What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2017 (Season 10)

[carlsson]

Arcade:

Chase HQ - 13 min.

Atari 8-bit:

Breath of the Dragon - 4 min.

Tales of Dragons and Cavemen - 4 min.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (August 28th through September 3rd)...

 

Commodore 64:

Side Pacman - 52 min.

Snapman - 110 min. in 3 sessions

 

Non-eligible:

Rubik's Cube - 98 min. in 2 sessions (on a real physical cube)

Stockstream - 29 min. + some research time

 

This week I played the same games on the Commodore 64 as last week... 2 Pac-Man variants called Side Pacman and Snapman.

 

Other than that, I rediscovered the book containing the strategy for solving Rubik's Cube I started off with back in 1981, so I dug out that cube and tried to solve it again using this strategy, but I'm far apart from the times I got in 1981 since I now need 5-7 minutes to solve it while I was down to 60-90 seconds back in late 1981. Although Rubik's Cube isn't an electronic game, for me it was actually the predecessor of the first electronic home games (Nintendo's Game & Watch games) although back then I already had two electro-mechanical games by Tomy, Terra Hit and Pinngg Ball pinball, and I had played some arcade games (Pac-Man was just appearing in the arcades at about the same time as Rubik's Cube got popular).

 

Another really not elgible game is Stockstream on Twitch where there's a $50,000 stock portfolio, and you can vote which stocks should be bought and sold. There are rounds lasting from 1 to 5 minutes, and at the end round, one share of the stock with the most votes gets bought or sold. I managed to impress everyone with 80% of my buys being profitable (in average, they made a profit of about 2%... in one week!). Subsequently I started investing on Austria's stock market on my own portfolio, sadly with no such big luck yet since I'm down a few % on my latest investments. But we'll see how it turns out...

[oyamafamily]

Atari 2600:

Bump 'N' Jump - 25 minutes

Desert Falcon - 30 minutes

Enduro - 15 minutes

Lady Bug - 250 minutes

 

Atari 7800:

b*nQ - 20 minutes

Fat Axl - 15 minutes

Scammer Brawler - 10 minutes

 

Evidences of the week:

1) Bump 'N' Jump - 356,360 points for 2600 NEW HSC Season 6, Weeks 31-32 Final Round

 

2) Lady Bug Standard - 289,890 points for 2600 NEW HSC Season 6, Weeks 31-32 Final Round

 

3) 7800 b*nQ Expert Mode - 51,820 points

I played this game just to pay a tribute to the programmer Ken Siders, who passed away unexpectedly.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

Deadly Towers - 528 min.

SNES:

RPM Racing - 29 min.

Philips CD-i:

Lucky Luke - 3 min.

Beat Deadly Towers, which I'd finished before with savestates but never legitimately. So, another one taken off my "beaten but not really" list, and moved to my "really beaten" list. (I did use a walkthrough, but only after mapping one of the dungeons by hand -- and you really only need to map one to get access to basically everything you would need from any of the dungeons.)

[karokoenig]

My times: none. Just too much going on in real life. Didn't even have time to go to a particular flea market, which takes place only once a year and which is usually an immensely rich hunting ground.

[Iwantgames:)]

Not alot this week but I did get a couple new games I tried out

 

Odyssey 2/Videopac

 

A Labyrinth game - 15min

Depth Charge - 10min

K.C. Munchkin - 30min

Marksman - 10min

Supermind - 10min

 

Sega CD

 

Snatcher - 68min

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 54 minutes

Lady Bug - 49 minutes

Bump 'N' Jump - 105 minutes

 

 

Kaboom! High score of the week: 93,900

 

 

Lady Bug is a great game but requires a lot of patience.

 

 

[+wongojack]

Dos

Space Quest III 5

-----I also watched a walkthrough of this one with my wife who remembers every screen (except the mech fight) from her childhood

 

Genesis

Ecco the Dolphin 5

-----Played via Sonic's Ultimate on X360. WTF do you do in this game? All I could do was swim around in the same area.

