Patrick’s Parabox is an amazing puzzle game with a simple concept that grows over time in complexity, but always in a fun, logical way. I had a blast with it, almost beating all the included puzzles in the game and thinking about it for a while after the credits were over. It wasn’t -perfect- perfect, but it was damned close and I almost only have good things to say about it. Really good music and sound design too!
For The King is a neat boardgame-like role playing game where you move characters around the world, complete quests, fight monsters, improve your gear, conquer dungeons and level up. I was fully on board for most of the game, really enjoying the battle system, the style and the overall progression, but ultimately didn’t like the board game concept of moving slowly on a huge board over a certain period of turns by throwing movement dice around. I’m not sure if there would’ve been a way to do it differently, of course, so your milleage may vary!
SoP:FFO is a really cool game on paper, a cheesy final fantasy-infused action game having you punch, slash and blast your way through some semblance of the story of Final Fantasy 1 with just enough going slightly differently to really catch your attention. With a neat class system and the ability to customize your combos, special skills and gear, it could’ve been a slam dunk. That being said, I was eventually ground down by the difficulty, the overabundance of gear and the absence of ways, for me, to overcome the challenges the game placed in my way.
Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden is a strategy game, a bit like XCom or Fire Emblem, where you control a cast of mutated animal humanoids as they try to survive and discover the secrets of a post-apocalyptic world. With a larger focus on exploration, setting up ambushes before fights and customization of your characters via skills and equipment, I was getting ready for a grand ol’ time with it. Ultimately my adventures through MYZ:RTE were cut short by a bunch of really difficult fight that I couldn’t figure my way around, which is a darned shame.
Exapunks is another neat little Zachtronics game about programming and solving complex puzzles through an interesting storyline about hacking, capitalism, physical media and the like. Much like their previous games, such as TIS-100, you’ll tackle challenges, write code using a small vocabulary - that still allows a lot to be done - and get ranked amongst your friends and the global player base. I had a good time with it, although I found the back-and-forth between a PDF and the game a bit tedious and got stuck fairly early.
Your Chronicle is a pretty great idle/increment game that focuses on unlocking individual actions and storytelling, alongside a bunch of mechanics that become available over time and some good focus on managing resource production/consumption, party composition and planning. I ultimately couldn’t keep playing it after a certain point when I realized that it required a bit more active playing than what I was willing to put into it, which is a damned shame!
Rise of Industry is a neat looking industry simulation game that went just over my head immediately when I started playing it, even going through the tutorial. I think it might be a product of how sandboxy it felt and how every mechanic and system is available immediately even if you had zero time to understand how any of it works, so I dropped it fairly quickly. I really love its artstyle, tho!
2023 was a fun year overall, for me personally, but also pretty terrible for the world at large. Free Palestine. Here’s a list of games I’ve played and why they’re in my top ten. Solidarity for the working class.
Shapez is a streamlined factory management game where the things you build are colored shapes in their most abstract senses. Starting very simple and quickly building up the complexity, I had a really good time with a game that was not too concerned about optimizing and making the most of limited resources. Creating complex patterns of machines that would take shapes and colors, cut them, rotate them and fuse them without any kind of stress was really enjoyable. It became a bit too complex for me at some point and I couldn’t really figure out what to do, so I dropped the game, but otherwise I had a great time!
I don’t really consider myself a big Baldur’s Gate fan, I had dabbled in the first two game in a very limited capacity, but I was too young to really enjoy these at the time and couldn’t wrap my head around the THAC0 systems and other intricacies of dungeons and dragons. I had always heard that they were good games, but as the times went my bread and butter was more like the Dragon Ages and other more action-RPG oriented titles. The allure of playing one of these games in co-op really drew me in, and the buzz was positively glowing, so I went into Baldur’s Gate 3 a bit unsure. The uncertainty didn’t last long, this is an amazing game.
Salt & Sanctuary is an interesting 2D Souls-like with an artstyle and overall control feeling that really turned me off. It’s a bit of a bummer, because it also felt like a metroidvania in some capacity and the skill tree/item systems were really speaking out to me. Ultimately it was a bit too “floaty” and unprecise, while at the same time requiring too much precision, for me to stick with.
Hob is a cute little zelda-like adventure game with a minimalist UI, no dialogue and a clean artstyle. Controlling the titular Hob, you solve puzzles by using your mechanical arm, fight enemies and explore the world. I really wanted to give it a shot, but after barely a few hours in, I was completely stuck and decided to give it up after some more mindless revisit of all the locations I already had access to.
The bar was incredibly high for Diablo 4, the expectations were probably impossible to meet and the realities of game development in the year of our lord 2023 for a company like Blizzard seemingly was writing on the wall that it would embrace the “live service” moniker in ways Diablo 3 hadn’t in the past. I love action RPGs, they’re probably up there as my favorite genre of game, I also have a lot of fond memories of Diablo 1, had a ton of fun with Diablo 2 and played Diablo 3 to hell and back. How does 4 fare against the legacy of its predecessors? Not perfectly, but pretty well, I’d say!
The Messenger is pretty neat, with great chiptuney music, impressive pixel art and tight gameplay, it’s a Ninja Gaiden-esque love letter that evolves into an interesting dual-world metroidvania after you think the game might be over. I was turned off by the writing of the game, which kinda clashed with the overall themes, but still had a pretty good time with it!
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos reminds me of A Link To The Past in an okay-ish way, a special kind of affect that I would attribute to other games from my past like Graal Online. A somewhat fine experience, Rogue Heroes is a bit unfocused and makes strange decisions on the multiplayer side, but overall I had fun with my friends playing it. It’s certainly neat and if you’re in the mood for some co-op adventuring, it might occupy your time for a bit!
XCOM 2 is the fantastic follow-up to the reboot of the franchise of the same name where you play a covert militaristic group trying to save the world from aliens by sending soldiers on missions, managing your resources and attempting to accomplish certain objectives under a time pressure in order to avoid a wide range of dire consequences. I had a great time playing it on the easiest difficulty with a large dose of save scumming, but regardless of if that’s the way XCOM should be played, it’s just a good time.
Forager is a pretty neat game where you collect resources, build things, fight monsters, level up and go through an upgrade tree for your various tools, buy more land to explore, complete quests, unlock plenty of skills and complete challenges. My experience with it was a rollercoaster of mixed feelings - at first it was pretty slow and the upgrades were incomprehensible, but then progression became too fast and the upgrades didn’t come quick enough. I had a good time with it, but it lost focus too rapidly for me.
Hypnospace Outlaw is a really unique adventure game where you navigate a fake internet-alike as a moderator of sorts, trying to ban offenders and helping people with their problems by solving puzzles, installing apps and navigating through a lot of early geocities/90s-inspired nostalgia. With great humor and pointed design, it was an interesting experience, but I couldn’t really get into it and kinda checked out of figuring out everything by myself at some point.
From the outside looking in, Big Pharma seemed like one of these “factory games” to me, where you would manage a pharmaceutical company, trying to build machines and combine products into more and more efficient medicines while discovering new technologies and improving your setup at your pace. I was a bit disappointed with the scenario-based approach of the game and the more puzzle-based systems. Big Pharma is probably really neat for some people, but it didn’t scratch the itch I wanted personally!
Grounded is a neat little twist on the survival genre where your characters are shrunk down and must content with hunger, thirst and the dangers of insects roaming around a backyard while exploring every nook and cranny for resources, power ups and secrets. I had a good time going through the story, even the next thing I needed to do wasn’t clear at times and there were some slight hurdles in the progression that felt more frustrating than challenging. Overall, a cool game!