I never did an update for my January progress, so here I go. (My Master List)

I ticked off one category with the book I was already reading anyway, Feuer by Ron Leshem.
It's a non-fiction book that came out last year in response to recent developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict, so I put it down for "A book published since the start of 2024."
If anyone's curious, I did write a review for it and I would even recommend it, but for some weird reason this thing is apparently currently only available in German, despite being written by a non-German author. I don't know how that happened.

Haven't made much progress since then. Still reading more books about that subject, but I don't think any of my current reads even apply to any categories. Probably gonna focus on an actual category contender again once I'm done with those., but I also just haven't been reading too much in recent couple of weeks.

I went to a book store recently to see if I could find a book for "A book actually purchased in your local walk-in book shop." But the only ones I found and was interested in, I would have preferred as an ebook rather than a physical copy. And I guess I could technically buy an ebook copy from them as well, but I don't know if I want that to count. I think for me I want to actually walk out of that book store with a physical book in hand.
But to justify me picking up a physical book, it would probably need to be one with a visual aspect that doesn't do well on my ebook device. So, that will have to wait for another day.

- Matt

Yep, I'm with Tiamat on this.

I grew up in a family of bargain hunters. My dad taught me to be patient and wait for good deals when I was very young. The amount of time I paid full price for a videogame, I could probably count on two hands. When I still had consoles, I bought used, and as a PC gamer, games are seemingly always on sale now.

But I don't actively look for sales. Don't think I ever have. There were always automatic systems in place.
And especially nowadays with IsThereAnyDeal, I just let it keep track of my Steam wishlist and tell it to notify me when a game is at a historical low price at any store. No manual labor required at all. lol

- Matt

As far as classic message boards go, HLTB is the only one I'm somewhat active in these days. But even with this community, I much prefer the more dynamic Discord server for actual conversation.
Message boards like this have, from my experience, lost their appeal and functionality over a decade ago. I remember growing up frequenting multiple message boards daily and being obsessed with the concept of creating little spaces to discuss whatever I want with strangers through forum threads. A German gaming forum and a German literature forum are two of the most prominent places through which I explored web 2.0 as a kid. But as social media developed, I noticed those becoming less and less appealing, and less active. Mostly in the 2010s.
And it doesn't surprise me one bit because looking back, it just wasn't a super convenient or interactive way to talk to other people. I feel like a ton of forum posts are people talking at each other but not with each other. Like a pre-cursor of the "shouting into the void" that modern social media provides, but even slower and with less options to interact directly.
I don't remember the last time I actually had a fulfilling conversation with anyone on a message board.

Because of all of that, it actually surprised me when I found out, months after signing up to HLTB, that there was this forum attached and that it was actually fairly active. Really seems like a rarity these days.
But I personally do believe the message board structure works better for event organization and blogs than actual conversations. Again, that's where the Discord is at, in my opinion. Because you can have an actual real time conversation there while the forum has more the effect of exchanging letters or leaving guest book entries. It's more detached.
In theory, the slower pace should leave room for more thought-out messages but I think in reality the rigid and slow structure of a thread doesn't encourage properly engaging with the thoughts of others.
It all feels very one-sided, in my opinion. Sure you could quote someone directly but who is to say that person actually ever notices that? Giving it more the vibe of commenting on someone's message than actually conversing with them.

For years I thought message boards would still have a prominent place in the digital world. In theory, it's still a sound concept. But honestly the more time passes, the less I see it.

- Matt

With that iconic title, the game has been on my radar for a long time now and since it was given away for free on the Epic Games Store at some point, I had no excuse not to participate in this GOTM.

It's a very chill and lighthearted experience for sure. It was mentioned before that there are light parallels to Legend of Zelda and yeah, the references are very obvious.
The fetch quest adventure style gameplay loop was fine. Never actually challenging and the comedic writing taking most of the spotlight. The actual gaming was just engaging enough though it would probably overstay its welcome pretty quick if it went on for longer than it does.
That being said, after beating the regular boss fight and getting the credit roll, I noticed I was only missing 3 more documents to destroy and with the help of the clues from the post-game cave cat, I got the rest of them as well and beat the extended boss fight as well.
I also did one run of that Sunset Station roguelike challenge. Seems like a decent idea and it works well enough with the systems of the game, but the engine lends itself better for slower puzzling than fast-paced action. So that didn't really keep my attention past one attempt.