 

 

I also finished King's Quest 2015 and spent a bunch of time with No Man's Sky on PS4.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Life, death, allegiance, betrayal, viral epidemics, Ice-9, artificial intelligence, golems, cold-blooded murder, hot-blooded murder, dihydrogen monoxide, Soporil β, tubocurarine, killer wrist watches, shared destiny, the law of causality, Good Burger, apocalypse now or later or some time ago maybe. Ambidexterity, prisoner's dilemma, Chinese Room, Schrödinger's cat, Myrmidons, memento mori.

 

 

 

Ineligible

IronFall: Invasion (Nintendo 3DS) - 122 minutes

Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions (Nintendo 3DS) - 50 minutes

StreetPass Mii Plaza (Nintendo 3DS) - 222 minutes

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (Nintendo 3DS) - 703 minutes

Arcade

Pac-Man (played on Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions for Nintendo 3DS) - 8 minutes

Xevious (played on 3D Classics: Xevious for Nintendo 3DS) - 60 minutes

Sega Genesis

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (played on 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Nintendo 3DS) - 132 minutes

Total Play Time This Week
1,297 minutes (21 hours 37 minutes) [200 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week
Nintendo 3DS: 1,097 minutes

Sega Genesis: 132 minutes

Arcade: 68 minutes

My opening series of odd and seemingly disjointed words, phrases, and concepts are all important this week; because they coalesce to form the basis for the story in my household's most played game of the week: Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. Being sick with bronchitis all week I didn't end up playing a whole ton of games myself, but I did spend quite a bit of time on the couch looking over the misses' shoulder as she played Virtue's Last Reward. It and the previous game in the Zero Escape series (999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors) definitely have what are by far the most interesting, intelligent, and downright mind-bending stories I've ever seen in a video game and I think I've probably enjoyed watching and reading along with the games as much as the spousal unit has enjoyed playing them. If you've got any interest at all in that long list of things and concepts that I rattled off at the beginning of the post (or you just like adorably psychotic talking rabbits) then definitely check out Virtue's Last Reward on the 3DS or Vita.

Moving on to the games I did play for the week, I did have a whole lot of fun playing 3D remasters of the timeless classics Xevious and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Both were downloaded from the 3DS eShop, emulated flawlessly, and looked outstanding on the New 3DS. The 3D effect in Sonic 2 was very subtle and unobtrusive but it did give the game a neat sense depth, and in Xevious the 3D really made you feel like you were flying high above the earth and added a whole new level of immersion to the game. Both games played exactly the same as their original versions with the 3D turned off, but I left the 3D on every time I played them since it's something I always enjoy. The only other games I spent a substantial amount of time on this week were IronFall: Invasion and the 3DS's built in StreetPass Mii Plaza, which is host to a variety of fun and simple little games that you can play either with other people's Mii characters that you've met via StreetPass or with play coins that you collect by way of the 3DS's pedometer.

I took my 3DS with me everywhere I've gone over the past couple weeks and ended up getting a total of 19 StreetPass hits around the city, so I've had a lot to do in StreetPass Mii Plaza. I've been having such a good time with it that I actually ended up shelling out $5 for the Monster Manor game that you can buy as an additional game to play with people you meet via StreetPass or pedometer coins, and based on how much fun I've had with it so far I think it was well worth the purchase. It's kind of a cross between a cute horror action-adventure game like Luigi's Mansion and a tabletop board game, with quite a few little RPG elements thrown in. Admittedly I also bought it because I wanted a particular accessory for my Mii character that could only be acquired from the StreetPass Mii Plaza's Ticket Exchange Booth, and the only way to earn tickets is to complete various goals in any of the paid games like Monster Manor or half a dozen others. Monster Manor got the best critical reviews of any of the paid games though, and it looked like a lot of fun so that's the one I went with. Even after I unlock that Mii accessory I've been wanting I think I'll keep playing it for a good long time.

Looking ahead to next week I'm pretty sure the misses is going to continue exploring the vast and twisted branching paths of Virtue's Last Reward, and I'm hoping to finish up and beat IronFall: Invasion myself. Looks like it'll be another week of taking turns with the 3DS for us, but I'm sure we'll have no problem sharing the system. Until next week and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

Edited September 4, 2017 by Jin

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 35, running from August 28 - September 3. We logged 2468 minutes of eligible play, playing 30 games on a total of 12 systems.

