Challenges (30/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (1/9)

Games beaten in August:
✅World of Goo 2 08. A game you've been wishing and waiting for
✅Kyle Is Famous 05. A time sink (50+ hours)
✅[Alternative] 20 Small Mazes 14-3. A game whose title starts with a number
✅Slay the Princess 10. A game with 6+ endings
✅PUSS! 17. A game that is themed around dogs or cats
✅Wario Land 4 29. Another person’s favorite game
✅WHAT THE GOLF? 12. A game recommended to you by someone else
✅Harmony's Odyssey 34. A bright and cheerful game

Hi everybody! I was pretty busy in July, so I didn't have any new games to add. I picked up the slack this month! I also played a lot of Islands of Insight. It's pretty interesting watching a game's online servers decay in real time. I have like 80 hours in the game and it was really fun, if the servers get fixed I'd love to play more. Also, if you're wondering how I got 50+ hours in Kyle Is Famous, there are a lot of awesome custom stories in the Steam Workshop. My partner wrote a bunch of amazing text adventure mods for Kyle Is Famous and they're really really well written. I love his creativity and writing. I actually wrote my own mod after playing through his, please check it out if you'd like!

Mesmerizer Fangame (Itch)

Challenges (23/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (0/9)

Games beaten in May:
✅Glass Masquerade 3: Honeylines 33-1. A “threequel” (third part of a series)
✅Animal Well 49. A game listed on the HLTB stats page, or the stats page filtered for a single platform
✅Ynglet 44-2. A game that you have beaten before and are replaying

Haven't played nearly as many games this year as I had last year. Life's been busy, but it's a good busy! Lot of nice things happening for me. Not sure if I'm gonna get all the bonuses this year, but I'm aiming to clear the core 50 challenges.

I played Cineris Somnia last year, and its atmosphere really stuck with me. The actual game itself is a solid walking adventure game which can get tedious at times, but I still remember it fondly now. Are there any other games with a similar atmosphere or experience? I especially liked the feeling of wandering through an empty building with a complex layout in the hospital chapter, and the bloom filter is really nice.

I sort of had the same appreciation for exploring the environments in Another Code R for the Wii, and Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon is a game I have my eye on. Does anyone have suggestions for third-person exploration games that look similar to this? Being able to explore around a big complex building is something I love doing in games.

Challenges (20/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (0/9)

Games beaten in April:
✅Patrick's Parabox 14-1. A game with an alliterative title
✅Linelight 22. A game without any humans
✅Donut Dodo 24. An arcade-style high score game
✅Another Code: Recollection 09-1. A remake or remaster of a game

Challenges (16/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (0/9)

Games beaten in March:
✅ Wario Land 3 03. A really old game (released 20+ years ago)

Whoops. Only two completions these past two months. I played way to much Balatro this month, lol. Aiming to get at least five done for April.

Challenges (15/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (0/9)

Games beaten in February:
✅ Toodee and Topdee 18-1. A game that features multiple genres, or is a mashup of different genres

Challenges (14/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (0/9)

Games beaten in January:
✅ Cocoon 01. A new game (released within the past year)
✅ Undertale Yellow 07. A game you got for free
✅ I SPY Fun House 27. A game that was adapted from another medium (book, movie, etc.)
✅ Taiji 39. A game that surprised you
✅ City Connection 06. A quick completion (less than an hour)
✅ Pocky & Rocky with Becky 35. A game containing a real or fictional religion
✅ Waku Waku Sweets 50. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer
✅ Celeste 21. A game with a female protagonist
✅ Youropa 46-1. A studio's very first game
✅ Kine 41. A game with a short title (4 letters or less)
✅ Beasts of Maravilla Island 32. A game that starts with the same first letter as in your username
✅ Chantelise - A Tale of Two Sisters 02. An old game (released 10+ years ago)
✅ Kirby: Triple Deluxe 25-2. A game whose protagonist you would want to be friends with
✅ Wario Land II 19. A game where you play as an antihero or a villain

Ended up focusing more on filling challenges this January than I had last year. Had a lot of fun with the games I picked. I had a lot of free time this month, so I won't have this many completions every month lol. I'm playing through Wario Land 3 right now and I'm enjoying the gameplay loop it has. My friend has been hyping up Wario Land 4, which I'll play after I finish the third one.

