Goodbye, backlog.

I haven't seen anyone recommend "A Short Hike" yet, but if you haven't played it yet - go for it. It's one of the best concise adventures out there. Devoured it over 5 hours and absolutely loved it.

I'm blacklisted by you. Do you remember why so I can see if it's worth thinking about the question?

On the suggestion for your games, I've seen your games on Steam and most of them I haven't played, but the top ones on my list to try are Strider, Spellcaster University, Röki and Moonlighter.

Of the ones I've played, I can recommend Serial Cleaner, Redout: Enhanced Edition, and Manual Samuel.

Good luck, it was nice knowing you. :P

From your Never Played list:

• DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT (just started this one and it's going so well)
• Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition
• Divinity: Original Sin 2 (very long games these two but I think they'll worth it)
• Tannenberg (I'm writing this here because it's multiplayer only and the player base is declining since the release, soon you won't find anyone to play. So you might not want to touch this one, if you are an achievement hunter.)
• THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIV STEAM EDITION (If you play only the campaign it's pretty short.)

Why, since I love lists, here is one with 10 suggestions; trying to pick relatively unknown games which are on the short side (to help with the goal), unless they are too good ;D . All from your "unplayed" backlog. Formatted like this:
x. Game Title (HLTB Main Story; My Personal Objective Unrefutable Score)

1. Dead Space (11h; 95/100)
2. Mafia (16h; 91/100)
3. Dead Space 2 (9h; 90/100)
4. Ghost of a Tale (11h; 89/100)
5. Timelie (5h; 88/100)
6. The Last Tinker (6h; 88/100)
7. Starward Rogue (3h, but it might take you up to 9h ; 87/100)
8. In Other Waters (5h; 86/100)
9. Rollers of the Realm (6h; 82/100)
10. Minoria (5h; 82/100)

Cheers!

Evoland

Easy to start, easy to beat as the first game.

There's so many great backlog tools and here I am still playing the same games I beat a dozen times instead of tackling that, haha.

Gauntlet.
Just because you won it from me:)

good luck and thx

Life is Strange 2

My vote is for Mass Effect Legendary. It's very long, but it is a masterpiece imho.

Since bots scanning forums search for a pattern like /?????/, I suggest you make your link modification in the five character code instead of elsewhere.
E.g.:
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/NOfGbDXBOTS/kings-bounty-ii
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/kings/fGbDX-bounty-ii
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/ffGGbbDDXX/kings-bounty-ii

I wish I had your willpower.

Start at the top of the list and finish them off, one by one.
I probably wouldn't manage to deny myself any purchase for even just one month.

P.S.
How did you manage to not own any of the Portal games? Heresy!
You totally should buy them right now!

Edit: Fixed the list.

I would recommend Snake Pass, The Long Dark & Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales.

Goodluck on your noble quest.

You have Borderlands 2 in your library without any playtime, smh. Well I haven't finished the game myself because my friends quit and I was discourage due to that but I had great time when I played it.

Best of luck on your Intense Cleaning Session! <3 It is doable to finish before Steam Winter Sale ^_^ Picked some small but enjoyable games! (Times are Main Story-Completionist)
TimeShift (8-9½ Hours)
The Henry Stickmin Collection (2-7 Hours)
Tales of the Neon Sea (9-10 Hours)
The Darkness II (6-15 Hours)

Do you intend to go for 100% completion or just beating them? (So I know if I should avoid recommending games that are too difficult to 100%. ^_^' )