Top 10:

1. Phantasy Star III (Genesis) - 724

2. Deadly Towers (NES/Famicom) - 528

3. LadyBug (Atari 2600) - 299

4. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) - 132

5. Bump 'n' Jump (Atari 2600) - 130

6. Snapman (C64) - 110

7. Snatcher (Sega CD) - 68

8. Xevious (Arcade) - 60

9. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 54

10. Side Pac-Man (C64) - 52

Pre-NES top 10:

1. LadyBug (Atari 2600) - 299

2. Bump 'n' Jump (Atari 2600) - 130

3. Snapman (C64) - 110

4. Xevious (Arcade) - 60

5. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 54

6. Side Pac-Man (C64) - 52

7. Desert Falcon (Atari 2600) - 30

7. K.C. Munchkin (Odyssey^2) - 30

9. Labyrinth Game/Supermind (Odyssey^2) - 25

10. H.E.R.O. (Atari 2600) - 20

10. Haunted House (Atari 2600) - 20

10. Juno First (Atari 2600) - 20

10. b*nQ (Atari 7800) - 20

10. Depth Charge/Marksman (Odyssey^2) - 20

Top 10 systems:

1. Genesis (861)

2. Atari 2600 (603)

3. NES/Famicom (528)

4. C64 (162)

5. Arcade (81)

6. Odyssey^2 (75)

7. Sega CD (68)

8. Atari 7800 (45)

9. SNES (29)

10. Atari 8-bit (

It's the week of the much-reviled RPGs, as Phantasy Star III outpaces Deadly Towers to take the top spot. Behind them is #3 LadyBug, which wins the pre-NES crown, and also flits into spot #299 in the 1000-minute club with 1069 minutes logged to date.

[karokoenig]

NES

Robodemons: 12 min

 

Pong, 1st to 2nd generation: 15 min

 

I'm still short on time these days, but I HAD to test my two flea market finds from yesterday. It was a good day. "Robodemons", as some of you might know, is an unlicensed Colour Dreams game. Probably not even raising an eyebrow from you guys in the US, but Colour Dreams games are very very rarely seen in Germany. I spent a good heap of cash for this one, but I thought "Whatever. I'm not gonna se any of those anytime soon in the wild". It's also a really bad game, but I'm still happy to have it in my collection.

 

The Pong console is definetly my find of the year. It cost me 2 Euros (in words: "Two"). And apart from a slight paddle jitter, it works perfectly, and it even has the original power supply (18 V!). According to pongmuseum.com...

 

http://pongmuseum.com/collection/match-spectrum6.php#p

 

...it is a relatively early model, at least on the European market, which kicked off slightly later than in the US. It has 3 game variations for one or two players each. Look at that thing! Isn't that the most awesome piece of late 70s - early 80s design? Also, look at how tiny it is. I put a standard Atari cart next to it in the photo, so you get a sense of scale. The controllers aren't significantly larger than a matchbox. I absolutely love this thing.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Bowling - 4 minutes

Centipede - 35 minutes

Cosmic Ark - 3 minutes

Gremlins - 15 minutes

Juno First - 15 minutes

Lady Bug - 95 minutes

Pac-Man - 130 minutes

Spacechase - 15 minutes

Yars' Revenge - 8 minutes

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell you my greatest conquest here on Atari Age - I'm the Champion of 2600 NEW HSC Season 6, which ended this week. I won this season with an impressive margin of more than 250 points, finishing with 1128 points (the Vice-Champion is NADS with 867 points). Also I won a prize by participating in every round of 2600 NEW HSC Season 6 (32 weeks, more than 40 games) - an Atari 2600 cartridge.

Now I'm participating in the 2600 HSC Bonus Round Contest, in which the winner will earn an Atari game.

And coming soon - Medal Bracket Tournament. I'm in the Gold Medal zone.

[oyamafamily]

EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK:

 

1) Lady Bug Standard, final video evidence before the ending of 2600 NEW HSC Season 6 - 356,340 points

 

2) Centipede Standard for 2600 NEW HSC Season 6 Bonus Round - 262,120 points (played with Edladdin Joystick)

 

3) 2600 Pac-Man - 99,999 points on Game 5 B/B, just for fun

[carlsson]

Amiga OCS:

Pinball Fantasies: Partyland - 10 min.