Put together my list for 2024! Was able to include a couple of games I was already playing through at the start of the new year, which is nice.

If you're looking to make your own collection: Go to the page of a game you want to include in the collection. On the left-hand side, underneath the "add playthrough" buttons there's a collection option. Click the "New" button then write a title & description for the game, then click "Add". You can then view the collection in your profile's collections tab. To add subsequent games to the collection, go to those games' pages. Type a description and click "Add" as you did before. (The new collection you made should be shown by default as the collection to be appended)

Seconding Ys as an action RPG recommendation. Falcom has other fun action RPGs like Zwei!! And Gurumin.

Games in the Etrian Odyssey series are fun dungeon crawling JRPGs, the first three recently being ported in HD to Switch and PC.

Changed 09-2 to "A game that received new translations to other languages some time after its initial release" making it more general and approachable for speakers of many languages.

The list is challenge filled out, and I've updated the first post in the thread to reflect it. You can start putting together your lists if you'd like.

Challenges (50/50)
Bonus (5/5)
Alternatives (7/7)

Games beaten in December:
✅ [Alternative] 1080° Snowboarding 38-1. A sports game
✅ Doom 18. A cornerstone to gaming culture
✅ [Alternative] Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition 07-2. A Golden Joystick award winner (any year)
✅ [Alternative] Happy Game 42-2. A dark, gritty, or violent game
✅ We Were Here 33. A game that includes a co-op mode
✅ Noitu Love 30. A game developed by a single person
✅ I Have Low Stats But My Class Is "Leader" So I Recruited Everyone I Know To Fight The Dark Lord 19. A game with a long title (has 8+ words or a word containing 13+ letters)

Horray! Challenge complete! I hope everybody had fun with the challenge this year.

The 2024 challenge is nearly ready, I just need two more challenge categories to put in then it should be ready tonight.

Hi! A bit of a progress update, as the list is nearly filled out. There’s 5 spots remaining for challenges, and we currently have 9 alternatives. Last year had 7 alternatives, and I’d like to keep alts at a cap of 10.

Here are a selection of challenges that’ve been suggested:
- A game with 4 or more difficulty options
- Beat a game with a metascore below 70
- A game from a series that hasn’t recieved a new installment in 15+ years
- A game featuring time travel
- A game that explores mental health themes
- A game with a perfect score from a major reviewer (The selection is 148 compared to Game of the Month’s 156, so I think it’s a managable number to pick from)

Also I put the “light and fluffy” suggestion down as “bright and cheerful” as I thought the latter was a more clear descriptor, I can use the former if people want that one.

Finally we also need to establish bonuses. The running idea is “four games from the four quarters of a chosen year” (Example: Q1 2011, Q2 2011, Q3 2011, Q4 2011) as well as a fifth bonus related somehow to your birthday. Maybe “a game released in your chosen year in the same month as your birthday” and it can be said that if you’re up to it, try the same week or the exact day.

47. A game that has its HLTB times on a red or purple background at the time you started playing it (color indicates the amount of submitted playtimes, red being the lowest)

If we're going with low submission times here we should also add gray which indicates no submissions

Agreed, I’ll update this to include gray.

So, first off, I thought I'd go ahead and talk about some thoughts brewin' in my brain for some categories. One that has been in my head and I've wanted to see in these challenges for a while is some based on How Long to Beat's site features, in particular the accuraccy category because it is something where we'd be actively helping the website if we went and completed it! Something like...

- A game with a red or purple How Long to Beat Time

...Would be a good category I think, very broad but also narrows it down to likely some more obscure stuff as well. You could also include games with no time. Obviously if enough people play a game then it could move out of being red / purple, but I feel like we have a good honor system that people played a game that was valid at the time.

Another fun one could be...

- A game that appears on How Long to Beat's Stats Page

We could narrow it down to a specific category, but just making it appear on the page at all opens the door both to obvious ones (like BioShock or Skyrim), highly retired games (time to finally beat Super Meat Boy?), super short games (we're burning the rope fr fr) or the like. I could see this being a bit tricky, but yeah.

Going outside of How Long to Beat itself one thought I had was...

