Way, way too many.
I really Vampire Survivors, probably because I have ADHD and it's a dopamine factory. It's not too bad though - I recognised its addictive properties and used Cold Turkey Blocker to prevent me from playing it for more than 90 minutes per day. Plus, there is a sense of progression and achievement. On every run, even if it's unsuccessful, you can probably unlock at least one new thing that will make later runs easier or more interesting. There's a clear end goal, which is what I want from stupidly addictive games.
I played Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on a friend's recommendation and because it was reduced to £2.49, which is less than I would pay for a cup of coffee. I finished it in one weekend, once I'd looked up how to turn the motion blur off and stopped vomiting.
If you have the same problem, you need to go into the game files and add the following to the scalability.ini file:
[SystemSettings]
r.MotionBlurQuality=0
I feel a little bit guilty about that, because the documentary on the making of the game (included with it, watchable from the main menu) went into great detail about the effort they'd made to create an authentic experience from a specific viewpoint, and the motion blur was part of that. On the other hand, I really enjoy not vomiting.
Minami Lane is a fun little puzzle game, though I found it had minimum replay value once you'd finished the first five levels. I'd like it if they added a daily or weekly challenge feature. There is a sandbox mode with no goals, but I don't find that motivating.
I played Before I Forget, which is a fairly short (just over one hour) game about living with dementia. I enjoyed it, but (minor spoilers), I don't think it needed to have that twist at the end, about the husband. I kind of get that it highlighted how her memories had her remembering the world in a totally different state to what it currently was, but it felt a bit cheap.
I got Imposter Factory and A Bird Story, both part of the series that began with To the Moon. I didn't enjoy A Bird Story as much as the main games, but I didn't expect to. The store page warns you that it's more of an artistic experience than a game, which is why I waited until it was reduced to 84p. Imposter Factory is a bit more like the main series, though it comes at the story from a new angle. I'm about halfway through and I'm finding it's dragging a bit.
I finally finished Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. I first played it as an iPhone game way back around 2011 or 2012. I think it came out on the Nintendo DS first. Back then, I only played the first two chapters, because, if I recall correctly, you had to purchase each chapter seperately. It was £16.48, which wasn't a big reduction, but I really wanted to play it and I've waited long enough.
I also just - as in, a few minutes ago - finished playing No Case Should Remain Unsolved. I cried my eyes out. It is brilliant. My Steam review reads:
It is to my sincere regret that I can only play this game for the first time once.
In gameplay terms, it's a lot like the book Cain's Jawbone - you're putting together the narrative by figuring out who said what when. There are also a few other mechanics which couldn't work in a book. It's easier than Cain's Jawbone because of the interface, and because it wasn't written in the 1930s by the maniac who invented cryptic crosswords.
No Case Should Remain Unsolved wasn't on sale. It cost £5.89 for 2.7 hours of gameplay, which is £2.18 per hour. I usually aim for under 50p per hour as a rule of thumb (based on how much books cost vs how long they take to read) but this was worth it. Plus, I'll probably play it again when I've managed to forget some of the plot.
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