Superfrog - 6 min.

Amiga AGA/ECS:

Super Skidmarks - 8 min.

Atari 8-bit:

Bandits - 9 min.

Breath of the Dragon - 12 min.

Squish 'Em - 7 min.

Tales of Dragons and Cavemen - 9 min.

The end of one round of the HSC and the start of another round, plus that I've been trying to load an Amiga 600 with games. Curiously, games mostly work if I run them from external CF card in the PCMCIA slot, but if I copy them to the internal CF card in the IDE adapter, I get errors and crashes. Perhaps the 8 GB card that I used for internal storage is not good/too large to work properly, so on Sunday evening I decided to swap the two cards and start over with installing everything onto a 256 MB card instead. I haven't come very far, as the 8 GB card refuses to detect in the PCMCIA slot. I've got a 64 MB card that locks up the Amiga, and a 8 MB (yes, megabyte) card that works all right. I suppose I'll have to shuffle 8 MB at a time from the PC unless I manage to restore either of the two larger cards to a useful size. Besides I don't know if things will work out as expected anyway but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (September 4th through 10th)...

 

Atari 2600:

T.R.A.S.H. (VIP) - 4 min.

 

Commodore 64:

Pac-Man - 90 min. in 3 sessions

 

Non-Eligible:

Rubik's Cube - 3 min.

 

Online (Non-Eligible):

Kaleidoscope Reef - 18 min.

 

I didn't play too many games since I rented an electric scooter (again!) on Wednesday and played the stock market, including Stockstream, again.

 

My main game actually has been the official C-64 conversion of Pac-Man by Atarisoft. I dismissed it back in the day because I considered it a bad port, but it isn't that bad... at least compared to other ports on the C-64. The gameplay is actually pretty faithful, only the sound is off... but there isn't any C-64 version which really nails the sound. Also, the graphics are simiplfied and the intermissions are missing due to the game having been packed into an 8K cartridge.

 

Kaleidoscope Reef is an online game on Kongregate where you have to populate a corral reef with corrals and have to feed them so that they grow up.

 

T.R.A.S.H. is a WIP game on the Atari 2600 where you run around as a trashman and fight various trash monsters. Reminds me a bit of "Slymoids" on the TI-99.

 

And I also tried to solve Rubik's Cube again, but only for a few minutes.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 223 minutes

Bump 'N' Jump - 4 minutes

Lady Bug - 45 minutes

 

 

 

Kaboom! High score of the week: 77,894

 

 

 

[+Darrin9999]

Neo Geo AES:

 

1. Aero Fighters 2 - 103 min

2. Aero Fighters 3 - 55 min

3. Andro Dunos - 148 min

4. Blazing Star - 88 min

5. Captain Tomaday - 32 min

6. Double Dragon - 58 min

7. Metal Slug - 269 min

8. Metal Slug 2 - 65 min

9. Metal Slug 4 - 80 min

10. Robo Army - 25 min

11. Strikers 1945 Plus - 93 min

12. Viewpoint - 131 min

 

And a pic!

[oyamafamily]

Times to add - Atari 2600

 

Aquaventure - 25 minutes

Cosmic Ark - 5 minutes

Dragonfire - 35 minutes

River Raid II - 60 minutes

 

All games for 2600 NEW HSC Season 6 Bonus Round. I beat successfully the initial score on Aquaventure and River Raid II.

Cosmic Ark and Dragonfire are crazy Imagic games which require very fast reflexes.

[BurritoBeans]

Atari 5200

Space Dungeon - 80 minutes

 

Game Gear

Sonic 2 - 40 minutes

Jurassic Park - 100 minutes

 

Well, not too much for this week and I skipped posting last week due to all of ten minutes of Game Gear so it's been a slow month for games.

