It can be strange to describe myself as a "gamer", because that word carries connotations that don't apply to me. The general public hears "gamer", and assume I'm downing fifteen energy drinks and loading the latest shoot 'em up to murderize as many pixels as I can. And you know, some days I do feel like doing that.
Games can be so much more than that, though, and for 2020 in particular, the themes of this year's favorites are depth, thoughtfulness, regret, and sadness. The games I enjoyed the most this year are all about looking back, and trying to summon the strength to put the pieces of broken lives back together in order to move forward. And at the top of that bittersweet pile is... Spiritfarer.
In Spiritfarer, you play as Stella, who is accompanied by her cat Daffodil. Stella has taken over duties from Charon, and is now in charge of accomplishing the last wishes of her passengers before dropping their souls off in the Great Beyond. Charon managed his duties with cold efficiency, but that is not how Stella treats her charges. For Stella, her job is about compassion and empathy. The game itself is about resource management, as Stella cooks and gardens and runs errands and builds new rooms on her ship, all in service of making the souls she's accompanying feel more comfortable and ultimately, more understood. Inevitably, it is time to say goodbye, and this game left me in tears more than once. It's got beautiful visuals, beautiful music, and a beautiful message, and was exactly the game I needed this year.
The clear runner-up is similarly melancholy. Tell Me Why is a three-chapter game in which twins Tyler and Alyson meet again after many years apart to sell their childhood home. Tragedy in their childhood separated them, breaking the close bond they shared, and plunging them each into their own separate problems: Tyler going to a troubled youth facility as he deals with not only the complications of his transgender transition, but being blamed for the death of his mother, and Alyson remaining in their hometown and never breaking out of her shell. When the twins reunite, they begin to discover that there was much more to their troubled mother's story, and begin to dig up truths that the rest of the town would rather leave buried.
This game was extremely well-written and well-acted, and far from just being a point-and-click novel, included branching story decisions and fun puzzles. Clearly, 2020 game designers have as much on their minds as the rest of us.
It wasn't all tears, though. The other big hit of the year was
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! which is no surprise, given how much I liked
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2. Time management games appeal to me for some reason, especially if they're food-themed, and this one is not only fun, but has amazing food art, and incredible music. One of the songs wound up legitimately
being one of the year's biggest jams for me.
On the tabletop front, Tiddy and I continue to enjoy our horrific journeys through
Arkham Horror, even taking part in an Ironman in which we played through the entire "The Circle Undone" campaign, which took literally all day. We've explored the
Marvel Champions and
Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth tabletop games as well, though we always seem to find our way back to Arkham.
As for the rest of the games I finished, am still playing, or at least tried out during 2020, here's a list, in the order they made the biggest impact on me:
Dungeons & Dragons (I'm so happy we've been able to keep this up virtually, but am looking forward to getting back to playing in person)
Zero Time Dilemma (Nonary Games #3)
Greedfall
Hidden Through Time
Disco Elysium
Overwatch
Dragon Quest 11
A Normal Lost Phone
Max Gentleman Sexy Business
Eliza
Octopath Traveler
Aviary Attorney
Your Royal Gayness
Dragonfire
Final Fantasy XIV
2 comments:
Sweet! Thanks for the list, as I know we have similar taste in games. Have you played either of the last two Leisure Suit Larry games, I'm wondering?
Nope, I haven't played a LSL since we took him for a spin in college!
Post a Comment