- A game that got a perfect score from IGN, GameSpot, Electronic Gaming Magazine, Edge Magazine or Famitsu

All of these are like the "major" review places AND go back really far (like EGM to the 80s) so there should be a wide enough variety, and it would be interesting to see people go through a lot of "industry favorites" as it were. Famitsu helps keep it from being western-only and adds variety. It could be this year's variant of "Games that received specific awards/nominations".

I was going to suggest a challenge then realized it was already Challenge #27 lol. I also wanna suggest that "A game you previously retired" is fun but it does run into the issue that some people don't really have a huge backlog of retired games, so it might be good to make it a choice between that and "A game you previously beat" as I feel they both have the same vibe of going back to something you played before and getting a new perspective on it.

I do think the genre games are fun but I do like some of them swapping up yearly. I know we have done "A very gritty game" and "A dark and gritty game" before, so why not something like "A light and fluffy game" or something?

- A game released in the month you were born.
- A game released in the year you were born.

I was thinking this would be a good one to make a A/B scenario, in case somebody's too old to properly have games to release in the year they were born, and because looking for month-specific games might be more unique especially since IIRC we did a year one already. I think it'd be fun to try the month one, anyway.

I'd also say Pokepaw's "A game with a world where you'd actually want to live in" (or something like that) suggestion was appealing, maybe as well "A game that has your favorite voice actor/actress in it" (I would only do this if it was paired with a second option since I bet a lot of people lack a favorite VA), RD2D2's "beat a game that's also on someone else's 2024 challenge list." (I LOVE this one) as well.

---

Old challenges I think would be fun to bring back would be:

- Play someone else's favorite game (I think having a "sharing" component is Neat and it has a broad range given friend group + HLTB size)
- Beat a game with a Metascore below 70 and Beat a game with a Metascore above 90 (I think these are fun for being open but pushing into specific spaces)
- A "threequel" (third part in a series) (There's a lot of interesting Threequels out there! Maybe make it an alternate with "A spin-off game"?)
- A game you watched someone else play first (partially or in full) (This was a personal favorite and one I'd love to see back, worst comes to worst you can cheese it but it's fun to go through games you only knew through others!)
- Beat a game that starts with the first letter of your username (It's just SUCH an easy one that'll be inherently varied for everyone)
- A game with a real or fictional religion in it (this can be anything from Super Noah's Ark to Fallout 3) (Just seems wide enough to be interesting but narrow enough to require a bit of thinkerin')
- Finish a game in one day but it needs to be at least 6 hours long (Only if it was modified: I like a one day challenge but six hours felt too long. 3 hours would be a better sweetspot or something)
- A game with a diverse cast (It's good!)
- A cornerstone to gaming culture (I just liked it.)
- A game with both a male and female lead that doesn’t have a romantic subplot (I really liked this because it's actually an interesting question to think on, though I would personally make it explicitly that the leads don't have romantic subplots since the current wording could imply the game having ANY romantic plotting voids it)
- A game from a dead series (Encourages people to look at old series they otherwise might not)
- A game featuring time travel (Potentially diverse)
- A game you've put off playing (Get people to kick through that backlog, perhaps?)

Also I'd consider giving "A collection of games" an alternative just because collections can take a long time, but that's hardly a requirement.

Wow! These are a lot of great suggestions, thank you for taking the time to type them out.

generally speaking, I'm okay with most categories but do have a few suggestions.

1) We already have post-apocalyptic category before. How about changing it to some other state of the world? For example, replacing it with "historic or medieval?".
2) I really did not like "breaking the 4th wall". It actually not a term used in many countries and can be really confusing to non English speakers. In fact, in some countries this is very close to really negative and oppressive terms. We can change it to "a Game in which the playing character acknowledge the player playing them" or, in my humble opinion, remove this - there are not many games that fall into this category anyway.

These are some good suggestions, thank you. I agree that a ‘meta’ game where the characters acknowledge the player are not incredibly common, so I’ll find another category that could fit there. Possibly something like a “game that parodies or pays homage to its genre”? Something that could include ‘meta’ games, but also give room for other kinds of games as well.

If there are any other categories that rely on understanding specific English terms related to gaming, please let me know, as I’d want these challenges to be as acessible as they can be.

