The PIGWHIP Challenge 2021

How long was Recore? That's been in my backlog for ages.

I would need to check. It was on my backlog for ages as well. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before the final tower is just no fun. Completely the opposite of the rest of the game. It's almost as if the developer does not want you to finish the game. (Well, it worked...)

Cheers Duckbreaker hope you have a merry Christmas. Plague tale was my Everest and I never made it past putting my boots on.

🏆 /sniff. Look at that, so nice and shiny 😄 and congrats to my fellow pigwhip survivors, for we shall feast at the trough of success.

Many thanks to Phattso, Nazo and Samildanach for your efforts in the employ of the mighty feathered one.

I wonder what nefarious plans the duck has for 2022's challenge....??

Please add tales of arise to my list, guess it will be staying on for the start of next year too!

Reining.

You’re welcome.

Not only will 2022 be the year we move on from spelling-shaming each other, but also it will be the year of separating the ducks from the ducklings. The pretenders from the destined. Those who whip pigs, from those who ineffectually swat at them.

2022 is the year when shit. Gets. Real.

Remember The One True Challenge? Ten games in a year? Yeah, that's back. Remember when it was just three games at a time? Yeah, that's back too. Remember also when the weaklings were moaning that even four games at a time was too tough for their soft, spoiled, arses? Yeah, four and five slots are in too.

"BUT HOW CAN ALL OF THAT BE POSSIBLE AT THE SAME TIME?" I hear you mewl, pathetically. It's simple, really. This year we're going to award tiers of success. Those walking the true path of ten games, they are fighting for the ultimate golden prize. Those who want more than ten games, but only three at a time? They're playing for silver. Four games at a time? Bronze, territory. Five games at a time? I mean, obviously, you're in the wrong thread but there will at least be a wooden spoon for your 'efforts' over the year.

I hereby grant all participants a golden trophy for 2022 - yes, for the first year ever you won't be playing to "win" your award, you'll be playing to not "lose" it. As you inevitably move from dedication to failure, your trophy will diminish from gold through silver to bronze to wooden spoon. How far you eventually fall from that golden perfection is entirely up to you.

Your fate, as always, is in your own hands. Judgement will be swift. Tolerance will be low. Rules lawyering at the gold and silver end will be met with swift justice. Those toiling in bronze and wooden spoon territory will get away with murder, because they're already second class citizens in my ducky estimation anyway.

Welcome to the crucible. The moment when you find out what you're made of. I know already: pestilent sacks of excuses and disappointment. But you will come to know this too. But perhaps one or two of you can throw off the shawl of mediocrity and shine like beacons of purity. Perhaps.

Welcome to 2022, Pig Whippers.

That's more like it, a proper challenge! I'm targeting the ten game classic menu, with at least 50% coming from backlog 👍

I'm in for 10 games

The ten game challenge is something that is doable in my head but I’m likely to fail by the end of February.

The ten games, in its original form, was all abotu reconnecting with a hobby we'd perhaps lost our way with a bit. Speaking for myself, back then, I was still buying all the games all the time, and either just letting them languish in the backlog, or racing through them to get to the next big thing. I yearned for the days when I'd live and breath a game for months or years, extracting maximum joy from it, finding hidden depths, or simply honing my skills effectively.

That original challenge definitely broke the majority of my bad habits. A day one purchase doesn't happen now unless a) it's something I'm genuinely excited for, and b) something I'm going to play RIGHT THERE AND THEN. I've also pushed my comfort zone out somewhat into genres that I'd bounced off of before, and found a (very, very modest) streak of actual skill in there that I'd either forgotten or never tapped into. Completing Hollow Knight was a big turning point for me, and it wouldn't have happened without the ten game challenge.

But if you're still very much in love with gaming, happy with your expenditure, and getting what you want from the hobby... then maybe you don't need any variant of the challenge at all? All depends what you're hoping to achieve with it, what habits you're trying to break if any, and what it can do for you.

I'm probably going to aim for a wooden spoon - bronze at best - out of the gate this year. There's so much stuff on GamePass that I'm dying to try out, quite apart from my PC backlog, and three games is a little claustrophobic for me.

Walking past The Pond of Destiny this morning on the way to the clap clinic, I noticed a flurry of frenzied activity. I imagine the new thread is going to drop this week, restarting the cycle of horror once more.

My first three games may be Freecell, Minesweeper and Solitaire. One completed game of each will count towards ten games done?

Hope all ha a good break. Is it 3 games so early or 4? Anyway I will add:

AC Valhalla
Deathloop
Returnal

And if it's 4... Fuck it:

Plage tale: Innocence.