Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club FAQ and Game Suggestion Thread

NOTE: The Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club has no affiliation with Giant Bomb or any of its corporate parents or siblings. This is a community run effort being done just for fun.

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. This post is to give you an idea of what this is, give an opportunity for suggestions, discussion, and other feedback, and help us select our next games to play as a group. It is structured as an FAQ and will be edited to include answers to additional questions as they crop up. If you think any information is missing or unclear please comment below and appropriate edits can be made.

WHAT IS THE UNSANCTIONED UNOFFICIAL GAME PASS GAME CLUB?

The Game Club is a community effort to get more out of our Game Pass subscription by choosing a game for all of us to play simultaneously and discuss over a set period of time. It is intended to be inclusive and low commitment, just a fun way to play games and have fun with other duders (or duderetters or non-binary duderinos). It’s not very structured or formal. The main guidelines are to be cool to each other and keep things fun and lighthearted. You can see the thread where this was set up right here.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

We select a game as a community through consensus or voting and then post a discussion thread for that game with a suggested completion date. Up until that date we ask that there be no spoilers (story or mechanical) posted in the discussion thread until the target date, at which point the discussion will open up for spoilers. Our goal is for the majority of the discussion to take place after the completion date but if people want to talk in a non-spoilery way about the game before that they are free to do that, to let people participate on their own schedule. Similarly if you just have to post your spoilery opinion before then you can do so if you use the appropriate spoiler tags offered by the forum software. We do ask that you come back after the completion date to participate in the full discussion and read others’ impressions but obviously that is ultimately up to you.

WHAT KINDS OF GAMES ARE ELIGIBLE FOR THE UNSANCTIONED UNOFFICIAL GAME PASS GAME CLUB?

Anything on Microsoft’s Game Pass service is technically eligible, but there are several criteria that we are trying to stick to. The first is that the games be of manageable length and difficulty so everyone can complete them in the allotted time. The second is that the games be available on as many Game Pass supported platforms as possible so everyone can participate regardless of what hardware they have access to. There is also a focus on games that are newer to the service so that fewer people will have already played them, but that is less of an important criterion than the first two. Ultimately the games selected will be up to the people who want to participate.

HOW LONG WILL I HAVE TO COMPLETE A GAME?

Our goal is to ask people to spend about 2 hours a week to play games and to focus on games that are around 5 or fewer hours in length, giving people about two weeks to complete a given game. If we decide to tackle a longer game we may give a longer period for people to complete it. Once each game is chosen a target completion date will also be selected and will be listed in that game’s discussion thread.

HOW DO I JOIN THE UNSANCTIONED UNOFFICIAL GAME PASS GAME CLUB?

There is no membership roll. You just comment on the thread if you feel like it. You can join us for whichever games you like and drop in and out at will. As long as you follow the loose guidelines set forth here you are welcome and valued.

I DON’T HAVE GAME PASS BUT I WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE GAME CLUB.

As long as you have access to a given game your input is welcomed and valued. It doesn’t matter if you play the game on some other platform, the only reason we are using Game Pass is because it is a way to make selections that many people can access without spending additional money beyond the subscriptions they already have. If you already own a game or feel like buying it to participate…great. Welcome aboard!

HOW DO I SUGGEST FUTURE GAMES FOR THE GAME CLUB?

Just post in this very thread. We do want to focus on games that are recently added to the service but if there’s an older game you think would be a great selection we are open to that. If there are games that have been announced for the service but not yet released feel free to suggest them and we can do them after they are added. If you suggest a long game it will likely not be considered for reasons discussed above. However if there is overwhelming participant desire to do a longer game then we’ll do it.

I HAVE QUESTIONS THAT YOU HAVEN’T ANSWERED

Please feel free to ask them below!

Thank you for your interest in the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club. Whether you choose to participate for just one game or as long as this thing goes we appreciate and value your participation and feedback. You’re an awesome duder/duderette/duderino and we all hope you have a beautiful day!

LIST OF GAMES SELECTED

YEAR 1

Gorogoa (completion date January 17, 2022)

The Pedestrian (completion date January 31, 2022)

Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (completion date February 14, 2022)

Superliminal (completion date February 28, 2022)

Infernax (Completion date March 14, 2022)

Signs of the Sojourner (Completion date April 11, 2022)

Raji: An Ancient Epic (Completion date May 2, 2022)

Exo One (Completion date May 16, 2022)

Trek to Yomi (Completion date May 30, 2022)

The Procession to Cavalry (Completion date June 13, 2022)

Citizen Sleeper (Completion date June 27, 2022)

Bugsnax (Completion date July 11, 2022)

Unpacking (Completion date July 25, 2022)

Escape Academy (Completion date August 8, 2022)

