Last month I sat down to start my first Let’s Play since Exit/Corners. I was so excited to get back to recording. Just me, the game, the freedom of recording whenever felt good, and the flexibility of being able to take a moment and edit it out. What I didn’t anticipate was the colossal struggle of deciding what I wanted to play. Often, it is not until you begin a game that you know whether you should have recorded or streamed it, which resulted in me staring at my screen in complete decision paralysis.

Then, all of a sudden – there was a lightbulb. Christmas was coming and there were still a few weeks to prepare if I wanted to do a special series. I was too late for an advent calender scenario (in hindsight after 21 hours of recording, thank goodness), but the 12 Days of Christmas doesn’t start till Christmas day. Score!

I immediatly knew that this would be a perfect opportunity for me to finally try out some different games that I have had my eye on. I decided on Game Pass because games can leave at any time and I rarely have a subscription, so if I wanted to get through some of my ‘Play Later’ list I would need to hustle. I painstakingly managed to whittle the list of 70+ games down to 12, and looking at the result – I was extremely excited about it.

Day 1 – Valheim (Early Access 2021)

Back when this game released – when everyone’s life temporarily became consumed with exploring the mysterious lands, building the fanciest buildings and voyages to collect lost equiptment – I didn’t have access to join in myself. This is probably for the better because I can be known to lose myself to games from time to time. While I think that I barely scratched the surface in my look at the game, I was very pleased to finally have the opportunity to do so.

I definitely wanted to play more when I was done, but I have found that the more games that I have played since then, the less tempted I was to go back. At this point, I have played the beginning of many survival games. Sadly though, it is very rare that I get hooked and while I still could go back to it, it has moved down the priority list far enough that I could be ok leaving it there.

Ranking – Continue playing offline/That’s enough for me.

Day 2 – Undertale (2015)

Undertale was one of those legendary games for me where I feel like I have heard whispers here and there, but in reality knew virtually nothing about it. As a result, the main desire to play it came from a curiosity and ability to add it to my game reference archives rather than excitement to play the actual game itself. That probably heavily adds to the surprise of how much I loved playing this game. Of the titbits that I had heard, not one thing had lead me to believe that this game was going to be half as funny as it is. That alone would be enough for me to continue, but the intrigue to see where it is going is also strong enough that I didn’t want to put it down.

Now that I have completed this series, Undertale is at the bottom of the Let’s Play priority list purely because I feel like it isn’t going to be easy to pick back up. I also have no idea if I have screwed myself with the choices I have made so I am conflicted as to whether I need to do a little research before diving back in. Don’t worry though, I certainly have to see it through at some point.

Ranking – Continue playing online.

Day 3 – As Dusk Falls (2022)

I am so surprised I didn’t jump on this earlier. It feels like an alternative to a Telltale or a Quantic Dream game, which are some of my absolute favourites. Add in that one of the primary genres – at least in the first chapter – is thriller. How did I not play this sooner?! As opposed to a horror narrative like a Supermassive game (Until Dawn, Man of Medan), I can play this and experience making stressful decisions without the need for reassurance and distractions from the atmosphere. That makes this the perfect game for a Let’s Play as it is exactly the type of content that I love to record. I am always curious to what my gut instincts are in these difficult situations and what happens as a result. It is going to be a lot of fun returning to this and the chapters make for good episode dividers which is always handy for me.

Ranking – Continue playing online.

Day 4 – Deaths Door (2022)

I really enjoyed this game. I loved the concept, I loved exploring the weird world and I loved my little character. I certainly want to continue it, the only hesitation I have is the difficulty. I managed well enough with the combat so far, but I am concerned that I will get stuck and drop off, which I don’t like to do with a series that I am sharing if I can help it. If I do continue online it will be a Let’s Play because that means I can edit any repetitive failures into death montages. I am going to play the other games first then reassess, but if you would like to see it then please let me know. Same goes for all the other games in question as if there is external interest then I will make special effort to continue it online.

Ranking – Continue playing online/Continue playing offline.

Day 5 – Citizen Sleeper (2022)

Ahhh, Citizen Sleeper. I was nervous about trying this one as I knew it was going to be a lot of reading. To top it off, I got sick and lost my voice right as this was my next game to play. So, as much as I heard good things, I was entering this one with an ever so slight dread in my mind. It didn’t take long, however, before I was enraptured in the world. You know it is a good game when you want to keep going and going despite the reading out loud. The further I got and the more mechanics I learned, I was more and more won over by the game, leading it to be my favourite in the entire bunch. At the time of this post it is likely that the Let’s Play has already begun as I am planning on continuing this game first! Don’t sleep on it (hur hur hur).

Ranking – Continue playing online.

Day 6 – Signalis (2022)

I tried really hard with this one. This game is well loved by a lot of people and I wanted to see why. It is just unfortunate that in survival horror, both survival and horror stress me out massively. This was the first excessively long video as I knew that once I put the game down it was likely I wouldn’t be able to pick it back up, so I wanted to see as much as I could. All things considered, I think I did pretty well! It is awesome to have the classically influenced genre in an entirely new style. It feels modern and old school at the same time.

The great thing is, as much as I suffer with survival horror, I LOVE watching other people suffer through it. So even though I won’t be continuing the game, I will certainly enjoy watching someone else’s playthrough and enjoy it vicariously.

