- Space Rangers HD: A War Apart - My favorite of the 00’s was given a new facelilft and a ton of new content in 2013 to make it my favorite game of 10’s. Someone described it as “the swiss army knife of space gaming,” which is true, but amid its various parts the devs created a living, breathing universe with personality galore.
- Out of the Park Baseball - My all-time favorite role playing game tucked inside a sports sim. I have spent more time on this game, both in online leagues and solo fictional leagues, than anything else. I even wrote a novel based on one of my fictional leagues.
- Skyrim - One day I’ll finish the main quest. Or not. Total immersion outweighs janky combat.
- Kenshi - A labor of love, 12 years in the making, by a single developer who created a bat shit crazy post-apocalyptic world with a feudal Japanese/Wild West theme. It can be played any number of ways: empire building, or squad based tactics, or survival. You an even start out crawling through the desert missing limbs, and build an empire.
- Starsector - Like Kenshi, an creation of a developer with a single minded vision, the competency to carry it out, and the patience to take their time. This 2D exploring/trading/fighting game could, in this new decade, topple Space Rangers from the top of my all-time list.
- Deity Empires - Probably recency bias, but I’m thoroughly enjoying this take on fantasy 4x with some healthy dungeon delving and I’m not alone.
- Rimworld - Survival story generator with a smirk. I have to stop playing other games and get better at this.
- Dominons 5: Warriors of the Faith - I never cease to be in awe of Ilwinter. I just wish I had the time to get better at Dom5 MP.
- Stars in Shadow - Sometime modest ambitions lead to greatness. This is the definitive, streamline, beer-and-pretzels 4x game. And more than two years after release, the devs keep working on it.
- Star Fleet Armada Rogue Adventures - Crazy space game by a developer who’s been around so long he made NES games. This steam review says it better than I ever could: “This game might look like a relic of a bygone era, graphically, but that belies a depth of play that is absolutely and breathtakingly staggering.” And a real (well, pdf) 100 page manual!! Only seven dollars, people.
Honorable mentions
- Invisible, Inc - Stealth strategy oozing personality.
- Star Ruler 2 - A fresh take on space-based 4x RTS that deserved far more love.
- Thea: the Awakening – the best Slavic TBS survival roguelike w/crafting & card-based combat that I played all decade. Never tried the sequel, for some reason.
- Gloomhaven - Baldur’s Gate in a box.
Biggest disappointments
- At the Gates – I so wanted this to be great, and for Jon to succeed. Instead, I’m not even sure what resulted is a complete game, and it still is crash-tastic.
- 9m - The Illwinter 4x space strategy game that never got made.
- Dungeons of Elysium - the Ilwinter roguelike that never got made.
- Wasteland 2 - Never expected this one to be merely ‘meh.’