The results are out! Witching and Bitching is the uncontested winner of the poll both overall and for the treats!

As for the tricks, The Thing, In the Mouth of Madness and [REC] are all tied with 4 votes.

That, ofc, means that IT'S TRICKBREAKER TIME (tiebreaker with a dumbass name courtesy of me :) )
ONE VOTE ONLY. You cannot vote for multiple movies like in the main poll.

Also, sorry for the double post but I've got a question. It was brought to my attention that for 12-2, "A game adapted into another medium", my entry is sort of incorrect, because it was Vanilla P5 that got a stage play and not P5 Royal. What do you guys think? Do I need to replace it with something else or is it fine? I'd argue that it is since P5R technically also contains P5.

September progress report!

The Challenge List
✅1. A new game (released within the past year) - DORONKO WANKO - Mar. 26, 2024
✅2. An old game (released 10+ years ago) - The Room - Dec. 13, 2012
❌3. A really old game (released 20+ years ago - Deus Ex - Jun. 23, 2000
✅4. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago) - Pinball (NES) - Oct. 18, 1985
✅5. A time sink (50+ hours) - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - 59h 59m 8s
✅6. A quickie (less than an hour) - A Good Gardener - 57m 4s
✅7. A remake or remaster of a game - Gears of War: Reloaded
✅8. A game with 6+ endings - Reventure - "100" endings
✅9. A collection of games - Unsorted Horror
❌10-1. A game that’s title starts with a number - 11-11: Memories Retold
✅10-2. A game named after the main character - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
✅10-3. A game that starts with the letter Q or Z - QUICKERFLAK
✅11. A game from a genre you don’t normally play - Sid Meier's Civilization VI - 4X Strategy
✅12-1. A game adapted from another medium - Marvel's Spider-Man - Adapted from the comics
✅12-2. A game adapted into another medium - Persona 5 Royal - Adapted into a stage play
✅13-1. A game with a short title (4 letters or less) - ABZÛ
✅13-2. A game with a long title (8+ words or a word with 13+ letters) - Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk
✅14-1. A game with over 1k completions - Portal - 37.7K Completions (as of Jun. 7, 2025)
✅14-2. A game with under 100 completions - Creature Packets - 15 completions (as of Jan. 3, 2025)
✅14-3. A game with no recorded completion times - Under A Caustic Snow, I Danced - No completions (as of Jan. 3, 2025)
✅15-1. A game you previously retired or shelved - Pakke-Is - Retired due to being unable to find the KBM controls
✅15-2. A replay - Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
❌16. A game that’s been a Game of the Month - Outlast - Oct. 2018, Triple Creature Fest 4
✅17. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer - Poppy Playtime -
✅18. A game with a real or fictional religion - Daemonologie - A short folk horror story about the Scottish witch trials.
✅19-1. A “threequel” (third part of the series) - Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Part 3 of the Survivor trilogy
❌19-2. A spin-off - Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
✅20. A cornerstone of gaming culture - Dark Souls: Remastered
❌21. A game where you play as an anti-hero or villain - Max Payne
✅22. A game heavily featuring zombies - Dead Island: Definitive Edition
✅23. A game that hasn't aged well - Devil May Cry
✅24. An indie game - Frog Legs
✅25-1. A game that takes place after a timeskip (5+ years) - Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk - Takes place 10 years after BATIM
✅25-2. A game that takes place at the same time as another game in the series - Half-Life: Opposing Force - Takes place concurrently with Half-Life and Blue Shift
✅26. A sequel that's more famous than the original - Resident Evil 4 Remake
❌27. A game that has no business being in its series - Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
❌28. A game from a franchise that rarely gets new games - Thief (2014)
✅29. A game with an interesting hook - Bit-cremental: Fishistry - Gachapon economics. Shame that the game falls pretty flat.
✅30-1. A game with a great plot twist - Anatomy - "What happens to a house when it is left alone?", pretty much my favorite horror game of all time
✅30-2. A game with a bad plot twist - Immortals of Aveum - If I can see a plot twist coming the second it's set up, it's a bad plot twist.
✅31-1. The definitive edition of a game - Borderlands GOTY Enhanced
✅31-2. The base game version of a game with several DLCs or Editions - Risk of Rain 2
✅32-1. A platform exclusive - X-Moon - Exclusive to PC, first itch.io game still available/public
✅32-2. A game available on 7+ platforms - Minecraft
✅33. A game you beat to 100% completion - Off-Peak
✅34. A game that started a long-running franchise (7+ games) - Call of Duty
✅35. A recent (within the last 5 years) game in a long-running franchise (7+ games) - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
✅36. A game that's smaller than 100MB - The Legacy of Isaelius - 66 MBs
❌37. A game that won any category in the SPIKE Video Game awards - Dishonored - SPIKE Best Action Adventure Game 2012
✅38. A game that made it out of Development Hell (5+ years) - Hollow Knight: Silksong - Began development in 2018, released in 2025, but also apparently it was development heaven.
✅39. A game where the characters speak a language you don't understand - To a T - Fictional language
❌40. A game with a memorable soundtrack
❌41. A game on someone else's Game Challenge 2025 list - Sifu - Green Starfish - Challenge #47
✅42. A game with a female protagonist - South of Midnight
✅43. A Game inspired by Mythology or Folklore - Noita - The game references the Finnish epic "Kalevala"
❌44. A Game inspired/based on real world historical events - Attentat 1942
✅45. A game developed by a single person - WRET - Developed by Vinil
❌46. A fanmade/bootleg/rom hack game - Disco Elysium: Game Boy Edition
❌47. A game that won or was a finalist for a Steam Award - God of War Ragnarök - "Best Game on Steam Deck" winner 2024
✅48. A game with a silent protagonist - Clickolding
❌49-1. A game that features time travel - TEST TEST TEST
❌49-2. A game that features space travel - Everspace
✅50. A Game that prominently features food/cooking - Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

