52 Video Game Challenge

The Backlog Quest Log

Every year I get a little disheartened in January. For a pretty obvious reason, people use January as a time to plan how they'd like to better themselves. Gym memberships swell because people decide this is the year they're going to work out. Grocery stores look like season 3 of the Walking Dead because all the fruit is gone thanks to newly minted diets. And that's great - that's fantastic. 

But for every person who wants to make a positive change, there's always at least one jerk who says "Yeah, but resolutions are stupid, if you really want things to be better, make them better all the time. There's no day like today. Forest Gump deserved the Oscar over Shawshank Redemption, Tom Brady will never win another Super Bowl" and ten thousand other dumb things that aren't just reductive, but useless. 

So, in the spirit of these people I see raining on everyone's parade, and inspired by friends of mine who are taking the 365 movie challenge (to watch a new movie everyday), I'm making my own resolution: I want to beat a video game every week, for the next 52 weeks. 

I love movies but I just don't have that kind of time. Football is starting back up in 8 months, so watching a movie on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays is already out (not to mention the playoffs right now, #gopats), and plus there's a lot of pub trivia and nights that are vaguely warm enough to barbecue here in the Bay Area, so I'm setting my sights a little lower, on something I feel is a bit more manageable - one thing a week, one thing I love, for 52 weeks. 

And since I'm a writer who's dying to work in the video game industry in some capacity, I should probably, well, write about it. 

So, let me lay out what I'm thinking: 

  • one video game a week
  • going back and getting a platinum trophy counts as replaying a game
  • replaying old games that I love counts
  • any system counts
  • the game (ideally) has an ending
  • a game is a game, no matter how small. Final Fantasy counts as much as Oxenfree
  • Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this backlog

And for now, that's all I've got. I decided to do this blog retroactively after already beating the first game, so the scheduling at first will be a bit wonky, but I plan on posting about the last game played every Monday. You don't really need to read this part, this is mostly just to hold myself accountable, but since no one is going to read this anyway, I'm going to sign off here to go watch some Julian Edelman highlights and think about how easy Super Bowl 52 would be if we still had that little flying squirrel.