Best Of

Plantera

I wouldn't really call this a "clicker" game, as it's more of just an incremental "collection" game where you can grow, or not grow, your garden. You can pick fruit and vegetables, or not. You can chase away rabbits and foxes, or leave them be. There's not much "game" here, but it IS a relaxing and adorable incremental game where you can lazily achievement hunt and earn Steam trading cards. If the idea of a simple game where you can invest 5 minutes or an hour a day to see cute animals and plants grow on your screen appeals to you, this is definitely worth $3. I like the idea of paying for the game and not having to be worried about microtransactions.

Adorable

So I decided to shine the light of my benevolence on Icrontia. It was a very harsh few years, and more people froze and starved to death, but they sacrificed for the greater good. I dismantled the far-flung settlement, demolished the structures, brought things back in and hunkered down for a few years... and suddenly nomads arrived and the population began flourishing again. Now, Icrontia is a thriving village (and my most successful of the four different games I'm running)

Banished

I didn't want to like this game, but I fell for it... hard.

I started playing Banished a year or two ago. I launched it, started my little colony, and had almost everyone die after the first winter.

I tried again, and survived to maybe the second winter, and then everybody starved to death. I just wasn't good at it.

Recently, I decided to crack my knuckles and try again. The little village of Icrontia started the same as the others; a handful of Banished exiles, a cart full of wood, stone, and iron... some seeds, and a rich and verdant forest before us.

I told the villagers to lay down the foundation of a house and a built a fishing dock on the river. They are industrious folk, and they complied. I built them houses. I made them gather fish and plant seeds. I told them to gather herbs, hunt deer, and built them a barn. They began cutting firewood and making rudimentary tools. I built them a school. I built them a marketplace to trade goods. After a few years, a wandering trader showed up with exotic seeds from far-off lands, and cattle, and chickens. I traded furs and wood, and the Icrontians saw bounty. They planted orchards and fields and even began brewing ale from pears and apples.
The village grew, children grew up, people went peacefully in old age, and babies were born.

Then, I grew too bold.

I began exploring a bountiful, far-off valley. I decided to expand my settlement. I built a long road and set down a homestead and a hunting shack. The frontier was indeed bountiful but the trek back to the village was long and hard. My people, ever willing to comply, literally began working themselves to death in order to fulfill my whims and dreams of a far-flung civilization.

The population plummeted; people starved and froze to death; the resources of their labor sent off to another land to appease their ceaseless god.

I closed the file and started a new village from scratch. Fuck 'em.

Sorry, Carley.

Banished is a lot of fun; it's slow and there's not much of an end-game (other than achievement hunting) but it's weirdly satisfying. I find as much pleasure in starting new settlements from scratch as I do in growing and expanding my existing ones. I've learned a lot of harsh lessons (the game is unforgiving and survival is difficult), but I'm getting better at it. After almost 30 hours of gameplay I've only earned two achievements. It's a big challenge.

Has it been a year already?

I haven't made much progress because every time I look through my games list I don't want to play anything. I've just been kind of burnt out on video games. I did manage to finish a couple though.

Half-Life 2:Lost Coast
Not much of a game. It's basically a Half-Life 2 tech demo. I finished it in about 20 minutes.

Hotline Miami
I tried playing this a couple years ago, but never got very far. I couldn't grasp the mechanics and the game just made me feel really uneasy, so I dropped it. I came back to it last month and played it through from the beginning. I actually sort of liked it this time around, even if the story wasn't great.
7/10

I made some progress in other games, but got stuck after they really ramped up in difficulty. Cogs and RUSH are both puzzle games that get really tough towards the end. I'll get back to them when I feel more masochistic.

I'm taking a few games off the list because I either finished them or played them long enough before I bought them on Steam.
Counter-Strike(I'm positive I've got 50+ hours clocked in on this)
Counter-Strike:Source(same as above)
Crazy Taxi(Played the hell out of it on the Dreamcast)
Jet Set Radio(Finished it on Dreamcast, and finished the extra content in the re-release)
The Secret of Monkey Island(Played the original version a few years ago)