To make it onto the list, games must be (legally) obtainable and playable on current-generation hardware, which right now means consoles such as the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch, the various streaming and subscription services out there, mobiles, smart TVs, leftfield options like the Playdate, and of course the humble PC.
That means no emulation, no dusting off old consoles, no games removed from storefronts everywhere. And it means they have to be in a good place, be that because they’re still as brilliant to play now as they were when they first launched, or because they’ve been gradually improved over time to find themselves in great shape, or been faithfully updated, remade or restored.
Seems like a fun variation on the top X list format, so let’s argue about them! Here’s the list itself, which will be complete by end of week:
Football Manager 2024 behind Doki Doki Literature Club. How dare you! etc.
I’m trying to think how low down the rankings I’ll accept the appearance of Dwarf Fortress and I’m feeling somewhere around… 8th? Like, if it was 12th I’d moan about that but ultimately I’d be fine, but if it’s in the 20s or below I’m going to have to leave a nasty message on their Google+ page.
Hard to cover in a pithy way, but ultimately the main mode is a colony management game where your minions are a collection of wants, needs and desires, simulated to an unnecessary level, living in a world that’s simulated to the same degree, and the multiplication of that complexity leads to unintended results, fascination and hilarity… or to utter boredom if you don’t have the particular itches that DF scratches.
As someone who loves games primarily for the stories they tell me, DF is my answer to the silly “you can only play one game for the rest of your life…” question.
DISAGREE! How much did you play Hohokum? It’s a great example of using a simple interface to explore many different concepts. Obviously, it also looks striking in a way very few games do.
Anyone seeing games that they’ve never heard of? Rytmos is new to me! (And I guess Turbo Overkill, too. I certainly couldn’t tell you what kind of game it is!)
The rare “Essential” rating on Rytmos got me to buy it on Nintendo Switch at the time. But my son and I soon grew bored of it as it’s just a series of trial and error puzzles, as far I can tell.
It’s a little like The Oregon Trail (help settlers survive what could be a land that’s too hostile for them) crossed with Minecraft (help the dwarven settlers chop n’ craft a place to live out of the earth to a surprisingly creative degree) crossed with a SimCity or Oxygen Not Included (as your own How You Khazad-Doin’ sprawls in every direction, you have got to control stuff like food and water and waste and alcohol and smithies) with a bit of a roguelike/Diablo aspect (terrifying randomized monsters will try to wipe out your fortress you built in your randomized terrain as represented by ASCII art (this may no longer be accurate), so hopefully the guards you trained and equipped and the traps you designed and crafted can defend your people).
I haven’t played it since when Guitar Hero was the hot new thing, back when a third dimension was new to the game, and the capital letter C indicated a cat was hanging around your fisherman-dwarf and a lowercase c indicated that a kitten was hanging around your cat. I stopped playing because I was waiting for the game to be done; it is playable now, but then, it has been playable for nearly two decades. It should just be, what, another twenty years before it’s really ready?
That same review convinced me to get Rytmos on iOS at the time. It’s nice enough, and it’s a little more light puzzling than pure trial and error. More gameplay than Hohokum, that’s for sure!
That said, it just feels like a solid representation of that sort of stylish, lightweight, “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore”, iOS game we think of through the lens of nostalgia as we try to remember a time before mobile gaming was dominated by f2p, subscription, gacha, ad-laden garbage.
A game like that probably belongs on the list somewhere, but there had better not be many of these, and I can definitely imagine it feeling really underwhelming on the Switch.
To be fair, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s open ended, exploratory, and one of those games that doesn’t tell you how to play it, but lets you figure it out. It’s not deep, it’s instead extremely varied. That’s not going to appeal to everyone. But, it’s great at what it is.
