I’ve kind of been dancing around this topic for awhile now, since like many gamers my backlog is a point of pride and shame. I’m not alone in this, just about every gamer I know has a backlog, that despite our best efforts never seems to get any smaller. In fact, backlogs tend to do the exact opposite.
I’d like to blame sales for my ridiculous backlog, I mean really it’s criminal to let a Steam Sale go by without buying anything and some publishers have taken to hosting release day sales in hopes of boosting their initial sales stats. The system is rigged to promote sales, I know this and yet, I can’t help myself… I am a willing participant yet another Capitalist scheme…
Each new game I buy is a testament to my savvy consumer skills. I tell myself, it’s okay to buy X game, because it was only X amount of dollars. I mean buying a game for 35% off has to be better than getting it for full price… right? At least that’s what I tell myself. So I happily shell out cash on games I know I’ll never have the time to actually play.
And there in lies the problem…
I have a habit of buying games knowing full well I’ll never have time to play them all. So most of my shiny new game acquisitions spend a considerable amount of time collecting dust deep in the recesses of my backlog. I even have a few physical games that are still in the original shrink wrap, literally collecting dust…
I’ve been working on taming my backlog, I play my Vita and Mobile Games on my commute to and from work. I hold off on buying newly released games unless I intend on playing them right away and I limit myself to a handful of game sales a year. It’s not a perfect system, some days I’d rather binge watch Law and Order SVU for the 15th time or maybe I get roped into a social activity or hell, maybe I’m just not in the mood for gaming. Then there are those moments of weakness when a new game is released and FOMO is too strong to ignore. I fold like a cheap suit; I buy the game and then… I add it to the pile of untouched games, the silent specters that haunt my backlog.
I’ve read all the articles on managing your backlog, even created a profile on Backloggery (which I don’t update) but, at the end of the day my backlog grows ever larger with each new year. It’s a work in progress. But, the first step is admitting I have a backlog problem… So, here are the games in my backlog (at least I think this is all of them):
- 1931: Scheherazade at the Library of Pergamum
- Animal Lover
- Backstage Pass
- Blood Code
- Break Chance Memento
- Cafe 0 ~The Sleeping Beast~
- Date Warp
- East Tower
- Grand Kokoro – Episode 1
- Hakuoki Kyoto Winds
- Hakuoki Edo Blossoms
- Hustle Cat
- Kokorogawari
- Lost in Secular Love
- The Men of Yoshiwara: Kikuya
- The Men of Yoshiwara: Ohigiya
- Miracle Mia
- My Butler
- Nameless~ The One Thing You Must Recall~
- Panzer Hearts
- Pastry Lovers
- Perceptions of the Dead
- Solstice
- Sounds of Verity
- Tales From Windy Meadow
- A Winter’s Daydream
- XOXO Droplets
- Enzai
- Dot Kareshi II
- Dot Kareshi III
- Rose of Winter
- Ozmafia!!
- Aloners
- Dramatical Murder Reconnect
- Empty Horizons
- Hierofania
- Ikusei Nikki
- Infurubia
- Lamento
- Magical Otoge Anholly
- Magical Otoge Ciel
- Princess Nightmare
- Code Realize
- Code Realize Wintertide Miracle
- Zero Time Dilemma
- Ace Attorney Trials and Tribulations
- Steins Gate
- Steins Gate 0
- The World Ends With You
- Persona 4 Golden
- Note Zero
- Apollo Justice
- Seiyuu Danshi
- Heaven’s Grave
- Red Embrace: Hollywood
- Belong
- Naked Butlers
- The House in Fata Morgana
- Root Letter
- Shelled Flame
- Along the Edge
- Blood and Lust
- Scarlet Fate
- Scarlet Fate II
- Pirates
- Princess Arthur
- Eternal Vows
- Mononoke Kiss
- Destined to Love
- When Love Comes Knocking
- Kings of Paradise
- Her Love in the Force
- Diary of a Step-Sister
- Our Private Homeroom
- Mind Zero
- Hyper Dimension Neptunia
*note: I have multiple character routes from every Voltage Inc game… but, listing them would double this list… so they’ve been omitted*
I kind of want to use this to hold myself accountable for the games in my backlog, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m probably going to add to this list more than I’ll take away from it. *shrugs noncommittally* So, I want to hear from you guys, tell me about your backlogs! Whether you have a backlog of games, anime, manga, books… whatever, I wanna hear from you guys… We’re in this fight together, besides it’s nice to know I’m not the only one hiding a massive backlog…
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I do have a backlog, but I have a habit of going “oh, this looks shiny” and watch those instead. Sometimes the backlog is full of shiny things, sometimes it isn’t.
Yeah, I do the same thing, I’ll pull a game out play a few minutes and then let it run in the background while I do something else.
I did play some of your backlog
-1931: one of my fav game but it not complete. I truly sad that they cancel their 1932 pj.
-Animal Lover, Ikusei Nikki, Dot Kareshi, Magical Otoge, Kokorogawari, Break Chance Memento, Pastry Lover aresuitable if you wanna find some fun, something short for a break. Although the english trans for Pastry Lover pretty lame haha. My fav is those game is Magical Otoge.
-Nameless kinda connect to Dandelion. Most of my friends told me it really sleepy but I don’t think so. It’s good and I still hate wizard as ever.
