With 2025 arriving, and 2024 going, I thought I’d do something I’ve never done before and make a list about the previous year.
Favorite game for zoning out: Spelunky
I will play Spelunky for hours while listening to podcast, video essays, shows, and whatever. It’s easily the game I’ve put the most hours into and it’s great for keeping my hands busy.
Favorite game on replay: Sekiro
FromSoftware made this game several years ago and I’m replaying it now. I said back then that it was the best game they’ve ever made. Better than Dark Souls because they actually had the time and budget to finish making the game. Better than Bloodborne because it’s available on PC instead of being locked behind a console exclusive deal made with Sony. And on replay? I stand by it 100%. It’s terrific all the way through.
Favorite impromptu party game: Gartic Phone
Gartic Phone is a great game to play even with a small number of people. It’s fast to play and best of all it’s free. A lot of other party games need 4 people or more before they really start to become fun. But Gartic Phone is one of the best games for 3 people.
Favorite planned party game: Champ’d Up
Genuinely I think this is the best game the Jackbox team has ever made. Even if it’s a drawing game and not everyone likes those, it’s still the best. So if you know you’re gonna have 6 people to play it, I think this is the highest quality game for the group.
Favorite game to read the dev blog for: Factorio
I don’t have a spot elsewhere on this list for Factorio, but I still admire the game and its developers a lot. I personally struggle with Factorio because I’ll get anxiety about not building optimally, and get waves of “this is now a chore” when I need to redesign a section of my factory. But the dev blog is extreme high quality. Several team members will write about the journey to produce art, game mechanics, code optimizations, and so on.
Favorite game to hate on: League of Legends
No one should play this. I think many of the people who make it are bad people. The fact that they hired someone from EA who got mad at the company for not maximizing their profits, and proceded to change everything about how they monetized the game, says everything you need to know about their souls. I think the game is designed to be rancid from the ground up. I think they managed to pick up a budding genre and fully ruin it with a predatory business model that takes advantage of neurodivergent people. I think Riot deserves to be destroyed. I think they are a blight, I think all companies like them are a blight. They’ve let abusers run the company and it shows.
Favorite game that I will never play myself but liked seeing other people play: Danganronpa
I watched a let’s play from ProZD Plays Games and had a grand ol’ time. If I actually played the game I think I would have dropped it after the 2nd transphobic comment from some loser characters. Fortunately the people playing the game loved the cis and trans characters catching the hate, and made the experience bearable. Also they gave everyone fun voices.
Favorite game to watch someone else spectate: Starcraft Broodwar
I recently started watching Artosis cast Broodwar. He’s great. I got out of spectating e-sports entirely in the mid 2010s, but I find that having someone who’s both extremely knowledgeable about the game and its history and is very entertaining on his own makes it a great experience.
Favorite non-video game: Mahjong
I didn’t get to play it much in 2024, but it’s still one of my favorite games.
Favorite non-game: The person reading this
Just kidding, it’s mac n’ cheese. Have you heard of this shit? It’s so good. You can’t “play” it, but it’s still making this list.
Favorite game I made up: Peas Demand Peace
I just think the art style is cute. I don’t think it’s possible to create as described in my review, but I really locked in when painting the assets for it.
Favorite game I actually made: Grim Tale
I made a silly TTRPG called Bard Tale about people using song lyrics to cast spells. It’s imbalanced, stupid, and very fun. So then I extended it so people could also use lines from novels and called it Grim Tale. It’s also imbalanced, stupid, and very fun.
Favorite story about a game: Queen’s Gambit
I have issues with various aspects of it, but unfortunately it is still very well written.
Favorite story about a gamer: Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint
Yoo Joonghyuk is a literal certified pro-gamer.