Ranking – That’s enough for me.

Day 7 – Exo One (2021)

This is another game that I was nervous to record. I had it recommended and wanted to give it a try as it felt like the type of game that could leave the service before I get around to playing it. From what I understood about the game, I was worried that there was going to be a lot of downtime with nothing to talk about. There certainly was a lot of downtime, but each uniquely beautiful environment seemed to offer enough intrigue to fill the gaps, in a game that also seems well suited to some flow state meditative time.

At the time of recording I decided that it was enough. I reached a point that felt appropriate to stop and called it there. However, for a reason that I cant quite put my finger on, this game stayed in my mind. It could be that we made good progress or it could be a fear of missing out, but not finishing it isn’t sitting right with me. So I think I will actually update my ranking from ‘That’s enough for me’ to ‘Continue Offline’.

Ranking – Continue offline/That’s enough for me.

Day 8 – Spore (2008)

This game is adorable. Seeing where we started and where we ended up is so entertaining and fascinating to me. From weird little critter to slightly bigger weird critter, I am still curious to see how far the game goes. The fun part about it is that everyone’s game is going to be slightly different. I am definitely more interested in the evolution and creation than the rest of the gameplay, but it kept a pace so that you were never far away from your next adaptation. The rest of the gameplay was made more interesting by the other weird critters that you can meet. I am unsure why the game isn’t calling me back, but at the same time I don’t think I can uninstall it until I’ve at least played a little more.

Ranking – Continue playing offline/That’s enough for me.

Day 9 – Kentucky Route Zero (2013)

It is funny how there are so many individual things that I like about this one, but as a whole it didn’t really capture my attention or imagination. I enjoyed the freedom of being able to talk to people then explore the map, seeking out the places they talked about. It felt fantastic that I found a place that was just mentioned off hand when my objective was to go elsewhere. The issue was that I didn’t really feel any pay off from it. Things were weird but I don’t know why they were weird, and even whether to expect any explanations or just more weird.

The thing I liked the most was the art style. It is distinctively simple and effective, and I loved the use of shapes. I am still interested in continuing the game, I am just unsure whether I should record it as there is no way of knowing whether it is going to fall flat for me or not. It will be interesting to see how it developed over the years, but I can see that by playing it myself. Do let me know if you would like to see more.

Ranking – Continue playing online/Continue playing offline.

Day 10 – No Man’s Sky (2016)

For whatever reason, I did not expect this game to be such a survival game. I knew it was about exploration but it has all the fundamentals that I have seen in survival games before. The great thing about this though is that you can customise to your heart’s content.

I did enjoy my time with it but I am beginning to think that survival games in general aren’t for me. The introductions and tutorials tend to either be very long and by the time I get freedom I have had enough, or very short with no direction and I lose patience trying to figure it out. That, combined with either a lack of a beginning direction or a lack of an end goal and I should probably conclude that I am not the target audience for the genre. Having said all of that, I am glad to see that this game turned everything around from release and has turned into a vast game with lots to discover, should you choose to.

Ranking – That’s enough for me.

Day 11 – Opus: Echo of Starsong (2021)

I am not sure whether it comes through on the video – I think I hid it well enough – but I honestly shouldn’t have recorded on this day. I did it because I was on a schedule but I was so exhausted, I probably should have rescheduled. Having said that, if there was any game that I could have played while feeling that way it was this one. The story moved along at a good pace to stay engaged. The world was fictional enough to capture the imagination yet familiar enough with its politics. It was easy to play, nice to look at and is told from a perspective that I feel is more common in movies than games, which happens to work very well in my opinion. The characters are imperfect which makes choices fun, and I definitely would like to see more of the story. It is just a huge shame that the voice acting isn’t in English. Please let me know if you would like to see more of this one.

Ranking – Continue playing online/Continue playing offline.

Day 12 – Tunic (2022)

Tunic swooped in at the end there to claim the title of my second favourite game in this series. It is very similar to Death’s Door in genre, gameplay and perspective, but with an entirely different vibe. Both of these games have similarities to the Souls series and as a fan from a distance, it is wonderful to get to have the things I like about that series in a game that is more my style. The exploration and level design is wonderful, and the lack of direct information elevates the achievement of figuring something out, as well as the mystery of the land. It is colourful, satisfying, and the accessibility features give me the confidence to definitely pursue this one as a Let’s Play. I cannot wait to get back in there and find a god damn shield!

Ranking – Continue playing online.

The best part about doing this series is not only that I got to experience so many games, but it has also given me a great insight in to the types of games that I would like to play on the channel. Since then, I have created a bigger list of games that I would like to record, so I have plenty of options when my Game Pass runs out. This has been an experiment, a challenge and a joy all at once, and I am so glad that I managed to get it finished in the planned timescale without sacrificing any quantity or quality (I did sacrifice my Christmas Eve so rip to that, but it was worth it). I hope you guys had at least some of the fun that I had. Thankfully, this was just the beginning. I now have the pleasure of actually playing these games!

Definitely continuing as Let’s Plays

• Undertale
• As Dusk Falls
• Citizen Sleeper
• Tunic

Potentially continuing as Let’s Plays

• Death’s Door
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Opus: Echo of Starsong

Along side this post I am going to run some Twitter Polls to see if I can gauge interest in the games I am unsure about so please look out for those!

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