Bonus Challenges:
✅1. A replay on a harder difficulty than your first playthrough - DOOM Eternal - Nightmare -> Ultra Nightmare
✅2. A replay where you get a different ending from your first playthrough - Rental - Sub 10min completions show a different ending (It's similar but is in a different location)
✅3. A replay that you finish quicker than your first playthrough - Sheepy: A Short Adventure - 23m 54s long playthrough to get deathless speedrun achievement as compared to first playthrough which took about 1.5 hours
✅4. A replay in new game+ - Ghostrunner - Hardcore mode changes enemy placement and retains all skills and unlocks, so it probably counts as NG+

52 done, 15 remaining.

THE POLL IS UP!
Vote for whatever you want to vote for, the top "Trick" and the top "Treat" will both win :)

Nominations for October are now open!

October is upon us, and so now is the time to respect the age-old tradition of trick or treating!
Nominate two movies that fit the spooky season vibe, a scary movie and a campy one! A movie that terrifies (or will terrify) you and one that doesn't! (I could not, for the life of me, think of something that rhymes with terrifies.)
(Boh's suggestions: scare you or humor you, tickles your spine or tickles your sides)

Two movies, one of each kind, will win the vote 🫡

Ooh, I too didn't know this thread was a thing. I'll join in as well.

01. Mob Psycho 100 (III, to be specific) - I fully went into this expecting another One Punch Man, but what I got was so, so much better. A wild ride that had me laughing, smiling, and at some points, full on sobbing. The third season especially had this entire stretch of episodes where there wasn't a single second during which I wasn't atleast teary eyed.
02. Evangelion 3.0+1.0 - I'm not a big fan of End of Evangelion. I really like the ending of the original series, and I think EoE is a very well made movie and I get why people love it, but it just felt like a creator lashing out after the response to and reception of the ending of NGE (Anno has talked a lot about how dark of a period that was for him, but I'm still basing all that on what I felt watching it) and that just left such a sour taste in my mouth. For a person like me, 3+1 was the greatest thing possible. Not only is it exceptionally well made, it feels like it completely unravels everything that evangelion meant and still does mean to me, asks me to look and it and reaffirms my love for it. I was basically sobbing for half an hour starting from the scene where Shinji and Gendo have a conversation..
03. Natsume Yuujinchou - Hard to pinpoint anything about such an episodic series, but it's one of the most wholesome things I've ever seen and Nyanko is my goat 🫡
04. March Comes In like a Lion - I can vividly remember so many scenes of this series that completely changed my outlook on so many things. What does it mean to win? What does it mean to lose? Who's at fault, who's to blame? It's left me with so many knots in my chest that I've lost count, and its unraveled just as many. It's helped me deal with myself, look at myself, understand and accept myself, and it makes me want to be a better person, more reliable, a bit warmer, a bit more compassionate.
05. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - It's the only reason I gave 2077 a shot. Love both to bits.
06. Assassination Classroom - The first anime that made me cry. Koro-Sensei is also my goat 🫡
