That was a great read. Thanks for sharing.
Aww, the longest journey is one of my favourite series.
I do love it for many reasons, although I do also recognize it has its share of bad puzzles that are now mostly gone from the modern era of Point & click games.
Oh, absolutely. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey also has a bunch of terrible design choices, like the combat could’ve been cut altogether. It’s the world, and the overarching story that’s stuck with me all these years.
I love that it loops in on itself, Dreamfall Chapters ending with Lady Alvane sitting down in the House of All Worlds, awaiting a young April Ryan falling through her doorway, seeking answers as she sets out on The Longest Journey.
Aah, I get all teared up thinking about it. I’m very sappy.
I’m still holding out hope for The Longest Journey Home.
Ooh, a fellow listmaker. I’ve started compiling a “past three decade” list as well, mostly for keeping a game kit inventory, but your tracking is way more dilligent. I’ve starte only last year and have been going from memory and old kits and you can imagine how that’s going. Tried a few online tools but none are actually satisfactory for stat purposes, so it’s still in spreadsheet form.
Anyway thank you for the great read, it’s fun to compare and contrast with someone else’s opinions on a couple hundred games.
Edit: Seeing as you liked Frostpunk dare I recommend Ixion? Different vibe but same type of tight decision making and great story.
Edit edit: You have a typo on AoE 2/3
For your own list, I recommend keeping the data as simple as you can and building tools on top of that, if you’re able.
I’ve kept my eye on Ixion but did not realize its gameplay was that kind of decision making. I’ll put it on my to-play list. Yes I have a list for that too.
Yea l, figured the same. It’s just name, year, status, platform and kit type/size for now. Not like I can recall when I finished Kohan or whatever obscure 20th century game anyway.
400 games in 3 decades? I’d call that a lazy quarter 😁
I thought real gamers just play the same dozen games over and over for 30 years 🤷
Probably yes. But maybe not those with ADHD 😁 I game like 6hrs a day for >30yrs now, but the times of “one game a month, if even” are long gone for me. I got tens of thousands of games, of which I haven’t played 70% yet.
Admittedly, many I just bought on a whim and will probably never ever touch at all. Some for support, some for curiosity, some for discount.
My ADHD keeps buying new games. My autism keeps playing the old ones. Such is my curse 🤣
Ha! Been there, doing that…I mostly end up playing the same oldies again and again. I remember map layouts from 2 decades ago, but forget he story from yesterday. Actually kinda helpful when re-playing 😁
Cool stats. I do wonder what is the rule to making categories, like what is dad simulator and how come that couldn’t fit under dad game?
My genre definitions are pretty loose. I simplified & combined lots of categories in my CSV data when I wrote the statistics tool, but honestly there are lots of games that are either genre-defining or so different from anything else that I’ll just give them their own genre. I hate to use something like “platformer” or “action adventure” as that hardly tells anything about what kind of game it is. What genre is Undertale?
Hardspace: Shipbreakers is a dad game to me because it’s the kind of game a dad might play after coming home from work, feel like they’re doing something useful, with visual signs of a job well done, wrap it up and still have time for their kids. I think this is similar to films like Grayhound where we watch a hero who does his best to maintain a stalwart face, endures hardship, inspires, maybe has a weak moment but pulls through and keeps everyone protected until finally coming home and falling asleep when the job is done. This is what I describe as a dad fantasy.
Dad simulator is just Octodad, and I think I might want to make a category for “humor” or “parody” games instead.
Fair enough. I do wonder if you could hook it up to a game db like igdb or something to get their categories for each game. Might clean up some of those single game categories 😊
Honestly not a bad idea. It would be possible to automate with some API too…