Telling Lies (Completion date August 22, 2022)

As Dusk Falls (Completion date September 5, 2022)

Midnight Fight Express (Completion date September 19, 2022)

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge (Completion date October 3, 2022)

Paradise Killer (Completion date October 17, 2022)

Scorn (Completion date October 31, 2022)

Inside (Completion date November 14, 2022)

Metal Hellsinger (Completion date November 28, 2022)

Norco (Completion Date December 12, 2022)

Pentiment (Completion Date December 26, 2022)

YEAR 2

Signalis (Completion Date January 16, 2023)

Tinykin (Completion Date January 30, 2023)

Color me intrigued, I'll only be able to participate for games I already have (don't have a new Xbox or a PC with game pass).. but I love the idea

Hm, this looks neat.

Don't know if I can keep up, and I only have PC Gamepass, but I'll at least try and chime in when I can.

I started Gorogoa on my tablet a few months ago, and will probably finish it there.

I started up Gorogoa last night and next thing I knew I was looking at the credits! I'm not going to talk much about it this early and I want to go through it again as I didn't have any sound going at the time so I missed some of the presentation. Anyone on the edge regarding time commitment over the next two weeks can feel at ease over completing this in a leisurely pace.

I literally asked in the discord if there was a Gamepass game club anywhere today and was pointed here. I’ll be happy to participate.

Figure out your selection process other than. My want to play this game reel baaadly. Where does that leave us in March 2023? Nowhere. Xbox has a feature called ‘surprise me,” where the Xbox picks a random game. Figure out all scenarios like if rare replay comes up or the master chief collection comes up. Sports games come up. Verify with including a list of gamertags so we can monitor others progress and not just have bandwagoners doing a stolen dead cells review for the lols. This ship sinks unless you figure out selection. I guess that’s why most small businesses fail. Great ideas. Poor execution. I’ll be here to badger.

My first suggestion is Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. HowLongToBeat has it around 5-6 hours.

I'm suggesting it because I saw Michael Higham streaming it a couple months ago and just now saw it on Gamepass. Also, how could you not be intrigued by something with that ridiculous name?

@noboners: I have no objection to this being suggested since it's a recent addition and of an appropriate length and available on both platforms, but I think it's worth giving a short description. I've played a chunk of the game (though I haven't finished it yet so this would be a good reason to) and it's basically a licensed Symphony of the Night clone, with a couple twists (like being able to aim your bow and using it to solve puzzles.)

I think it's of decent quality as a game. I didn't stop playing it because it was bad and I've intended to get back to it, I was just focused on some other stuff. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how solid it is, but I think the story will be pretty incomprehensible to anyone who isn't familiar with the Record of Lodoss War anime. It's not a story focused game, though, so I don't think that's a reason for non-fans not to play. It's not like Symphony of the Night had a particularly comprehensible story.

So we have our first suggestion for the next cycle. We'll see how many there are and try to pick the next game by the 17th, but for now we'll leave the the floor open and see if there are other suggestions.

Definitely one to consider. Thanks, duder!

I’m already through the 1st 3 chapters of Gorogoa. I’m going to win this club!

… looking forward to reading everyone else’s thoughts on Gorogoa on the 17th.

I'll give Gorogoa a shot. I like the game club idea, it's good motivation to get out of my gaming comfort zones. The Nextlander guys actually did something similar but they don't play the game to completion (ie. Neo The World Ends With You) unless they really like it (ie. Inscryption).

I'm probably in almost exactly the same spot as you. I'm not sure if I'm going to finish it or not. I definitely have thoughts. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else thinks.

As for suggestions - maybe Kill It With Fire? According to what it says on the tin it's a game about "hunting spiders and causing collateral damage." HowLongtoBeat has it at 3 hours to complete and looks sort of silly and goofy. I don't think it's new, but I'd never heard of it either. It just sort of caught my eye scrolling through the GamePass list.

@noboners@bigsocrates: I finished Record of Lodoss War Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth a week ago and I'll probably go back on for the achievement spree/extras. It's easy to recommend but it does take a little longer to play through the first time around. I had zero context for story so I lacked the greater context of who the characters were for most of the game but there is a simple enough story that unfolds by the end.

Moved Gorogoa impressions to dedicated thread.

So far we have Deedlit, Kill it With Fire, Superliminal and Supraland for the list. My preference is for one of the first 3 because of the length issue, but we'll certainly consider them all. I've beaten the single player of Superliminal but played it before the multiplayer was released. It'd definitely be a fun one to talk about because there's a lot going on in that game both mechanically and narratively.