Speaking of the plot and lore, I predicted the nuclear warfare reveal. Don't think that's a very original or surprising twist. But I did enjoy the slightly disturbing sequence of invading those survivjng humans' bunker and essentially dooming the parents' remaining child with radiation before killing her. Pretty fun juxtaposition of tone there.
I also liked that, as the world's background story becomes clearer, the goal basically became to destroy all remaining documents of humanity's bureaucracy, to stop it from corrupting this new vegetable society. Kinda satisfying. lol

All in all, nothing great but a chill short time. It's not something I'd go out and actively recommend to people but if you get it on sale (or even for free) then there are worse ways to spend two to three hours.
I am very curious though where they might go with the sequel. From what I've seen, they're doing a more action-oriented twin-stick shooter style thing with that one. So, seems like it probably feels completely different to play. Probably gonna pick that one up for a low price someday as well. I imagine it might be more engaging in the gameplay department.

Shoutout to the random macaroni piece reciting the entirety of the Navy Seal copypasta. Had absolutely no bearing on anything but that one always makes me smile. lol

- Matt

Reviving this old ass thread because I just finished this game. lol

I played a couple precision platformers recently, starting with Super Meat Boy and Mr. Run and Jump, and I figured I could tick off another one from the list.
Had heard a ton about Celeste over the years, tons of praise, and I was cautiously optimistic to get a decent game here.
I have some gripes with the controls, mainly the limited degrees of movement during the dashes, which felt a bit clunky to me all the way through. But the game mostly made up with its stellar presentation, charming writing, and the whole lighthearted vibe it carried. I appreciate a difficult game that cheers you own and is very upfront about any optional stuff only being for bragging rights and not something one should feel obligated to do. And I did finish the main campaign with more collected strawberries than I expected to going in.
Unfortunately, I didn't find any of the required collectables to play either of the post-credits chapter and I don't feel like going back through levels to grab them. So there's that.
But then again, I rarely even feel inclined to play optional stuff in these precision platformers. Most of the time I take the credit roll and run. lol

Anyway, it's never gonna be my favorite platformer but I see why it got so much praise (though I also get the couple critical voices I have heard) and I had a very decent time with it.

81/175 Strawberries, 0 Crystal Hearts, 1 B-Side Tape, 1.792 deaths.

- Matt

Hello everybody!
We have another hot episode of fresh vidyagame discussions for you today.

On this special episode, we welcome back previous guest and thread master Knalb to look back with us at the "Game of the Month" titles that were chosen by the community throughout 2024 as part of one of the oldest traditions on HowLongToBeat.
To top it all off, Knalb brought a bunch of interesting facts and numbers for a little trivia game about the statistics of those events!

i’d like to nominate the quarry for the regular gotm because i’m about to start playing it with my partner

for the special, i’ll nominate the magic circle

Magic Circle is such an awesome and unique overlooked gem. Great nomination.

- Matt

I'll nominate regular ass Tetris (NES/GB if I have to be specific) for regular GOTM and for the 2015-based 10-year anniversary special, I'll of course nominate Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015.

- Matt

Ayo, we finally completed the category list so I'm gonna put down my "Master Post" here.

The StoryGraph Challenge page is also up to date and complete now for anyone who wants to link that to their StoryGraph profile and track their progress that way.

My accounts if anyone wants to connect: StoryGraph | Goodreads

Progress:

Gaming Adjacent challenges
❌ 01. A book published by Boss Fight Books.
❌ 02. A novel that was (directly) adapted into a videogame.
❌ 03. A book based on a videogame.
❌ 04-A. A book based on a table-top game
❌ 04-B. a Gamebook
❌ 05. A non-fiction book about videogames.

