This one's a permanently free one, but Katawa Shoujo was released onto Itch and Steam back in August (I just found out).

Doesn't that make it fairly redundant considering that it basically ends up becoming the "Play a really old game" challenge?

Yes it might so that one could be just discarded

About the multiplayer games, yeah, I don't think most people are gonna be up for setting a goal for themselves and trying to grind for it considering that a lot of people have raised the point of 50 games an year already being a pretty daunting task. Adding a multiplayer game to the mix makes that nigh impossible for most people.

Correct, but as it stands right now I think the "too many games problem" is already neatly solved with the tiers idea (bronze 20 games, silver 35 games, gold 50 games, platinum +50) so everyone can choose which tier to aim for and if time allow it then go for a higher one, the thing is, we have only 29 challenges so missing another 21 to get to the 50 games of the gold tier and the bonuses for platinum so that is where I think some of my suggestions might fit.

They're festivals, not the name of the goddess 😭. And Navratri and Durga Puja are pretty different.

Oh yeah I got it all wrong for some reason thought those were the names of the goddess of the festival but thanks for clarifying, I got those from the article in Wikipedia that supposedly referenced the same festivity, you seem very knowledgeable about the subject and might be able correct/clarify said article.

I'm not especially knowledgeable about the topic, I'm just from the region of India where Navratri's celebrated, and I speak/understand the languages I mentioned (except for sanskrit) 🫡.

I'm not going to nitpick valcrist73 list. I think 60%-70% of suggestions are not usable for the challenge, but that means there are a good 5 to 10 categories that are. He made an admirably long list and I salute him for this.

I wasn't trying to nitpick 😅 There's definitely a lot of good ideas on valcrist's list, I was just trying to talk about a few that wouldn't work or seemed redundant to me.

A few that I think are cool are
- Game in a language you don't understand - this could also be modified to be something like a game that has to do with a fictional language, Like tunic?
- Game with spoken dialogs in your native tongue
- Game that features vacations
- Fanmade Game - could even be about a book or a show, yada yada
- A good and bad game (the metacritic category - something like, a game above that which's got a score above 100-X and one below 100-X?
- The franchise ones
- Game rated for particular ages
- Educational game
- A Game that features a form of perma-death
- Sprititual Successor
- A Game that survived development Hell / Defunct dev - that essentially becomes devs that survived and those that didnt

Games with 0 patches? I can't recall a single game like that.

Yeah I'm a little bit old as I do remember a time were that was the norm, expansions and patches didn't exist so games were thoroughly tested (they were somewhat less complex) then released, if they needed to be changed or to add new things then they made a new release (new game) as the form of distribution was for the most part physical (disks, cartridges) so I think that for this challenge the idea would be to play an old game that satisfies such criteria (so to be on the safe side most games released prior/during the 90s or you would have to do the research on case by case that could be bothersome).

How's someone supposed to mark one as completed?

For the competitive game I think you can setup your own goal of fulfillment, for example, during this year's challenges I played 2 competitive games Magic the Gathering Arena a TCG and Vampire The Masquerade Bloodhunt a Battle Royale, for the 1st one my goal was to reach platinum rank to mark it as completed for the second one my 1st goal was to end a solo match as the only survivor but as luck would have it I managed this relatively quickly so changed the goal to complete all the main quests and side quests which for this game are totally optional and most players don't even know they exist.

That overlaps a fair bit with challenge 19.

Yeah several of the proposed challenges might overlap (for example the one of long name or the one that includes the starting letter Q) as I made this list throughout the year was adding possible challenges but have not curated it, thought best to share it so the community can take what seems fun/challenging and discard or change what not.

Also I was so confused for a second, I think you mean Navratri 😭.

Yeah sorry from all the names of the goddess (Navratri Nauratha Nauratri Navarathri Navaratra Naraate Navratan Naurata Nauraat Durga Puja Sharad Utsav Dashain) misspelled the one I chose to write it is now corrected.

so I think that for this challenge the idea would be to play an old game

Doesn't that make it fairly redundant considering that it basically ends up becoming the "Play a really old game" challenge?

