FEATURE: The Backloggery

Through its unique organisation system, The Backloggery offers gamers a way of keeping track with what you're playing.

The Backloggery is a website I have been using since September 2008 and I'm so happy I found it. Sorry if I sound like a salesman, but I'd really like expose the website more and how it can help you beat your library of unfinished video-games. FEATURE1

It's purpose is to let its users add their gaming library, and determine whether each game is either beaten, completed, unfinished, or even mastered. Backloggery defines each status as the following:

Unfinished - No significant accomplishments. What injustice did these poor games commit to incur such neglect? No one knows for sure. They now spend their days sitting on shelves, silently crying out to be played. The most unfortunate are still encases in their shrink wrap tombs, having never once been nestled in the warm embrace of a game system.

Beaten - The main objective has been accomplished Usually marked by the defeat of a final boss and/or viewing of credits. You've stormed the castle, rescued the prisoners, and saved the universe from the clutches of an unspeakable evil. Consider yourself a hero! Some games don't have obvious climax, but you can usually find some goal to reach before it is beaten.


Completed - For games which are 100% done. All extras and modes have been unlocked and finished. All significant items have been collected. Are you a completionist? Spent the extra time so you could say you did everything? Or maybe there just wasn't a whole lot to do outside of beating the final boss. Either way, nothing is more satisfying than a good ol' 100%.

Mastered is a special status for Completed games. Master crystals are earned by challenging yourself beyond a game's usual scope. For example, you could pass up health expansions to limit yourself to the least possible health throughout the game, or you could use the weakest equipment. Speed runs are also a great idea. Be creative and push your skills to the limit!

I personally have six Mastered games, which include finishing Final Fantasy X-2 in one playthrough whilst still obtaining 100% game completion, another is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, in which I finished the game with zero stat points. 

These are prime examples of how mastering a game works, challenge yourself to beat your favourite games in ways you wouldn't normally, it really does feel nice to be able to say you've took on the challenge and achieved what you wanted. 

Currently, the member count stands at 99, 616 - I believe when I joined that number was significantly lower, but it just shows how popular the website has become, and I'm happy for the guys who created it in the first place. 

At first, I simply used the site as a way to catalogue my gaming collection, but when I started to actually determine which of my games, it became clear that I had a lot of unfinished games that I never actually finished, and knowing this made me go back to most of these games so I could label them as beaten and completed, and doing that felt good. 

As you can see, I still have quite a few unfinished games but I am generally proud of the progress I've made since joining the site, it encourages you to play all of your video games, and this is why I only play a few games at a time now. 

Previously I found when I played ten or so games at once, I'd lose track and probably just forget about most of them - but Backloggery makes me want to finish the games properly, and I love that idea a lot. 

The website has every console you can think of, it even has a section for physical pinball cabinets, so no matter what games you have, they'll certainly be a place for them here.

The site even keeps a log of your progress, whether it be the exact date you added a game, finished a game, and so fourth. There's also a yearly breakdown of your progress, and the best thing about it is that this service is completely free, so no gamer should go without this useful tool. 

Below is an example of how the site keeps track of your gaming, as long as you edit the games details yourself, if you feel you've completed a game, simply edit that entry and put it as completed. It's really as simple as that.

After a while once you've added all of your games, you do get to see the benefits of using Backloggery as you get a picture of how you play video-games.

A brief history of the games a user has either beaten, completed, 

or simply added a new game to their library.

I'm not going to lie, Backloggery is also a great way to brag about your gaming accomplishments, I've made a lot of friends on the site and I'm often comparing my progress to theirs, at times I might even get a tiny bit jealous because they've managed to beat a game that I never got around to or simply don't have that game anymore. 

It's a good jealousy though as it encourages me to play games that I probably wouldn't usually, not in a way that it feels like a chore to play a game, but because I find myself wanting to because I can check it off at Backloggery and fulfill that sense of accomplishment in what I love the most - gaming. 

Check out the website here and take a look around, my page can be found here. The Backloggery is an incredibly simple tool that brings out the best in you as a gamer, and as a gamer myself, I really do recommend using it.