As we move towards a quarter of the way through the 21st Century, it is sad to note that although technology continues to improve, society continues to actively stagnate and regress. Nonetheless, we keep trying; despite fascists, genocide, climate meltdown and everything else making the world an awful place. Apologies for the depressing start to this Game of the Year rundown, but unless we take note and acknowledge the state of the world, we will struggle to ever meaningfully change it. In any case, we still had some really enjoyable games to help distract from the broader geopolitical and civilizational situation.
Gareth’s Game of the Year
Balatro
All the time I’m not playing Balatro, I’m thinking about playing Balatro. I’m hearing the music of Balatro looping in my mind, even when not playing it. It’s simply that insidiously good. I don’t quite understand why Balatro is so incredibly addictive, in the normative sense of the word, because at heart this is just a game where you make various hands of poker. But the combination of being able to wildly “cheat” to make impossible hands and escalate the number of chips you can score into the literal millions and billions has given Balatro a relatively unique mystique. Developer LocalThunk has promised that there will be a free expansion in 2025, which presumably will add more jokers, decks and other changes, which I’m eagerly looking forward to for adding more inventive methods to “break” the game.
Balatro is also our site-wide winner of Game of the Year.
Best Remake
Riven
Growing up, Myst III: Exile was the game that introduced me to the Myst franchise. I didn’t actually play the original Myst until much later, and never played Riven: The Sequel to Myst, despite it being well regarded as superior to Myst in many ways. Cyan have already remade the original game multiple times, but hadn’t tackled remaking Riven until this year. Riven is not only a gorgeous remake of the first game, it amends the original in various ways, from the placement of the puzzles to the solutions, remixing via various smart adjustments. It makes the ages of Riven feel more like living, breathing worlds than ever before, allowing you to freely explore them in a more open world fashion. I would love it if Cyan were to do a remake of Myst III: Exile, but that seems fairly unlikely given they didn’t originally develop it. Nonetheless, hopefully the success of Riven shows there’s still room for more games in the style of Myst.
Best Characters
Vampire Therapist
Vampire Therapist is just delightful. I don’t think there’s a better word to describe it. It features an eclectic cast of vampires all of whom suffer from a variety of personality problems, and as Sam Wells, a former cowboy turned vampire who is now dabbling as a therapist, it’s your job to help these undead denizens feel more at peace with themselves. The writing and voice acting is top notch and the game can actually teach you a fair amount about therapy and various psychological terms, while also giving you an easy-going and funny look at various vampiric archetypes. It might be a visual novel but don’t let that put you off; Vampire Therapist has plenty of heart, even though most of the cast wouldn’t mind sucking your blood.
Most Valiant Effort
Alone in the Dark
Embracer Group clearly wanted Alone in the Dark, the remake and reimagining of the 1992 original game starring David Harbour and Jodie Comer, to emulate the success of the remake of Resident Evil 2. Sadly, the game didn’t set the world on fire, despite it being a valiant effort. The game is fine, pretty enjoyable actually, but not the home run that Resident Evil 2 was. That resulted in Embracer shutting down developers Pieces Interactive in June, only 4 months after the game released. A sad end for a studio which had existed since 2007. Alone in the Dark wasn’t a bad game by any means but it showed considerable attention and care by the developers, as outlined in the excellent developers commentary. Our current neoliberal capitalist system won’t allow a game to merely do ok however, no matter how much love and soul the game is imbued with. I hope the entire staff of Pieces Interactive go on to enjoy more successes in the future.