About the multiplayer games, yeah, I don't think most people are gonna be up for setting a goal for themselves and trying to grind for it considering that a lot of people have raised the point of 50 games an year already being a pretty daunting task. Adding a multiplayer game to the mix makes that nigh impossible for most people.

Yeah sorry from all the names of the goddess (Navratri Nauratha Nauratri Navarathri Navaratra Naraate Navratan Naurata Nauraat Durga Puja Sharad Utsav Dashain) misspelled the one I chose to write it is now corrected.

They're festivals, not the name of the goddess 😭. And Navratri and Durga Puja are pretty different.
Also all the variations of navratri you've listed are pretty much the same word. That many spellings exist because romanising hindi and indian languages to english is weird due to all the dialects and minor regional variations exist in each of our languages. Also sanskrit stuff
Nav = Nau = Nine, Ratri = Raate = Nights. Nauratha is sanskrit iirc, the rest are in hindi and are just different ways of romanising the same word, though i might be wrong, and im pretty sure Navratna is nine gems and has nothing to do with navratri? Pretty sure Dashain is maithili or smthing for Dussehra?

Ok this has been the 1st year I participate in the challenge and while I'm just 15 games away of completing it might not be able to, as what bgalon says its true 50 games is quite "a challenge" for some of us as life gets in the way even though I started since january. For me it has been really fun, helped me get motivated to play more, discover new games that would not normally play, replay other games, and overall try to decrease the backlog while having fun.

The tiers idea is great, the more specific the description the better as for some of us english is not our primary language (although the Romero and the milk expression I understood them right away) would like most categories for next year challenge to be able to plan in advance but a few subjective ones are totally ok, one thing to consider is to maybe group them as optional with a more objective one.

So far the category list seems fine, while doing this year's challenge thought on some ideas for challenges for next year to check out, take, discard, change, I know is a long list as I wrote it throughout the year so here it is:

