Correct

I think your last three posts on this thread have been from Highland Song :P

I really appreciate the addition of a start date feature, I think it helps incentivize the completion of games that have been sitting in your backlog or playing tab for a while. However, as much as I'd love to bulk update all of my previous playthroughs, I don't remember the dates that I started them. Is there a way to see when I added a game to my profile in general? I usually add games as soon as I start playing them, so this would fix the retroactive issue.

Yes, you can sort your backlog by "User - Added" to see when you added a game to it.

Oh boy, this was a banger month for me in terms of number of completions. I beat 23 games this month! That's the most I've beaten since September 2022.

11/03 - Great Little War Game (Main+Extras 16h:19m)
11/04 - Monument Valley 2 (Completionist 2h:7m)
11/10 - Grand-Nya (Completionist 36m)
11/10 - Corvid's Night (Main+Extras 3h:41m)
11/10 - Half Haunt Halloween (Main 55m)
11/11 - Jill O' Lantern: First Slice (Completionist 1h:49m)
11/11 - Jill O' Lantern: Second Helping (Completionist 1h:23m)
11/11 - Happiness: An Affront to God (Completionist 2h:2m)
11/12 - Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo (Main+Extras 10h:47m)
11/14 - Kaiju Noir (Completionist 3h:28m)
11/14 - KALEIDOCLUB: Frostbite (Completionist 35m)
11/14 - KALEIDOCLUB: Bloodbag (Completionist 26m)
11/15 - KALEIDOCLUB: Tendrils (Completionist 20m)
11/17 - Katja's Abyss: Tactics (Main+Extras 5h:55m)
11/17 - LesbiAnts - Our New Morphology (Main+Extras 1h:17m)
11/17 - RABBIT (Completionist 25m)
11/18 - Save the Magics!! (Main+Extras 12h:55m)
11/19 - Joggernauts (Main+Extras 6h:46m)
11/23 - Slasher U - Act 1 (Main+Extras 6h:20m)
11/24 - Will Die Alone (Main+Extras 42m)
11/24 - Kitsune Zero (Completionist 2h:11m)
11/25 - The Dream Machine: Chapter 1 (Main+Extras 59m)
11/25 - The Dream Machine: Chapter 2 (Main+Extras 1h)

As you can see, mostly short games. I had a handful of good games and some pretty mediocre ones so it will be hard to pick a best and worst but I'll give it a shot. For worst, I'll go with the KALEIDOCLUB visual novels. They're very short smut stories not worth the digital paper they're printed on in my opinion. Grand-Nya, Half Haunt Halloween, Happiness: An Affront to God, and RABBIT are all visual novels that I didn't particularly enjoy. For best, I'll go with Katja's Abyss: Tactics, a very niche genre mashup of Minesweeper and turn-based tactics. I love both of those things and I think this game mixed them together pretty well. It's only like 8 levels though so the concept wasn't expanded too much. I also really liked Monument Valley 2 (puzzle game), Corvid's Night (old-school style dungeon crawler), the Jill O' Lantern visual novels, and Save the Magics!! (idle game).

I likely won't be beating many games for the next few months. If you look at my upcoming games collection you'll see I only have a couple short games left, then it's on to longer titles like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and KOTOR. I'll get back into the shorter ones after that collection is complete. I also just built a computer last week with all the Black Friday deals which is super exciting! I'll be working on getting that set up for a while too and don't want to switch over to it until I hopefully grab Nvidia's new RTX 50 series in January so it will still be a few weeks. I'm also also starting up my blog at the end of the year so look forward to that too! A lot of things going on right now.

I have both of these games in my backlog, although it will likely be years before I get to them. Interesting comparison!

I played this one a few years ago. I really liked the story and atmosphere, and I was surprisingly competent at the flying too so I enjoyed the gameplay. The exploration was also pretty cool...in the first half. After I figured out all the puzzles I could, I just got stuck and couldn't progress anymore. Ended up having to use a guide to beat the game which soured the experience a bit. Still, I enjoyed my time with it.

I agree with the others that some of these challenges seem a little too specific, limiting the number of games available. The ones that stood out to me we these:

14-3. A game with no recorded completion times

I think this one is a bit too restrictive since if a single person plays a game, this one goes out the window. If you want to include something similar, then you can replace it with the red time one that's in the current challenge.

22. A game that takes place after a timeskip (5+ years)

Is this supposed to mean that the game takes place after a time skip earlier in the series or from a time skip within the game? If it's the latter I think it would be quite limiting.

