The 12 in 12 Challenge

[probablyoliver]

Like most things on the Internet, this was shamelessly stolen from Reddit! Yaaaaaaay! I'll just C&P the whole thing. Fuck originality.

 

 

 

Take the challenge - Defeat your backlog!

A lot of gamers have built up a sizable backlog of games they haven't gotten around to finishing or even trying for the first time. With bundles and sales so tempting, it's easy to rack up a large library! Take the 12in12 challenge and knock down your backlog while having fun. A little community support can go a long way towards meeting your goals.

How It Works

1. Organize your backlog.
2. Pick 12 games that you want to complete.
3. Play one each month.
4. Post about your progress and encourage others.

Discussion Schedule

Day of Month	Subject
1st thru 5th	Monthly Starting Thread - Declare what game(s) you'll be playing so you can stick to it.
6th thru 24th	Monthly Genre Thread - Discuss the genre of the month with players on any platform.
25th thru end	Monthly Finishing Thread - Discuss what you attempted, completed, or lagged on.

FAQ

Can I only join in January? And do I have to play a game in the genre of the month?

No! You can start at any time in the year, and you can play whatever games you want. The monthly genre thread is to unite gamers across all platforms in a fun discussion, and maybe provide some inspiration to pick something you'd otherwise miss from your backlog.

Do I have to play a game a month? Can I do more or fewer than that?

You can set up any goal you want. Some intrepid users are even attempting 52in52 (one game per week)! Everyone's schedule and situation is different, but try to set a realistic goal so you can keep on track with it throughout the year.

What if I fall behind?

Life happens, and gaming is one of the first things to be pushed aside for other priorities. It's okay! You can adjust your goal or work on it more the next month. We have a monthly thread for discussing progress.

Am I not allowed to buy any new games?

Of course you can buy new games. However this sub is about knocking a backlog down rather than adding to it. If you're chomping at the bit for that new AAA game or something that just came out, pick it up and play it right away.

I don't like one of the games I tried. Does that count?

Yes, it's good that you gave it a try and that's one less title on your list to worry about. Progress is great. If there's more time left in the month, pick another game and give it a go. Bundle addicts, we're looking at you here.

Genre Threads for 2017

Month	Genre
January	Shooters (FPS + 3rd person)
February	Puzzles
March	Strategy (RTS + Turn-based)
April	Fighter / Beat Em Up
May	Action / Stealth / Hack n Slash
June	RPGs of all flavors
July	Sandbox / Builders
August	Simulation
September	Platformers
October	Horror / Survival
November	Sports / Racing
December	Anything goes / Year in Review

 

[Your Mom]

I would try this. Not saying I could keep up but it sounds fun

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Excellent! I was eyeing this up on Reddit earlier for some motivation, I'm glad someone else saw it too

I've already lined up my primary 12 targets for the year as well. There's a fair few games I played once at the start of 2015 and then never followed through on because of something else, I'd like to tidy one or two of those up this year.

I don't see myself buying too many new games this year, I've complained a lot (to some more than others) about having too much of a backlog so I'm keen to play through some of it and hopefully enjoy some stuff I didn't give a chance to before.

My top three targets for the year are Apotheon, Transistor, and Guacamelee. As long as I can clear those at some point I'll be happy

[GoGo Yubari]

I might do this, at least a declaration of intent for what I'm gonna finish at the start of each month. I've already set up a rule for myself now that I have to finish a game that I own a physical copy of before I buy a new one (the Limited Shelf-Space Rule).

[King Ellis]

I do have Far Cry Blood Dragon from Xbox's Games with Gold so I'm certainly in for that in January. Not sure on Puzzles though...

[probablyoliver]

Eh, I'm not too fussed by the genre thing sat all. I'm 'planning' on a 24 in 12 challenge as my backlog is ridiculous.

JANUARY: Final Fantasy XV -- Transistor
FEBRUARY: Watch_Dogs 2 -- Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition
MARCH: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt -- Firewatch
APRIL: Bioshock Infinite -- Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
MAY: Assassin's Creed Syndicate -- Resident Evil
JUNE: Wolfenstein: The New Order -- Grim Fandango
JULY: Batman: Arkham Knight -- Salt & Sanctuary
AUGUST: Gravity Rush Remastered -- Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
SEPTEMBER: Mad Max -- The Walking Dead: Season 2
OCTOBER: Heavy Rain -- SOMA
NOVEMBER: Dark Souls III -- Transformers Devestation
DECEMBER: Just Cause 3 -- Unravel

 

As I say, that's only a consideration at this stage. I reserve the right to switch out any of them for whatever reason.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

3 minutes ago, Ollie said:

Eh, I'm not too fussed by the genre thing sat all. I'm 'planning' on a 24 in 12 challenge as my backlog is ridiculous.

