Assessed Unoriginal

I played a lot of games in 2023. I also made the decision to keep a log of every game I played every day, (loosely ranked by how much I enjoyed each game that day). I've kept a 'diary' of games I've played before where I semi-regularly wrote a sentence or two about games I enjoyed (or really hated.) But this was the first time I've kept a log of everything.

This was a terrible idea, I was able to extract very little useful information at the end of the year. And attempts to quantify the data were even more confusing and just muddled up mediocre time-fillers I played several times ahead of superb games I binged in one night. In the end it just sapped almost all motivation to write about the games enjoyed,

Needless to say I probably won't repeat it in 2024. I'll have to give some thought to what I'll replace the log with.

Anyway, in order from best to worst...

Top 10

Void Stranger

A Sokoban-esque puzzle game that sneaks in a captivating plot, a challenging and interesting meta-game layer, three other secret sokoban-esque puzzle games, multiple sh... cough

Beyond the novelty of the above sentence, it's genuinely one of the most novel and interesting games of the last few years.

Myhouse.wad

Folder of the year. Myhouse is a package of images and word documents that also includes one of the most highly polished, intriguing, and inventive Doom wads ever.

Mediterranea Inferno

The boys are back in town after two years of Covid enforced seperation. And then there is the sex, drugs, hallucinations and toenail clippings.

A Space For the Unbound

A narrative driven game set in an Indonesian high school where the protagonist's girlfriend suddenly gains the ability to alter reality, and is also cursed by reality alterations not of their own making. Very good setting and story, with a hell of a conclusion.

Baldur's Gate 3

You know all about this. For all it's flaws, it's one of the rare games that feels like the world always reacts to your actions.

Corru.Observer

In a world where Aliens have made first contact and started interacting with human society. And then one day they left and everyone just kind of forgot about it. Why? Enter this living memory cyst and find out.

Coffin of Andy and Leyley

Fucked up in many ways and then some. Also hilarious, and the weird narrative is surprisingly interesting.

Slay The Princess

Love to be ripped apart by my thousand knife GF.

Battlebit Remastered

Simple graphics, complicated shooting, high player counts, maximum fun.

RAMP2023

(Disclaimer: I contributed one map to this.) Nearly 300 Doom maps from the very basic to the obscenely brilliant. And There's a surprisingly detailed meta-game connecting them.

Novelty and Other Awards!

Best Frog Fractions Cinematic Universe Content

Gordy And The Monster Moon

No bizarre secrets. But a short fun pico8 adventure.

Best Maker

I Wanna Maker

Super Mario Maker, but for I wanna be the Guy. Super Cool

The Immortality Pentiment Memorial Inability to Stick The Landing Awards

The Talos Principle 2

Saltsea Chronicles

Underwhelming for polar opposite reasons.

Longest Game

Time Bandit Part 1 - Appendages of the Machine

Metal Gear Solid at Animal Crossing pace. I complained a lot about the technical issues with this game, but those seem to be mostly ironed out. If you want a game that takes a few minutes a day spread over weeks/months, give it a try.

Most Disappointing

Harmony - The Fall of Reverie

This game has a compelling premise; A variety of interesting, fully-realized, and well-acted characters; Incredible animation in parts; And a great soundtrack. Somehow Dontnod managed to turn this into a confusing, boring and barely playable mess. Quite an achievement for a visual novel.

Meet Your Maker

Worst Maker.

Storyteller

10% of a good game.

11 More Good Games You Probably Haven't Played

• Boneraiser Minions
• Midnight Scenes: From The Woods (Play the other Midnight Scenes first. All of them combined are like 2 hours total.)
• Picayune Dreams
• Shadows of Doubt
• Path of Achra
• Sorry We're Open
• The Sirena Expedition
• Buckshot Roulette
• Shards of God
• 24 Killers
• Beton Brutal

The best game of 2022 is Norco by a fair distance.

Developed by Geography of Robots, Norco is an adventure game vaguely similar in style to Snatcher, though it very much stands on its own in many ways. With a distinctive "pixel art" graphical style reminiscent of later PC88/98 games or pre-3D adventure games.

The story is set in an futur... alternate-present version of the real life town of Norco (in Louisiana, USA) revolves around the character Kay. Kay returns home for the first time in 4 years after hearing about the death of her mother.

From there the plot covers disparate topics such as:

• Eco-Terrorism
• The gig economy
• A Bonzi Buddy analogue that has escaped the internet
• Custom Phone cases
• The true descendants of Jesus Christ
• The nature of consciousness
• A death cult consisting entirely of Bestbuy employees
• The influence of religious extremism on the operation of large corporations
• Cool Robots
• One horrible story about a limousine...

Despite the above. The story somehow remains deeply relatable and the characters all feel deeply real. Albeit there is the constant feeling that Norco itself is part of a much larger story in this universe that we are mostly not privy to.

The writing is also superb and it has an excellent soundtrack (by Gewgawly I and Thou)

Honourable mentions: Neon White, The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, Elden Ring, An Outcry, Vampire Survivors, Dinkum, Signalis, Cellar, Last Call BBS, Nightmare Reaper

Novelty categories

Hidden Gem 1 - Cellar; A game where you play one of 6 people who wake up in an underground facility. Their job is to stay there for 30 days, kill time, and keep a machine running 24/7 (by noting whether a selected digit is or isn't on screen.) One of the strangest and most unsettling games I've ever played, though seemingly almost nobody else has. Strongly recommended.

Hidden Gem 2 - An Outcry; An RPG Maker horror game about talking crows and the rise of the right-wing. Excellent and compelling characters and writing. It seems some people played this game, but it deserved way more attention than it got.

Best Half, Worst Half - Immortality; A game that starts pretty decently, but shits the bed as you try to end it with 2 hours of clicking on random objects. (Honourable Mention: Pentiment starts much stronger and experiences a similar drop in quality, but is still pretty OK at the end.)

Best New Genre I'm coining right now - Rapid Fire Adventure Game; Adventure games where almost every action results in a significant plot development, rather than just at the end of a multi-part puzzle or by reading in universe lore. I first noticed this playing Cosmic Void's The Corruption Within (2021) this year and then again in their new game Blood Nova. But also noted it in other developers games like Intruders in Antiquonia. (Dishonourable Mention (Bad contrived genres): Fishing Horror and Boomer Shooter)

Favourite The Witness Clone (3D) - The Looker

Favourite The Witness Clone (2D) - Taiji

Favourite Return of the Obra Dinn Clone - The Case of the Golden Idol

Most Unique Multiplayer - The Past Within; A 2 player co-operative puzzle game that requires no networking other than voice chat.

Most Mysterious - Ahack's Adventure II; The game does not seem special at all, except the only other person I've seen acknowledge its existence is Jim Stormdancer, the creator of Frog Fractions...