51-1. Game you got for free but had already purchased (yeah ps+, epic store, gog give aways, etc. or games like Final Fantasy Dissidia NT which for a time was a purchase and then got a free to play model)
51-2 Game Deluxe/Gold, GOTY, Ultimate or Collector Edition
51-3 Game with Several DLCs or editions but only the base version (for example The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, DOA6 or the Sims)
51-4 Game with zero DLC, patches (They got it right and complete the initial time, it basically amounts to "play an old game" like NoOne pointed out)
52-1 Game in a language you don't understand, or that doesn't have a localization to your language or to english.
52-2 Game with spoken dialogs in your native tongue (Like Resident Evil 4 to me was surprising to hear the zombies/plagues speaking in spanish).
53-1 Game platform exclusive (only on X Console, X PC OS, handheld, mobile, etc. like God of War Ascension in PS3)
53-2. A Game only available in gaming niche platforms: Linux, MacOS, Arcade cabinet
53-3 Game available virtually everywhere and currently (PC(Windows, linux, Mac), PS5, XBOX SeriesS/X, Switch, Mobile/Browser?)
53-4. Virtually unobtainable in its original platform (Currently on dead platform? for example God of War Betrayal, Silent Hill the Arcade, )
54-1. Mobile casual game
54-2. Hardcore competitive game, esports game? (Multiplayer Competitive FPS, Fighting game, TCG, MOBA, battle royal, battle arena, etc.)
55. BONUS game referencing holydays/festivities, try to play it as close to the celebration time as possible
1. A game that features religion, gods, mythology (the catholic Holy Week, islamic Ramadan and hindu Chaitra Navratri are around march-april, also march for ancient romans was the month of Mars/Ares the god of war)
2. A game that features vacations, exotic locations, travel, the beach (around mid year)
3. A spooky game on Halloween (october-november)
4. A game about endings, new beginnings or family wholesome game (Thanks giving, november-december, new year)
56-1. Fanmade Game (like Dota, LoL, Mugens) or a game mod like the ones in The Elder Scrolls Skyrim 5 (Thieves Guild, Falskaar - wyrmstooth - Enderal - The Wheels Of Lull - Helgen Reborn -Legacy of the Dragonborn - The Forgotten City)
56-2 Original of the fanmade Game or Mod (Warcraft3, Capcom vs SNK, KoF 98, TESV Skyrim, etc.)
57-1. A game with all Trophies/Achievements (Platinum)
57-2. A game with zero Trophies/Achievements (old game emulated?)
58-1. Game with Mixed to Negative Reviews in Metacritic or such
58-2. Game with favorable to Critical Acclaim in Metacritic or such
59-1. Origin of populous videogame franchise (+10 games)
59-2. Latest entry of populous videogame franchise (+10 games)
60-1. Couch Coop Game (Resident Evil 5, Trine) Cooptimus
60-2. Online Coop via internet or LAN (DarkSouls, Journey) cooptimus
61. 2nd hand, borrowed game, rented or in another's account/platform
62-1. Open/Closed Beta Test -
62-2. Demo/Trial version - Silent Hill PT, Final Fantasy XVI
62-3. Early/Anticipated Access - (Stormgate, Hades II, Palworld)
62-4 The released game of either the beta, demo, early access if it does release in 2025
63-1. Game rated for kids (ESRB E/E10+/T PEGI 3,7,12)
63-2. Game rated mature (ESRB M/A, PEGI 16/18)
63-3. Game unrated or pending rating.
64. Educational / Learning game
65-1. Game Install size <100MB
65-2. Game install size > 100GB (Yeah some games nowadays are that big)
66-1. Game with very long name +25 Chars (Well I had it like this but +13 is fine)
66-2. Game with name starting with J or Q or Y not counting "The" article for example The Quarry (I know there is already starting with Q but checking my game list this are the lowest count of games so to give a little bit more room to other games)
66-3. Game with different name depending on world region (Resident Evil vs Biohazzard, Megaman vs Rockman, FF3 vs FF6)
67-1. A Game within a game (Like Final Fight within Street Fighter 6, or Gwent within the Witcher 3, Blitzball within FFX)
67-2. The main game outside the game (SF6, The Witcher 3, FFX)
68-. Game not playable offline even though it should be (GTA, Assassin's Creed, etc.)
69-1. A Game on recommended spec or better
69-2 A Game on minimum or below specs (This is mostly in PC where you can change some parameters to be able to run games in older hardware or it could be a game with all the settings in minimum)
70. A Game with at least 2 different camera perspectives/angles 2D, 2.5D, 3D or a 1st, 3rd person, Top Down/Tower view, Isometric, Zoom perspective, Free Camera Move (Age of Mythology, FIFA, Elder Scrolls, VTM: Bloodlines)
71. A Game that features a form of perma-death (Fire Emblem, Baldur's Gate)
72. A Game with good Accessibility features (Localization, removing quick time events, etc. Can I play that?)
73-1. Game of the Year (past years or current nominee, The Game Awards)
73-2 Worst Game Ever (a game featured on AVGN or on Wikipedia list of worst games)
74. A game with grey or red ratings in HLTB
75-1. Game that managed to get to you in a emotional level (Scared you, made you laugh, cry, frustrate you anger/scream/rage quit, nostalgic)
75-2. Game that manage to really interest you intellectually (Cool what if concept, blow your mind moment, reflection on society problems and solutions)
76-1. A game that is a re-imagening, or spiritual successor to other (I think this is already covered in current list for example Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Callisto Protocol)
76-2. The original game of the reimagening/remake/spiritual successor to
77. A game with a critical technical flaw, bug, glitch not officially fixed during your playthrough (Like Silent Hill Homecoming)
78-1. A game developed in foreign studio of your birth country
78-2. A game developed in studio of your birth country
79. A Game your parents/someone in your family who doesn't regularly play videogames really liked.
80-1. A game developed in one 3rd party game engines proprietary or not (Unreal Engine, Unity, Godot)
80-2. A game developed in an in-house, private game engine. (Like Urban Chaos)
81. A Highly Controversial Game at the time of its release (As in banned in at least one country like Mortal Kombat, Manhunt)
82. A ported game (originally released on a platform and eventually adapted/ported to others)
83-1. A Game that survived development Hell (+7 years)
83-2. A game from a defunct dev studio (Troika, Sillicon Knights, Team Silent, Team Ico, etc.)
83-3. A game abandoned/Cancelled that has a playable version (Rising Thunder?)
84. A game with DRM or anti-cheater system
85. A game with a non-default controller for that platform (for example a PC game with an Xbox controller instead of mouse/keyboard or a Playstation game with an arcade fighstick instead if a dual-shock pad)
86.An innovative game at the time of release or a game part of a game series which launched a whole gaming genre (soulslike, roguelike, fighting games, FPS, RTS, JRPG, MOBA, MMO, survival horror, visual novel, point and click adventure, platformer, etc.)
87. An infinite game. You could keep playing even after the main story is done or the credits roll.
88-1. A game with a happy ending
88-2. A game with a sad ending, the bad guys win.
89. A game with celebrities from other media (voice over by a movies actor like God of War, script by renown book writer like Elder Ring)
90-1. A game in max difficulty (hard or nightmare mode)
90-2. A game in min difficulty (easy mode)
91-1. A game in physical format only, does it exist?(disc, cartridge),
91-2. A game in digital format only (download from store)
92. A game you are involved beyond just playing because you made it or helped in development or improvement (writing internet reviews, guides, participating in online forums about its problems/bugs or how to fix them or even fixing them, modding, participated in tournaments or events around the game, participated in QA, beta test, coding, design, made or posted artwork, memes, fan-fiction based on said game)
93. A game which started as a video game but transcended to other media and has at least a movie, a book, a comic and a tv series (Like Tomb Raider, Street Fighter)