For now I'm thinking that the voting system will be to let people vote on a top choice (3 points) and a second choice (1 point). If a game is over 8 hours long then a top choice vote for it will only give it 2 points, making it require more support in order to win. Any game that receives multiple first or second place votes will automatically be included in the next voting pool. I am obviously open to any tweaks or improvements to this system so please let me know if you'd like to do it differently.

My preference would still be that people post about the games in their own threads (I've created one and linked it above) because it will make things easier to archive for future people who might want to see the discussion and avoid any spoilers in this main thread for games people might not have played (Since the discussion will be spoilery after the allotted time period) but so far it seems like people don't want to do that, which is understandable. That's a battle I may give up on. I totally get wanting to have a single thread with all game club discussion in it.

@bigsocrates: Just do individual threads per game. If it becomes popular enough people will know. Let the threads on the last day of discussion. Still think the selection process for games is goofy. Guess everybody will remain in their comfort zones. It's not like you're required to only play that game if it doesnt speak to you. Starting my rival book club over here. Nah, don't have gamepass and a good program as the idea matures might be incentive enough to join and spend the money You're not there yet, at all.

I agree that the discussion of each game should be in their own individual threads. If we can hold the line long enough, maybe it'll catch on.

I'm totally fine with the voting process. I think taking part in the democracy could get people to play something they wouldn't normally if they see overwhelming support for the game. At least, that's how I would feel.

The level of irony here is so high that I'm now open to the possibility that I'm falling victim to an elaborate, long term prank.

Anyway I'm excited to participate, though I'll be of uncertain commitment for some weeks. As for organisation I think that separate threads per game is a great idea, it'll be much neater in the end IMO. Ranked choice polls for a few options sounds like as good an idea as any too.

Recent addition in game pass, The Pedestrian, looks also very cool (and very short)

@donutello: I played The Pedestrian and I thought it was alright but not quite as charming as it looked. We'll add it to the voting list.

I think that the way this is going to work is that if anyone else makes a suggestion I'm not going to make any and just put them all up to vote by the system I listed above. I'll put the voting thread out on the Wednesday before the end of the current cycle and then close it at the same time as I open spoilers on the game thread, tabulating votes then and announcing a winner.

I won't vote myself unless there's a tie that needs breaking.

I know I'm doing the organizing right now but I'd like this to be a community collaborative/democratic thing as much as possible.

If anyone else has suggestions on how to tweak the proposed system this is the thread to discuss those suggestions!

@bigsocrates: That sounds great

this seems cool specially if they're shorter games like mentioned since i'm honestly always looking for those, heck 3 of my 9 goty games this past year fit the criteria. i'll probably pop in now n then for this if i'm not deep into whatever i'm already playing (backlog is large!).

Late to the party; Installing now!

Just finished it. Wasn't expecting to finish it all in 2 playthroughs, but it really moves from chapter to chapter. If anyone want to play one more puzzle, I recommended playing the 2012 demo that unlocks after you beat the main game. ~10 min, (same chapter 1 and 2 puzzle, but they changed up a little bit for the yellow fruit).

Yeah, I only finished it in one session. It took me about an hour and a half which was a much shorter time than I expected, particularly as I'm not great at puzzle games.

Nominations are now closed for the next cycle. Voting can be done here.

@justin258 asks: Do people who did not finish the game get to comment? I can see why you'd want everyone who comments to have finished the game... but also, video games tend to be long affairs and I think there's value in finding out why people put games down.

Here is my proposed response, which is up for debate and discussion:

I think that it's impossible to police this so I think people who did not finish the game should be permitted to comment but should be asked to disclose up front that they did not finish the game by starting their first comment with something like "I only got halfway through the game, but my thoughts are ______" That way other people can decide whether or not they want to read the opinion of someone who didn't finish. Otherwise they should be free to participate in the discussion with the understanding that they will be exposed to spoilers if they choose to read other people's comments.

Does that sound fair to everyone?

Sounds plenty fair to me. There are plenty of games I haven't finished but still enjoyed my time with and talked with friends about. Sometimes it spurred me on to keep going and finish it, sometimes I hear how it loses steam and I decide to move on to the next thing.

I think it makes sense to let people who couldn't get through the game to be allowed to air their grievances or talk about why they couldn't finish it.

The following comment was originally posted in this thread and it was suggested that I move it here.

The thread says they both tied and you felt more like playing The Pedestrian.

I don't think anyone ever brought up what might happen if voting ended in a tie, so OK, but maybe we could do a coin flip next time?

I know that people sort of wanted the discussion to stay here on this thread, but a Discord group would be much easier to keep organized. There, you can organize things into different channels - example: a channel for the current game, a channel for discussion on how we should keep this thing organized, a channel for general discussion, a channel editable only by the owner/mods for announcements and such, etc. You could definitely still post an announcement that "we're doing this game, here's the completion date" to these boards, you might even find it easier to do voting, but having several different active threads related to the same concept on the front page isn't what these boards are built for.

