History

I have been gaming since I was a very young child. The first games I owned were Tetris and Super Mario Land (1) on the Gameboy. After the Gameboy followed the SNES and many consoles followed, but since around 2017 I have switched to PC (Steam) full time. One of the things I missed for Steam were those handy-dandy achievement guides you could find for PlayStation and Xbox games. A few conversations with an online friend made me start my own Steam Curator in 2018 and in 2021 that progressed into building this website because that gives me so much more freedom.

Indie Games

The moment I made the switch from consoles to PC was also the moment I switched from playing mostly AAA and maybe an AA game here and there to playing indie games full time. I have played barely any AAA games since 2018 and tbh I don’t miss them. The endless DLCs, the micro-transactions, and so many games feel kinda of the same.

What I love about indie games is the creativity, and that they don’t try to hold your attention for hundreds of hours. You can most of the time feel the love and care that went into those passion projects. I don’t think we would ever have seen a game in which you play like a mischievous cloud (Rain on Your Parade) or play like a Roombo in a stealth game (JUSTICE SUCKS: Tactical Vacuum Action). And what to think about the weird genre mash-ups like A Metroid flipper game (Yoku’s Island Express) or a rogue-lite auto battler (Mechanibot).

Achievement hunting

Achievement hunting has been an important part of my gaming hobby since the moment I played my first Xbox 360 game, Overlord, which had achievements. I don’t hunt them for bragging rights, but I find it an awesome way to explore more of a game than I would have otherwise. Before I started achievement hunting I barely finished a game. Let alone doing all kinds of sidequests and other optional stuff. I see it more like a to-do list that maybe even tells you about things you can do that aren’t so obvious.

A game gets bonus points in my book if it has no missable achievements, aka achievements you can miss out on and have to replay the game to unlock them. This can be because an area gets locked off, or the game has achievements for getting through the game without dying/getting hit. By not having those achievements you allow players to play through the game without worrying about the achievements and mop up the missing achievements after playing through the game. I know that a lot of people that visit my website also prefer those types of games as the page where I list those games is the most visited page on this website.

My dislikes

Are you here because you work on/for an indie game and are wondering if I would like the game you’re working on? Let’s first get some dislikes out of the way: I only play games that have Steam achievements. I love to hunt them, my reviews focus for a big part on them. It doesn’t make sense for me to spend some of my free time on games without achievements if there are so many that have them. If you are unsure why your game should have them, please check out this page. This is also why I rarely play any demos. There are only so many hours in a day and this website is a passion project.

Genres I don’t like: Visual Novel, Horror, Soulslike, Hardcore, Precision Platformer, Sports, Parkour, Multiplayer games, MMo’s, Difficult games, Sokoban, Sexual Content, MOBA, First Person Shooters, Perma Death

My likes

I like a lot of genres from action to management and from cute games to playing the evil person. I’ll list a bunch of genres with examples of games that I love. This list will by no means be complete, are there are just too many genres and too many amazing games.

Action:
I love to be busy while playing a game, that doesn’t give my brain a chance to wander off. Within the action genres, my favorites are the Action-Adventures games.
Examples of action games I love: Cult of the Lamb, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Death’s Door, Weko The Mask Gatherer

Adventure:
This genre is so big with so many types of games. What I love the most about adventure games is exploring new areas, and finding new items/objectives.
Examples of adventure games I love: Kingdom Two Crowns, Tchia, Kingdom Eighties, Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip, Pine Hearts

Auto Battler/ Automation:
These are 2 different genres but I add them as one as I don’t have that many favorite games to list in those. I love the idea of automation games but for many of them, I would say that I’m not smart enough or patient enough. And with auto battlers, I just don’t have that many experiences with them, but the ones I played I did love.
Examples of Auto Battler/ Automation games I love: Autonauts, Mechanibot, Luck be a Landlord, Loop Hero, Infectonator 3: Apocalypse

Bullet Heavens:
I’ve been hooked since the first one I played as this genre is so addictive and I love that about it. What is also amazing is that it feels like you’re always making progress!
Examples of Bullet Heavens games I love: Vampire Survivor, Spirit Hunters, Army of Ruin, Void Scrappers

Bullet Hell:
Many bullet heavens are also bullet hell games, as you have to avoid projectiles in many of them. However, I also enjoy bullet Hells that aren’t bullet heavens.
Examples of Bullet Hell games I love: Archvale, Cursor Blade

Cozy/Cute:
As stated above I love to play as the villain of a game, but more often I like to play cute and cozy games. As they are stress-free and just cute.
Examples of Cozy/Cute Games I love: The wild at Heart, Tinykin, Garden Story, Lil Gator Game, Little Kitty, Big City, TOEM, A Tiny Sticker Tale

Crafting:
Almost nothing is more satisfying than collecting resources and crafting new things. Bonus points if the game is about cleaning the world/ making it a better place.
Examples of Crafting Games I love: FixFox, Forager, Lost Nova, Dysmantle

Creature Collection:
Achievement hunting is already some sort of Gonna catch ’em all, adding cute creatures to a game makes it even better!
Examples of Creature Collection Games I love: Nexomon Extinction, Patch Quest, Creatures of Ava, Alba: A wildlife Adventure

Farming Sim:
I haven’t played that many Farming Sims but I do enjoy the genre so much. The feeling of always having something to do, while you can mix up what you’re working at is just perfect!
Examples of Farming Sims I love: Little-Known Galaxy, Slime Rancher, Grow: Song of the Evertree

