I wanted to give a nod to the Steam Summer Sale in the title, but it’s winter here so it felt odd. And calling it the winter sale is weird too. Plus, I actually bought less games from the Steam Sale than other sources, so even highlighting Steam felt silly. Anyway…
From Steam
I managed to not go overly crazy, only spent around $25 and got some great deals. First up, I got the Forced 4-pack. I am not sure when I’ll dive into that, but it will be epiiiiiic! Startopia has been one of my sim/management must-haves for ages, so I finally snapped it up. Tomb Raider for $5 seemed too good to pass up. Satisfied my adventure point-and-click urges with the Blackwell Bundle, which contains four of the five games: Convergence, Deception, Legacy, and Unbound. Finally, picked up Polarity because a) Portal-lite, and b) it was only 19 cents, so I should make a profit on the trading cards.
Oh, and that $25 included a full copy of To The Moon (game + soundtrack) as a gift.
Bundles
Yeah, I ended up diverting Steam Sale money to a couple of bundles. I bought the Humble E3 ticket Bundle for a few bucks simply to get Wildstar, in the anticipation of having certain options already unlocked when it goes F2P. The bundle came with a bunch of other stuff I don’t care about (military shooters, cosmetics for games I don’t play, etc) or already have (Psychonauts).
The other bundle I bought was the Bundle Stars Nightmares Bundle. I am not really sure why I am attracted to some of the horror games out there, as I honestly don’t like horror very much at all. Maybe I’m saving them for a time when I have someone to whom I can turn and hide my face against. Who knows. The games in this bundle were the adventure games 1Heart, The Samaritan Paradox, and Kraven Manor; the “walking simulator”s Montague’s Mount, and The Moon Sliver; an FPS action adventure called Betrayer; and The Path, a cool-sounding take on the Red Riding Hood tale.
Just Call Me Sisyphus
So in a week and a half of temptation, a lot of my hard Steam Challenge work is undone. I’m finding that a lot of the games I consider the most seriously are starting to tend towards the story-heavy ones, such as adventure games and RPGs. I’ve spent a couple of hours whittling down my wishlist too, as having nearly 500 games on it was starting to become ridiculous. I’m down to under 350 at the moment, and I hope to get that under 300 before I reach the end of the list.
Warning: NSFW
Star-Fired Beef 
Fri, 26 Jun 2015 01:42:11 +1100 at 1:42 AM
Wow! I thought having 20 games on my wishlist was too much! XD
Hahah… good luck with your backlog. I’m not giving up on mine. But I do know what you mean about running into those games that force you to dedicate a lot more time to them. I remember a time when I was excited to have a long game… now days I’m more like: “OMG… I like this game but I can sense this is going to take a time investment!”
I’m getting old. : /
Fri, 26 Jun 2015 22:10:28 +1100 at 10:10 PM
WE’RE getting old, haha.
I am guilty of not touching those more open-ended games in the last year, such as Europa Universalis, Pirates, and the Total War series – even Blood Bowl!. Especially since I’ve drastically cut back my MMO time, it’s too easy to feel like you are neglecting the library if you get involved in those types of games. That’s why I’m concentrating more on the shorter, self-contained games for the moment.
I especially hate leaving a good game partway through and moving on to something else. I did that with Psychonauts and Orcs Must Die 2, and it is a chore to have to relearn all the stuff after you’ve left the tutorial bits far behind.
I honestly cannot see myself ever cutting my wishlist back to under 150 unless it is by buying them. Although, I use my wishlist as more of a bookmark than a “these are what I must buy first” list. The blowout is easier to understand once you realise that a lot of franchises are on there, like multipart adventure games, the Far Cry series, etc.