Bingo bango, Tomb Raider (2013) gave me the line I needed and the @polykillpodcast.bsky.social challenge is done. For the next 49 days I‘ll play whatever I want. Easiest square: vacation. Best square: playing multiple NES games for time travel month when I kept getting the year wrong. #justbeatit

#justbeatit Zombies Ate My Neighbors—on PS4 with a save feature—for my first bingo on the @polykillpodcast.bsky.social board. This may be the game I put the most time into as a kid without ever beating; a friend and I rented it over and over and always lost by level 30. It was always fun, even so.

#justbeatit The Quarry.#GameOfTheMonth If you’re a wuss like me don’t play this one after dark. Play it in the afternoon and scar your children. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social @cartridgeclub.bsky.social

Just started @cartridgeclub.bsky.social's October #GameOfTheMonth, The Quarry. A modern spin on the FMV genre, it's like being in an interactive horror movie. Take advantage of the #CCEffect and grab it while it's 85% off. Great so far, but I'm a little afraid to go to sleep right after playing it.

#justbeatit Wrecking Crew ‘98. I’m such a fan of the NES title I had to play the Japanese sequel for the Super Famicom, even though the gameplay is totally different and I‘m not very good. Persistence and unlimited continues eventually got me through those final levels. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Garfield’s Scary Scavenger Hunt, a browser-based game I played purely for the @polykillpodcast.bsky.social bingo square. Turns out it’s a minor cult classic—SkiFree for a different generation. Relatively painless, and if I couldn’t find anything with President Garfield I’ll take Liman.

#justbeatit Celeste 64: The Bee Sides, by @wiedo.nl! This was tough but satisfying. I was so jealous of everyone playing it when it first came out, I’m glad I finally got the chance to experience it myself. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

I was as caught up in the hype as anyone but I couldn‘t play Celeste 64 when it came out because for a long time I didn’t have a non-work PC. I finally dug in this week and today #justbeatit. There are still, happily, five missing berries to keep me playing a bit yet. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Dark Chambers (Atari 7800, via Atari 50). As a former NES kid these games are still a bit foreign to me, but this was a fun dungeon crawler. Unfortunately no credits, after level Z it just loops you back to A, infinitely, odd for 1988 but that’s Atari. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

I had a plan for the @polykillpodcast.bsky.social bingo save file resurrection square, but plans change. It turns out to be two years since I shelved Ape Escape 2 with 30% of the game left. On a whim I reinstalled and just kept playing tonight until I #justbeatit. That showed those damn, dirty apes.

I’ve been digging through the excellent Atari 50 for months now. It‘s more an interactive documentary than a videogame. Can I still say I #justbeatit? Yes. I’m clearly not beating Cybermorph or Ninja Golf (I’ve tried!) and I need some credit for my time. Validate me @polykillpodcast.bsky.social.

A few years ago I tried to complete the @polykillpodcast.bsky.social challenge and beat a game for every year I’ve been alive. I failed as I could not get through a 1982 game. If only I‘d had Frogs and Flies on the Atari. I #justbeatit and my four-year-old beat it too. Still counts, though!

#justbeatit Alan Wake: The Writer. With the two DLC chapters I was forced to get better at the game’s unique but decidedly not great combat. In terms of story these special features are not a bad sales job for the real sequel. I’ll definitely play it if I ever buy a PS5. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

After spending the week replaying the main game I dove into the DLC and #justbeatit Alan Wake: The Signal. It’s not a complete and self-contained story, it doesn’t wrap anything up, but it’s one more chapter. We’ll see how the next DLC builds upon what this one set up. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

My nine-year-old has been playing Celeste and #justbeatit. There were times he got frustrated and had to step away, but in the end he got it done all on his own. It’s important that children learn masochism is just as valid as fun as a reason for playing videogames. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

It was so good to fire up my Vita this month after a year of neglect. And I played it a lot, it took 50 hours before I #justbeatit Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward. Half escape room puzzler, half visual novel—both halves are quite difficult but rewarding as well. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit I Love You, Colonel Sanders: A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator. This has been on my list for a while. I have a hard time passing up a weird novelty game. Essential? No. Worth the time investment for at least a single playthrough? Solidly maybe. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD. The improvements to the formula are largely cancelled out by changes that don’t work. I liked the hidden content at first but it soon devolve into 3D “pixel hunting”. I’m hoping the third game will be the one to get it all right. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

Congrats on ten years @polykillpodcast.bsky.social! I don’t mean to one-up you but I #justbeatit Bubble Bobble. Starting with a rental in first grade, my incredible 37-year journey included fathering two children and training one of them on NES in order to earn the best ending. But ten years! Neat.

#justbeatit The Foundation, the other expansion for a game that I have discovered is all killer, no filler. I missed out by mainlining Control on my initial run but it did make this revisit possible. And I got the (main game) platinum in the process! Worked out. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Control: AWE. I played Alan Wake last year so I decided to revisit Control, first replaying the core game and then diving into this beefy crossover DLC. It took a bit but Remedy’s Lynchian/Teilight Zone universe has won me over and I’ll be diving yet deeper. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Ninja Gaiden (NES) and that’s a @polykillpodcast.bsky.social BINGO (X2). I played through stages one to four and thought “this isn’t as hard as I heard it was.” Then I spent a few hours on stage five and two days on stage six and learned my lesson. 1989 devs hated us. I mean, I get it.