Games from your Library I've played and might be worth checking out, maybe (in alphabetical order):
Acceleration of SUGURI 2 - Cute fighting game/bullet hell hybrid. Pretty quick and easy to 100% (just don't touch the multiplayer, unless you wanna get instantly bodied if you find anyone :X ).
BioShock Infinite - You already played it a bit but don't seem to have gotten very far. Yes, it is very good, like the other Bioshocks.
Borderlands 2 - It's a very fun FPS/RPG hybrid. (Disclaimer: I've played it for over 800 hours so I may be a bit biased. 650 of those were playing solo by myself, btw, so you don't need co-op partners to play it.) Downside: Long. Not as long as I played it but a full playtrough probably takes 50+ hours.
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - See above. This one should be played after Borderlands 2. It's... still ok. Slightly weaker. Gameplay is still nice but the humour is more hit-and-miss in this one (at least for me)... At least it's slightly shorter. :D
Dead Space 1 and 2 (haven't played 3) - Really nice action horror games (meaning basically action games with some horror elements).
Driftland: The Magic Revival - If you've heard of Dungeon Keeper, this one is kinda similar to that that but with floating islands (which you move around with telekinesis and connect to make your "base" and shape the map) instead of underground dungeons. It's a pretty cool mechanic.
Effie - I'd describe this one as Baby's First Action/Adventure game. So it's easy and short and kinda janky at times... but at least it's very quick to finish.
ENSLAVED: Odyssey to the West - See above. But it's from an actual big studio so it's slightly bigger.
Epistory - Typing Chronicles - You've already played this one a bit so I'm not sure if you'd wanna re-check it but it's a very nice typing game. Not particularly long either. (Although the last achievement is a really dumb and unnecessary grind.)
Evoland Legendary Edition - Combo of Evoland 1 and 2. They're really nice little RPGs with a lot of meta jokes and old references to classic games.
Ghostrunner - Ok, admittedly I've only played the demo for this, but it's pretty dang cool.
Impossible Creatures - A suuuuper old RTS game. Has a very neat mechanic in that you kinda design your own units by mashing animal parts together (well, 2 animals per unit). :D
Killer is Dead - Ok, I'm actually kinda lukewarm towards this one- it's an ok action game but... really weird and confusing (plot-wise... and everything-wise I guess).
King's Bounty: Warriors of the North - Awwww, you don't have Kind's Bounty: Armored Princess (or Crosswords). This one is... a lot less good... and long... and boring (Why did they make 80% of the fights be against the undead faction?! Yeah, yeah, plot, but it's sooooo samey.).. so yeah... could check King's Bounty: The Legend instead though (heard it was good).
Niche - a genetics survival game - Cool simplified genetics simulator. Annoying to actually play game (Coz, surprise- gene inheritance is annoyingly random!).
Overlord and Overlord II - Fun action adventure games. Have plenty of humour and satire in them. :D (Heard Overlord: Raising Hell is probably nice too. Please pretend like Overlord: Fellowship of Evil does not exist. :X )
Prey - It's very good! :D (You've played it a little bit but... I dunno... Thought I'd mention it...)
Resident Evil 4 - Also very good! No need for a remake. (Ditto as above.)
Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break - All the Rock of Ages games are big dumb fun. ^_^
Scribblenauts Unlimited - A very easy adventure-ish game. (Almost as if it's designed for little kids, eh?) Quick and straightforward to finish.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy - Baby's First Collectathon. To be honest, it's so easy it got kinda boring at times.
Strider - Sort of metroidvania-ish action platformer. Very good. :D
Terraria - It's a very good game. Although you might need to look up the Wiki at times. ^_^' (Also it's very long- 50-ish hours per playtrough.)
The Coma: Recut - Korean horror game. Has really strong atmosphere. I'm not really a fan of the whole "hide from the murderous monster" type of gameplay but it's very good (when I'm not sitting in a drawer twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the killer to piss off).
The Darkness II - Cool FPS. You can use your demon snake tentacle things to pull a dude's spine out of his arse. :D
The Henry Stickmin Collection - Very funny Choose Your Own Adventure-style game. (And quick to finish.) :D
TimeShift - Pretty standard FPS with time powers. It's ok to kill a few hours.
Tomb Raider: Legend - Better than the reboot.
Woolfe - The Red Hood Diaries - A janky very whatever kind of action platformer which is supposed to be a part one of a series which will never continue... at least it's short.

Honorable mention:
I haven't played DOOM (2016) but I have every expectation that it's great. :P

Well, that's all I got for now. You've already played most of our other overlapping games. I'll leave recommendation for games which you don't own for some time when you aren't having backlog overload issues. ^_^'

Goog luck with your challenge. I see some nice recomendations already, but can add few more that I enjoyed:

• Moonlighter
• Deponia: The complete journey

GL on slaying your backlog.

I just need fewer distractions... like fewer genshin updates, fewer D4(this one might not be a problem if they don't improve things alot, still worth the purchase of the game)/Path of Exile seasons(hell I can beat 1-2 games in the time it takes to plan out a character for here :/).

You can do it!!

