assassin: I felt like playing a game for the first time in a long time on Halloween night, after I shut down my home’s trick-or-treating operation. I chose this stealth action game that I picked up for a whole dollar at a recent sale. The first thing I really appreciated was that it starts with a Windows dialog box that offers graphical configuration before launching the game. Usually, games try to launch in a low-res mode, mess up the desktop, and I have to configure the settings in game. So I was able to configure the game at 4K, maxed on all settings, and it’s quite lovely, at least outside, before the titular character gets into the dark, drab indoor environments.
26. Xeodrifter: Retro pixel space platformer that I can’t really figure out. It’s interesting for the fact that it uses a window frame to handle configuration items.
27. Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: The King of Dragons: An arcade game that I have never experienced before (Lol! I later realized that I wrote up this same game in the previous year– goes to show how much of an impact it made on me). I played it as long as I could before the monotony of classic arcade style action became too much for me.
28. Banana Hell: This falls into the category of impossible platformer. Fun, but incredibly difficult. Weirdly, that doesn’t put me off. I keep on trying.
29. Dungeon Warfare II: Thanksgiving weekend rolled around and it occurred to me that I have often played a bunch of TD games on previous such weekends. Since I didn’t have any new games purchased from the traditional sale, I looked for an older game that I hadn’t played as much. I had about 5 hours on record when I delved into the game this time. I was surprised it was that many. I thought I had discarded the game pretty quickly the last time I tried it. Pretty fun this time around.
30. Box: The Game: The game was free on Steam. It was a delightful, quick romp of a puzzle game.
31. Stars In Shadow: I wish I understood why I am so infatuated with the idea of understanding 4X games. I tried playing this one but got too bored a few minutes into it. I liked the cartoonish aesthetic, though.
32. Talisman: Digital Edition (Android): I got this in a Humble Bundle of tabletop games. I side-loaded it onto my new Android phone. Then I realized it was some sort of card game and quickly lost interest.
33. Mysterium: A Psychic Clue Game (Android): Pretty, but I really didn’t understand what was going on. It’s sort of the opposite end of what usually happens– normally, games have way too much tutorializing. This one didn’t seem to have enough.
34. American Truck Simulator: I fired this up for a quick play session since a MobyGames contact needed confirmation that the game does, indeed, feature gas stations that showcase the price of gas. This critical data was needed for a Steam game group. I even pulled into a station and tried to fill up, but I couldn’t figure out the hotkey to enable that action.