2024

Happy holidays once again. I missed the friday slot, so this can go out on New Years Eve instead. Lets talk about games!

No big rushes this year. When I said “lets not do that again” last time, I did really mean it. Since the start, I’ve still kept to the same thesis for this page. I want to recommend games that I played and enjoyed, so lets see what that covers this year. Unfortunately when my schedule is every other week, that doesn’t leave many games to talk about over the span of a year, but I think if I tried doing any more than that, I’d burn out really quickly.

Playing video games isn’t my job (unfortunately.) Normally I do web development for a company that works with YouTube content, and I just play games in my spare time, but just like how this started, I like telling my friends and followers about the games I play, so thats why I write about them here.

It’s been a rough couple months. If you’ve noticed Lilla talking about her Tetris games recently, thats because I’m all spent, I’m out of ideas, and it’s been hard recently to pick up new games (no doubt because of winter,) but hopefully by the end of the holidays, I should have a nice backlog again. The winter sale really carrying the next couple months lol.

Let’s talk statistics

This year I wrote about 28 games. Well, I wrote about 26 and Lilla chipped in a couple at the end. I did not miss a week! For someone who wanted to keep a loose schedule, that impresses me.

There was one off-week review, and that was for the Outer Wilds Archipelago Randomizer. I’ve already done dozens of runs by this point, it’s a very good way to replay a beloved game.

There was one week where I posted two games at once, and that was Unbeatable and Muse Dash. Both very good games with similar yet unique gameplay. Hopefully in 2025, the full release of Unbeatable Game Wishlist Now will hook me.

There was one week I genuinely struggled, had no new games, so just grabbed something from itch.io to talk about, and that was Covemount by Hempuli (who is the creator of Baba is You, so they have some pedigree with Sokoban style puzzle games.)

I don’t know how many people read my posts, and even less how many people actually play the games because of my recommendations, because I don’t link my site to any kind of analytics. Maybe I’ll change that? Probably not. I mostly write these for my friends anyway.

Let’s talk games

Every game I reviewed, I have played in 2024, Both Tetrachroma and Turbo Fat have also been Lilla’s obsessions this year, so those are covered too. But lets talk about what I didn’t review and why.

• Tevi. This is actually coming out in a few days 😉
• Two Point Campus. Good game, couldn’t get too far into it though oops
• Persona 5 Strikers. Held me for a week or so, but I feel I’d want to finish it more before writing about it. I do like the combat though.
• Kitsune Tails. A fox game (yay) but doesn’t quite tickle the nostalgia center in the right way for me. More of an “in the mood” game.
• inbento. Very cute little game, does get tricky but takes its time to get there.
• Beltmatic. It’s alright, just play Shapez tbh
• Thank Goodness You’re Here. GOTY, just need to build up the courage to channel my inner northerner to write about it lol.
• Isles of Sea and Sky. Good little challenging puzzle, but too hard for me to finish ><
• Risk of Rain 2. More like Rest in Peace 2
• Human Resource Machine. Huh, I don’t already have a review for this one. I should fix that.
• Slice of Sea. I love the Submachine series, but this just wasn’t hitting it for me.
• A Solitaire Mystery. Good lil thing, but my heart is with Zachtronics for this one.
• Final Profit. It’s absurd and great, but way too repetative
• Mars Horizon. Seemed fun, but couldn’t stick with it.

I really don’t play many games over the span of a year do I, then again steam reckons that the median amount of games people play is in the single digits, so what do I know.

Oh and when I say my heart is with Zachtronics on the solitaire thing, I currently have over 1000 wins in Fortunes Foundation, so uh, lol.

Make a list lol

Okay 5 must plays of 2024 in no particular order: Nine Sols, Animal Well, Satisfactory, Thank Goodness You’re Here, and Balatro.

Balatro?

Yes it has completely decimated Lilla and I’s friend groups, so that has to count for something.

Onwards

Before signing off I’d just like to make a correction to my recommendation of Islands of Insight. When it came out, it looked promising, but in October, they shut down the online servers, and left everyone on a weaker and buggier offline version of the game. Just straight up packed up and left. I can no longer in good faith recommend the game, sorry about that.

Also the next review is on Tevi: Yes there are going to be 4 metroidvanias from me in a row. No I am not sorry, I just really like well-tuned metroidvanias.

Writing this has also reminded me that I have a lot more games I could recommend than I realise, so January might cover a lot of this year’s games too. If the backlog fills up too much, I’ll start doing off-schedule Saturday posts too.