Welcome to May Mastery 2016

Welcome, May masters and mistresses, to another season of May Mastery. Introduced last year, May Mastery is a variation of my usual May Madness series wherein I update on a daily or near-daily basis for the entire month of May. The subject? Games sitting in my Steam backlog, which increases every year despite my futile attempts to stem the flow. (Blame sales and bundles for that. And I guess my own lack of impulse control too, sure.)

The difference between Madness and Mastery is a subtle one: With May Madness I would play a new game every day and report my early impressions, whereas with Mastery I stick with a game until I beat it or until I hit a three day limit, at which point I'll have almost exhausted any topics of discussion regarding that game and will want to move on to keep things fresh. I've got some real bangers from 2014 and 2015 that I want to focus on first, followed up by the usual mix of puzzle-platformers, point-and-click adventure games, retro CRPGs and survival horror: essentially, whatever was hot in the Indie market between 2010 and now.

Sorta gross? disclaimer: I will graciously receive Steam gifts and bump them up the play queue if you want me to cover something in particular (provided they aren't fairly recent AAA games, because this PC won't be able to play them and I'd feel kind of awkward accepting something that valuable anyway). I'll even throw in some of my inimitable MS Paint comic renditions, for whatever that's worth. Rest assured that I've plenty to be getting on with either way.

Without further ado...

The Rules!

1. I intend to complete every game start to finish to the best of my ability within a three day limit. The games on this list are those I'm keen to see through, and I intend to deliver the sort of thorough commentary that only a full playthrough can provide.
2. I shall play each game until one of three things happens: A) I complete the game, B) Three days pass, in which case I move on to prevent the recaps from becoming stale, C) I determine that I have no interest in continuing the game, and cut off the playthrough prematurely.
3. I update every single day in May. That's thirty-one updates in thirty-one days, barring an emergency or internet outage (in which case they'll be slightly late). My Sunday Summaries feature will continue during this time, which I'll probably use to sum up the week's May Mastery activity.

The May features have always been a self-imposed writing challenge, not to mention an excuse to clear out some of my frankly ridiculous Steam backlog, so it's important to set some boundaries ahead of time so I don't go wuss out. I'm just glad I'm not a video guy and am trying to upload one of these every day; now that would be some ridiculous endurance coverage.

Below you will find links to every May Mastery entry as I publish them.