Pizza Tower is genuinely amazing.

Cassette Beasts also surprised me in how good it was.

The Blaster Master Zero series is a trip down memory lane and a fun romp. Excellent nostalgia feels if you ever played the original.

The horizon games have been good for both storytelling and gameplay.

Firewatch, while much too short, tells a moving story about the isolation that loss brings.

The Stanley Parable is one giant Easter egg with I finite replayability.

I’m a huge fan of “sky children of light” when I’m stressed out.

The free just cause games on PlayStation are kinda meditative in their own way, allowing you to fly across the countryside in a wingsuit.

I’ve also played BOTW, but am fairly disappointed in the lack of challenge. TOTK however, I am looking forward to.

Finally, Control. It has sweet gameplay, a cool story, a creepy as hell atmosphere, and links all the Remedy games together, all of which is love for the same reasons as I love Control. Of all the games I am looking forward to, Remedy is giving me the most antici…

pation.

Dave the diver. This is such a fun game, it’s hard to explain. Simple concept dive for fish and run a sushi joint. Somehow it’s managed to become all games in one and every angle of play is well thought out. The diving part is part shooter/adventure/exploration/rpg. The Sushi joint aspect is collector/rts/management simulator. The animations are top notch as well. I can’t recommend it enough.

Minecraft and Civilization VI.

Sounds bland? Somewhat. It’s more the fact that I started playing them with the kid and the wife for the first time effectively. The kid got a Minecraft account when it was three days old, both the wife and I played it heavily during the (horrible/stressful) pregnancy as she got sick from other games for some reason. Now playing it together was fucking wholesome and easily one of the most memorable experiences. We now run a small private server for us and some friends and it is an absolutely fantastic bonding experience - even more so as I can easily join when I am on one of my rather frequent business trips.

Civ6 is a bit similar experience wise but it also started a absolute transformation in the kid - it has read all (literally ALL) the childrens and adolescent history books in our rather well equipped local library and we now have to very carefully have to choose which adult books are appropriate - and therefore are learning a lot about history we never figured we would need to read about. (Scythian history? Really,kiddo?)

hi fi rush hands down. particularly one cut scene which has the literally coolest transformation I’ve experienced in a game : https://youtu.be/cU5utimmtkg?t=96

I finished Omori a few months ago and it was a standout experience, really enjoyed every moment and could sing a lot of praise on its sound design and usage of gameplay mechanics to tell a story!

Elden Ring and Dead Cells stand out to me the most.

Hunt: Showdown.

The thrill, the suspense, and at times, action.

In theory, could do that with EfT too, but, EfT doesn’t work on Linux, so that doesn’t count :/ (And, with the recent changes, I feel EfT became too much of grindfest, while Hunt feels… chill at times. Which I love.)

Skimming through my Steam library, here are the games that I’d call memorable/left an imprint for me in the last year.

• Neon White - Score attack/leaderboard chasing is NOT my genre at all, but the game felt so good to get into a flow state and solve the puzzle, chasing that last Ace medal timing. There are more things I could have gone and chased, but getting all Ace medals, gifts and finishing the story was sufficient for me. I’d be curious to figure out if playing again, almost a year later, if I could do any of the later levels!

• Security Booth: Director’s Cut - A very short experience but such a fascinating and creepy one. You’re asked to man a security booth and let in or reject cars based on a list of license plates. Things get weird and that’s all I really want to say. This is also a game that feels like it was originally released on a PS1.

• The Case of the Golden Idol - Both Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn are some of my favorites of all time , so when I heard that Golden Idol was like both of them together I was extremely curious. It’s more Obra Dinn than Outer Wilds, but the core mystery in each level is so interesting to uncover. Nothing ever really comes out and says “So this is what happened” in a cutscene, but you read a letter in one room, maybe a letter in another, then you’re checking between them for the dates and trying to figure out what happened when. I felt so smart when a puzzle came together and when I saw/solved one of the big mysteries before they basically tell you the answer. So so so much fun and I need to get into the DLC.

• Marvel’s Spider Man and Miles Morales - I played the first Spider Man on Sony’s streaming service a couple years ago, so I knew all the story beats already. That didn’t stop the emotional impact from STILL hitting me from some of the final villain’s speech to Peter. I had also never played Miles Morales, so it was great to put them both back to back. The story can feel very routine/by the numbers but I almost didn’t care because I was having so much fun swinging through New York. Cannot wait for Spider Man 2.

Ive been abusing steep for days now, and boy is that game the after dinner thin mint of gaming. Its gorgeous, and offers million of ways to go down tue several proposed mountains.

Sea of Thieves. I’ve had so many great interactions with other pirates, and the freedom the game gives me allows fights/battles to go in some very interesting ways. I’m not sure I’ve played another game that lets me outsmart my opponent in so many ways, and the ability to speak to other pirates can provide for some very interesting or funny moments. The other day I was attacked by a reaper ship, once they knocked down our mast I started swimming with a gunpowder barrel towards their ship. They swam right past me while looking for me, unfortunately I was killed just feet from their ship. But they had no idea about my second gunpowder barrel and started sailing closer to my ship. As it sunk, the barrel was freed from the chains of gravity and hit their ship, killing most of their crew. We all had a laugh in the ferry of the damned after that. They were pouting that we had no treasure so we teased them with how we just sold a giant pile of it when they started chasing us.

Another time we were about to log off so me, in a sloop, approached some random galleon to give them all our supplies. We were really lucky with finding them and had an absolute fuckton of supplies. The first words from them as we approached were “They’re here” and they all jumped on our deck ready to attack. We told them we come in peace, with gifts, and gave them our supplies. In return, they gave us a key to one of our chests, which had three items we needed inside of it, that we would have otherwise missed out on. Got like 5 achievements out of that interaction.

Do you have a guide or something to reference to setup EFT Single Player as you’ve described? I haven’t played in a long time (last time was right around when the first versions of the SP mod was made public) because I got fed up with the online experience. I’d love to jump back in to SP eventually to see what’s changed, I definitely miss the EFT gameplay.

Just like you, Tears of the Kingdom. I played for 140 hours before attempting the final boss. Man, was it worth it. That ending was one of the best and most satisfying endings I’ve ever had to a game.

I started playing Factorio about a month ago and I’m completely addicted. I love it so much. I guess there’s not much more I can say about it, given how everybody but me had already heard of and played this game. But it’s definitely my #1 gaming highlight of the year.