51-4 Game with zero DLC, patches (They got it right and complete the initial time)

Games with 0 patches? I can't recall a single game like that.

54-2. Hardcore competitive game, esports game? (Multiplayer Competitive FPS, Fighting game, TCG, MOBA, battle royal, battle arena, etc.)

How's someone supposed to mark one as completed?

55-1. A game that features religion, gods, mythology (the catholic Holy Week, islamic Ramadan and hindu Chaitra Navatri are around march-april)

That overlaps a fair bit with challenge 19. Also I was so confused for a second, I think you mean Navratri 😭.

P.E. Noire was lovely! It is probably the grittiest detective thriller I've ever played! Big milk is coming for us all!!!!

Jokes aside, the writing and mood were on point. good stuff.

Nurse Raj can't cure my edgy, nihilistic world-view. These boo-boos are on the inside.

Amazon just added December's first batch of games, all GOG codes
- Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
- DREDGE
- Overcooked! 2
- Star Wars: Bounty Hunter
- Tomb Raider: Underworld

I think that's a good principle up to a point, but can be overdone. If for no other reason because not everyone participating in the challenge is necessarily going to plan every category and will instead play their 20-50 games in 2025 and fit them into categories as they go(like yours truly). I do understand your point though. Maybe splitting a category like that with an option one could plan around and one that could be categorized after the fact? It's not necessary to twist into a pretzel over this, I was mostly suggesting that we should have some categories that had to do with game stories and not just more arbitrary stuff like length, sequel status, genre, age, stats, etc.

Hey, I'm not good at planning anyways 🤭

I wasn't really trying to make a point, I think the challenges you proposed were good ones.

I think that's a good principle up to a point, but can be overdone. If for no other reason because not everyone participating in the challenge is necessarily going to plan every category and will instead play their 20-50 games in 2025 and fit them into categories as they go(like yours truly).

That's basically what I did for 2024 too, I just slotted my completions into places they fit into.

I was basically just pointing out the bgalon and finnedorb previously objected to having ideas like that.

But also, yeah. We've already decided on the challenge being a tiered one, so having games you can't plan around makes the challenge, yknow, more challenging for those going for all the challenges! That's a fine way to do the tiers too.

Just a thought for a category to appeal to story driven gamers like me:

#-1. A game with a gripping opening hook
#-2. A game with a great plot twist
#-3. A game with a shocking ending

Or something along those lines.