Maybe instead of a game per month, we could do a game per quarter?

I do like that idea, having 4 bonuses for one game released in each quarter of a year.

Ideas:
-Maybe to make it interesting, the games can be from the quarters of any year, but all four have to be from a single given year.
-As for a fifth bonus, maybe something to do with the user’s birthday? Such as a game released on your birthday in any year (may be too restrictive) or released during your birthday month/week in the same year as the other four bonuses.

What does everybody think of these bonus category ideas? If you have a different bonus suggestion I’d love to hear it as well.

Hello everyone and welcome to the HLTB 2024 gaming challenge. This past month I've collected suggestions and ideas for challenges to help shape this year's list. If you have any questions about a challenge category feel free to ask for clarification.

Good luck and I hope everyone has a good new year.

Rules:
1. The game needs to be finished in 2024. Games started in 2023 but finished in 2024 are valid and can be applied to challenges.
2. A game can only be put towards one challenge prompt. (no repeats)
3. Some challenges have a '-' in them such as '45-1' and '45-2'. These indicate that you can choose one or the other, or if you're feeling up to it, both!
4. You do not need to 100% a game to mark it as complete. Completing a game has a different meaning for everyone. Some may complete a game when they are done with the main story. Others may complete a game when they've had their fill, whether that be before or after the credits roll. This does not disqualify a game, once you decide that you are through with the game experience you can count it towards a challenge.
5. At the end of each month post your list and outline your progress. The collections feature is helpful in showing off challenge progress!
6. Have fun!

In-Progress 2024 Challenge List:
01. A new game (released within the past year)
02. An old game (released 10+ years ago)
03. A really old game (released 20+ years ago)
04. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago)
05. A time sink (50+ hours)
06. A quick completion (less than an hour)
07. A game you got for free
08. A game you've been wishing and waiting for
09-1. A remake or remaster of a game
09-2. A game that received new translations to other languages some time after its initial release
10. A game with 6+ endings
11. A collection of games
12. A game recommended to you by someone else
13. A game whose title could describe your life
14-1. A game with an alliterative title
14-2. A game whose title contains the name of a color
14-3. A game whose title starts with a number
15. A game that heavily focuses on flight
16. A game from a genre you don't usually play
17. A game that is themed around dogs or cats
18-1. A game that features multiple genres, or is a mashup of different genres
18-2. A visual novel or text-based game
19. A game where you play as an antihero or a villain
20-1. A game set in a historical time period
20-2. A game set in the far future
21. A game with a female protagonist
22. A game without any humans
23. A game where you play as a robot or an alien
24. An arcade-style high score game
25-1. A game set in a world you would like living in
25-2. A game whose protagonist you would want to be friends with
26. A game where you play as a bug or an aquatic creature
27. A game that was adapted from another medium (book, movie, etc.) or a game that has been adapted into another medium
28. A game you watched someone else play first (partially or in full)
29. Another person’s favorite game
30. A game with a diverse cast
31. A cornerstone to gaming culture
32. A game that starts with the same first letter as in your username (if your username doesn’t contain letters, pick a random letter)
33-1. A “threequel” (third part of a series)
33-2. A spin-off game
34. A bright and cheerful game
35. A game containing a real or fictional religion
36. A game that heavily features either fire or ice
37. A game that heavily features money, gold, or economics
38. A game with a subtitle
39. A game that surprised you
40. A post-apocalyptic game
41. A game with a short title (4 letters or less)
42. A game that had a red retirement rating on HLTB when you started playing it (10% or higher)
43. A game that one of your favorite artists worked on (artist, developer, musician, voice actor/actress, etc.)
44-1. A game you previously retired or put on hold
44-2. A game that you have beaten before and are replaying
45. A game that is on someone else’s HLTB 2024 Gaming Challenge List
46-1. A studio's very first game
46-2. A studio's most recent game (at the time when you started playing the game)
47. A game that had its HLTB times on a purple/red/gray background at the time you started playing it (color indicates the amount of submitted playtimes, red = low amount, gray = zero)
48. A game that has been a HLTB Game of the Month
49. A game listed on the HLTB stats page, or the stats page filtered for a single platform
50. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer

Bonuses:
- Four games, released in the four quarters of a given year of your choice
- A single game released in the same year as the previous four, but during the same month as your birthday, if you are up to the challenge, try to be as close to the day itself as you can

Good luck, and have fun everyone!