30-1. A game from a yearly franchise or one that was released when the series was a yearly franchise

There aren't that many yearly franchises out there at least with the common series this term is used for. Does this definition also include series where just two or more games were released in back-to-back years?

I have no plans to participate in the gaming challenge but completing a game with no recorded completion times shouldn't be difficult. Just because a few people beat a game doesn't mean any of them recorded times for it. I've added hundreds of games from itch.io, many of them free, with no completion times to my backlog. You can go through my list for ideas if you anticipate struggling with this one.

The person who guessed correctly only has the one post and hasn't been online in 5 days. I think someone else can go.

Hi, and thanks for your suggestions! They look interesting enough. Are there major differences between their PS3 releases and the Arkham Collection for PS4? Or can I choose whichever?
Hope you'll enjoy Trapped with Jester.

I don't know what the differences are. I played on PS3 and they were fine for me. I'd say go with whatever's cheapest.

Woo, new blog! Added Tapped with Jester to my backlog, looks like it could be interesting. If you haven't played the Batman Arkham games yet (I can personally voucher for Asylum and City), you should. They're very good games.

I rarely play games the year they came out so I can't have an opinion on which games should win whatever categories they're nominated for. I just care about new game announcements. That being said, it feels weird for a DLC to be nominated for something other than best ongoing game/continued support/whatever that category is called.

I've played all the Life is Strange games and they're great. The first one is still my favorite but True Colors did make my top 10 favorite games I played this year. I love the Splinter Cell games too but I don't think I've played the original in like 20 years. I wonder how well it plays today, especially compared to the remake that is supposedly still in development.

When viewing the current playtimes reported for DA Veilguard, I think it is important to keep in mind that just the total cutscenes are over 15 hours long!
I say this based off a Youtube video showcasing nearly all the cutscenes, which includes *some* of the companion sidequests.
I presume the main story cutscenes, alone, are probably around 10 hours.

I am not a fan or supporter of that game, just felt the fact above had to be said considering that 6 users (out of 8 time scores) all claim they finished the main story in less than 15 hours (they were not speedruns, though admittedly "fast" and "rushed"). One even claims they did the main story without skipping any scenes in about 14 hours, though they logically had to view probably around 10 hours of cutscenes ... Not very credible.

On the other hand, the other 2 times recorded are 76 and 100 hours, by GamesRadar and IGN (whether or not we like or trust their reviews).

nb: I like this site and I am aware there is nothing that can be done about dubious times reported. And speedruns are fine and are usually noted as such. So the point or purpose is to note that a normal playtime of the main story in Veilguard, unless speedrunning or unless skipping cutscenes, cannot logically be less than 15 or so hours.

You can report any completion times you feel are suspect. Like Chronoja said though, it's a new game so the time to beat will be more accurate in a few weeks.

Only two completions for me this month, way at the beginning:

10/01 - Firework (Completionist 5h)
10/03 - Starfield (Main+Extras 116h)

Firework was completed in one sitting, Starfield was started back in August so that took a few weeks. These were my last completions before my Game Pass subscription expired. Firework was a short Chinese horror game that reminded me a bit of the Distraint games. Not really scary but there were a couple unsettling bits. I thought it was just OK. I think everyone here knows what Starfield is. I enjoyed my time with it, although I had to rush to complete it before Game Pass ran out so I didn't get to finish all the major side quests which is unfortunate. I enjoyed the story well enough and some of the quests and hand-crafted cities were cool. The exploration was definitely a letdown though.

Definitely not a big completion month for me unfortunately. I spent most of the month cataloging the itch.io Queer Games 2024 bundle which added over 200 games to my backlog. I also went through my library to find potential co-op games to play with my brother who I helped build his first gaming PC this year which is exciting. I also wrote up my first two blog posts for my blog I'm starting at the end of the year which I'm really excited about! Besides that, my goals from last month remain unchanged. I want to finish up my mobile backlog which consists of Great Little War Game, Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim, and Monument Valley 2. Made decent progress in Great Little War Game. Hopefully I'll be able to finish all three this month.

Forgive me, when I started this journey it was for the GameCube games released in North America, I'm realizing now I haven't stated that. When I searched how many games were released, I came across a different responses, but the YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56a3KnlQIkc&t=713s) where the user had collected every physical copy of each game, is the one I stuck with. This journey is a long one so I figured I'd fix it if I crossed that bridge.