I'd probably start by focusing on beating one or some of the games you have a lot of progress in, such as:

• Cyberpunk 2077
• Red Dead Redemption 2

Otherwise I enjoyed these games:

• STAR WARS™ Knights of the Old Republic™
• Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Very short as well - 2 hours?)
• A Plague Tale: Innocence
• Forager
• Borderlands 2
• Spiritfarer

If you have someone to play with:

• Golf with your friends

Being strategic, I would then kind of mix it up with a few short/medium games, to each long/very long game.

What I've been doing since 2020 is beating the last two digits worth of games per year.

So far for 2023 I have 15/23 beaten atm. :D

Sure, I prolly won't get through all 8.6k games, but I will get through most and enjoy the art along the way! :D

My backlog has each game assigned a number. I use a random number generator to choose a game to play and then I play through it (unless its really bad) and once it's done I move on to the next game. This year I decided to change it up and alternate between randomly chosen and choice. I also play Tales of Maj'eyal, my favorite game, in between finishing games and I play one character with permadeath so this can last 2-40 hours. I have to impose this rule on myself or I will literally only play this game. I also keep a list of all the games I have completed for each year. These are the games I finished so far this year

Surviving the Aftermath
Cosmic Star Heroine
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
Age of Defense
Magrunner Dark Pulse
Starward Rogue
Outland
Arkham Knight
Wildfire
Kirby Star Allies
Bayonetta 3
Layers of Fear
Hollow Knight
Moonlighter
Finding Paradise
John Wick Hex
Pokemon White
Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings
Lovecraft's Untold Stories

Up next is Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. This system is great because it gets me to actively play all those games in my backlog and I have played a few that I really enjoyed. For example, I absolutely loved hollow knight. So much so that I made it my desktop wallpaper.

Taking a quick look through the games we both own:

• Dying light is one of my favourite zombie games with fun environment traversal, combat, and crafting. And once you've beat it, you can try it again on Nightmare difficulty (or whatever the hardest difficulty was called) which feels like a whole new experience. Also fun with friends.

• Playing Spider man Miles Morales right now and absolutely love it. Fun traversal (like dying light I guess), awesome combat with a variety of abilities you can use, and the story is fairly engaging (so far). Note that I haven't played the first one but I'm still enjoying this and don't feel like I'm missing out on any important details.

• The Deed was a fun little game I was surprised I enjoyed. Definitely worth giving it a try (can 100% in under 3 hr).

• Dead by daylight and among us are two games that can be fun if you have friends to play with.

As a side note, I'm currently playing plague tale innocence and I kind of find it boring. Around halfway through the story and I'm not sure whether I want to drop it or continue playing it in case it gets better. Was kind of disappointed as I was really looking forward to it. So maybe the opposite of a recommendation for that one.

I believe most of us want to do what you are doing but just are not able to, be it due to any reason. Admire your efforts to reduce your backlog and commitment to not enter any more GAs until then. All the best!!
I am hoping the seeing your progress might motivate me a little as well.

Some game recommendations (sorry if already recommended)
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (I highly recommend it. One of the best games I have ever played) + Aiko's Choice
Overlord series (I played the 1st, it's good)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Game of the Year Edition (would love to hear your feedback too in case you have played AoE as well)
Thief (it's ok)
Scribblenauts Unlimited
Shadowrun Returns
Children of Morta
Guns, Gore & Cannoli
Subterrain
Hob (Nice little game)
Ghost of a Tale (never played it, but really want to)
Wildfire
Figment
Let Them Come
Life is Strange 2
Sunless Skies
The Coma Series
Yono and the Celestial Elephants
Moonlighter
Overcooked! 2 (great multiplayer fun)
Forager
Atomicrops
We Were Here Together (Love the whole series)
XCOM Series
Spiritfarer
Lightmatter (It's nice, specially for a indie. iirc it's slightly buggy)
SONG OF HORROR (I want to play ti so much, but I am so afraid. I don't think I'll ever be able to find the courage to play it T_T )
Timelie
Going Under (Grindy, but so much fun)
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

You have a great collection. All the best once again!

Wow, that's an awesome goal!
Good luck on your playthroughs.

Also, you should play:

Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition
Deiland
Disney's Hercules.

Most of the game in your backlog that look interesting/fun are also in my backlog, so can't really comment on them.

GL with BL!