A Pile of Shame: Critical Moves Hosts Force Each Other’s Backlog Games (Ep.88)

Drexy, Adam, and Joe raid each other’s Steam libraries for unplayed strategy gems, assigning homework picks like Terra Invicta, the original Mount & Blade, and Prison Architect, with a shared commitment to report back once everyone’s put in real hours.

https://criticalmovespodcast.com/listen

This episode introduces a new “Pile of Shame” format, where Drexy, Adam, and Joe each browse one another’s Steam libraries to pick out unplayed games worth forcing on each other. After agreeing on a two-to-five-hour minimum commitment, the hosts select and justify their picks: Drexy assigns Warhammer 40,000: Gladius to Adam and the original Mount & Blade (with the Prophecy of Pendor mod) to Joe; Joe recommends the notoriously slow-burn Terra Invicta to Adam along with detailed early-game strategy tips; Adam offers Joe a choice between Prison Architect, Warsim: The Realm of Aslona, and Expeditions: Viking; and Drexy hands Joe a copy of Shadow Run: Dragonfall. Along the way, the group discovers all three of them already own the eccentric text-based game Warsim without ever having played it, prompting a spontaneous group challenge to give it an hour each.

<a href="https://rss.com/podcasts/criticalmoves/2959070/">A Pile of Shame: Critical Moves Hosts Force Each O | RSS.com</a>

Critical Moves Podcast – Episode 88 Show Notes

Episode Title: Pile of Shame: Backlog Challenge Part One
Hosts: Drexy, Adam, Joe
Episode Length: ~50 minutes

Episode Summary

In this format experiment, Drexy, Adam, and Joe browse each other’s Steam libraries live and assign unplayed strategy games as homework, agreeing to a two-to-five-hour minimum playtime before reconvening for a follow-up episode. The picks span the genre widely: Warhammer 40K’s Gladius and its spiritual successor Zephon, the sprawling geopolitical 4X Terra Invicta, the classic sandbox RPG Mount & Blade, the management sim Prison Architect, the ASCII-art fantasy kingdom sim Warsim, the factory-building action game Nova Lands, and the cyberpunk RPG Shadow Run: Dragonfall. Throughout, the hosts trade specific strategy advice for their assigned games, swap stories about how titles ended up forgotten in bloated libraries via Humble Bundle subscriptions, and discover a shared, unplayed copy of Warsim among all three of them.

Establishing the Format

The hosts agree each player will assign one game to each of the other two co-hosts, with a minimum playtime commitment of two to five hours before reporting back in a follow-up episode. Drexy notes he deliberately avoided picking the harshest possible games from each library, aiming for titles complex enough to be worthwhile without requiring months of investment to properly evaluate.

Drexy → Adam: Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War

Drexy assigns Adam Gladius, which Adam already owns for free via a past Steam giveaway but has never launched. Drexy praises the game’s unusually strong AI, developed by a modder previously known for creating a highly regarded AI overhaul for an earlier Warhammer title before being brought on professionally by the Gladius and Zephon development team. He clarifies that Gladius’s numerous DLCs primarily add new playable factions rather than gating core content, so the base game remains a complete experience. Drexy also compares Gladius favorably to its spiritual successor Zephon, criticizing Zephon’s mandatory late-game crisis event for making repeat playthroughs feel too similar.

Joe → Adam: Terra Invicta

Joe selects Terra Invicta for Adam, who reveals he already impulse-purchased the game after a prior Critical Moves episode covering it, only to leave it unplayed. Joe, who backed the game during its Kickstarter and beta phases, shares detailed opening strategy advice: starting as the corporate faction called the Initiative, prioritizing councilors with strong persuasion skills, temporarily boosting an easily-controlled country like the United States for a strong early snowball, and exploiting oil-rich nations for disposable early income. He recommends starting the 2026 scenario specifically, since the game’s core systems were rebalanced around that timeline following real-world geopolitical shifts, including the Russia-Ukraine war, which the developers patched into the game’s narrative framing after its outbreak.