JANUARY: Final Fantasy XV -- Transistor
FEBRUARY: Watch_Dogs 2 -- Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition
MARCH: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt -- Firewatch
APRIL: Bioshock Infinite -- Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
MAY: Assassin's Creed Syndicate -- Resident Evil
JUNE: Wolfenstein: The New Order -- Grim Fandango
JULY: Batman: Arkham Knight -- Salt & Sanctuary
AUGUST: Gravity Rush Remastered -- Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
SEPTEMBER: Mad Max -- The Walking Dead: Season 2
OCTOBER: Heavy Rain -- SOMA
NOVEMBER: Dark Souls III -- Transformers Devestation
DECEMBER: Just Cause 3 -- Unravel

 

As I say, that's only a consideration at this stage. I reserve the right to switch out any of them for whatever reason.

A lot of this list contains games on my backlog as well, we could race to complete one or two if you need some motivation

I haven't set out which month I'll do which game in, but I think this is gonna be the 12 I pick:

Uncharted; Uncharted 2; Uncharted 3; Transistor; Guacamelee; Apotheon; Life is Strange; Deadly Tower of Monsters; Resident Evil; Teslagrad; Grim Fandango; Velocity 2X (I've needed one trophy to Platinum it for about a year now...)

 

Back-up list if I'm motivated and have spare time:

Bully; Valiant Hearts; Skyrim; Arkham Knight; Trine; Gone Home; Hotline Miami; EGTTR; Magicka 2; Metro 2033; Metro Last Light; Broken Age

[apsham]

I like the idea - but I don't think I can set things up months ahead of schedule, that seems oddly limiting and something that will lead to burn out and forcing yourself to do something really quickly. I might take a look at a list of games and see what I can do with it.. because there are certainly things I need to finish or 100% and we're rounding near a dry spell.

[Your Mom]

@Ollie unless you really rush through it I think Witcher 3 will take the whole month

[Stevie B]

6 hours ago, Ollie said:

Eh, I'm not too fussed by the genre thing sat all. I'm 'planning' on a 24 in 12 challenge as my backlog is ridiculous.

JANUARY: Final Fantasy XV -- Transistor
FEBRUARY: Watch_Dogs 2 -- Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition
MARCH: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt -- Firewatch
APRIL: Bioshock Infinite -- Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
MAY: Assassin's Creed Syndicate -- Resident Evil
JUNE: Wolfenstein: The New Order -- Grim Fandango
JULY: Batman: Arkham Knight -- Salt & Sanctuary
AUGUST: Gravity Rush Remastered -- Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
SEPTEMBER: Mad Max -- The Walking Dead: Season 2
OCTOBER: Heavy Rain -- SOMA
NOVEMBER: Dark Souls III -- Transformers Devestation
DECEMBER: Just Cause 3 -- Unravel

 

As I say, that's only a consideration at this stage. I reserve the right to switch out any of them for whatever reason.

I think March would be a good time to give Seige another chance.

[GoGo Yubari]

Not setting out a full twelve-month schedule so I'll be settling on a game on the first of each month, probably. January will be me finally finishing Mad Max after putting it off for like a month and a half because of the fucking race mission.

[Your Mom]

I think I will go month to month too. January shall be Gears of War 4! Time to dudebro out! 

[stokeriño]

I'm not sure I get the monthly genre thing. Is the idea we're supposed to try and fit our backlog schedule to games in those genres? Seems a bit in conflict with the main purpose of this challenge, although maybe that's just further evidence that I don't play many different types of games.

TBH I need to figure out qualifies as my backlog is anyway... There are games that Stokerina got that I could feasibly play but have never been arsed (e.g. the newer Tomb Raider games, Uncharted 4, etc.), so I'm not sure if I want to count those just because they're in my house. It may not actually have as many as 12 games on it seeing as how I've not bought bought new games for a while (besides FM17 and Civ 6, aka not the types that get 'completed' per se).

...Christ, all this has done is remind me how I spent a year collecting nearly 1,000 PSN trophies and then just stopped dead in the water six months ago. I really need to sort myself out and find a middle ground between 'nothing' and 'obsessive'.  

[Benji]

Psh, this is just a poor man's "Complete Your Collection".

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

6 hours ago, stokeriño said:

I'm not sure I get the monthly genre thing. Is the idea we're supposed to try and fit our backlog schedule to games in those genres? Seems a bit in conflict with the main purpose of this challenge, although maybe that's just further evidence that I don't play many different types of games.

