The game backlog…
I am currently playing way too many games.
I am also currently am pseudo-dropping way too many games out of a lack of organization and computer space.
Not to mention, I am currently missing out on a lot of games I have been promising myself I am going to play.
I’ve talked about Daryl Talks Games before. I absolutely adore his videos. Awhile ago, he posted a video of his mission to clear out his gaming backlog. A year later, he posted his completed game backlog.
This video inspired me when it came out. I was ready to set out and create a backlog of my own. Then I didn’t.
Queue half a year later, and I think I am ready to take a stab at it. Or, at least, to be a lot more organized with what I play and when. Inspired by Daryl’s game backlog videos, I have concocted my own approach to working through my backlog of games.
I want to play variety
The most important thing I want to get out of this backlog list is to play a variety of games. I tend to play a lot of the same kind of game until I beat it into the ground. Which is fine, cause games are meant to be fun and this can be fun. But I also am missing out on a ton of games that are in other genres.
To solve for this, I am splitting my games into categories separated by different workbooks in a Google Sheets document. The idea is that each time I sit down to play a game, I have to pick one from a different category that I haven’t played in this “round”. To know what categories I have already played in this round, I am changing the color of the sheet to mark it as played. Otherwise, no limits in what I play. Once all the categories are blue, I’ll start over again.
This is how I have broken out my categories. It’s obviously not a definitive way to split you games, it consists of categories that I want to play a lot of, or studios that I particularly enjoy whose work I want to play more of. Blue means that I played an hour of a game in that category within this rotation, red means I still need to hit that category.
My categories like “itch.io” aren’t structured the same as the others, since my goal with this category is just to spend more time playing indie games on the platform.
I am limited on HOW much time I can play
My ideal schedule would leave me a couple hours a day to play video games. Unfortunately, I’m usually limited to just a couple times a week due to work and other responsibilities. Because of this, I want to organize my time in a way that allows me to get the max output for my time spent playing. I generally try to avoid any games that have an infinite loop, or at least limit the amount of time I play them. Even near unlimited games, like Genshin Impact which has an insane amount of content or Animal Crossing where you can improve your town/island etc indefinitely are on my “watch your playtime” list. It’s not that I’ll never play these games, its just that I try to not go overboard with them when I do.
For each game, I like to put down the hours it will take to complete. This way, I know when games can be a possible time suck.
It also allows me to prioritize games. I want to limit my games in progress, so those will be first priority. Then, games I own but haven’t started from shortest to longest. Then once those are completed, I can dive into the games I have on my list but haven’t purchased yet. Time won’t be the ONLY thing I base my game purchases on, but I want to be able to consider it at a glance.
I also plan on playing each category for about an hour before switching to a new one. If I’m feeling super drawn into a game and have the time, I won’t break my immersion to follow this rule to a tee, but I’ll keep this in mind as a general guideline.
This is a working document
I’ll be in this document a lot. Categories may change or be deleted, new ones might be added. I’ll definitely be adding games as I go on. As of writing this article, I have only a skeleton laid out. That being said, for anyone curious, you can find this spreadsheet here.
If you’re not a type-A person, I get this level of organization might seem a bit overkill. But for someone like me, I hope this spreadsheet will help me enjoy more kinds of games more often. If things really work out, I’ll do my best to update!
This article is a part of an ongoing project of daily video game mini essays. If you like the idea of getting these mini essays dropped directly into your inbox, I am cross-posting on Substack. You can subscribe here for free: https://howtogrowroses.substack.com/
If you want to learn more about me or my games, you can find my website here: https://www.heyitsamanda.com/
