The joy of hidden gems in your backlog

If you have been around Pixels for Breakfast for a while now, you know that Blue and I used to host a podcast talking about the week's gaming news from the perspective of developers. We loved doing that podcast, but work and life is busy, and we wanted to try and capture some of that magic in a written form. Inspired by the great Letter series on Remap Radio, we decided to trial out a written back-and-forth just like we used to do on the podcast.

Steve: This week I got a hankering to play something new. I am not sure why, I am waist-deep in Persona 5 Royal after years of procrastination, and I have Indiana Jones sitting there waiting to be played but I just don't have the mindset for it yet. So instead of doing what i normally do - find a cheap game that has been sitting in my wishlist for a while, I scoured my backlog on Steam to find an unplayed game sitting there, waiting for me click the green go button for the very first time.

Inkbound immediately jumped out at me from my Unplayed collection on Steam, and I remembered it as the turn-based Roguelite from the folks who made Monster Train. I liked Monster Train fine enough, but there was something about Inkbound that caught my attention at the time, but apparently not enough attention that I played it immediately upon purchasing. My online circle never really spoke about it, so I guess it was a buy and forget situation, slipping into the abyss of my unwieldy Steam collection.

To my surprise, I found a game that ticks all of the boxes that I love. Snappy and interesting dialogue, a world that is filled with characters, and fast, snappy gameplay that has a lot of depth while simultaneously not feeling too overwhelming. I am absolutely smitten with Inkbound, and it has become a "daily run" kind of game for me which fits in nicely with my new dad life, and because it is a year old now, I don't have that weird "game reviewer" pressure to binge it and have a take on it to share with the twelve people who read our content every week.

This got me thinking - how many other games are hiding in my backlog? I get a lot of press codes and I pick up bundles and games on sale. Partly because I guess I am a digital hoarder, but also because I want to support small teams who are making the cool shit that I want to see in the world. I think that means i end up with a tonne of interesting games that I want to get to some day, but never actually do.

Have you ever found a hidden gem in your own Backlog Blue? I know you buy less games than I do, and instead focus on mastery of the ones that you do play. So perhaps this is a weird and foreign concept for you. How do you manage those impulses to buy cool games that you might not get to for some time?

Blue: That's pretty amazing to find basically exactly what you're looking for when you go hunting for a different taste. Inkbound hit the edges of my radar yonks ago. I thought it was from you bringing it to my attention in the first place. It struck me as Across the Obelisk, but less heavy which I was definitely down for.

But I suppose to answer your last question directly: The impulsive urge to buy a new game gets fewer and further in between for me these days. And I think the reasoning for that is pretty simple; I am more in tune with what I want out of games and what marketing chooses to showcase than ever before. I think the adage "don't judge a book by its cover" is often slightly misconstrued. Media literacy involves knowing how to look at the way a product presents itself to get an initial idea of what experience is waiting for you if you take the plunge. The final judgement should be delayed until after you've dived in, but covers and trailers are how we decide what to give a chance in the first place.

Which is not to say I never see things that pique my interest. I can think of a few games off hand that I definitely thought I might enjoy that I simply passed on. Peglin, Loop Hero, and Blasphemous 2 immediately came to mind. In those specific cases, what happened is that I realize I'm not really after a new game. I'm after the feeling I get in other games that I have yet to 'finish'. As loaded as that word is when it comes to really open ended games. And part of that relates to what you said about pursuit of mastery. To be clear, I'm not out to achieve platinum all clears in every game I play. It's about learning small little fiddly intricacies and then feeling happy when a little silly idea works in the confines of the game rules. In another world and in another life, I probably could have taken up speedrunning as a hobby. It's about the novelty of play and feeling like I'm constantly learning. Obtaining new knowledge and then putting that new knowledge to the test.

So I guess I manage the impulses by focusing on the root of the feeling: I want more of experience X, which is in game Y. I just need to put more time into it. It also 'helps' that I don't have a steady income at the moment so I'm watching my budget a bit more carefully. That's the positive side to it at least. The negative flip to this is that I've been burned by being excited by the new thing too many times. It's easy to think a game is something when it really isn't because you misread a trailer or misunderstood a review. I have a soft rule of not jumping on an impulse until something cycles back around into my radar a few times.

An easy current example of this would be Path of Exile 2. I kind of jumped into it early. Why? Because I've always wanted to play the first, but for various reasons it never happened. Because some folks in the community were saying good things about it. And because I saw a video online that I liked. So it's kind of a compounded reason to turn it from an impulse into a considered purchase. And my library is slowly filling with those considered purchases. Promises of games that I've yet to play that I think are surefire great times. Saved for a mythical rainy day where I somehow want a good time with a game but also have the energy to go out on a limb to try something new.

