Steam Library A-Z Challenge

The challenge: To play through each of the games on my Steam library. The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order. I'm developing a Pavlovian response to the Paradox Interactive logo now. My eyes glaze over, my finger starts just clicking compulsively... anyway, here's another Paradox map game! Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game is a real-time military simulator. Set in the First or Second World Wars (your choice, woo!), you pick a side and try and get as many victory points as possible. Being a huge board game nerd I'm no stranger to the allure of VPs but I just could not work this one out. 'Welcome to the tutorial!' it says cheerily, flanked by Iron Crosses I think my main frustration with these types of game is that the entry level to them is so high. I've been known to play a map game or two, Civ and Stellaris and such, but Darkest Hour is just so hard to learn. The game does acknowledge this though - repeat...

The challenge: To play through each of the games on my Steam library. The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order. According to my super brief research, The Culling of the Cows was released in 2014 by a publisher called DL Softworks. The reason I checked this is because I'm certain this is an early noughties Newgrounds Flash game, come to haunt my Steam list with its inexplicable presence. You play as Sammy, a problematically stereotyped character, and your job is to shoot a lot of zombie cows. You do this by moving around a single screen, shooting right. You can move around this screen freely (although you won't because only upwards and downwards motion is useful) but you can't turn around so if a zombie cow gets past you too bad. It's hard to find a screenshot with no mushed up animals in it :( To add a little variety to this tedium there's a couple of types of upgrades which make your gun better, an airdrop which...

The challenge: To play through each of the games on my Steam library. The rule: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order. Usually when I'm playing my Steam Challenge game, I'm thinking of interesting things to say about it. I'll mentally point out to myself the weird way a unit moves or how the background music just seems...off. With Crypt of the Necrodancer, however, I had literally no time to think. It's pretty intense! Crypt of the Necrodancer is a rhythm-based rogue-like game, and it's like someone opened up my brain and said 'Chibi, what's your favourite two genres of casual games? OK let's Frankenstein them together!' You play an adventurer travelling into the eponymous Crypt, which on the face of it looks like your standard rogue-like 2D dungeon. The twist is that every level has its own background track, and every move made by you and the monsters is done in time to this track. The dungeon floor lig...

The challenge: To play through each of the games on my Steam library. The rule: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order. Another day, another Paradox game. Crusader: Thy Kingdom Come is a RTS in the vein of the Total War games. Its plot is probably as historically uninteresting as the other kinds of games in the genre, but I accidentally knocked the mouse button during the intro cutscene so who knows? It might be a masterpiece? Anyway, because I skipped the intro here's what I think the plot is - the King of Hastings had a vision, which told him that lions are the raddest creatures ever, and he should journey around Maplandia showing everyone giant pictures of lions. Sadly, not everyone agrees that lions are the best, and so war is declared. Show off those lions, lions are great Truth be told, the game itself isn't too bad. There's a simple upgrade system for your troops, and a level up system for your leaders. The game has a neat ...