Regular challenges
✅️ 06. A book published since the start of 2024: Feuer by Ron Leshem
❌ 07. A "classic" / literary cornerstone.
❌ 08. A short story or novella.
❌ 09. A doorstopper (Approx. 700 pages).
❌ 10. A play.
❌ 11. A graphic novel or manga.
❌ 12. A memoir or (auto-)biography.
❌ 13. A book adapted into a movie / TV series.
❌ 14. A self-published book.
❌ 15. A book from a genre you don’t normally read.
❌ 16. A book you have read before but remember nothing about/think you won't like anymore.
❌ 17. (Reread) a book that was assigned in school.
❌ 18. A book from an abandoned or currently unfinished series.
❌ 19. A “hopeful non-fiction” book.
❌ 20. An animal xenofiction novel.
❌ 21. A novel set in your city/state/country.
❌ 22. A book from Wikipedia’s list of “Most Commonly Challenged Books in the US”.
❌ 23. A book actually purchased in your local walk-in book shop.
❌ 24. One of the oldest books in your backlog.
❌ 25. A book in your mother tongue.
❌ 26. A book about a character engaging with a hobby of yours.
❌ 27-A. A book set before medieval times.
❌ 27-B. A book set in the far future.
❌ 28-A. The debut book by an up-and-coming author (They must not have any other books out at the moment).
❌ 28-B. The first book by a famous/pre-established author.
❌ 29. A book that has at least two of the following words in the title: How Long To Beat.
❌ 30. The Discussion Challenge - Choose upto 5 books that you would like to discuss with the people of the forums, and then select one book from someone else's recommendations that you'd like to discuss with them.

Planning:

Gaming Adjacent challenges

01. A book published by Boss Fight Books.
Minesweeper by Kyle Orland

02. A novel that was (directly) adapted into a videogame.
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky

03. A book based on a videogame.
---

04-A. A book based on a table-top game.
Magic: The Gathering - Arena by William R. Forstchen
Magic: The Gathering - The Gathering Dark by Jeff Grubb

04-B. a Gamebook.
Zurück in die Eiszeit by Franz S. Sklenitzka

05. A non-fiction book about videogames.
Doom Guy: Life in First Person by John Romero
Masters of Doom by David Kushner


Regular challenges

06. A book published since the start of 2024.
---

07. A "classic" / literary cornerstone.
Das Schloss by Franz Kafka

08. A short story or novella.
---

09. A doorstopper (Approx. 700 pages).
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Ulysses by James Joyce

10. A play.
---

11. A graphic novel or manga.
REAL, Volume 2 by Takehiko Inoue

12. A memoir or (auto-)biography.
My Threatening Poem - Memoir of a Poet in Occupation Prisons by Dareen Tatour

13. A book adapted into a movie / TV series.
---

14. A self-published book.
Starlight Universe: Moments of Transition by Chris Adamek

15. A book from a genre you don’t normally read.
---

16. A book you have read before but remember nothing about/think you won't like anymore.
The Dreamwalker's Child (aka Moskito) by Steve Voake
It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
Die drei ???. Spur ins Nichts by André Marx
Blackout by Gianluca Morozzi
The Ring by Kōji Suzuki

17. (Reread) a book that was assigned in school.
Tauben im Gras by Wolfgang Koeppen
Richter und sein Henker by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

18. A book from an abandoned or currently unfinished series.
---

19. A “hopeful non-fiction” book.
Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls by Kai Cheng Thom

20. An animal xenofiction novel.
---

21. A novel set in your city/state/country.
Aus dem Nichts by Irene Scharenberg

22. A book from Wikipedia’s list of “Most Commonly Challenged Books in the US”.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

23. A book actually purchased in your local walk-in book shop.
---

24. One of the oldest books in your backlog.
---

25. A book in your mother tongue.
---

26. A book about a character engaging with a hobby of yours.
---

27-A. A book set before medieval times.
---

27-B. A book set in the far future.
---

28-A. The debut book by an up-and-coming author (They must not have any other books out at the moment).
---

28-B. The first book by a famous/pre-established author.
---

29. A book that has at least two of the following words in the title: How Long To Beat.
---

30. The Discussion Challenge.
---

My books for the "Discussion Challenge":

Earth by David Brin - One of my favorite reading experiences and the longest book I read to date. lol Super creative global warming eco-scifi and globe-spanning plot.

Watership Down by Richard Adams - I miss the time I spent with these rabbits every single day. It's like a fantasy quest story except its all set in the regular countryside and the characters are rabbits dying left and right. Badass shit.