 

The main thing this week was Jurassic Park on the Game Gear - I ended up lugging the Game Gear to school which people thought was neat, and this was the game that was in for most of the week. I didn't get around to beating this, and honestly I doubt I will for a while as some of the Action Stages confuse me a little. If you don't know how it plays, well it's simple - you have five levels (but the fifth is locked out until you beat the first four) in which you have a driving stage, then by either beating the little boss or losing all your health you get points and go onto a platforming stage. The car bits are simple, you just control a cursor and shoot stuff (which all uses the same patterns so it's simple after you've done it twice) and then the platforming "action" bits have you trying to get through a stage using three different weapons with an occasional medkit to get your life bar back up. It's not a bad game, but it's not great - the music is OK until you realize that it's all the same, the stages are a good bit confusing, and you don't exactly have a way to shoot diagonals making slopes a deathtrap half of the time.

 

Keeping with the Game Gear, Sonic 2 got brought out as people were wondering if the thing plays Sonic. I've already got this game beat myself, it's not too hard. I don't really have too much to say about it... I mean it's sonic - you just run and jump.

 

Finally, there was Space Dungeon. I love Space Dungeon. That's all.

 

So yeah, it was a short week for games but a fun one. As it stands I may end up carrying a Wonderswan on me for the heck of it as I want to play some of the FF games, Gunpey, and Clock Tower - I may not as the NGPC is looking pretty good too, but I'm not too sure. I have to say, it's fun finally putting time into my handhelds as I never really did in the past - I'm finally getting to see what they had to offer anyways.

[zylon]

Genesis-

 

Phantasy Star II- 6hrs 31min

Mean Bean Machine- 2hrs 12min

Zuma Bubbles- 20min

Super Mario Bros hack- 28min

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

Galaxy 5000 - 3 min.

Sega Master System:

Great Baseball - 2 min.

The Pro Yakyuu Pennant Race - 1 min.

Philips CD-i:

The Apprentice - 6 min.

Steel Machine - 128 min.

De Zaak van Sam - 4 min.

Cleared the second level in Steel Machine, and that's basically it.

[Iwantgames:)]

Not too much gaming this week due to Irma, (As I type this we have Looters in town, Tornados nearby, trees falling on cars across the street and widespread power outages), but I did take my mind off it by playing emulators on my PSP and my 2600 portable

 

2600

 

Pac-man 8k - 15min

Princess Rescue - 10min

Wall Jump Ninja - 20min

 

 

5200

 

Beef Drop - 35min

 

 

7800

 

Pac-man Collection - 10min

 

 

NES

 

Super Mario 3 - 20min

Arkanoid - 10min

 

 

Sega Genesis

 

Sonic - 15min

 

 

Intellivision

 

Burgertime - 15min

[+wongojack]

Nothing tracked this week, but I did play a ton of No Man's Sky on PS4

[Skippy B. Coyote]

This week marks the single biggest week my household has ever had for overall play time since we started participating in the tracker a couple years ago, though sadly it was almost entirely ineligible due to being on systems produced after the year 2000. After this week I'm beginning to seriously consider starting a modern gaming tracker next year for systems made from 2000 to current, if I can manage to wrap my head around how to use spreadsheets to keep track of all the statistics.

 

 

 

Ineligible

Centipede: Infestation (Nintendo Wii) - 104 minutes

The House of the Dead: Overkill (Nintendo Wii) - 121 minutes

IronFall: Invasion (Nintendo 3DS) - 247 minutes

Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo Wii) - 84 minutes

Rayman: Raving Rabbids (Nintendo Wii) - 462 minutes

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition (Nintendo Wii) - 792 minutes

Sonic Generations (Nintendo 3DS) - 281 minutes

StreetPass Mii Plaza (Nintendo 3DS) - 92 minutes

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (Nintendo 3DS) - 480 minutes

Atari 2600

Lady Bug - 43 minutes

Atari 7800 (Emulated on Nintendo Wii)

Centipede - 6 minutes

Donkey Kong - 8 minutes

Pac-Man Collection! - 12 minutes

Sega Genesis (Emulated on Nintendo Wii)

Raiden Trad - 20 minutes

Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition - 25 minutes

Total Play Time This Week
2,777 minutes (46 hours 17 minutes) [114 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week

Nintendo Wii: 1,563 minutes

Nintendo 3DS: 1,100 minutes

Sega Genesis: 45 minutes

Atari 2600: 43 minutes

Atari 7800: 26 minutes

With so many games played this week where do I even begin? Well, I might as well start with the games I beat! This week I decided to make a commitment to beat the games I had started but not finished or had just been meaning to play over the past couple months and did full play throughs of Centipede: Infestation and Rayman: Raving Rabbids on the the Wii as well as IronFall: Invasion and Sonic Generations on the 3DS. Of those four games I had played Centipede: Infestation and IronFall: Invasion before and really enjoyed them, but Rayman: Raving Rabbids and Sonic Generations were completely new to me. They were all wonderful games and a ton of fun to play through, but the real standout of the bunch for me was Sonic Generations.