With that said, more of my library is probably never going to get touched than I'd care to admit. It's bloated by bundles, deals, and "how did this even get here?"s. I've tried some of these random games that I've never heard of before. I don't think I've ever walked away thinking I found a gem that no one else has. Which is unfortunate. I'm sure there are gems waiting in there, but it's rarely from titles I've never seen before. So to turn the question back on you: Have you ever had a true blue "I've never even heard of this game before, but it's amazing" moment? And if so, how did you pick it out of your massive backlog?

Steve: There you go with such a pressing point of difference - chasing the feeling of a new game vs. the dopamine rush of a really satisfying mechanic in a game you have yet to complete. I think that is what a lot of people go through, I know I certainly do. A great example is Persona 5 Royal. I rarely have played games longer than 20 hours in my entire life. I grew up in a small rural Australian town and games were rare, and no one there was into the JRPG genre so it was something I am only starting to experience now. Persona 5 Royal starts slow, but super enjoyable. I started to binge it, and then around hour 40 the experience wasn't serving me up novel new ideas anymore. The drive and excitement to continue started to wane, and I just let it sit on the shelf for a few months while I chased that dopamine again with other games. That is something I need to get better at.

This jumping from game to game isn't just about chasing dopamine for me. It is actually a hangover from my days as a games journo in my twenties. Our site was a full-time content churning business, where you simply had to cram through a new game every few days and come up with 2-3 articles and a review of content to push out. I am not at all complaining, it was an absolute joy and a big reason as to why I started Pixels for Breakfast after leaving, but the constant chasing of new games to learn their secrets and have a take... that is starting to get a little exhausting. Now that my son is here, it is actually impossible, but that's a whole other conversation.

But to answer your question on finding a hidden gem that no-one has heard of? No, I cannot recall that ever happening. But I have played a bunch of games that I personally had not had an interest in, or heard of until after the fact that I picked up in a bundle or something along the way. Heroes of Hammerwatch is a great example. You and I had never spoken about it. I somehow got a copy of it and fell in love. I mentioned I was playing it and turns out that you and Snark from the community were DEEP into that game. It was a revelation for me, but a surprise to you that I had not heard of it.

That is an issue in itself. There are so many great indie games coming out weekly that so many of them go unnoticed. Take this amazing community suggestions video from Minnmax. There is a FRIGHTENING number of games on this list that look incredible, that I have never even heard of, and I run a newsletter covering cool new indie releases every week! So I feel like this finding a gem that no one has ever heard of is going to happen more and more as we move forward, and I keep hoovering up codes from bundles, PR firms, and purhcasing games to go onto the pile.

Blue: Work has a way of warping the way we interact with our hobbies if the two subjects have any kind of overlap at all. I'm very not surprised to hear the correlation between journalist pressure and your current game consumption habits. The push and pressure of "I can't sit still" is something I actively have to combat. I've had numerous moments where I'll shut off a game because I felt this unconscious force in the back of my head saying "tick tock, it's time to move on", and then come to the realization that I did not in fact have anything else pressing at the moment. Just another one of those personal quirks about brain chemistry that I try to take into account whenever I play games for extended periods of time.

And building on that for a moment, doesn't it suck that we have to work for our hobbies now? I actively put effort into how I approach leisure time. Constantly reevaluating if I'm getting the kind of experience I want out of my video game or movie and then working out what to do if I'm not. I'm a huge believer in the sunk cost fallacy. As in if I'm not getting what I want, get out of the experience ASAP. So I guess where you might be chasing dopamine from novel experiences, I'm chasing the comfy hole where a game can suck me in and I don't have to actively work to put time into it. Something narrative, something mechanical, something experiential. Those moments where I can just be absorbed into the interaction with the media is pure magic. I love it.

Which neatly puts us back around to the topic of how to find those experiences. I don't think either of us has the patience, emotional, and mental capacity to go diving into random shovelware to look for the diamond in the rough. Yet at the same time, gems that go oft untalked about are all around us. Heroes of Hammerwatch as you mentioned is an amazing game. Really fun loop. Satisfying to master. Everyone I've ever spoken to who has tried it likes it. But it's not like Balatro famous. And maybe that's fine.

As you say, there are so many great indies. I rely on news swelling. Like someone with their ear to the ground listening for quakes, I craft my online interactions around being receptive to names that make waves. I don't often go looking for the newest shiniest thing because the experiences that last and impact me are ones that aren't time sensitive. I've never been moved by the latest team shooter. I am instead the kind of person to look at an amazingly emotional voice acted playthrough of In Stars and Time and mentally add that to the list of 'the good ones' (genuinely, I think that this game's story has the potential to change some folks at a fundamental level for the right people at the right time).