That's a good one, but Finnedorb said in response to bgalon that this time challenges like these where you can only really select it after the game was beaten were gonna be avoided. These definitely fit into that, can't really plan around them.

Games starting with the letter Q might additionally also be a bit too limiting, but maybe there are ways to make that work.

It's a challenge because of how uncommon it is, but I made it alternative rather than its own challenge so it's completely optional. It's definitely one of the harder ones on the list, but it's easy to research so it should be manageable.

It's not hard, just restrictive. Steam has like, 10 pages of games starting with the letter Q, most of which are shovelware.
I only spotted 4 good games/series that begin with the letter Q
- Quake
- Quantum Break
- Quantum Conundrum
- Q.U.B.E.
Looking at the site, the letter Q begins at page 2629 (btw, the site only lets you jump forward 100 pages at once so getting to that point takes 26 jumps) and lasts till page 2644 and is basically nothing but shovelware. The only 2 games that caught my eye were
- Quarantine (1994) which isn't available anywhere (the SteamID linked to the game on here is for a different game)
- Quern
You can also count Quest 64, supposedly one of the worst N64 games if you wanna.

I agree with Sobequ that the challenge should be about getting people to be creative and try out new, fun games. This challenge will basically make everyone choose the same game and move on.

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.

Itch is a treasure trove of games not on the site. I was playing a couple of games from the dev of the game selected for the first day of itchmas and ended up having to make 3 new submissions, and then that led me to a rabbit hole and I made 3 more.

First, I'm delighted that people like the tier idea because if I join the challenge next year, it will be for completing the bronze tier.

Second, I’ve seen a few members not thrilled with the “A game you previously retired or shelved” idea and I can relate to that. I joined HLTB to see how long games take so I can decide if I can start playing them. I take the Main + Extra category, add 20% (because I’m old and I can’t finish it as quickly as all those young people), and if I know that I have something planned that will get in the way of the time required to finish the game, I simply don’t start it until I have the time.

If I start a game, I rarely retire it (I retire less than 10 games in the last 20 years. I don’t remember what I did more than 20 years ago). The same for replaying – I have so many games in my backlog, that I usually don’t replay a game I finished.

Aiming for a bronze challenge means I can just ignore challenges I don’t want to do. But for those who do want to go for gold – how about we bundle together 15 (A game you previously retired or shelved) and 16 (a replay).

Both those categories relate to games that a player started playing and put aside (either because they were retired, shelved or completed), and now has to play them again. And if players don’t retire or shelve games, they can always choose the replay option to fulfil this section of the challenge.

What do you think?

how about we bundle together 15 (A game you previously retired or shelved) and 16 (a replay).

Yeah, that makes sense to me. Both challenges are basically about revisiting a game. One's asking you to revisit a bad one and one's asking you to do the opposite.

the spirit of this challenge is just to pick up a game you put down for one reason or another and beat it. I'm sure there are a couple of games you didn't finish because life got in the way, just play those instead of a game you retired.

I think most people, when they think about games they've shelved, are gonna think about the worse ones, as is clear from this thread so far.
bgalon's idea to make these two alternates to each other would also fix that issue. If there's a game you can think of which you shelved but wanna go back to, yay. If you can't just go replay a game you loved.

I can additionally comment that I do also believe 50 games is an unrealistically high number. This year I have played more different games than I have ever before, but despite that I did not reach that amount even considering I was not playing any specific types of games to fit any challenge. "Age like milk" is such a universal and common phrase that I find it bizarre that someone is unfamiliar with it, but that specific wording of a game relating to George Romero made me unsure on what you specifically meant despite googling who he was. Games starting with the letter Q might additionally also be a bit too limiting, but maybe there are ways to make that work.

"Age like milk" is such a universal and common phrase that I find it bizarre that someone is unfamiliar with it

I'm with bgalon on this.
It's universal in english and the entire world doesn't speak it. Sure, the forums are in english but I'm sure there are loads of non-native speakers here. I'm sure if I went around asking people random phrases which are common in english, most people wouldn't get most of them.

