Games eh?

Contents:

Outer Wilds ... and Echoes of the Eye I don't think I can name one other game that evoked the same feelings in me that this game did. It's one of those games that you can't really revisit. Until someone invents a machine to delete specific memories (or you hit your head really hard (don't!)), I cannot get this experience ever again. The feelings of discovery and mystery, trying to piece this game together... It's something I'll remember for a long time, but I can never re-experience those feelings. I completed the game, I know everything I need to know to piece it all together. There are practically nothing new for me to find in the game. In the game you're in a neverending time loop, and until you break it, the game feels like it can go on forever. But of course it can't. When it the game ended I cried. It had been a journey, I felt connected to the games world, its beauty and its terrors. The characters I felt like I had gotten to know. As soon as the credits rolled I jumped in that spaceship again, ready to tackle the DLC. And the DLC is great (albeit a tad more spooky), but now that is complete too. Everything ends, and this had to as well. I was just lucky enough to experience it. Life might feel endless at times, but we're lucky to have it and you can never experience it again. Now go get your own spaceship and blast off into the wilderness. It'll be worth it, I promise. Yakuza: Like a Dragon ... unlikely friendships in lonely times I got this game in April of 2021. A year after the covid lockdowns started. Uni was doing online courses, I couldn't see my friends properly for about a year at this point. At the start of 2020 I moved out to a dorm, and I couldn't even see the other residents properly. And then, I bought this game. Enticed by endless memes and the promise of a good story, I bought a key and booted up the game. And immediately I was hooked. This game came to me at a time where I felt really lonely. And just... Ichiban and the gang made me feel like I had friends again. I laughed and I cried with them, drank whisky when they did, it really felt like having real friends. I did not play anything else until I finished the story, and then I went right on to Yakuza 0 to get more. It really got its claws in me. In the autumn of 2025 I went back to it, and a lot of the same feelings came rushing back. I finished the last dungeon, with some difficulty. I don't think I've loved a series of games as much as this one. It really is something special. If you've never played a JRPG and all the mechanics seem daunting, this might be the one for you. Not many too advanced mechanics, which some might deem a flaw, but I really loved it. Thank you Ichiban. Thank you RGG Studio. For giving me friends when I felt like I had none. Minecraft ... the kids yearn for the mines May 10, 2010... summer potluck at the local youth club... The others were playing this weird little block game. Still in the "Infdev" stage, whatever that meant back then. My parents made me wait three weeks with buying it, cus what if "I only played it for a week and lost interest". But for those three weeks, I did nothing else, and a mere 10 euros and probably more than 10,000 hours later, here we are. I have never played a game for longer than this. Not in terms of in-game time nor how many years has passed in real life and me still coming back for more. It's been a part of every stage of my life since I was 11 years old. As of writing (03.02.2026) I am 27. Still collecting my thoughts... Terraria ... a labour of love Still collecting my thoughts...

Tunic ... the secret legend You wake up in a mysterious land. A little fox, you and your stick. The people all speak a mysterious language, you explore your surroundings, and then you find a page of what appears to be a manual; a manual for the game you are currently playing. What's going on here? This game pulled me in with its cute aesthetic, and great art direction. The music and the little cute protagonist. This is a game my girlfriend, my dear bun, recommended to me. She watched along the entire time, and it really was a bonding experience. The game is cute, mechanically challenging, and challenges your mind a little bit. It's not always straight forward, and the way the story is told? Amazing. You'll quickly find out that the language the people of this land speak -- the same language that the manual is written in -- is not so straight forward. I had a lot of fun with this game, even when I was not actually playing it. I had a printout of the manual pages we had found and spent my commute translating it into a little notebook, solving the secrets of this game. It did what very few games before or since has done for me: it bled into my real world. And that really is something special when a game manages that. Not just thinking about the game, but interacting with it outside of the PC. I have several little trinkets with my name on it, written in the language of this game. It has almost turned into a form of love language to me. Now go find the secrets of this land, and build your own legend. Factorio ... the factory must grow I see them when I close my eyes... the belts... the factory... the train tracks... in all of its glory! Factorio might not go on sale ever, but I can promise you, if you love automating stuff and seeing your creating run at peak efficiency (or not so peak efficiency), then you'll get your moneys worth from this game. I have played it for almost 600 hours as of writing, and while that is not a lot for a factory lover like me, it's more than most other games in my library. Nothing will ever give the same satisfaction (hah, get it?) as watching this sprawling factory spit out endless amounts of belts and concrete. The gameplay loop is essentially built around needing to build science packs, coloured liquid in vials that you need to research new technologies to expand further. These give you more ways to extract resources, new ways to use those resources, and new ways of killing the local population when they eventually get in your way. But be careful, the feed off of the pollution you put out, so be prepared. I'm currently 120+ hours into a Space Age playthrough, the wonderful DLC for this game. And we're not even halfway done. There is always something to optimise, something new to build and expand. More biters to kill, more powerplants to be built, new worlds to explore. The logistic nightmare that is a resource shortage on another planet might just be your dream come true. The banner you see further up is a screenshot taken from that playthrough. It includes one of my proudest creations: a giant two-laned clover leaf interchange for trains. Two lanes of traffic in either direction, every exit available from every entry-point. It's a beauty to behold if I say so myself. Please ignore my obvious bias :) Shoot for the stars, engineer. Guitar Hero ... and my taste in music Still collecting my thoughts...