07. Megalo Box + Nomad - I love the original Ashita no Joe, and Megalo Box is its own thing and it's spectacular. Nomad somehow tops both Ashita no Joe and Megalo Box and is one of the most touching examinations of grief and belonging that I've ever seen.
08. Nichijou - Straight up the funniest thing I've ever seen or read or anything else.
09. Vinland Saga - IMO the third best ever made, behind only Berserk and Steel Ball Run. An excellent adaptation for an excellent story.
10. Sousou no Frieren - WWHD: What Would Himmel Do

I am nominating Silent Hill 2 for October. I do not care which version you play!!

- Matt

oh my god, fucking finally 😭😭

Anyways, I'll nominate Silent Hill 3, unless I change my mind.

If 2 wins, I'll play the remake, since i played the og last year.

I watched Superman (2025) a few weeks ago, James Gunn really knows his stuff. It was a great, fun experience from start to finish.

I also watched Weapons since a lot of people were talking about how good it was. It turned out to be pretty great! I really enjoy this kind of horror-mystery genre that keeps me on the edge of my seat.

These two were also the last movies I watched in theatres too.

I haven't seen GotG Vol. 3 yet, but like JamesLech, I also think that this is the best superhero thing I've seen in a damn long time. Probably since Reeves' Batman.

As for Weapons, I left the theatre kinda feeling like it was an okay and oddly funny movie (the final chase sequence had the entire theatre laughing 😭), but unlike Barbarian, which I loved even though it didn't linger, this one's lingering, and I keep thinking back to it here and there. Bumped it up to an 8. It didn't feel that unnerving in the theatre, but it's clearly unnerved some part of me. It hit some themes, some paranoias of mine that are pretty relevant in the world we're in today and that's more unnerving than most things will ever be.
I'll be looking forward to whatever one of the whitest kids I know makes next 🫡. The comedian to horror director pipeline is real as fuck lol.

How I Met Your Mother.
I loved the show, I hated the last 3 minutes, which imo actively destroy every single bit of character development that Ted, Robin and Barney had over seasons 4-9.

How to propose a game cover?

I think this thread's a good demonstration that some of the site's features maybe aren't as obvious as they should be. Maybe a pinned FAQ thread would be a good idea? We've got a pinned message about this exact thing on the discord's site-help channel. Wouldn't it be a good idea for that info to be available on the site itself as well?

Edit: Scrolled up and saw that ThomasE also suggested the exact same thing o7

Also why are you playing pong

Made a thread dedicated to this month 🫡

I remember watching this movie in like, 4th, maybe 5th grade on TV, way before I played any of the games. I had a lot of fun with it back then, recorded it and watched it a good few times. From what I remember about it I'll still have fun with it 🫡

Also, at the time I thought that the movie was made by the director of There Will Be Blood (which I haven't seen but know by reputation), and the name "Paul W. S. Anderson" kinda stuck with me, so when I watched Isle of Dogs, I somehow decided that Paul Thomas Anderson and Wes Anderson were both Paul W. S. Anderson, and that he had made all 3 of these movies 🙃

Mortal Kombat (1995) by Paul W. S. Anderson
Starring Robin Shou, Christopher Lambert, Bridgette Wilson, Linden Ashby
Letterboxd | IMDb

https://strawpoll.com/61gD9X5bVZw/results

This month's movie is Mortal Kombat!