I gave up on the last stage of Arcane Beak using just the mouse. I tried again later in the day with keyboard and mouse instead and it went way better and more easily. Not totally my thing but cute game and fun for the short spell it lasts. And shooty magic bird--not gonna complain about that. I also appreciate it lets you retry the stage you're on; it's short enough I could have seen it making you start over or having a life system. I didn't need to retry when I switched to kbm but still.

I ended up playing 5 of R_Goulart's games. Their pixel art is on point and amazing throughout all the games.

1. Arcane Beak - Prolly my favorite game from him. Mouse only controls make no sense to me, why would anyone play a twin-stick shooter with a single stick? KBM is way, way easier.

2. Irilia - I didn't like it too much. The attacks and jump/movement just dont feel like they mesh well with the way the enemies move. Ended up getting the first enemy trapped in a corner and just decided to tank my way through the next two.

3. Hexblade - Better, but something about the movement still felt off. The abilities introduced were only useful in the last two bosses and not the ones they were introduced before. Quite frustrating overall.

4. Ghost Hunter - Cute, quick and simple. I started off not liking it but then i got into the groove of the game and it was fun enough.

5. Delivery Quest - 2 minutes long, prolly in 2nd place for me right behind Arcane Beak. The concept was fun and executed pretty dang well for a 2 minute game.

Well done for finishing your challenge! And I think you done this on your first year! You also done more than required (if you have 44-1 and 44-2, you need to select only one of them - not both...)

I've been doing those for a few years and this year I might finish it this time around.

I probably won't try it again next year - not at the current format anyway.

In any case - fantastic job!

Yeah I ended up doing all the extra alternates too. I played way too many games this year and so I ended up deciding to just fill up the challenge alternates as well 🫡

I think this might actually be my 2nd time trying one of these out, though. I tried getting into it back in 2021 or 22 and ended up just not participating. Made a spreadsheet for it and everything. There's probably some record of that on the discord server.

Finished the challenge earlier than expected.

Finished Chenso Club right now, and i finished a replay of Game Dev Tycoon for challenge 37. I'll update my last post on here since it's pretty recent.

I played 2016 and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Eternal is in my backlog and I'm hoping to have just as much fun, however I have heard that it's slightly worse. Going to go into it with my only expectation being nicer visuals and graphical fidelity.

I just revisited DOOM 2016 for a bit on my PS4 and Eternal's definitely better than 2016.

I dig the style of 2016 more, it's very gritty. I think that some of the designs are better. It's got better environmental storytelling I guess? As a person who almost always cares about the story and vibes more than the gameplay, WHO THE FUCK CARES (I mean, jokes aside I do care but seriously in a game like doom I'm there for the combat if I wanted a literary masterpiece, I'd just replay Disco Elysium.)

It felt like i was playing with the Slayer's legs chopped off, and also he was using one hand to walk.
The gameplay is just so much better in Eternal. It's just so, so much faster and so much more satisfying. I WILL SAY IT AGAIN there is nothing quite like deleting an army of hell knights in a slayer gate. Ice bomb three of em tryna gang up on you, dash backwards and rocket launcher on em then ssg-ballista-ssg to utterly shred em.
Tyrant? Flaming meat hook + shotgun, Ice grenade, a few rounds using the unmakyr, grenade, ssg-ballista-ssg combo till he goes orange!
Revenant? Quickscope heavy cannon - sticky grenade shotgun combo on the launchers and then meat hook face blast!
Zombie? :-)

If 2016 was a grounded video game with rules, Eternal's a playground of Carnage built to fuck you up until you get good enough to enact your own power fantasies upon the poor demons locked into an arena with you by the devs.

whoops, nvm, just a couple of seconds late.

I seem to have forgotten to send my list here🫡
I've done all the parts too, I've just skipped the 2nd bonus challenge.

The only games I've got left now are
1. Chenso Club - Challenge 7
2. Game Dev Tycoon - Challenge 37
Finished the challenge!