Old thread header below, saved for posterity.

Hello everyone! I'm going to start putting the list together for the HLTB Gaming Challenge for 2024. Though this year I thought it'd be fun to gather suggestions and ideas. I've started with a few staple categories, and also put a section of examples from past years. I'm hoping to get some variety so it's not 80% direct repeats from 2023. What are some challenges that you particularly want to see on this year's list? Maybe you have an idea for a new challenge. The alternatives mechanic I introduced last year seemed well received, so they could be implemented again this year too. Alternatives were "either-or" categories designated like X-1 and X-2, where you only needed to do one of them to mark the challenge as complete, but you could do both if you wanted to. Suggestions for a bonus category are welcome too.

Challenges (46/50)
Bonus (5/5)
Alternatives (4/7)

Games beaten in November:
✅ The Fool's Errand 04. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago)
✅ Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition 22. A tie-in to a licensed movie or TV show
✅ Katana ZERO 50. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer
✅ [Alternative] What Remains of Edith Finch 45-2. A game made in Unreal Engine
✅ Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight 05. A time sink (50+ hours)
✅ {Bonus} Tengami Bonus - United Kingdom
✅ Mario Party: Island Tour 37. A party game
✅ SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE 41. A game from a genre you rarely play
✅ {Bonus} Botanicula Bonus - Czech Republic
✅ Mega Man 3 03. A really old game (released 20+ years ago)
✅ {Bonus} Flood of Light Bonus - China
✅ {Bonus} Pac 'n Roll Bonus - Japan
✅ {Bonus} INMOST Bonus - Lithuania

Made a lot of progress this month! Also decided to get my bonuses out of the way. I'm pretty certain that I'll be able to complete my last 7 games before the end of the year. Good luck to everybody else that is doing the challenge!

With it being December, it's a good time to start preparing the 2024 challenge list. I'll put up a thread soon with a working list of the challenges. I think it'd be fun to gather suggestions for what challenges people liked from past years and maybe come up with some new ones.

Challenges (39/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (3/7)

Games beaten in October:
✅ Draw a Stickman: EPIC 44. A game with a character creator
✅ Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing 38-2. A racing game
✅ Little Nightmares 25. A game that's scary

Getting pretty close to completing the challenge! Just about four-fifths the way there. I'd been preoccupied with another project for the latter half of October, so I now have more time to finish these last eleven games, rounding out the main objectives. I expect to finish Drawn to Life: Spongebob Squarepants Edition within the next few days, and I've just got some exp grinding to do in Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold before the final boss. I'll likely swap in Mega Man 3 in the place of Touhou 6 for a 20+ year old game, because I'm trying to 1CC it on Normal with Reimu. I doubt I can pull that off without more practice on top of the twelve or so hours I've already sunk into the game. Also, since I'm the one who made the list, I'm aiming to do alternatives + bonuses as well, so I'll see how far I get in that regard!

Challenges (36/50)
Bonus (0/5)
Alternatives (3/7)

Games beaten in September:
✅ Machinarium 46. A game where you play as a robot or an alien
✅ Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 39. A game where you play as an antihero or a villain
✅ [Alternative] To the Moon 07-3. A Steam Awards nominee (any year)
✅ Sable 35. A cel-shaded game
✅ Pokémon Snap 15. A spin-off game
✅ Manual Samuel 11. A game you watched someone else play first (partially or in full)
✅ Sin and Punishment 36. A game that takes place in a dystopia or utopia

This one is a bit more sci-fi than fantasy, but Sable is a game I recently played.

It takes place on a desert planet. There’s no combat, the main gameplay comes from exploration of large structures, and some light puzzles.

Also a remake, and oh my god. Another Code is my #1 favorite game of all time, I never thought it’d see the light of day after its developer went bankrupt. I’m so happy more people will be able to play them, and in North America won’t be required to import the sequel like I did. The new graphics and voice acting are amazing, and there’s new music too! If you like adventure games, please pick up Another Code: Recollection when it releases.