Gaming Backlog 2024
How I am trying to tackle it and what the rules for it are until the end of the year.
In my intro post I alluded to the fact that I got a steam deck in March 2024 and my backlog quickly grew. Now I am a numbers person and I would like to reduce my backlog and play all the games I am excited about and own, as well as make place to purchase more games off of my ever growing wish-list.
My goal by end of Dec 2024 is to have tried 50 games. Full transparency, I have some rules that make this possible and also currently I am only working part time. I am looking to change that to full time but haven’t had any luck yet. Furthermore we only have pets and no children, so I have more time than the average gamer in their late 30s.
The problem with being a mostly all round gaming genre player, means there is a lot out there. I also want to try different genres to find what I enjoy, nowadays. So my wishlist grew very quickly from review videos and suggestions.
To provide some background to my gaming history, I grew up playing Tetris, Kirby, Super Mario, Kid Dracula, Sonic, Ecco the dolphin, Pokémon etc. After a very long break I rejoined playing games during Fallout 3, Skyrim and Killzone series era - this was the time I worked as a games tester and also got to test on Nintendo wii and DS a lot.
After another break (linguistic games testing ruined gaming for me for a while), I then restarted to play games such as Red dead and Horizon series and Elden ring. So all pretty eclectic and varied in gaming styles, while mostly RPG.
Having bought most of my gaming backlog during steam sales, it means that my reviews and thoughts are not likely to be up to date on the newest and greatest but there are some newer games I do have my eyes on. But ideally I’ll finish more of the backlog before buying more games. We all say this right?
What are the rules?
Having bought such a variety of types of games during the various sales, means that I may not enjoy each and every game.
Therefore I have some rules to tackling the gaming backlog:
A game is complete if I have finished the main story. I do not need to play 100% of it. In my gaming history there are a handful of games that I ever 100% completed anyways.
If I dislike a game I should give it a good amount of time to see if it grows on me (2 hours). A good example is Owlboy. I tried for 6 hours to like it but I just didn’t like it, so it has been shelved.
I can have more than one game on the go. While this doesn’t happen often I sometimes have a story heavy game on the go, such as Blasphemous 2 while playing something more mindless like Brotato or less demanding game play wise such as Little Nightmares.
I am also using “How Long to Beat”, to help me prioritise and vary the type of stories and games I am playing to not get fatigued.
What do I play now?
I mostly have pixel art type games on my list, and most are 2D side scrollers or thereabouts. When I came across the Ori games I looked up their genres and discovered the term “metroidvania”.
Many recommendations later and I also played Hollow Knight, Cookie Cutter, and Gate Roboto. Again all very different in their gameplay and art style but I enjoyed each for different and similar reasons.
I’d love to see what the main genres are I play now, but steam doesn’t seem to show me any real playing stats. Does anyone know of some?
How am I doing with the backlog?
As of today 6th November 2024 I have played 43 games. I did not finish and have no intention of finishing 3 of those. I also have 3 games “on the go” at the moment. Those are:
So there are 7 games to have a go at/hopefully like enough to complete until end of December.
I’d like the list to include:
But we shall see what I end up playing in my monthly Gamer Journal posts. :D
Are you also tackling an ever growing gamer backlog? How do you decide what to play next?
Oh thanks for reminding me that Downwell needs to be played. It was recommended by so many people. This was legit how I played games to see if I could finish them and when I did thats when I started Good Game Lobby. Excited to see you work through the backlog!
Such a fun goal! I recommend oxenfree as it tackles the horror genre differently, and is under 10hrs I believe. I havent played 2 but looking fwd to it.
For something really short but has an inspiring story, try Venba. It’s a cooking game based on an indian family who moved to Canada. It tackles a lot about immigration and culture.