✅️01. A new game (released within the past year) - Opia
✅️02. An old game (released 10+ years ago) - Dead Space 2
✅️03. A really old game (released 20+ years ago) - Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
✅️04. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago) - Excitebike
✅️05. A time sink (50+ hours) - Elden Ring - Final time - 99:58:07
✅️06. A quick completion (less than an hour) - You Stole my Heart! - Final time - 00:28:15
✅️07. A game you got for free - Chenso Club - Gifted to me by Siver!
✅️08. A game you've been wishing and waiting for - Cyberpunk 2077
✅️09-1. A remake or remaster of a game - Dead Space
✅️09-2. A game that received new translations to other languages some time after its initial release - Disco Elysium - It has now become my favorite game of all time.
✅️10. A game with 6+ endings - As Dusk Falls
✅️11. A collection of games - Mega Man Legacy Collection 2
✅️12. A game recommended to you by someone else - Mafia: Definitive Edition
✅️13. A game whose title could describe your life - Until Dawn -My sleep schedule is horrible.
✅️14-1. A game with an alliterative title - Mega Man
✅️14-2. A game whose title contains the name of a color - The Case of the Golden Idol
✅️14-3. A game whose title starts with a number - 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
✅️15. A game that heavily focuses on flight - Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
✅️16. A game from a genre you don't usually play - Ubermosh
✅️17. A game that is themed around dogs or cats - goodbye, doggy
✅️18-1. A game that features multiple genres, or is a mashup of different genres - Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess - Tower Defense x Hack n' Slash.
✅️18-2. A visual novel or text-based game - Miss Inconspicuous Maid Cleaning Co.!
✅️19. A game where you play as an antihero or a villain - Warhammer 40K: Boltgun
✅️20-1. A game set in a historical time period - Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
✅️20-2. A game set in the far future - Dead Space 3
✅️21. A game with a female protagonist - Sea of Solitude
✅️22. A game without any humans - Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island
✅️23. A game where you play as a robot or an alien - Citizen Sleeper
✅️24. An arcade-style high score game - UBERMOSH:SANTICIDE
✅️25-1. A game set in a world you would like living in - FFXII: The Zodiac Age
✅️25-2. A game whose protagonist you would want to be friends with - Hi-Fi Rush
✅️26. A game where you play as a bug or an aquatic creature - Lil Gator Game
✅️27. A game that has been adapted into another medium - Super Mario Bros.
✅️28. A game you watched someone else play first (partially or in full) - The Legend of Zelda
✅️29. Another person’s favorite game - Hades
✅️30. A game with a diverse cast - Kentucky Route Zero
✅️31. A cornerstone to gaming culture - The Last of Us
✅️32. A game that starts with the same first letter as in your username - Neon White
✅️33-1. A “threequel” - Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy County
✅️33-2. A spin-off game - Uncharted: Golden Abyss
✅️34. A bright and cheerful game - Dadish 2
✅️35. A game containing a real or fictional religion - Children of the Sun
✅️36. A game that heavily features either fire or ice - Fireboy & Watergirl in The Forest Temple
✅️37. A game that heavily features money, gold, or economics - Game Dev Tycoon
✅️38. A game with a subtitle - Wolfenstein: The New Order
✅️39. A game that surprised you - Soul Sacrifice Delta
✅️40. A post-apocalyptic game - The Last of Us Part II
✅️41. A game with a short title (4 letters or less) - ABZÛ
✅️42. A game that had a red retirement rating on HLTB when you started playing it - Downwell
✅️43. A game that one of your favorite artists worked on - Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League - ROCKSTEADY HOW???? Worst game I've played all year.
✅️44-1. A game you previously retired or put on hold - Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
✅️44-2. A game that you have beaten before and are replaying - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
✅️45. A game that is on someone else’s HLTB 2024 Gaming Challenge List - Quantum Break
✅️46-1. A studio's very first game - Cocoon
✅️46-2. A studio's most recent game - Jedi: Survivor
✅️47. A game that had its HLTB times on a purple/red/gray background at the time you started playing it - Oceanwork
✅️48. A game that has been a HLTB Game of the Month - Doom Eternal
✅️49. A game listed on the HLTB stats page - Silent Hill 2
✅️50. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer - 100 Robo Cats