#justbeatit BurgerTime Deluxe (Data East, GB port of arcade original). I’ve never played this one before; it’s deceptively simple. In later levels careful path-planning and enemy grouping strategies are essential. Hesitate and you’ll quickly fall to an errant pickle. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. What a charming little title. It’s a fresh spin on something that still feels familiar. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

One of my old-fogie stances is that SNES Mario Kart is the best one. It’s hard to make the case objectively, but the heart wants what the heart wants. The GBA, as SNES 2.0, of course had its own old-school sequel, Mario Kart: Super Circuit. Ah, 2D heaven. #justbeatit @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Tetris 2. I haven’t had to leave my NES on overnight since the ‘90s, but this is not a one-sitting affair. I like that this is a true sequel to Tetris, not an unrelated puzzler slapped with the Tetris name, but also something different from classic Tetris. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Arcade Paradise. What’s not to love? Okay, the story has rough edges and the business sim aspect is unbalanced and unintuitive. But push through all that and you keep getting fun new games to play. Owning an arcade is not my dream. Going to the arcade? Yes. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Tetris (1989, NES). You thought you had me, didn’t you? Didn’t you ?! @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

Four must-play Mario games: 1. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 2. Super Mario Odyssey 3. Super Mario World 4. Super Mario Maker 2

#justbeatit Wario Land II, one of the Game Boy Color’s three launch titles. It’s harder than expected at times, both the puzzling out of hidden rooms and exits, and many of the boss fights. Deeper and harder than expected for GBC, a touch jankier as well, but still good. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Metroid Dread. This is truly a series without misses, which I don’t think you can say about any other first-party Nintendo franchise. The last boss left me with some finger calluses, which I understand to be a badge of honour among space bounty hunters. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

Some @polykillpodcast.bsky.social people jumped off this cliff and I didn’t want to miss out. Some hours later I had skipped and bounced all the way through Leap Year. Having #justbeatit I see now the lack of signposting is part of the experience, even if it sometimes made me hopping mad. Dive in.

#justbeatit Bioshock: Infinite’s DLC, Buried at Sea. Now that I’ve finished every entry I question how well it all hangs together. This series is uneven and the tie-ins seem forced and tacked on, making the series somehow less than the sum of its parts. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Faxanadu. No way was I playing this in 1989, but that’s the great thing about retro gaming, it’s never too late to go back and see what you’ve missed. Exploring more genres in this library has given me a new appreciation for how deep the NES bench is. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Marble Madness (1989) for @cartridgeclub.bsky.social‘s NES March Madness. What a gem (or at least a jewel-like marble). I went from thinking it was impossible to thinking I had it on lock to thinking it was impossible again (but only the last level). @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Bioshock Infinite for the @cartridgeclub.bsky.social #gameofthemonth. I still have the DLC to do but then I’ll be 100% done the series. I need to chew on this one for a bit before I know exactly how to rank it but it’s been an experience. Thanks Ken Levine. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Monster Party (1989, for real this time). This is another game I played at six without getting past the first level. It made an impression—decades later I still had images from this weird and wacky game in my head. The NES library, it’s a real one for sure. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

I decided to travel back in time with @polykillpodcast.bsky.social to 1989 for time travel month and #justbeatit Little Nemo(1990). Oops. It was a happy accident. Along with A Boy and His Blob this game has lived rent-free in my head since I was a small child. I’m so pleased to finally see its end.

#justbeatit Yakuza: Like a Dragon. This took quite a while but I’ve been enjoying the journey. The character of Ichiban Kasuga really resonates with me. Same age, same haircut, but mostly I love his philosophy of life as an RPG: level up, help out, embrace the grind. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

The Sega arcades dotting the map provide many full games within the game of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Virtua Fighter 2 took me right back to my childhood burning quarters at 7-Eleven. Now, thanks to a much larger coin supply and prodigious use of ring outs I #justbeatit. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Mario vs Donkey Kong (2023). This DK ‘94 sequel is still a delight on the Switch. But having internalized the mechanics on the GBA version a few years back, I found even the newly added levels were a breeze. Guess you can only experience your first time once. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Life is Strange: True Colors. I didn’t find the story or villain as compelling as in the first of the series. The emotion reading is implemented only as a pseudo-mechanic. And plot holes. I still got sucked in, made multiple wrong choices, got a mid ending. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

#justbeatit Super Mario Bros Mini: Second Quest. Thanks @topspot123.bsky.social for letting me know this fan remake has a new game available if you “press B”. I loved the nods to early handheld Mario games, since it was developed for GBC. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social mico27.itch.io/super-mario-...

#justbeatit Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate. I am far from mastering this chess-inspired, roguelike action strategy. But I got the right set of upgrades to squeeze out a victory. With practice maybe I’ll get good enough to win even when the RNG doesn’t all go my way. @polykillpodcast.bsky.social

Hi blsky ppl. In 2024 I finished 58 new games (plus some replays). This is a lot for me and getting a higher beat count this year is not needed. I do have other 2025 goals, though, including managing the +/- on my backlog and my total spending, and I’ll report back on these and others at year end.