@justin258:

I am repasting my comment from the prior thread:

@justin258: If you look at the voting thread I said "If there is a tie then I will break it, but I will not be voting otherwise." I think it's fair that I get a vote (not an extra vote, just one that's actually less influential than everyone else's) but if others think a coin flip is more fair then I am of course open to that.

In terms of the discord idea...I'm open to it if other people want to do it. I agree that there are too many threads related to the Game Club right now, but I also think the Gorgoa thread is working out very well, and this thread has been fine so far. I think that moving voting into this thread instead of breaking it out as its own thread might help make things a little cleaner and prevent these threads from spamming everyone.

My reticence regarding a Discord is I think some people who use these forums don't use Discord and also it is often used for real time communication and I think that the asynchronous nature of message boards has advantages. Of course Discord can also be used asynchronously but that's not its primary use case.

Nonetheless if there are a few people who are interested we can definitely make one.

I don't really have a problem with the multiple forum threads and would definitely not join a specific discord for this. The forums make it easy to drop in or out if you have an interest or are curious about something and can also help the group grow in the future. If it was a Discord group I feel like it would only shrink with time.

This is a reminder that you have until tomorrow to nominate games for voting. There are some holdover games from the last voting cycle so we don't technically need new nominations but I thought I'd remind people anyway.

Right now I am leaning towards a separate voting thread again because I think that puts everyone on notice and makes it easy for me to tabulate the votes but if people would rather vote in this thread we can do it that way too. No mod has said anything to me about making too many posts and clogging up the forums so I'm going to assume that's not an issue for now.

If there's anything else people want to raise please do so. Thanks everyone. I really enjoyed the discussion of Gorogoa and am looking forward to talking about the Pedestrian with spoilers.

We're 3 games in and I want to top up the game list. I would like to nominate the following games:

Raji: An Ancient Epic - 4.5 hours

Telling Lies - 4 hours (new to Gamepass)

Haven't played either of these games. I remember Raji showing up in one Nintendo Direct then being quickly forgotten. While Telling Lies was featured in a Vinny and Alex QL that looked interesting.

I started Dreamscaper today, and I would love to nominate it.

@sethmode: I'll add it to the list for the current nominations because nobody has voted yet.

Getting started on this week's game but before I forget I'd like to nominate Signs of the Sojourner.

I'd like to add Infernax as well, even though I've already finished it. Would be happy to play again as there appear to be multiple endings. 2022...year of a Simon's Quest inspired game. Weird times.

I think the release date (5/5) is slightly after what the next voting cycle would be, but I would like to pre emptively nominate Trek to Yomi.

We don't know the completion time, but it is a 2d Samurai game made by the developers of Hard Reset (yay!) and the recent Shadow Warrior games (meh!). Jason recently played it on a UPF and it looks like a fairly straight forward 2d action game. I cannot imagine it being much longer than some of these other games we've nominated.

@noboners: I am not going to include it in the next round of voting because I don't think it's fair to ask people to vote for a game without knowing how long it is or being able to read reviews, but I will include it in the round after that. Does that seem fair to everyone?

Also we need more nominations in general so if anyone has some please share them!

Exo One and Olija are both short games that are available on Game Pass. And if you want something that is unlike anything else you have played maybe The Procession to Calvary

This is a cool idea! I'm not seeing where this voting happens, though?

Not super short, but would like to suggest Paradise Killer. HLTB says about 14 hours. People have been really positive on it since it came out, and it was just released on GP. Some mystery, adventure, puzzle solving elements, all in a unique style and setting.

@cyrribrae: the voting usually takes place on it's own forum thread any time it occurs. @bigsocrates usually makes a thread for it a few days before the spoiler date for the previous game. So chances are the next voting cycle will begin around April 29th or so since May 2nd is when spoilers will open up for Raji (the current game).

I'm down for Paradise Killer to be included. I "beat it" last year and think that is a pretty unique game with great writing and an absolute banger of a soundtrack. Easily the best STYYYYYYLE of last year for me.

This is a cool idea, but I can't find any of the forum threads.

I would like to suggest Carrion. It is pretty short, even to 100%, available on both passes.

@hermes: Here's the current game's thread Previous game's we've played are logged under their respective game's forums.

I would like to nominate the following games before the next poll goes up:

Citizen Sleeper (a narrative RPG with light tabletop elements. HLTB has it listed at around 5-8 hours depending on how many extras you do)

Bugsnax (a more or less first person puzzle game about solving the mystery of the Bugsnax. HLTB has it running a wee bit longer at about 11.5 hours)