Life Sim:
Stepping inside someone else world and living their life through their eyes is amazing. I really hope we will see more indie games that will be like The Sims.
Examples of Life Sims I love: Cattails: wildwood Story, Closer the Distance, Cloudpunk, unheard

Management:
My favorite type of management game is running a store. However, running just anything is amazing. One of my first PC games as a child was Rollercoaster Tycoon. and the love for this type of games never went away.
Examples of Management Games I love: Go-Go Town!, Winkeltje: The Little Shop, Honey, I joined a Cult, Another Brick in The Mall, Minami Lane

Metroidvania:
Exploring a huge map, finding all kinds of secrets, it is what I described also by adventure games, but adding a layer of unlocking new abilities makes it so much fun.
Examples of Metroidvania Games I love: Crypt Custodian, Yoku’s Island Express, Flynn: Son of Crimson, Carrion

Party:
I like your typical party game like Overcooked. However, I mostly play my games solo and Overcooked solo sucks so hard. Gladly there are games like that that can be played solo.
Examples of Party Games I love: Out of Space, Moving Out 2, Pizza Possum, No Time to Relax

Platformer:
My first game ever was a platformer and I still love this genre a lot. However, I prefer them without time challenges or with no deaths ect. Those kinds of things are way too stressful and hard. I played and completed Spyro as a child, but I played the remake on Steam and have no idea how I ever did that.
Examples of Platformer Games I love: DROS, Pumpkin Jack, Grapple Dog, Wavetale

Puzzles:
Explaining what type of puzzle games I enjoy and don’t enjoy is hard. Each type of puzzle games can be so different and some click and some don’t. As a child I played a lot of Picross and Sudoku kinda games in those books you buy in kiosks, I still enjoy those.
Examples of Puzzle Games I love: Piczle Cross Adventure, Paper Trail, Arranger, Togges, The World Next Door, Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery

Roguelites:
I don’t like Roguelikes in which you don’t unlock upgrades and have to increase your skill level. However, roguelites where you unlock new skills and abilities are awesome. as you feel like you’re always working toward the next upgrade and they aren’t only for hardcore players.
Examples of Roguelite Games I love: Children of Morta, Book of Demons, Skeletal Avenger, turnip Boy Robs a Bank, Godlike Burger

RPGs:
Before I started achievement hunting, this was the genre I played the most. Sadly in a lot of cases RPGs have missable achievements while they are also very long to play. This turned down my love for the genre a little bit, but there are still enough great RPGs with a nice achievement list.
Examples of RPG Games I love: Dungeons of Hinterberg, Ni No Kuni, Moonlighter, Steamworld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech, Cat Quest, Haven, Nobody Saves the World

RTS:
I don’t have played many RTS games, but the games I did play in this genre I loved. I prefer real-time games over turn-based.
Examples of RTS Games I love: Iron Marines, Blaze Revolutions, Crab God

Simulation:
As a child, I drew maps of houses and I was sure I would be a home stylist one day. That didn’t happen but this genre helps me live that dream just a little as well as enjoy cleaning up in game worlds or doing other jobs I would never do irl but are fun while sitting behind a PC.
Examples of Simulation Games I love: House Flipper, Thief Simulator 2, Train Station Renovation, Hotel Renovator, DREDGE

Stealth:
I love the Assassin’s Creed games and there are so many awesome indie games in the stealth genre. I also love how unique most of them are.
Examples of Stealth Games I love: Justice sucks, Party Hard 2, Serial Cleaner, Picklock

Time Management:
I can’t explain why I love this type of game, but it is fun to fulfill orders from customers in your game and have to juggle all sorts of tasks at the same time.
Examples of Time Management Games I love: Coffee Caravan, the GameHouse games

Unique Games:
Here I would like to list some games that didn’t feel like they fit the other categories. However, this is why I love indie games just so much. They dare to try out the crazy things or have a very different art style than the average game will have.
Examples of Unique Games I love: Balatro, Rain on Your Parade, just Crow Things, Healer’s Quest, There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, Snakeybus, Assemble with Care, Donut County, Minit

Reporting bugs

I play games not always in the traditional way. I might do weird stuff for achievements and I’m well-known to encounter bugs. What I love about reviewing a game is that a lot of time it is possible to have contact with the developer. Iron out those pesky bugs before the release day. I love working together with developers to find out what the bug exactly is so they can fix it. I don’t want to play a buggy unplayable game, but if the game works great but something goes wrong, I don’t mind at all as long as they can look into it and try to fix it while I can play through the game and work towards earning the achievements. One of my first experiences with finding a bug was in The Wild at Heart and the devs were so nice and responsive when I poked them. They found the bug quickly and fixed it before the launch. This experience was wonderful and made me realize that it was a way for me to help out and give back to the awesome people that allow me to play their game. It was a lovely interaction and took the barrier away to be able to feel free to poke other devs in the future. This resulted in a few devs now reaching out to me to play their games before launch to be able to review them but also to keep an extra eye out for bugs. I’m not a professional bug tester by all means, but I love working together to smash the last few before launch.

Another thing I don’t mind and which is one one the reasons behind this website is give some advice about achievements. There are different types of achievement hunters. Some players prefer hardcore achievements, or very short games that can be completed quickly. I belong to a group in the middle. I don’t mind a game being longer as long as it is fun, the grind isn’t too crazy and the game is doable. I love chatting with developers and helping them on their way to adding achievements to their game and looking into what kind of achievements are possible.