TSS#37 – Five Games Challenge

What games would I choose if I only had five games available to me? What’s this “challenge” Naithin of timetoloot.com is taking part in? Why are we doing this at all?

Well, today’s Stray Sheep is about these questions and my thoughts on the topic, on top of my selection! Enjoy :)

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On the 5th of October, twitter user @Octav1usKitten published this tweet here, kicking off a “challenge” of sorts, where one has to pick five games to play for a whole year! Later on The Gaming Diaries, they made a post, listing their choice of games, which lead to quite a lot of people in our nice little Blaugust-community to share lists of their own and… well, then there’s Naithin. 

Naithin from timetoloot.com went as far as creating an actual challenge of playing only those five games for the entirety of November (and maybe even later on as well?), which you may look up the hither side of the internet.

If you’re interested in doing anything like that, go check out his rules. If you’re interested in seeing what it’s like to limit oneself to only five games, check out Naithin’s blog. 

Anyways, while this is surely interesting, I thought about making a post about my theory of the best game-combination and then submitting a list of my own to the world wide web! 

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So, at first, I’d like to say that it’s hard for me to stick to one game for a great time-span. My steam library shows it as most of my games are around the 6- to 9-hour mark. Usually, I get bored with a game or need to take a break from it after a few hours of total game time and then a rather long break happens and I forget the controls and mechanics and then some real-life-stuff happens and I suddenly won’t play a game anymore. That happened in Assassin’s Creed 1’s case (RIP Late to the Party #3) and it also happened to a ton of other games. (I’ll get to it in the future for sure, though!)

Hence, if I were to make a list of games to play, I’d probably have to not only cover a vast range of genres in those five games but also make it a list of games that I could replay a ton! 

So, I think, that the challenge behind playing only five games for a year is the fact that you need a certain amount of variety in it. A variety in Genres isn’t needed, in my opinion, though! I think the trick to “surviving on five games for a whole year” (as someone who plays games a lot more than a “normie”, of course) is being able to play the heck out of those games and to have a variety between pairs of games and not between the genres.

Off to my list then!

1 – My first game would be a rogue-like to make things different on each run!

Thanks to procedural generation and some other mechanics there’s a new challenge after every death! Rogue-likes usually feature a ton of different combinations of powerful items to make every run special while also providing one with a rather simple approach on the story/plotline!

Therefore I’m choosing Enter The Gungeon!

It’s a bullet-hell-type of twin-stick-shooter/rogue-like game with a few different characters, a ton of different guns, and even more puns! I haven’t played too much of it for quite some time (and it received a lot of updates in that time) which is why I’m still rather new to it and will have to learn everything again!

Honourable mentions would be: The Binding of Isaac Rebirth/Afterbirth, Dead Cells, Cultist Simulator, Nuclear Throne, Risk of Rain 2, and Slay The Spire.

2 – For this game I would choose a story-heavy RPG that features a lot of stuff to do.

An Open-World-title would be great here, too, especially as there’s a lot of Loot-Shooters (like the Borderlands franchise) that would cover those points.

I’m choosing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for this one!

I’ve never played “through” Skyrim and usually only took certain sides, did certain quests and never tried the other side of the same game! Also there’s DLCs that I’ve never touched on top of MODS that I’ve never installed. I know people that have sank in about a thousand hours (or even more at this point!) into Skyrim and I guess that Skyrim would be great as the second game.

In Contrast to Enter The Gungeon there’s a lot less puns (if any at all) in Skyrim which is a bit of a bummer (jk) but there’s a lot more options when it comes to character customization, role-play, stories, and choices! I feel like this would be important when it comes to the challenge here. When you’re tired of “too much story” or when you don’t have too much time, you go for a rogue-like-run. When you’ve got more time or you’re frustrated with the random aspects, just tune into Skyrim with a lot more scripted events, weird and funny bu- I mean, features… and a bigger world!

Hounourable mentions: Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Breathedge, and Warframe!

3 – For the third game I’d choose a competitive game that can be played with friends and that features a high skill cap!

