2024 was my self-declared Year of the Backlog, in terms of videogames. Although perhaps declaring it in April wasn’t the most auspicious or ambitious of starts. I managed a quick couple of review posts, and then fizzled out fast, but was that the games I played, or my inability to blog them? Let’s see…
Looking back over my list of games played, 2024 has actually been a great year for games. I’ve managed to get a good cross-section of big and small games, new and old, mainstream and indie, and across 3 or 4 different platforms. (Caveat: I obviously still don’t have time to sink dozens of hours a week into games, so my experience is definitely relative depending on your perspective of time.)
A lot of stuff was “free” in quotes, as it turns out being engaged with gaming communities also offers numerous opportunities to play test betas, half-finished demos, and so on. And I think that’s an important part of being “a gamer” at this stage of life/civilization – the idea that how we interact as groups is as much a part of life – if not more? – as playing the games themselves. Mutual support, collaborative generation, and the development process are all ways for us to learn together, to make something out in the open. It’s an experience that goes all the way back to my early days on the internet, running a mailing list for QBasic coders, and it’s nice that some sentiments still run strong.
In some ways though, 2024 was a failure as a Year of Backlog – I bought yet more games to add to the list, although also noticed, with subscriptions such as Netflix and Amazon all competing for our attention, just how easy it is to actually get games for free these days, in addition to the family stalwarts of Fortnite and Rocket League. There were also some bangers it was hard to ignore this year – Animal Well being forefront for me. (I still owe Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a play, and managed to resist UFO 50 for now.)
Of the 47 games I’ve written down, 12 are what I’d consider as from the backlog:
- My Brother Rabbit
- The Bridge
- A Short Hike
- Spiritfarer
- Pikuniku
- Kentucky Route Zero
- Saturday Edition
- The Rusty Lake series, namely up to and including Roots
- The Space Between
- Breath of the Wild
- Uninvited
- Lucid Cycle
Of those, Pikuniku and Saturday Edition (a Playdate season 1-er) were the unexpected surprises. I only abandoned The Bridge, although others are large enough for me to continue them To This Very Day.
Where does this leave me as 2025 laps gently at the door though? Certainly not without hope – in fact, I have a renewed enthusiasm to dig into the archives even more. Whether the Playdate second season is games and a Switch successor changes this resolution remains to be seen. (I confess to finally buying a Wii U once the Switch came out, determined to be forever an old fuddy-duddy one generation behind.) But for now, I’m aiming to kill the wishlists and the sale mails, and skip merrily through the fields of computer game history.
I’ve spent some time recently setting up Playnite to track my sizeable game library, which has been a good reminder of some of the greats and the more intriguing titles I have access to. But the question remains of what to play next – do I just go with whatever my gut instinct says, or do I make it into a game in and of itself, similar to this year-long reading backlog challenge? Is it worth my energy to have more structure?
Faced with a lot of other Life Things on the horizon, I’m not convinced it is. While I take the concept of gaming seriously, as a way to hide thoughts and actions through rules and rewards, maybe the games themselves should just remain as intended – a way to pass time, hang out, and escape the world in a way that is, you know … fun?
Anyway, I’ll leave with a bunch of random screenshots from games through the year, one for each month. One day I’ll get back to updating Sprite Country, I promise!
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