Adam → Drexy: Nova Lands

Adam offers Drexy a choice between Loop Hero (which Drexy has already played on Epic Games Store) and Nova Lands, a top-down base-building and action hybrid Adam compares to a more streamlined, accessible version of Factorio. Adam admits he has personally never played Nova Lands himself and is using Drexy’s playthrough to gauge whether it’s worth his own time, framing the exchange as a shared experiment.

Joe → Drexy: The Original Mount & Blade

Joe assigns Drexy the original Mount & Blade, which Drexy already owns but never launched despite a friend’s earlier recommendation. Joe strongly advises against the newer Bannerlord in favor of the original title paired with its Fire & Sword expansion, and recommends skipping the vanilla experience entirely in favor of the total conversion mod Prophecy of Pendor, which adds a Lord of the Rings-inspired fantasy setting with elves, knightly orders, and significantly increased difficulty. Joe explains the game’s core loop: gathering companions, building an army, acquiring a castle through faction loyalty, and strategically marrying a fellow lord (rather than a princess) to gain access to an additional standing army for early-game snowballing. Adam shares an embarrassing anecdote about accidentally downloading a broken, unit-cap-removed pirated version of the original game as a student, resulting in crashes during 200-versus-200 battles.

Adam → Joe: Prison Architect (with Warsim and Expeditions: Viking as alternates)

Adam offers Joe a choice of three games: Prison Architect, Warsim: The Realm of Aslona, and Expeditions: Viking. Joe selects Prison Architect, which Adam describes as a streamlined, cartoonish Dwarf Fortress-adjacent management sim focused on prison design, inmate behavior, and escape prevention, noting its extensive post-launch patch history following its breakout success during the mid-2010s indie boom. Discussion of the unselected Warsim reveals all three hosts already own the game unplayed, prompting a spontaneous group agreement to each spend an hour with it and report back, with Adam and Joe both noting they suspect it would work particularly well as a mobile game given its minimal, text-heavy interface.

Drexy → Joe: Shadow Run: Dragonfall

Drexy assigns Joe Shadow Run: Dragonfall, a cyberpunk tactical RPG he personally abandoned after roughly 13 hours despite enjoying it, and recommends it over the original Shadow Run title due to Dragonfall’s substantially stronger narrative. He describes the game’s Dungeons & Dragons-adjacent character building, hacking and cybernetic implant mechanics, and squad-based mission structure allowing players to select from a roster of specialized companions. Joe expresses initial hesitation around unfamiliar class terminology and character-building decisions, a recurring issue he says affects his engagement with RPGs generally, prompting Drexy to recommend the novel Snow Crash as thematic preparation.

Final Picks and Enthusiasm Check

Each host ranks which of their two assigned games they’re most excited to actually play. Adam expresses greater anticipation for Terra Invicta despite his admitted apprehension about its notoriously slow pacing. Drexy prioritizes Mount & Blade over Nova Lands, citing genuine long-standing guilt over never having played it. Joe selects Prison Architect over Shadow Run: Dragonfall, explaining his personal preference for games he can start immediately versus RPGs requiring upfront research into character builds and lore.

Terra Invicta Progress Check-In

Joe shares an in-progress update on his own ongoing Terra Invicta campaign, describing an attempt to covertly send a fleet of colony ships toward Jupiter to seize resources without alerting the game’s alien faction, while also recalling that he previously interviewed the game’s developers and suggested a feature allowing Earth to eventually invade the aliens’ home solar system.

Contact & Links

Episode Verdict

This format works well specifically because of its low-stakes, personal framing — the hosts aren’t reviewing games in the abstract, they’re being handed specific homework by people who know their tastes, which produces genuinely useful, tailored advice rather than generic recommendations. Joe’s detailed Terra Invicta strategy breakdown and Drexy’s Mount & Blade mod guidance stand out as the most practically valuable segments, giving listeners real onboarding help for notoriously opaque games. The spontaneous three-way Warsim discovery adds an unplanned but charming moment of shared accountability that feels true to the show’s collaborative spirit. Whether the format sustains itself will depend heavily on the follow-up episode actually delivering on the reviews promised here — but as a concept, it’s a refreshing change of pace from the show’s usual news and interview structures.