TBH I need to figure out qualifies as my backlog is anyway... There are games that Stokerina got that I could feasibly play but have never been arsed (e.g. the newer Tomb Raider games, Uncharted 4, etc.), so I'm not sure if I want to count those just because they're in my house. It may not actually have as many as 12 games on it seeing as how I've not bought bought new games for a while (besides FM17 and Civ 6, aka not the types that get 'completed' per se).

...Christ, all this has done is remind me how I spent a year collecting nearly 1,000 PSN trophies and then just stopped dead in the water six months ago. I really need to sort myself out and find a middle ground between 'nothing' and 'obsessive'.  

Ollie did say he'd copied and pasted it from Reddit, the discussion threads are a thing they're doing on there, I don't think there's any plan to theme anything here  

[GoGo Yubari]

MISSION COMPLETE. Finished the Mad Max game last night. Overall, an experience I was glad to have especially since I got that game for like $10 but after what I thought was a surprisingly addictive early game, by the end it's basically a slog to the finish line. I like the way it ties into Fury Road, though. The most difficult part was basically the two missions where you're forced to actually try to be a good driver, which is always where I start fucking up massively. When you're just nitro-boosting your way across the wasteland, though, that's good fun.

[King Ellis]

I finished Blood Dragon yesterday, will probably get the last achievement today as well to render it fully complete. Twas OK, not quite what I was expecting. I knew this was meant to be a bit of a shift in tone and setting to the normal Far Cry games but it still felt quite dark and gritty. Don't get me wrong, it's still 80's as fuck with all manner of references to different movies and what not but I was expecting something slightly more over the top. Like, until the very end game, your weaponry is still fairly bog standard with assault rifle, pistol, sniper etc. Even a bow because hey, this was the early 2010's, every game had to have a bow. #Yearofthebow and all that.

Game seemed to place an undue amount of emphasis on stealth as well which was odd. Maybe it's a bigger thing on the hard difficulty but it really doesn't punish you for being caught. Sure the guards might sound an alarm and summon more guards, but that's just more opportunities to gain XP. Early on it's an issue because you're just a scrub with about 4 health segments but you get a ton more pretty quickly and, whilst you don't regen ala CoD, you can regain 3/4 segments at will with a prolonged button press. And even the enemies become a little trivial when you figure out you can cheese most fights by doing aerial takedowns which are an automatic kill and all you have to do is pretty much jump in front of an enemy.

Not sure on next month, leaning towards another open worldy thing, Shadow of Mordor, AC IV or Watch Dogs being the choices. That or, whilst everyone else is playing Final Fantasy XV, I do have that Type-0 thing...

[Monkey D. Lars]

Is Puzzles in like a Puzzle game? 

I gave up on Far Cry. Xbox One did shitty and erased my savefile. Maybe I'll come back to it later. 

Month	Genre
January	Far Cry: Primal
February	Puzzles
March	Strategy (RTS + Turn-based)
April	Fighter / Beat Em Up
May	Action / Stealth / Hack n Slash
June	RPGs of all flavors
July	Sandbox / Builders
August	Simulation
September	Platformers
October	Horror / Survival
November	Sports / Racing
December	Anything goes / Year in Review

[probablyoliver]

Well my original plan was Final Fantasy XV and Transistor and I'm ashamed to say I failed to complete either of them. 30 hours into FFXV and I couldn't take a second more and I didn't even get started on Transistor.

Instead I did even better, completing both DOOM and Day of the Tentacle, getting the platinum on both of them. DOOM is by far the best AAA release of 2016, even better than Uncharted and I cannot recommend it enough. The most fast, fun and frantic shooter I've played since, well, the original DOOM. I followed a guide for Day of the Tentacle and was just following it for the story, it's eminently quotable and super fun. If you've got PS+ and haven't downloaded it yet, you're missing out.

Next up is likely to be Mirror's Edge Catalyst as I started it yesterday and am so far enjoying it. I might throw another game in there too but we'll see how I get on with Mirror's Edge first.

[probablyoliver]

Well February is off to a strong start, I've completed Mirror's Edge Catalyst and earned my 19th platinum trophy in the process (Trophy Whore 4 Lyfe). The game was good but deeply flawed. Nothing felt as satisfying as completing a perfect run from one objective to the next and the controls were fluid, fun and easy enough to get to grips with but the game just felt rushed and unfinished. I lost count of the amount of times Faith would jump off a building apropos of nothing and it all just felt like there was a distinct lack of polish. But it looked beautiful, it played well enough and the side stuff was all on the right side of the challenging /frustrating divide. A solid 7/10.

Having a look through my backlog and next up will either be The Walking Dead: Season 2 which I've been putting off seemingly forever, Watch_Dogs 2 which I started but got distracted 2-3 hours in, or Gravity Rush Remastered which was a random sales purchase but actually looks super fun.