Hopefully all these games mentioned will be on sale when it's time!

They should be. The winter sale goes on from 18 December to 5 January according to steamdb
https://steamdb.info/sales/history/

Might as well take my chances. I'll ask for Metaphor Re:Fantazio. 38.49 USD on sale right now, so it'll probably go lower by christmas.

And hey, thanks either way. This is good stuff 🫡.

If Mortal Kombat wins the pool, I will accompany you in the sequel.

If it does, I'll join y'all too.

I'll nominate Mystic River by Clint Eastwood

August progress report!

The Challenge List
✅1. A new game (released within the past year) - DORONKO WANKO - Mar. 26, 2024
✅2. An old game (released 10+ years ago) - The Room - Dec. 13, 2012
❌3. A really old game (released 20+ years ago - Deus Ex - Jun. 23, 2000
✅4. An ancient game (released 30+ years ago) - Pinball (NES) - Oct. 18, 1985
✅5. A time sink (50+ hours) - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - 59h 59m 8s
✅6. A quickie (less than an hour) - A Good Gardener - 57m 4s
✅7. A remake or remaster of a game - Gears of War: Reloaded
✅8. A game with 6+ endings - Reventure - "100" endings
❌9. A collection of games - Mass Effect Legendary Edition
❌10-1. A game that’s title starts with a number - 11-11: Memories Retold
✅10-2. A game named after the main character - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
❌10-3. A game that starts with the letter Q or Z - Quake
✅11. A game from a genre you don’t normally play - Sid Meier's Civilization VI - 4X Strategy
✅12-1. A game adapted from another medium - Marvel's Spider-Man - Adapted from the comics
✅12-2. A game adapted into another medium - Persona 5 Royal - Adapted into a stage play
✅13-1. A game with a short title (4 letters or less) - ABZÛ
❌13-2. A game with a long title (8+ words or a word with 13+ letters) - ScourgeBringer
✅14-1. A game with over 1k completions - Portal - 37.7K Completions (as of Jun. 7, 2025)
✅14-2. A game with under 100 completions - Creature Packets - 15 completions (as of Jan. 3, 2025)
✅14-3. A game with no recorded completion times - Under A Caustic Snow, I Danced - No completions (as of Jan. 3, 2025)
✅15-1. A game you previously retired or shelved - Pakke-Is - Retired due to being unable to find the KBM controls
✅15-2. A replay - Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
❌16. A game that’s been a Game of the Month - Outlast - Oct. 2018, Triple Creature Fest 4
❌17. A game chosen by the HLTB randomizer - The Flame in the Flood
✅18. A game with a real or fictional religion - Daemonologie - A short folk horror story about the Scottish witch trials.
✅19-1. A “threequel” (third part of the series) - Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Part 3 of the Survivor trilogy
❌19-2. A spin-off - Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
✅20. A cornerstone of gaming culture - Dark Souls: Remastered
❌21. A game where you play as an anti-hero or villain - Max Payne
✅22. A game heavily featuring zombies - Dead Island: Definitive Edition
✅23. A game that hasn't aged well - Devil May Cry
✅24. An indie game - Frog Legs
❌25-1. A game that takes place after a timeskip (5+ years) - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
✅25-2. A game that takes place at the same time as another game in the series - Half-Life: Opposing Force - Takes place concurrently with Half-Life and Blue Shift
❌26. A sequel that's more famous than the original - Resident Evil 2 Remake
❌27. A game that has no business being in its series - Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
❌28. A game from a franchise that rarely gets new games - Thief (2014)
✅29. A game with an interesting hook - Bit-cremental: Fishistry - Gachapon economics. Shame that the game falls pretty flat.
✅30-1. A game with a great plot twist - Anatomy - "What happens to a house when it is left alone?", pretty much my favorite horror game of all time
✅30-2. A game with a bad plot twist - Immortals of Aveum - If I can see a plot twist coming the second it's set up, it's a bad plot twist.
✅31-1. The definitive edition of a game - Borderlands GOTY Enhanced
✅31-2. The base game version of a game with several DLCs or Editions - Risk of Rain 2
✅32-1. A platform exclusive - X-Moon - Exclusive to PC, first itch.io game still available/public
✅32-2. A game available on 7+ platforms - Bendy and the Ink Machine
✅33. A game you beat to 100% completion - Off-Peak
✅34. A game that started a long-running franchise (7+ games) - Call of Duty
⏳35. A recent (within the last 5 years) game in a long-running franchise (7+ games) - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
✅36. A game that's smaller than 100MB - The Legacy of Isaelius - 66 MBs
❌37. A game that won any category in the SPIKE Video Game awards - Dishonored - SPIKE Best Action Adventure Game 2012
❌38. A game that made it out of Development Hell (5+ years) - Nioh - Began development in 2004, released in 2017
✅39. A game where the characters speak a language you don't understand - To a T - Fictional language
❌40. A game with a memorable soundtrack
❌41. A game on someone else's Game Challenge 2025 list - Sifu - Green Starfish - Challenge #47
❌42. A game with a female protagonist - Silent Hill 3 - Heather :]
✅43. A Game inspired by Mythology or Folklore - Noita - The game references the Finnish epic "Kalevala"
❌44. A Game inspired/based on real world historical events - Attentat 1942
✅45. A game developed by a single person - QUICKERFLAK - Developed by Walter Machado
❌46. A fanmade/bootleg/rom hack game - Disco Elysium: Game Boy Edition
❌47. A game that won or was a finalist for a Steam Award - God of War Ragnarök - "Best Game on Steam Deck" winner 2024
✅48. A game with a silent protagonist - Clickolding
❌49-1. A game that features time travel - TEST TEST TEST
❌49-2. A game that features space travel - Everspace
✅50. A Game that prominently features food/cooking - Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion

