Looking Back On Backlogtober 2015

This was my Everest, and I was... whatever the game-playing equivalent of an Ice Climber is

Well folks, it's been a really interesting month. For those of you who may have missed it (although I'm not sure how you could, given how uncharacteristically ubiquitous I've been this month), I should probably explain. Throughout October I've been participating in something dubbed 'Backlogtober', a borderline masochistic initiative to clear as many games from my backlog as possible before the end of the month. I came up with the idea in mid-September, after my Pile of Shame grew close to the impossible milestone of two hundred titles. I set about preparing by creating a shortlist of ten titles to play, and made some early in-roads by cutting a handful of the more undesirable prospects from the list altogether.

On the eve of Backlogtober, with my shortlist complete and a rough plan in place, I didn't have very high hopes for my prospects of success. I don't have a great track record for completing video games in a timely fashion, largely due to my tendency to buy more games than I have the time to play, and my typically methodical, exploratory play style. I figured I'd be lucky to make it through half a dozen titles before the end of October, still a huge victory by my usual standards, and feel good for having had a decent crack at trying to do something about my impregnable backlog.

With its short running time and enjoyable campaign, Brothers set the tone for the entirety of Backlogtober

What actually happened was something altogether more spectacular. Instead of running out of steam or abandoning the project altogether, as I'd feared I might, I hit the ground running on October 1st and didn't look back. From the done-in-one experience of playing Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons on the very first day, I carried a determined attitude right through Backlogtober, defeating games purposefully, comprehensively and, against all odds, ahead of schedule. One game in one day became two in three, and then three in seven, and so on. I hit my cautious prediction of six games beaten in just thirteen days, less than halfway through the allocated time, and one of those games wasn't even originally included in the shortlist for the initiative. Progress did start to slow a little after that, but I'm not sure if that was due to me shifting down a gear or simply because the scheduled games ended up being a little longer overall than the first few. Whatever the reason, I was still able to beat a further five titles through the back end of the month, taking my total number of games beaten in October to eleven.

Eleven games beaten in a single month is a frankly ludicrous figure. I don't think I've ever beaten that many games in such a short space of time before - hell, I don't even think I've managed half of that in the same time frame up until now. Admittedly, circumstances conspired to make this achievement possible - I purposefully chose mostly short games to maximise my impact on my Pile of Shame, I allowed some of my other commitments like darts and creative writing to take a backseat this month, and I had a week of annual leave early on in the endeavour which gave me a decent chunk of gaming time I wouldn't have otherwise had. But whichever way you spin it, I still think beating eleven games in thirty-one days is hugely impressive, especially given my usual gaming demeanour. I'm proud of myself for sticking to my guns and exceeding my own expectations.

Burial at Sea is the best BioShock characters in the best BioShock setting. More thoughts to follow later

As I'm writing this, there's still a little of Backlogtober left, but not enough time for me to realistically consider adding to the tally. I'd hoped that in the last few days of the month I'd be able to put paid to one more title, and the one I chose was BioShock Infinite's Burial at Sea DLC. I downloaded both episodes earlier this year, made a mental note to check them out in the near future, and then promptly dropped that note down the back of the metaphorical sofa that is my mind. When it became apparent that I was going to have a bit of time left over at the end of the month, I recovered that note, smoothed out the creases and filed it with the others. I did manage to clear the first episode and I've put maybe an hour into the second at this point, but there's no way I'm going to finish it before the clock strikes midnight and Backlogtober officially comes to an end. I'll still be seeing it through to completion, but it'll be a November conquest rather than part of the temporarily envisioned 'backlogger's dozen'. That means I'll be saving any in-depth analysis on it for another blog, at another time, maybe even in another reality.

So coming out of this whole Backlogtober business, how exactly do the numbers stack up at this point? Let's take a look, shall we?

Here is a pie chart, because STATISTICS!