Featuring reimaginings of iconic levels throughout the history of the Sonic franchise, from the original Sonic on the Genesis all the way up to Sonic Colors, it was a delightful compilation Sonic at his best that provided a neat contrast between the play styles and game mechanics of the classic 2D Sonic games and the modern 3D ones. Before diving into Sonic Generations I hadn't really played any 3D Sonic games other than a little bit of Sonic Adventure DX on the GameCube so it took me a while to get the hang of the control scheme in the modern 3D Sonic levels, but once I did it was a total blast and I really appreciated both the classic 2D and modern 3D stages. The thing I was most impressed by though was just how well Sonic Generations utilized the 3DS's stereoscopic 3D ability and pulling off effects with it that I have never seen in any other game; such making it appear that enemy missiles are actually flying several inches out of the screen towards your face, which nearly made me drop my 3DS in alarm the first time it happened. The whole world crafted by the game designers had a beautifully immersive sense of depth that just looked amazing and never felt jarring on my eyes, unlike a great many 3DS titles. The developers for Sonic Generations clearly had a strong handle of the 3DS's stereoscopic 3D abilities, and they sure made the most of them.

Moving on to the misses' gaming time for the week, she started off the week by logging quite a bit more time in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward but ended up bailing on the game halfway through the week when she discovered that the endgame of the story is a literal groundhog day situation. In total there are 24 different endings to the game, all determined by the subtle choices you make along the way, and if you want to see the true ending to the game you have to first get all 23 of the previous endings. When my wife found that out and realized that she would have to put hundreds more hours into the game playing it over and over (and over) again just to see how it ended she popped Virtue's Last Reward out of the 3DS, put it back in it's case, and back on the shelf it went. Who knows if she'll ever get back to it and go through the drudgery of 20 some odd plays throughs to see how it ends, but for now she's moved onto other games.

Fortunately I was able to surprise her with a slightly early anniversary present (next week will be our 4 year wedding anniversary) and got her a brand new Wii arcade stick to replace her old one that broke down and couldn't be repaired last summer. She started off trying a few emulated Atari 7800 games to get a feel for it again then played a little Mario Kart Wii and emulated Street Fighter II with me, and then the next day went out and snagged a copy of Resident Evil 4 for $6 from our local Half Price Books to give it some serious use. And serious use it got! She's spent the last few days parked in front of the CRT TV morning to night enjoying the survival horror masterpiece that is Resident Evil 4 for the very first time. I've had great fun watching her play it too, as Resident Evil 4 has long been one of my favorite games since it was first released on the GameCube way back when. I did manage to sneak in a little Wii time here and there this weekend too, having scored myself a copy of The House of the Dead: Overkill for the Wii for $8 from Half Price Books as well.

Well, I think that about covers everything for this rather enormous week of gaming! Until next time, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

P.S.: If anyone has any tips for Mac compatible spreadsheet software for keeping track of gaming statistics I'd sure appreciate them! I am quite serious about starting a modern gaming tracker next year but it does seem like a pretty daunting task since I don't know the first thing about spreadsheets or how to use them for this purpose, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edited September 11, 2017 by Jin

[carlsson]

I would suppose Open Office would work well, even Google Docs if you prefer to do things online. The importance should not so much be the software, but the structure of the spreadsheet. I'm sure all of them are capable of doing what you'd want them to do, just figure out a structure. Perhaps Thegoldenband will be willing to give you a hand, as he has posted dumps of his spreadsheet before. I don't know about easy to use database software these days, something like Access or a register program, but that might be another way to compile the info besides a spreadsheet. There are just so many different ways to (ab)use these kinds of programs and with some overlap what they're designed to do, so whether you work with a spreadsheet, a register, a database or something else may be more about finding a solution or what type of programs you already are familiar with.