Through the Black Hole by Edward Packard - This is a standard Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book for kids. I want you to read this and tell me if I'm crazy for thinking it kicks ass. lol

Since I'm one of the other people planning this thing behind the scenes, I'm obviously gonna participate as well. lol

My personal point of view on this is also that it's gonna be a rather casual challenge where people can pick and choose how much they wanna do. Like No One said, there will probably be 30 categories, but the basic goal is completing 10 of them with anything else being extra points.

We're still thinking of more categories. Currently we got like 24 of them pretty much settled.
Probably won't take too long to finish the category list though. Maybe having it all up on the weekend?

Either way, I'm gonna make a challenge page on StoryGraph as well for anyone who uses that website for their book logging.
An early draft is already up that you can already join if you got an account on that site. But just like this thread, it's still under construction.

- Matt

For January 2025, I'll nominate Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom. 😃

- Matt

I spent half of my Saturday marathoning the remaining 8 games I was missing to catch up with Itchmas. I still think this was overall a very good selection but there have now been a couple games in this gaming session for me that didn't really do anything for me.
Anyway, my thoughts as always on all of them:

Rental
With the interesting clash of Animal Crossing visuals and survival horror atmosphere, I was looking forward to seeing where this game would go but I was disappointed when it didn't do anything interesting at all. The actual gameplay is incredibly basic and after a while gets more tedious than anything. Take away the nice presentation and this would be nothing but another bland item-collecting indie horror game of yesteryear.

Nightmare Kart
I played this when it was originally released after following the project on social media for a long time. I didn't replay it for this Itchmas but I still wanna say that this is one of the most polished free indie games I have played. You get a really satisfying campaign with this one despite the quirky, maybe gimmicky initial concept of being a Bloodborne-themed kart racing game. It does a lot of interesting things though and ends up being a really cool game even for people, like me, who know nothing about that inspiration game.

The World Had Been Sad Since Tuesday
With this being a simple, interactive retelling of a literary short story, I have a feeling you'd only really get something out of this if you're familiar with the text. I didn't know the original story and the game itself didn't really do much of anything for me. Some interesting pixel art, but nothing really ended up making a whole of the bits. I think it's too abbreviated to really carry what the original story probably did and so all that's left is a choppy, vague story about people treating a celestial being like a zoo animal.
The only real gameplay feature aside from reading NPC dialog is a collectible that gives you a tiny bit more dialog in the end.
This is the sort of thing that seems like a neat project for a hobby dev, but doesn't really do much for an external player, I think.

A Good Gardener
Really cool art style, but other than that, this did nothing to me. You plant crops in solitute while being visited by some other guy telling you about the world at war outside bit by bit. Decent idea but the actual content, both in gameplay and storytelling, is stretched so incredibly thin, that it had me actually at the verge of falling asleep.
The actual farming also does nothing interest. It doesn't matter what you plant, how much you plant, or where you plant it. It's all completely inconsequential.
The most exciting mechanic is that you have to wait for rainy days for your water supply to fill up but like... it doesn't change much in the end either.

Delia: The Traveling Witch
Decent little platformer with pretty great sprite work. Controls felt a little bit stiff but I have played much worse coming from itch.io devs and the game never expects anything really difficult from you. In fact, all the boss fights are so dull and repetitive, that I wouldn't even call most of them a challenge in any way.
The writing has this very familiar flavor of quirk that I've seen in similar games like this and there is plenty of it. The dev clearly had a lot of fun writing tons of dialog for the NPCs which seems like the sort of thing that's probably more fun for the creator than the consumer in most cases. Every now and then, there is a great joke that made me laugh, but a lot of it is not very interesting.
Still, not a bad game and I could see the dev growing into a really talented game dev from that.

Pakke-Is
Another nomination by myself and one I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately this one ended up being the only game I couldn't beat because I had massive technical difficulties with this one.
It's primarily made for controllers but it just completely freaked out when I connected mine. Playing with keyboard seems possible but is incredibly clunky and it doesn't tell you what the keys are. Plus it ran like dog water on my system for some reason which made it barely playable even if it wasn't for the controls. Bummer.