Bonus Challenges:
✅1. A replay on a harder difficulty than your first playthrough - DOOM Eternal - Nightmare -> Ultra Nightmare
✅2. A replay where you get a different ending from your first playthrough - Rental - Sub 10min completions show a different ending (It's similar but is in a different location)
✅3. A replay that you finish quicker than your first playthrough - Sheepy: A Short Adventure - 23m 54s long playthrough to get deathless speedrun achievement as compared to first playthrough which took about 1.5 hours
✅4. A replay in new game+ - Ghostrunner - "Hardcore mode changes enemy placement and retains
all skills and unlocks, so it probably counts as NG+"

43 done, 24 remaining. Currently playing FF7 Rebirth

Nominations for September are now open!

Also, side note, I'll make a separate thread for the movie discussions, since discussing them here would make it easier for the nominations to get lost. (should've thought of that last month 😭)

Well I've put more than 12 hours now and I'm sorry since its your favourite FF but its just not clicking for me. I'm still waiting to get invested with the world or characters or even the gameplay(like you usually do with any FF game) and it just doesn't seem to be happening yet. I think i might try my hand with a different FF honestly.

To e6, man you have a lot in your backlog, but i'll pick my favourite zelda game Majora's Mask. To the next user I would appreciate it if you pick a short one for me pls :)

12 hours is more than enough lol, you should drop it if you're not having fun. As I said, most people don't like it, but the game just clicked for me. The characters, the setting, yada yada. The ending even made me cry lol

Rollled credits on 13 Sentinels: Aegus Rim after almost exactly a month, what a ride. I was so lost but since then I have learned things…

There was a dog, but then there was a cat

426

Yakisoba pan

We were going back but really we were going onward

It’s a game

And it was a great game. Glad I went in blind! To continue the thread, e6_4KOkGsp is still up to have a game selected from their backlog.

Man, 13S was one hell of a game. Yakisoba Pan!

Everyone should go play it.

(still e6's turn)