Am I wrong on the amount of games that were released for the GameCube in North America?
Should I just show the total amount of games regardless of region?

Thanks for the explanation! I have no idea if you're wrong on the number of Gamecube games released in North America hence my question. As for your second question, I would say to just include the games you plan on playing so if you only plan to play the 554 games listed in the video link you sent, that sounds good to me.

Looks like a Warhammer game. This is probably wrong but is it Rogue Trader?

I'm not as knowledgeable about the full Gamecube library as others here. Could you explain why your profile picture is showing 554 total games while Tiamat said there are 651 and UnsungGhost's collection shows 647? Which games are missing from your planned playthrough and why?

This makes me happy, so glad you enjoyed it too and that I was able to bring it to your attention :D Apparently there was news of a future game earlier this year so let's hope it's just as good or better.

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Amnesia: The Bunker - Completed. Seemingly an unpopular opinion given how well this game appears to have done, I really did not like it however. The idea is great, and it's hard to say it's not well executed because it is, and frictional are masters of their craft at this point (I'd argue they always were, even with missteps like Amnesia: Rebirth).

Problem for me here is the core mechanics led to some really degenerate gameplay that seemed to work in opposition with their intentions. What I mean is, having a hub you need to keep returning to in order to save and feel safe is a decent idea, but when the game world is so small, your inventory so limited and your goals so constantly impeded by light, items, monsters etc. I ended up just sprinting around the place in the dark like a madman not caring whether I lived or died. Doing this made it so I was mobile, had less chance of dying and ultimately gleaned more information than sneaking around praying not to get spotted by lurking enemies.

By 2 hours in I was so bored having to do this silly dance in every new area, realise i needed something, realise X was locked or Y was blocked or the map was lying and I just got tired and started using a guide for things. A short game but so overwhelmingly tedious to me that it felt several hours longer.

Other people seemed to like it a lot though so, take my words with a grain of salt I guess :P

I beat Amnesia: The Bunker earlier this year and had similar thoughts (although I really liked Rebirth!) I didn't use a guide but the game did feel longer than it should with all the backtracking. I also get lost easily which certainly didn't help in a game like this.

Site Update:

Submissions
- Start Date field is now available under Current Progress, not set by default.
- Has Omit/Today like Completion Date
- Changed design of Date entry on mobile.

Quick Add / Games List
- Start Date will now appear on details expansion.
- New Days Taken stat on details expansion.

Future update will include Game List filters for Start Date and using "Days Taken" on your stats page.

Adding genre and game type to game list filters would be nice too. Thanks for the start date update!

Yeah but you can't add them to collections unless there's a way to do it that I don't know of

If you submit the games, they'll be added to the database in due time. I submitted a bunch of obscure itch.io games recently and was able to add them to a collection within a few days.

You can add them yourself using the submit button at the top of the site.

Are people still interested in an "Start Date" field to accompany the "Completion Date"?

Yes please. Maybe when you click the play button it adds today's date automatically with the ability to edit manually.

I'm technically currently sitting at just 5. Made quite a bit of progress since my 66 last post 3 years ago! Specially since a quick look on my profile shows that I've added 200+ games since then, so it's quite a bit of progress!

Now, I also did cheat a bit because since then I've divided my backlog in 3. My actual backlog that has 5 games. My "sequels" backlog that are games that should be counted in my backlog but I'm not able to start because I haven't finished a previous game (only 4 of those there), and a "play together" backlog that has games that I want to play with my girlfriend, many of them being replays for me (21 games in that one). Counting all of those together would be a nice round 30 games.

I'll probably end up going on a game buying spree soon-ish or deep diving in the psplus catalog soon-ish since it's so low, but we shall see what happens!

All three of my custom lists are co-op games. I separate them out from my backlog too because it's kind of out of my hands when I get to play them.

Because HLTB only imports from Steam, I think mine is about 80 games last I looked. But Playnite aggregates all the launchers and console backlogs so I think the actual number is closer to 200. But I assume a third of those I will retire before completing, so the 80 is a better number since it's ones I actively aim to complete.

Are you not planning on adding any games manually to your HLTB backlog? I never used the Steam import option and added all the games to my profile manually. I use Playnite too, it's awesome!

Hello, can the game Blade Runner 2049: Memory Lab be added to the database?

You can add it yourself using the submit button at the top of the page.

You sure picked a moment to post that.

sonofa...

beat me by two minutes