• Before I started Backlogtober, my Pile of Shame stood at 197 unfinished video games.
• I managed to get rid of ELEVEN games from the list during the preliminary cull phase, reducing the total to 186.
• Through Backlogtober I managed to beat every single one of the ten games I shortlisted, in addition to cutting ties with another four unbeaten games. This all correlates to a net reduction of FOURTEEN further games, meaning an overall cut of TWENTY-FIVE titles that left the Pile of Shame 172 games high.
• Unfortunately that's not the end of the story. Throughout October I picked up a smattering of new games that have pushed the total back up. I bought TEN titles in all, taking the grand total back up to 182 games.
• While I also played Lara Croft Go to completion this month, it was a brand new purchase that I didn't own before the initiative began. Therefore, its purchase and completion have no bearing on the totals above.

All this means that my Pile of Shame fell overall, a net reduction of fifteen games thanks to my Backlogtober efforts. That's fantastic, but it doesn't change the fact that there's a clear weakness here - while I really ramped up my game-clearing, I did absolutely nothing about my tendency to buy cheap games with a view to playing them at a later date. That's a real problem here, and one of the key reasons that I ended up in this mess in the first place. While Backlogtober has been an incredible symptomatic cure, cutting down on my backlog by beating games, I feel like I also need to make a long-term change to prevention of this problem. That's why, from here on out, I'm committing to buying no more than one video game per month. If I can cut down my acquisition of video games as well as beating more of the titles I already own, then I should be able to make even deeper in-roads into my Pile of Shame, and at an even faster rate.

Now that's over, let's do it all again! But with writing this time! Because I hate myself!

I'm keen to apply the work ethic I brought to Backlogtober to something else - preferably something a little more constructive, challenging and personally enriching than playing video games. That's why, beginning tomorrow, I'll be enrolling in my first ever NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is a contraction of National Novel Writing Month, an annual event that encourages prospective novelists to hammer out a fifty-thousand word manuscript in the thirty days of November. It's a demanding but exciting prospect that combines my love of creative writing with some of the discipline and determination that I've managed to maintain throughout Backlogtober. I have a decent idea of what I'll be writing - I'm going to attempt a children's adventure story, and I have my protagonist, antagonist and the rough structure of the journey mostly conceived. Beyond that I suspect it'll be a very organic writing project, with the finer points of the narrative taking shape spontaneously as I go. I don't expect the result to be anything like my finest work, but if it gets me back into the habit of writing regularly and at length then I'll consider it a success regardless of the quality of the finished product.

Say hi to the newest member of my console family

One thing that's likely to make NaNoWriMo particularly challenging for me is my acquisition of a current generation games console. After a couple of years waiting in the wings to see how the new machines stacked up, I finally took the plunge and ordered myself a PlayStation 4, which arrived earlier today. It's the 1TB model that I mentioned in my previous blog, bundled with Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Watch_Dogs, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and a PlayStation TV. Obviously it's early days and I haven't spent much time with it yet, but my early impressions have been overwhelmingly positive. I dabbled with AC Syndicate for an hour or so and was blown away by the graphical fidelity, even if on a superficial level it didn't feel all that different from the other Assassin's Creed games I've played. I've also fallen head over heels in love with the concept of the Share button, and I can see myself getting a lot of use out of it grabbing screenshots and snippets of gameplay to use in future blogs. I'm pretty sure I can keep myself in check and focus on the writing for the time being, but that's going to become exponentially more difficult when Fallout 4 releases on November 10th. Wish me luck folks! Oh, and if anyone wants to exchange friend requests, feel free to seek me out (I'm 'DanK1990' on the PlayStation Network), or leave your PSN ID in the comments below and I'll hit you up next time I log in.

I'm going to bring this blog to a close here, and Backlogtober 2015 with it. It's been one hell of a journey, and as much as I'm proud of what I've achieved, I'm also glad to be leaving such an intense period of video-gamery behind. I've definitely learned from the experience, and hopefully I'll be able to apply some of that to my game-playing in future in the hopes of continuing to whittle down my menacing mountain of unfinished games. Hell, I could even see myself turning this into an annual thing, and bringing it back next year for Backlogtober 2016. Thanks very much for reading, duders. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2 (X360)