Void Crew
- Interesting bridge sim / coop game. Doesn’t quite get there on the dream, but cool team and had a great couple of days playing it with bae and the boys.
Shapes 2
- Excellent automation game. Very distilled, maybe too distilled, but fun nonetheless.
Mudborne
- Cute, nice vibes. Didn’t enrapture me.
Against the Storm update
- Didn’t play the bat update, but still very good. Continues to hold up, though I’m not so sure more content really adds anything here?
Cities: Skylines
- Played again since 2 is bad. Still the best traditional city builder I’ve played. Did the thing where I progress all the way up to airports then am kinda done.
Abiotic Factor
- Played this with family. Love the HL1 presentation. Didn’t quite capture me, but honestly that might be due to not having consequence for death.
Urbek City Builder
- Excellent little “city builder” puzzle game. Put ~20 hours into it and feel like I explored the concept well enough.
Timberborn update
- This game continues to get better and better. I’ve put enough time into it by now that I kinda want a more substantial change (like a new faction) but it is still a fantastic game. Did the regular thing of progress to a certain point (sustained bot production) then put it away, despite it having an actual end game goal.
Oddsparks
- Fantastic automation game with some flaws. Coop worked fantastically, and probably would not have picked it up if it didn’t. Follows Satisfactory (2024 game of the year!) VERY closely, maybe too closely, but with a radically different presentation. Pikmin mechanic is cute but very clumsy, logistics are ok, but still, very fun. Actually we did not quite beat it (I think we were on the literal last task of the game when we left it!)
Monster Hunter Wilds
- Oh boy. Essay game. Honestly I enjoyed it, especially playing with Taylor, but man, is it flawed. Drunk horse bird is funny, but ultimately crushes any exploration. Perf and image quality is pretty bad. Just, kinda feels AAA in the bad ways and not the good. Still, monster designs are fantastic, and when it is kicking you do get a great MH experience.
Loddlenaut Demo
- Yeah, didn’t actually pick this up, but I really enjoyed it! Very simple pick up trash game with a clean aesthetic and calm music.
Anno 1800
- Picked this up again after 2 years. Had a great time, played all the way to late game then put it away as usual. Got most of the DLC for cheap - not totally necessary (Embessa is not really my cup of tea but kinda neat!)
Stellaris
- Still fun, but man paradox sucks lol. Latest patch kinda messed everything up but I hadn’t played in so long that it was all new to me anyways. Bought some DLC but didn’t get far enough to even eval them
LEGO Voyagers
- Very nice simple coop puzzle / linear adventure game. Didn’t really click with me but the presentation was excellent.
Two Point Campus
- My wife was playing Two Point Museum (which is fantastic) and I saw Campus go on sale for 2 bucks, so I picked it up. Very fun, maybe a little simpler than I would like (I wanted to really be able to customize schedules and optimize pathing - felt a bit on rails). Museum does seem like the more refined of the series, but quite worth the price of admission!
Deep Rock
- Absolutely no updates this year. Still a fantastic game, though I am just about out of things to unlock.
Gunfire Reborn
- Continues to be awesome. New character DLC this year, still cheap, still will continue to purchase any DLC that follows this trend. Game is hilariously hard to understand at this point (bad translation plus a ridiculous amount of math) but you can still just pick stuff up and see number go up.
L4D2 / KF1+2
- Halloween fun.
Stardew Valley
- No new update or anything but my wife and I had a great time getting to Ginger Island again. We played with the “Cornucopia” mod, though in hindsight it didn’t really add too much. Looking forward to 1.7???
Multiworld
Didn’t play much this year, but had a few laughs.
Metroid Prime
- I would have to get a lot more familiar with the game for this to sing, but it worked quite well.
Civ 6
- Way more fun than expected. Is mostly a “fill in the blanks” sort of rando but was full of funny moments.
Satisfactory
- OK, would need to dial in the settings better. Ends up being a hard drive hunt with a little bit of factory building. Sending items to stardew is hilariously broken.