Bonus:
- Four games, released in the four quarters of a given year of your choice
2023
✅️Storyteller Q1 - Mar. 23, 2023
✅️Dordogne Q2 - Jun. 13, 2023
✅️Unsorted Horror Q3 - Aug. 1, 2023
✅️A Date with Death Q4 - Dec. 07, 2023

I would recommend setting up the second save slot as your practice run on regular Nightmare and once you feel confident with a certain chapter, you then move on to your third save and do it again on Ultra-Nightmare, repeat that process all the way up to Final Sin (the first 3 chapters will be the hardest since you don't have all the fancy gear / upgrades yet). It's a real blessing you don't have to do the entire game in one session like in Wolfenstein 2 and there are no long unskippable cutscenes either.

Oooh, that's a good idea. Though I do eventually wanna be able to just beat the game in ultra nightmare in a single sitting, I'm nowhere near good enough for that. Gonna take my time with that goal 🫡.

FYI, Ultra-Nightmare is exactly the same as regular Nightmare, with the only difference being permadeath (the game creates a hardsave at the end of each chapter, which is permanently deleted upon death), therefore Extra Lives mode is not applicable on that setting.

... Well, fuck.

Whatever, fuck it. I've already made up my mind... shit, I am not looking forward to this anymore.

Finished the game. Nightmare difficulty made me completely rethink my opinions on the game from my first playthrough (that was back in 2022). Solid 9/10.
I rushed through it on normal difficulty back then because my gamepass trial was gonna run out.
To anyone playing this game with a keyboard and mouse and feeling like the sense of momentum is just not there (i felt like that on my first playthrough for sure), start using quick switching and the other stuff the game offers. I think I used grenades like twice in my first playthroughs and this time around I was like "WHERE ARE MY GRENADES PLEASE HELP WHAT" and QUICK SWITCHING IS AMAZING (sorry to controller players, i dont think you can do it with one). There's nothing quite like dying to a hell knight so, so many times over the course of the first couple of levels and then learning how to quick switch and instantly deleting like six hell knights in a minute or two in a slayer gate 🙏🙏

Worst demon award goes to the whiplashes.
-

I also played Wolfenstein 2 The New Colossus earlier this year, also on the highest non permadeath difficulty. Wanted to give it a shoutout. If DOOM Eternal's the best boomer shooter I've ever played, TNC's the best cover shooter I've played and i dont think it even counts as one. It feels like a mix between that and a boomer shooter at times, especially after the upgraded blazko stuff. The peeking mechanism in the modern wolfenstein games is also so fun to use and the encounter design is spectacular. A few arenas from TNO and TNC just live in my head, in the hall of fame of shooter levels along with some from F.E.A.R.

Speaking of arenas that live in my head, i think my picks for DOOM Eternal's best arenas would be
1. Super Gore Nest - The first central arena
2. Super Gore Nest - The arena next to the exit
3. Nekravol 2 - The final arena
4. Cultist Base - THE PIT
5. DOOM Hunter Base - The first arena, with all the jump-pads

I think i might revisit DOOM 2016 now since i dont think i ever beat that on the highest diff. Also zipping around in Urdak made me wanna revisit Titanfall 2 for some reason.

All that comes after i finish this game tho. I still wanna do all the Master Levels and an Ultra-Nightmare completion

I'm a good chunk into my 100% playthrough now, I've reached Taras Nabad. Nightmare difficulty has made me rethink my earlier opinion of this game not being as good as DOOM 2016.

I think i might go for an Ultra-Nightmare completion too. The extra lives might make it a lot easier than something like Wolfenstein's Mein Leben.

Gonna nominate 1000xRESIST.
Sci-fi freedom struggle is the best way to describe this game i guess? but that really doesnt do it justice.
It is in my opinion the best game to have been released this year and the 2nd best game ive played this year, just behind Disco Elysium. It's earned a spot on my favorite games of all time (no. 5 atm) and i can't stop raving about it in the HLTB discord.

Greener Grass Awaits - yatoimtop - Golf Horror
Off-Peak - CosmoD - Something, idk.
000000FF0000 - Kitty Horrorshow - Haunted Cities Vol.4 by the same dev was part of a previous itchmas.