In 2010 I decided to start collecting information about video games that I'd completed.

 

Why? Well mostly because I was a very bored 17-year-old and it seemed like a resonable way to spend my time. But it was also because I really loved games and I wanted to play as many of them as possible. I made Marsh Game Logs to allow me to 'tick off' a game upon its completion so that I could set it aside and move onto the next. I also used it to collect my opinions of a game at the time, so it was also intended to act as a sort of time capsule that would allow me to reflect on my life in that moment.

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Originally I recorded the information inside of a spreadsheet, and it was just for my own viewing. But I have since decided to share it. Alongside my opinions on the game I also collect quantitative and qualitative data such as:

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• The start/end time and date of the playthrough

• The time taken to complete the game

• The platform the game was played on

• The number of saves

• The number of deaths

• My own rating out of 10 for the game

• My own difficulty rating out of 10 for the game

• The settings I played on

• What I consider to be the player’s worst enemy in the game

• What I defined the completion of the game to be

• Any interruptions or breaks that occurred during play

• If I had completed it before

• The reason and location of the first death

• The number of lives the player has at the start and at the end

• My least favourite and most favourite area or level

• My state when playing (e.g. happy, sad, hungry, tired, drunk...)

 

I began taking ending pictures from the 9th game and I started recording the runs from the 27th game. All of this footage can be found at my YouTube channel.

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Unfortunately, I don't really have a lot of free time these days to complete games as I did at 17. Such is life. But I am looking towards adding more when I can, perhaps 2-3 a year.

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Once I have completed a game and submitted its log I don't update its information. Even spelling errors aren't corrected. Two examples of this: in the T'ai Fu notes I said that the controls felt monogamous instead of monotonous. In the notes for Portal I spelt GLaDOS as GLADOS. I also used to go hyphen crazy at 17 and would often put them into words unnecessarily. But these errors are still included and left unaltered, because I wrote them as such.

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I do have a tendency to sound inarticulate at times. This is most apparent in the very early entries; however I do get better at voicing my opinions later on.

 

If you get a kick out of this blog, then great! Enjoy.