Screenshots
Watch trailer on Steam ↗Game Quest: The Backlog Battler
Nic Taylor · Published by Nic Taylor · Official site ↗
Last updated 2 Oct 2026
This Arcade Hack & Slash answers the age old question: "What if the games you never play could attack you?" Fight back your backlog! The more you paid, the more damage they will do to you! (just like in real life).
Action, Indie, Simulation, Casual · 2026 · More free games
Discover how to vanquish your unplayed game collection in Game Quest: The Backlog Battler. This unique blend of action and simulation challenges you to face increasingly formidable enemies based on the cost of the games you've avoided, all from indie developer Nic Taylor.
About this game
Armed with your trusty keyboard and mouse, battle the games you never play! The more you paid for them, the more damage they will do to you (just like in real life).
Fight in an arena surrounded by your well-played spectator games, while the immortal royalty (the games you have never played) lord over you at the end of the arena.
Games you played for up to two hours will attack you in waves - but watch out for flying enemies (high Metacritic score), Platform supported enemies, DLC enemies and Controller Supported enemies; amongst many more!
** IMPORTANT ** To get the most out of this game (Play your game list instead of the Default/Friends game lists), you will need to set your "Game details" to public on your Steam profile (Your Profile->Edit Profile->Privacy Settings->Game Details). You can set it back to private after you load the game for the first time.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- OS: Windows 11
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GTX 1070
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
Community & EventsOfficial
Out-Of-The-Box festival and official release date!
Game Quest is in the Out-Of-The-Box Steam festival! On right now!https://store.steampowered.com/curator/46192764/sale/OUTOFTHEBOXGAMESPlus, an exclusive announcement - Game Quest officially launches on:2nd February, 2027! This will be a true release, I've decided to not release on early access, I've been treating the demo and playtest as free early access for a while now.You'll see more updates coming out on the playtest branch in future instead of the demo, if you wish to join the playtest, please join the discord server to apply: https://discord.gg/a5jpD4WF3jEnjoy the Out-Of-The-Box festival! some really awesome games on that list, such a great idea for a festival. I can't wait to show you all the released game in feb!Read full article on Community Announcements (sab)Patch NotesOfficial
Player character walk/run animations finally fixed!
Finally got around to having a good look at the walk/run animation blends.This is the end of the one animation for all directions ice skating jank! yay!Looks and feels soooo much better now.Read full article on Community Announcements (sab)AnnouncementsOfficial
0.01.2 Throwing money mechanic and a bunch of other stuff
Changelog 0.01.2Fixed bug where private list popup would sometimes crash the game when retryingFixed bug where wishlist vortex game value at height was not displayingFixed the Twitch bot (Working again, also it now auto leaves channels when inactive for more than an hour)Looking at games now makes them glowAdded icons/values for friends and shared lists for number of gamesAdded wishlist dialog to quit buttonRoyals will laugh and spectators will commiserate when you get hurtAdded visible shield for games with immunity to keyboard and mouseSpectator health bar displays if spectator is damagedAdded throwing money which games consume (microtransactions)Added a bunch more narrator audio linesAdded wishlist enemies in Act 2 (Playtest Only)Halved arrow damageThrow moneyHold down left shift to build up money to throw, letting go will throw the money - then all the enemies will be distracted by the microtransactions and eat them all up before noticing you again. You can gain money by killing enemies.See it in action here: At this stage, Act 2 is playtest only, although new features that are still available in Act1 will still be released for the demo.Please head to the discord server to report any bugs! You can also get a playtest key there, if you're interested in becoming a playtester (to try out Act 2!)TODO in the near future: Voice lines for wishlists (and an alluring song)Further work on Act2 (currently; when enemies run out, nothing will happen)Stadium lights / Steam Sales / new weapons / new enemy and ally abilitiesAct2 BossSeasonsRead full article on Community Announcements (sab)Patch NotesOfficial
0.001.8 Added ability to view all games
I took a couple of months off, as my real life work got very busy. Good news is, it's mostly seasonal - so I'm back to game dev on the weekends!Just went live with the ability to load all games, also the 'Shared Lists' is now ordered by number of enemy games, so you can test this pretty easily.If you or your friends (or shared lists) have more than 200 games, you can tick 'Load All Games' (for now, it's just games in the stands, no increase in waves of enemies... yet...Also! Leaderboard attempts are disabled when all games are loaded) Here's a vid of it in action:Read full article on Community Announcements (sab)Patch NotesOfficial
Balance Hotfix
After all these bug fix and maintenance tasks, I finally sat down to fix the current balance issues for people with large game lists (at the moment it is far too easy).I've changed the way in which games are sorted, it's now getting the required number of games, then sorting by reverse time played for HP - which makes it significantly more difficult for people with larger lists and slightly harder for people with average lists.This is a server-side change, so no game update.Leaderboards probably need a reset due to this, but that will sort itself out when I setup Season 1 (we're currently on Season 0)Enjoy!Read full article on Community Announcements (sab)
