Monthly Update #1: The First of Many!

January 2025

Hey guys, welcome to my first monthly update! I’m not entirely sure how these are going to be structured, I’m just kind of winging this one. I expect it’ll be more of a recap with fun stats and less nitty-gritty game details. Let’s get started as usual with my game acquisitions.

Game Acquisitions

A total of 56 games were added to my backlog last month. I’m curious to see how this fluctuates from month-to-month. I’m especially curious to see how my spending fluctuates from month-to-month as well. I wanted to figure out a way to graph my acquisitions and spending week-to-week for the month, but it wouldn’t be a fair comparison since months aren’t divisible by an equal number of weeks. Darn you Gregorian calendar! If anyone has any fun graph ideas, please let me know. As far as hobbies go, I think spending $38 is on the extreme low end. I spent more than that on dinner and a show! I really think gaming is one of the cheapest hobbies you can get into, but I’ll hold off on saying that until I have more data.

# of Games: 56

Total Money Spent: $38.09

Price/Game: $0.68

Game Recaps

As expected, my single-player game took up way more of my time than my co-op game. I am bummed that I didn’t beat anything last month. It’s been two months now since I’ve had a game completion. I really want to start incorporating reviews into my posts but I can’t do that until I actually beat something. I think this chart will also be interesting with more than two games. I expect this to be on the low end for game time for a whole month as well, hopefully that picks up this month.

I’m not sure how to succinctly recap everything I did in my games for the entire month. Read my weekly posts for in-depth coverage. In Fall of Porcupine, I’ve moved into a new town, started my job as a junior doctor at the local hospital, made some friends both at the hospital and in town, grieved, and started uncovering a hospital conspiracy. In Final Profit, I built up my shop in the city, met my early demise in quite a few premature endings, uncursed a few trinkets, cemented my position as a Lord of Business, was welcomed back on the council in my hometown of Faeona where I took on the role of treasurer, and entered the capital for the first time. A very productive list of events if I do say so myself. In lieu of just posting all the clips again, please enjoy these playlists of all the clips I’ve made in these games so far.

 

TV/Movie Recaps

Here is everything I watched last month:

·       Marvel’s What If…? Season 3 Episodes 3-8 (complete)

·       FLCL (complete)

·       American Dad Season 21 Episodes 11-14

·       Firefly (complete)

·       Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Episodes 1-2 (still watching, show ended)

·       Gun Gale Online Season 2 (complete)

·       Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Episode 1 (still watching, show ended)

·       Barton Fink

·       Rushmore

·       127 Hours

·       Barefoot Gen

·       Barefoot Gen 2

·       Serenity

I finished four shows last month, including two full series completions with FLCL and Firefly. Not bad! I finished six movies as well. I usually go for one movie a week, but I tend to link TV tie-in movies with their respective shows and watch them together, so Serenity upped my average here. I think I enjoyed everything I watched this month to some extent, although I definitely liked some more than others. Will lowlights and highlights be an interesting thing to add here? Is lowlights even a word? It is now! Let’s give it a shot. I won’t be counting anything I haven’t finished yet. This goes for games as well, which is why I didn’t bring it up in that section. For lowlights, I’ll unfortunately have to give it to Firefly for shows and Barefoot Gen 2 for movies. I still really liked Firefly though, don’t get me wrong. I think that speaks to how great my TV shows for the month were. Barefoot Gen 2 wasn’t bad, it just felt like an unnecessary sequel to a very powerful movie. The studio itself may have felt the same way because unlike the first film, this one never received an English dub. My highlights are probably What If…? for shows and Serenity for movies. I’m still a big Marvel fan, even though I understand the quality has dipped since the Infinity Saga ended. What If…? Season 1 was great, with a lot of in-jokes for die-hard fans. I felt that Season 2 fell flat on its face and wasn’t very good. Season 3 brought it back somewhat and had a satisfying conclusion, so I’m happy with it. Too bad it was the last season. In a weird turn of events, my favorite movie was probably the tie-in for my “least” favorite show. Again, Firefly was still very good, and I felt that Serenity had a satisfying conclusion to it. I can only imagine how Firefly would’ve evolved if it was given a few more seasons.

Conclusion/Upcoming

As a stats nerd, I find it interesting to put into words everything I played, bought, and watched for a whole month. It was also much easier to put together than the weeklies since I didn’t have to separately go through game footage, edit it all together, upload it, and incorporate it throughout the post. Future monthlies will incorporate month-to-month charts that compare game time and monthly spending. If I can think of anything else that would make an interesting chart, I’ll add those too.

For upcoming games, I expect I’ll beat Fall of Porcupine this month, although as a co-op playthrough that’s harder to predict. It’s a relatively short game though and we’re 14 hours in. HLTB suggests a Main+Sides run takes 11 hours and a Completionist run takes 16 hours. Since I started tracking my game time in 2023, I’ve noticed my completions tend to be on the slower end of the site stats. I likely won’t go for a full Completionist run since that would require replaying sections of the story (or maybe the whole thing, not sure) for achievements which I don’t really feel like doing. I doubt this game has chapter select to quickly grab any achievements I missed. I expect one or two more sessions to beat the game. Then I can write my first review! I don’t think I’ll beat Final Profit this month. I’m 27 hours in and HLTB suggests 46.5 hours for a Main+Sides run. Who knows, maybe my game time will really pick up and I’ll breeze through it. I’m really liking it though, I don’t want to rush things.

For TV shows, I expect to get through Skeleton Crew, Skull Island, Cowboy Bebop, and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. After that, I’ll need to pick out a completed series or two from my backlog. Maybe Snowpiercer? For movies, I’ve got The Boy and The Heron, Stardust, The Fifth Element, and Dark City coming up. I know a little bit about The Boy and The Heron but know nothing about the others. How exciting!

I’m hoping at some point this month, I’ll get a new graphics card and switch over to my new PC. It should be a substantial upgrade. I’ll definitely keep you guys updated when that happens. Thank you for reading my first of many monthly posts! Look out for my regularly scheduled weekly post tomorrow!

Backlog total: 3,061