My best of 2020!
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Hades
This is basically indisputable to me (even though it barely squeaked past my #2). Hades is nearly perfect. Perfect enough that even though I don’t really care for the rogue-like gameplay pattern, don’t usually enjoy ARPG combat, and always thought the best thing about Supergiant’s output has been their wholly unique worlds… it still enthralled and delighted me. Surely a best-of-the-decade game. -
Wide Ocean Big Jacket
Chances are you’ve already heard me gush about this game around the forum. It’s only an hour or two long. It’s implemented in an intentionally primitive way. It’s just a story about four people (two adults, two tweens) going camping. And yet in its modesty it is also brilliant and lovely. I honestly think the guys who made this game are tremendous innovators in narrative storytelling, on par with Night School and, yes, Supergiant. When you’ve had your fill of the spectacle and intensity that video games heap on us, take a break with this game, and I think you’ll be glad you did. -
Spiritfarer
If Hades was a bundle of elements I usually don’t care for perfectly constructed, Spiritfarer was a game made for me. Exploration! Building! Farming! Meaningful conversation with characters you care about! And all of it wrapped up in an absolutely beautiful hand-drawn, hand-animated art style and Ghibli-esque score. Spiritfarer ranks high because of all these things, even though the later game is a little rough and not all the characters are as interesting as the others. Still, I love a game that really seems to distill the talents and interests of its dev team, and I think Spiritfarer does that in a way that Thunder Lotus’ previous combatty games didn’t. -
Golf on Mars
Desert Golf was a game whose charm was in its iconoclastic simplicity. Its successor could never be so iconoclastic. It’s also not as simple, adding water and cacti and clouds to its procedurally generated golf-scapes. That makes it at least as addictive of a time-waster and definitely a deeper game. It’s unfortunate that along with that new variety comes the occasional hole that can’t be completed, but once you make your peace with skipping one out of a hundred holes or so, it’s all good. I’m on hole number 18,185 and the game is still the perfect podcast-listening activity. It has to be my most played game of the year, by hours. -
XCOM: Chimera Squad
Another game made for me, a guy who will keep returning to Shadow Watch before I break out the old X-Com (although I do love both). The XCOM reboots were real good, but I don’t engage with anonymous random soldiers the way I do with unique characters with personalities and custom weapons and skills. Add in a smaller scope to the battles and strategic layer and Chimera Squad becomes even better in my eyes. 2K clearly thought this was a bit of a filler release, dropping it by surprise and at a huge early discount, but even that only added to the miraculous feeling with this game. I don’t expect the franchise to continue in this direction, so I’m just savoring this XCOM-as-I-would-make it.
The Extended List:
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South of the Circle
A surprising triumph of cinematic storytelling on Apple Arcade. I try any Arcade game that could have potential, and drop most of them after a few minutes. But this blew me away from the start, and compelled me to drive to its conclusion. I hope folks check it out. -
Airborne Kingdom
Full disclosure: My friend’s company made this and I got some early peeks at it. But it’s nevertheless one of my favorite city-builders of late–unique and chill and lovely to look at. -
Haven
I’m not even sure why I gave this a try, but I barreled through it to the end, driven by the pleasant traversal mechanic and the delightful character interaction. Why haven’t there been more games that replace the classic isolated video game protagonist with a couple, equally isolated but isolated together? (The reason is probably “AI”.) Haven’s couple is young, flirty, and sensual in a way that’s frank and that I found very realistic and endearing. -
Roll for the Galaxy
I like Roll better than Race in their tabletop manifestations. I don’t know that I can say the same for the digital version, but regardless, Roll supplanted my Race addiction when it came out. I had played many thousands of Race games and it was finally feeling tired. Now I’ve played hundreds of Roll games. I lose even more often at Roll (and at lower difficulty), but I’m learning. -
Desperados III
Hopefully this isn’t premature–I’ve only played a few levels of this. But I loved the originals (much more than Commandos) and Mimimi really has done impressive work in the genre since Shadow Tactics.
Other Honorable Mentions:
- The Touryst - Delightful 3D puzzle platformer with a fun sense of humor.
- Space Bear - Silly nonsense that nevertheless made an impression.
- Deliver Us the Moon - A solid example of one of my favorite genres, the space fix-'em-up adventure.
- Murder By Numbers - Solve a Picross, solve a mystery. Easy to enjoy.
- Monster Train - I found this more colorful and accessible than Slay the Spire, which I tried repeatedly.
Special Recognition for a classic old game rereleased in 2020:
- Defense of the Oasis
2019 games that I would love to pretend were 2020 games so I could put them on my list:
- Children of Morta
- Tiny Islands