-The house in Fata Morgana IS THE BEST VN I’VE EVER PLAYED! It’s really long but worth every minute I swear. The only game I vote 10/10 on vndb. JUST DO IT!
-Backstage Pass & Blood code: Eyes candy raising stat game but just that. They’re boring (character interact & plot just lame. BP better than BC a little though).
-Senyuu Danshi: Healthy and cute BL game with wonderful feature (I wish every raising stat game do have day skip feature like that. I love stat raising but it really tired each replay).
-Red Embrace Hollywood: A very very dark game but I like it. One of the most beautiful game to me. And please play it with mind set “this have no good end”. Ah, and not-so-good sex scene (because the dev don’t want to write a sex scene but the fan req it, it kinda feel like “there, your sex scene” lol)
-Cafe 0 Sleeping Beast: Best Roseverte game (it’s ok).
-Date warp: Old but gold game, it’s not bad even you compare it with 2019 games.
-Solstice & Along the Edge: If you like interact game like… nonstop then you will like them both. They have many many many of choice.
-Root Letter: THIS IS A TRAVEL GAME NOT MYSTERY GAME. The game plot just bullshiet. ESPECIALLY THE TRUE END.
-XOXO Droplets: I don’t like any of them. But look at those jerk interact kinda amuse me.
-Heaven’s Grave: This one is… so-so I guess? I only played Kien route since I only like him lol The heroine pretty good.
I didn’t play them, my friend rev it
-Lost in Secular Love: mon is a black list theme to me so I won’t touch it. But my friend said this game really good.
-The Men of Yoshiwara: One word – kusoge
-Ozmafia!!: NTR the game.
First let me say that that is really impressive! I need to get on your level and start finishing these games LOL
I’ve nibbled on most of these games, but I never seem to have enough time to finish any of them. I played two routes in Yoshiwara and then dropped it, same for XOXO Droplets, Nameless, and OZMAFIA.
I only play Seiyu Danshi when I have nothing else to do, because the stats raising kill my soul.
The others I haven’t really touched, I’m just waiting for the mood to strike me really
If you feel stats raising killing your soul then you should check save editor online! (some of my friend use it as lazy solution) And Seiyuu Danshi event have day skip so it really convenient! Just take all of the event and cg then skip to last day hahaha.
To 1931, if you find it too hard (yes, it is one of the hardest stats game ever, much much harder than TMGS1 to me) then you should pick up the cheat file (ppl make it somewhere I don’t remember, bcs it’s too hard LOL).
I have to be in the mood for them. I free play my first few playthroughs of a game, the struggle makes it more organic LOL but I’ll keep that in mind
I like Seiyuu Danshi, but it’s like Storm Lover so I’m just taking my sweet time with it. It covers a whole year, so I’ll just play in small bursts.
I haven’t touched 1931 yet, so I don’t know how it is (it was an impulse buy 😛 ) I’ll get to it eventually, but thanks for the tip, I’ll just see how the first playthrough goes and decide from there
damn I thought I had an otome/game problem (211 steam games ftw!)
Good luck! I’m on a game buying ban so I feel you. I have love-hate relationship with sales lol. What helped me curb my impulse (I’m an impulse buyer lolol) was the advice — if it’s on sale BUT you don’t need it/will play it right away, it’s expensive.
You know, I thought about doing a No Buy November… but I failed day 1, so I gave up on that one LOL
But, your advice is definitely something I should consider. I tend to buy a lot of games and let them sit…
I’ve just realized that I’ve already broken my ban when I bought Hashihime… oops
And I’m most likely going to break it again when TaiAli is released lmao.
Ya know, that game got me too… it’s like they released it specifically to test our wills… lol
I think I wanted to reply to this post one time, but I was on public transport and forgot about it…
So I do have a games backlog, but it’s mostly restricted to demos and things I can get for free (so I save my money for other stuff)…I just don’t talk about it because, as a blogger of those things, anime and manga are my priority.
I’ve played the Kokorogawari demo and Ikusei Nikki – the latter was one of my first VNs and a short stats raiser, but it gave me a bit of a disdain towards stats raisers in general (they’re grindy once you’ve figured out part of the achievements/endings and get stuck on the rest). IIRC, Kokorogawari isn’t too intensive – the protag was great, but I wanted to find out more about Guillam.
I seem to remember Yuuya was more my guy, but he was underdeveloped in what I got so I liked Shinichi more.
My own backlog is…mostly fuelled by your Thrifty Thursdays, come to think of it. I have a small list of games I want to finish, so my backlog is Days of the Divine, Cliche, Area X, plus Obey Me and Ayakashi (across 2 devices, plus a bunch of desktop games I don’t remember names of). I got stuck on several (Valentine’s Otome, Christmas Otome, Pokemon Fusion Generation, 2048 and an RPG Maker version of Rising of the Shield Hero) which don’t help at all…notably, I don’t delete things off my backlog list until they’re 100% complete or I can’t possibly progress any further.
Kokorogawari is a game that has a LOT of drama surrounding it (and the creators) so it’s more or less relegated to a “I’ll play it when I have absolutely nothing else to play” game. Which is a shame, because like you said the heroine is definitely interesting.
LOLOLOL well I am glad my Thrifty Thursday posts are doing their job XD You definitely have an extensive backlog and I wish you much success with completing it. I would love to implement the same 100% clear method, but then I’d never get any games off my list lol