The State of the Art: Games 2018

Well, as you'll see in upcoming posts, I really whiffed it on absorbing what the year had to offer in some areas of pop culture. That doesn't mean I missed everything, though, and it's been an extremely rewarding year, game-wise.

In the tabletop realm, not only did I continue playing in multiple D&D campaigns, but was able to participate in T.I.M.E. Stories expansions, delved into the devious world of Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, and turned from pixels to ink by playing the card versions of both Pathfinder and Arkham Horror (both of which had clear advantages over their larger counterparts). When I got tired of fighting, it was extremely pleasant to turn to the artful experience of Tokaido, in which you're simply traveling along a Japanese road, soaking up culture.

That said, the clear favorite of the year was Gloomhaven, a cooperative game in which four dungeon-crawlers do their best to work together to clear out monsters and other bad guys, while still having to incorporate decisions that have long-ranging effects on the overall game. When one of your characters advances enough, they retire to become somebody new, so the game always seems fresh, and trying to find the best combinations of attacks and moves with the other players is the kind of challenge I always enjoy.

I also played gobs of video games. My poor computer finally gave out a couple of months ago, but I logged some good hours in before that happened, and of course, there's always the phone and the PS4 games as well. Florence was a fun little story game on the phone, even if Marvel Puzzle Quest sucked up most of my mobile gaming time. On the PS4, I dabbled a little in Late Shift and Horizon Zero Dawn, and I'm just now starting to explore Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Detroit: Become Human. The rest of the year was spent either saving the fantasy land of Neverwinter with Aaron, or swinging through Manhattan as Spider-Man, which is the runner-up for my favorite game of the year.

Before it exploded, the PC saw plenty of the usual suspects like Overwatch and Cook, Serve, Delicious 2. I also tried out new (or new to me) games from a wide variety of genres. Valiant Hearts: The Great War brought me to the brink of tears with its stories of survival during WWI. Tacoma entranced me with the interpersonal relationships on a doomed space station. Aviary Attorney had me search for clues to exonerate my feathered clients. Armello saw me trying to topple a mad king. Night in the Woods managed to combine the story of an aimless dropout with some haunting side-stories.

That said, the video game that really blew me away this year was Doki Doki Literature Club!, about which I really can't say too much, lest I spoil the surprise. I'll just say that on first glance, it appears to be a simple, silly little game about a boy who joins a club full of girls at school, and tries to impress them with his poetry. Midway through, the game takes a turn that left my jaw on the ground, and even after I thought the game was over, it had more to shock me with. This is an odd year in which I can't recommend my favorite game to everyone, because it can be extremely confusing or upsetting to some people. But for me, it knocked my socks off, and then punched me in the face when I bent over to pull them back on.