Off-Peak
Was going in with rather low expectations because it seemed like it wouldn't offer much but explore a weirdly cobbled together world but I ended up enjoying it more than I excpected. As a teenager, I loved downloading weird custom-made maps for Counter-Strike just to explore them and this one gave me strong flashbacks to that and games like Garry's Mod. The actual gameplay consists of finding a bunch of items throughout the map, but the actual enjoyment came from exploring this wacky world the dev created and inevitably learning a bunch about the person's special interests. It also didn't overstay its welcome at all, which helped.
I'm actually curious to play this dev's more feature-complete paid games sometime.

Sheepy: A Short Adventure
What an absolute banger of a game to close this Itchmas off. I absolutely loved this gorgeous platformer. I have rarely seen a free game with so much polish.
The visuals are beautiful with bouncy sprite animation, and clever little game design choices like the double jump indicator and light-up elements in the environment to help your orientation as you explore. The platforming felt super satisfying and as you gain more abilities, the game grants you some massive freedom of movement. I also really liked the simple boss fights that have you focused more on tricking the boss into damaging himself than actively attacking with your own moves.
I genuinely hope this gets a full-length sequel at some point and I'll be gladly there to pay the price. This actually fucking ruled.

- Matt

I finally played the first batch of games last night. So far they've all been decent to great for me!

Arcane Beak
Short and simple twin stick shooter type game with pretty visuals. I ran out of time once because I killed too slowly but otherwise I didn't have any problems with difficulty. I actually expected much more of a challenge based on others' experiences.
I'm not usually into these types of games, but if this was fleshed out into a proper game with more than 4 levels, I think I would give that a shot as well. Big fan of the magical chicken concept.

P.E. Noire
Decently made and charmingly written point and click game. I liked the art style a lot.
The only time I got stumped for a while was with the mac and cheese to melt away the plastic toy to get the battery. That got a bit too close to moon logic for me. Other than that though, pretty easy to solve.
My only real gripe is probably the ending that took a complete 180 tonal shift and made me dislike the protagonist more than ever for being such a hypocrite and giving the "antagonist" such a cruel ending. #JusticeForMelvin

LODGE
Went into this one with low expectations because while I like an escape room game every once in a while, the visuals and setting didn't look very interesting to me at all at first. I was very pleasantly surprised though as the presentation, once in game, was actually very charming and seemed quite polished. The puzzles were also mostly fun with decent variety. I got stumped a couple times though for the most part not at the blame of the game. I also broke the intended sequence of puzzles sometimes where I figured out the solution to one puzzle without doing the one that was meant to go before that to give you another clue.
I really enjoyed this one. Definitely one of the better escape room games I've played. Looking at the dev's profile on itch.io, I really wanna play some more of their escape room games. Some have much more interesting visual themes and styles too.

| aka pipe
I absolutely love the developer, tak. I previously nominated ᗢ for another Itchmas and I also played their tiny timed puzzle game Tempres before. Tak always manages to come up with all these simple and yet unique little game concepts while putting them in gorgeous, smooth retro style visuals. One of my favorite people on itch.io.
So I was looking forward to play |, another simple but intriguing looking game from them and it didn't disappoint either. You figure out how to control the little pipe character the best way to zoom around those lab corridors and then either make it out as quick as possible or find all the collectible heart pieces. I'm a big sucker for exploration based games like that anyway so I had a good time finding them all. Don't think I'm good enough to get a good time going though. lol
Gorgeous presentation though. So much smooth and satisfying movement in the sprite work.

What Never Was
This is the weakest one of the bunch for me. Still a decent tiny puzzle game in its own right with lots of story to read and listen to.
But this was clearly intended as a prologue to a bigger concept and the three puzzles that are in here are not very strong. One is solved quicker by brute-forcing it than actually thinking about it, one is not even a puzzle as the game tells you the solution straight-up, and only the final one on the clock actually felt like I was putting clues together myself.
I wouldn't mind seeing where this would have gone with the proper sequel and the developer was apparently well on their way to make that thing. It even has a Steam page and like 4 years ago they were even awarded some sort of sponsorship thing from the Epic Games Store. But it's been years since news and the developer is apparently now working on some official Star Wars games, getting that Disney money. I highly doubt that What Never Was: Chapter II is ever gonna be a thing.

