A Backlog of Guilt and Glory

For many PC gamers, the backlog is a constant companion. It's the unspoken challenge that separates the proud from the ashamed. With platforms like Steam and GOG offering an endless stream of games at our fingertips, it's easy to accumulate titles we never seem to get around to playing. For some, this collection is a badge of honor, a testament to their gaming journey. For others, it's a source of deep embarrassment.

Take, for example, a game like Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive. It's currently on sale for just $2, but does it really matter? The question isn't whether it's worth the price—it's whether I'll ever find the time to play it. And yet, here it sits, waiting patiently in my library, hoping I'll remember it before it gets lost in the digital abyss.

But not all backlog stories are so lighthearted. There are the games you buy at full price, only to let them languish while everyone else jumps into Overwatch 2. You're stuck in a premade, unable to abandon your team, and so the game remains untouched, slowly fading into obscurity. These are the stories that Game Quest: The Backlog Battler aims to highlight—by turning your backlog into a literal battle.

A Unique Approach to Gaming

Game Quest: The Backlog Battler is a quirky horde-battler developed by Nic Taylor. In this game, your backlog becomes the enemy. Each game is represented as a sliding floppy disk, with its behavior and abilities influenced by various factors. Games you've barely played (up to two hours) become your adversaries, and the more you paid for them, the more damage they inflict. If a game has a high Metacritic score, it can even fly, forcing you to swat it down with a keyboard.

You won’t be alone in this battle. The games you play the most will support you. For instance, if your most-played games on Steam are Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, you can expect some toxic teammates. Meanwhile, someone like Ted Litchfield might find themselves blessed by Baldur’s Gate 3 and cursed by Destiny 2 in equal measure.

The game looks cute and clever, and it seems the real fun lies in battling the backlogs of your friends and teasing them about their choices. “You played Planescape: Torment for all of 36 minutes but have 400 hours in Spore? What are you even doing in there?” it might ask.

A Personal Touch

If I could make a suggestion, I think the game should create a unique punishment for my worst gaming habit: getting past the halfway point of a game, putting it down for a few weeks, and then returning with so little memory of what came before that I feel compelled to start over. It would be a fitting consequence for such a frustrating cycle.

At the moment, there's no official release date for Game Quest: The Backlog Battler, but you can wishlist it on Steam. It's hard not to wonder how many players will end up adding this very game to their libraries and never playing it, knowing they’ll get to it eventually.

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