Competitive games usually demand a lot of people, like map awareness, high APM, map knowledge, game knowledge, good decision making, and a ton more. In shooter games you’ve got to be good at aiming and know a lot about different strategies, for instance. I mostly play RTS or MOBA games when it comes to competitive games, though…

Therefore my choice here is League of Legends.

Well, I already play it almost every day for a round or two after uni, so I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to guess that I’d include this title. I only reached Gold IV this season, hence there’s plenty of leg-room for improvement and training to do. I’m also missing only about 8 champions and there’re many champs that I haven’t played at all, yet, so maybe there’s some more I like, on top of new champions coming out soon, including the new Support-Marksman, Senna.

As a Support-Main, there’s also a lot then I can learn in the Role-Department. I play Mid-Lane and ADC sometimes and am rather average on those lanes. Occassionally I try myself at Jungling (as it’s basically a Support for the whole map) and my worst lane is the Top Lane, mostly as I find it rather boring (being isolated from the rest of the map and all of that^^).

I enjoy playing LoL and I like the community, so I won’t go into the whole “Supporting a company full of bad people”-debate. There’s cool and inclusive rioters for sure at Riot Games, just like there’s probably good Blizzard employees.. and I doubt that there’re any companies in the video game industry that are inherently good or inherently bad.

Honourable mentions would be: Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft 2, and, I guess, Overwatch.

4 – For this I’d choose a game that you can play for a great amount of time with, again, a ton of things to do without any pressure.

Competitive game can be tilting, frustrating and stressful, hence a relaxed game would be great complement to those. On one side there’s League of Legends…

…and then there’s Stardew Valley!

I. Love. It. 

I guess that Graveyard Keeper is scratching the same needs while also being a lot darker and recently having a tavern added to it on top of other updates… but sadly, Graveyard Keeper is finite while Stardew Valley’s “story” is infinite with always something to do and plenty of updates coming rather frequently!

Hence, honourable mentions: Graveyard Keeper, Autonauts, Forager, and Diablo 3 (I find the grinding rather relaxing in D3, tbh).

5 – Anything goes, hence my choice here is Monster Hunter World:

It has cool fights, awesome armours, weapons and also the Palico Cats that support you and are rather cute! There’s also some RPG aspects, challenging content and a wide range of weapons!

I’d also be able to support friends using that support-horn-thingy (yep, I haven’t played it, yet, but I love all MHW-Streams and -Videos, I’ve seen so far, and I can’t wait to play it with some friends from my old school).

The last game (in my theory) is a game that one can sink a lot of time into for the sake of enjoying it. Something you haven’t covered yet, something that you like, something that you haven’t played enough of. You can add another genre, stack more genres, whatever, as long as you enjoy it. (Or rather, I found this the most efficient thing to do)

Honourable mentions: Nier; Automata, Warframe, Risk of Rain 2, Minecraft, Terraria, Hearthstone, and Dungeon Of The Endless.

So there’s a plot-less game, a plot-heavy game, a competitive game, a relaxed game, and finally, a game one loves to bits that one can play all year long.

So, this is my idea of the best way of choosing games. Of course, “rogue-likes” aren’t necessarily the way to go for everyone but you can surely change that out for a card game, a racing game, a phone game or anything else that scratches your urges and is rather lite on the story but offers a ton of replay value. The second game would cover the need for interesting plots and lore on top of the RPG-needs^^

What are your thoughts on these? Is there anything that you’d choose differently or would your choice/strategy be similar? 

Also, on the last note, I won’t participate in a challenge like this at all….or rather not at this point. As I want to proceed with reviews on this blog, I’d like to not be limited to five games only for a year, as that’d mean that there’d be, at max, five reviews! Or at least some other kinds of content that I’m not quite sure of yet. At least, I wouldn’t be able to show off some of those nice Indie Games out there.

Anyways, feel free to discuss my “strategy” and my choice of games or even submit your list of games! Also check out King Octav1us, Naithin, and The Gaming Diaries!

Have a nice day :)

Note: I changed the Header to now just say “TSS#xx” instead of “The Stray Sheep #xx” as I thought that’d be a bit better. Any thoughts on that?

I’m taking part in this year’s #IntPiPoMo. If you’d like to participate or get to know the other participants, feel free to check this post out!