Creature Packets
Interesting theming and gorgeous, grimy pixelated visuals. I dug that sort of style big time and of course I always love the little crawlies. Wasn't big on having to crush unwanted critters, but if this game was meant as a metaphor of how we treat animals in the food industry, then I feel like it's fitting.
Would have loved this to have more meat on its bones as the game mechanics were essentially just math with pictures at the end of the day and there wasn't really much of a challenge. But the visual aesthetic carried it a long way.

Looking forward to seeing if the rest of the games this Itchmas are gonna keep up the good streak. No complete blunder yet!

- Matt

I'll nominate Tetris Forever, which came out this month. 😃

- Matt

Heck yeah, here we go again!

[Itch] [HLTB]
Pakke-is
Pakke-Is is an action-adventure game based in the prehistoric era in the north of Canada. You play as Nuna, a young inuit girl who is set to explore and hunt sea animals possessed by an evil spirit.

[Itch] [HLTB]
Arcane Beak
You control Akari, a witchy chicken on a quest to find an ancient artifact. She ends up in the hands of a witchy fox who traps her in a maze of portals. Akari must feed the portals with the energy of their guardians before time runs out, or she will be trapped forever.

[Itch] [HLTB]
| aka pipe


- Matt

These two pages really should be one.
Tetris Blast is just the Western title for the localized Game Boy port of Super Bombliss in Japan. It's the same exact game.

https://howlongtobeat.com/game/9718

https://howlongtobeat.com/game/60626

Mobygames agrees as well, for what it's worth.


- Matt

Another duplicate. And I might even be at fault for the copy of it. I thought I couldn't find this game when I wanted to add it to my backlog a couple weeks ago. But now I see it on here twice.

https://howlongtobeat.com/game/157118
https://howlongtobeat.com/game/147509

- Matt

I shall nominate the infamous creature known as Gubble.

Available on Steam.

- Matt

This seems to be a duplicate.

https://howlongtobeat.com/game/72576

https://howlongtobeat.com/game/136672

- Matt

Microsoft Store purchases are definitely not DRM free, nah.

- Matt

Bit of a long shot, but I'll nominate that Dreamcast game based on the The Ring novels/movies: The Ring: Terror's Realm

Also putting it on record that if Dino Crisis wins, I'll definitely be there to play.

- Matt

I mean, first and foremost, you can log whatever you want and I'm sure if you log a completion for an individual game from that collection, I don't think Everdred, while approving new titles, is gonna reject it.

The argument about the validity of the individual titles based on quality (Ufo 50 vs Action 52) is a bit weak to me. The Spryro Reignited Trilogy is also three individual full-fletched games in one, still its regarded as one entry here on Letterboxd.
I always personally felt its more on a release basis.

But again, like, just log it that way. If enough people follow suit, pages for the individual games will pop up whether others like it or not. I don't think HLTB ever had very hard rules that way.
I guess, it would be a nice-to-have if Everdred went through the trouble of connecting the individual games' pages to the overall Ufo 50 page, kinda like how some DLCs or mods are linked to pre-existing game pages.
Don't know if that's worth his time though.

- Cock

I'll put in Kelly Slater's Pro Surfing.
Nevermind. I completely forgot I already put in a nomination a week ago. lmao

- Matt

I nominate Atari's hardcore platformer Mr. Run and Jump.

- Matt

I just caught up with the final two games I wanted to play this Itchmas.

Red Snow was fine. Decent concept and presentation but I wasn't very enticed into getting a better score after the first run. I am down to check out the full Steam version once that's done.

Mobius was heckin' awesome. Loved that. Really nice outside-the-box platforming that teases the brain a little. Nice visual presentation too and fun music during that last boss fight.
Probably my second favorite pick in this Itchmas after Mr. Platformer.

Also just noticed that Mobius is made by the same person as MapFriend which we had during another Itchmas, and No Players Online which was nominated by someone for this Itchmas. (Although I can't find the post for that anymore. 🤔) And if I had realized that the nominated version of No Players Online is actually a new, explanded version and not the original game that I played already years ago, I would have actually voted for it. lol

- Matt