Feel like I could just copy the intro to our 2023 list here and it would still apply. 2024 was a dismal year however you look at it. 2024 was somehow a worse year to be working in games, the constant tide of layoffs and studio closures showing no signs of slowing down. Sucks out here. I hope things change for the better soon.
10. Hoptix
I was following Hoptix via the developer’s Cohost page (RIP to a good website) and was immediately taken by the premise. Platformers are great because they’re all about movement, and good feeling movement can make a good game into a great game. Hoptix, even in its unfinished but mostly put together state, feels incredible. The ease with which it allows you to zoom through levels and pull off stunts along the way is remarkable. A literal platforming playground is an excellent idea for a game and Hoptix is delivering on it quite nicely.
9. 1000xResist
1000xResist is a dense work. It’s about diaspora, resistance and the many forms it takes, the Hong Kong protests, global pandemics, and more, wrapping it all the sci-fi trappings of an alien invasion and a society of clones spawned from the last surviving human. There’s a lot going on. To simply list off the topics it broaches doesn’t do the game justice. The way its story steadily unfolds is executed so well and with such confidence that it’s remarkable this is Sunset Visitor’s first game.
8. Lorn’s Lure
What surprised me most about Lorn’s Lure is how varied it is. Based on the first level, I thought I had a decent idea of what to expect. It’s a first-person platformer with a focus on climbing using pickaxes. The environments are massive and intricate, encouraging exploration and providing plenty of ways to get around. I figured if the game was just going to be this with some new abilities introduced over time, it would be pretty great.
But every level did something different. It immediately shifts gears away from scaling structures and relying on the pickaxes to being about descent and using wall jumps to control your downward momentum. And after that, it steps away from the vast open spaces and into tight, winding caves that are damn near impossible to get your bearings in, all the while requiring you to toss flares to even see what’s around you. All the while, the pickaxes, which seemed like the key element, become used less and less as the game leans more on your innate traversal abilities, culminating in a finale that is easily one of the most intense platforming gauntlets I’ve played in some time.
There was a time where first-person platforming was met with dread because of how much harder it inherently is compared to a third-person perspective, but every year it feels like it only gets better. Love to see it.
7. Street Uni X
There’s two things I appreciate about Street Uni X: The first that it’s a game in the style of the old Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games. Those were a particular kind of platformer that’s difficult to replicate, as illustrated by how many of the Tony Hawk games themselves post-Neversoft’s involvement struggled to do so. Street Uni X being able to capture that essence so well is remarkable and a definite achievement, especially while also being its own thing instead of just trying be an exact copy. The ways it designs around the specific quirks of riding unicycles give it a unique feel. Having to learn how to move and perform tricks is part the appeal.
And second is how this game so clearly communicates the developer’s love for unicycles and the community around them. Street Uni X is just as much a celebration of the unicycling scene as it is an excellent game in its own right. That it includes actual pros is perfect. It could have been so easy to just invent some fictional pros instead, but Street Uni X takes no shortcuts. It is uncompromising in its vision. It wants to represent unicycling in the best possible light it can and pay homage to the extreme sports games it riffs on all the while.
6. Small Saga
A fantastic small-scale RPG about a bunch of queer rodents. It’s a simpler take on RPGs, sacrificing the complex systems depth of its peers, but makes up for that with its charming cast, sharp writing, and surprising spectacle. Small Saga is half revenge tale as protagonist Verm seeks to kill a god (humans in this case) and half a series of revolutions as the party upends a number of corrupt leaders (including a group of outright fascists) on their adventures. That it is explicitly anti-fascist is definitely a plus, but it’s the core story and the characters’ own arcs that make the story shine. I went in expecting a light and silly story and instead got something surprisingly moving and heartfelt. Really special little thing.
5. Arco
Arco is a trio of revenge tales set in a Mesoamerican fantasy. That’s a strong pitch on its own, each story excellent and unflinching in its depiction of the violence enacted on the people of this land. It also has a surprising amount of levity despite the grim circumstances.
It’s a sort of turn-based game in that you are taking turns, but your movements and the enemy’s play out at the same time. It’s kind of like Frozen Synapse in that way, but less complex since you can see some of the actions the enemy is going to take. It’s strategy game adjacent but in a way that makes it easy to pick up. It really comes into its own as the party grows, as moving multiple characters around trying to manage the increasing chaos that comes with more bodies on the field allows everyone’s abilities to really shine.
4. Anthology of the Killer
I’ve been trying to think of a way to summarize what Anthology of the Killer is, but Tof Eklund’s review for Gamers with Glasses nails it: Anthology of the Killer is the state of the world. It’s a collection of horror-comedy games that are a biting commentary on the world via a hyper-surreal lens, each game becoming more focused and pointed in its critique as they delve deeper into the bizarre and absurd.
3. CybeRRRevolution
Some of the best 90 minutes I spent with a game this year. CybeRRRevolution is an indigenous take on cyberpunk. It’s effectively three tiny games in one, each of the three vignettes operating in completely different modes of play. One moment you’re piloting a massive mech crossing vast stretches of land doing some light puzzle solving, the next you’re talking to the odd monsters who inhabit a small town, and then chasing a train on horseback.
The stories are CybeRRRevolution‘s greatest strength. Sepsis and Splint talk through their worries and regrets of existing as mech pilots, of a life lost to war, and how these conversations occur spontaneously instead of signposting where the triggers are. Wandering around a small town as Rebel and learning about the monsters who inhabit it, steadily getting them to open up and learn about the world. The tension Barret faces trying to converse with people and listen to their concerns or just catch up while being ever-aware of the dwindling time until the train’s arrival and how imperative it is that she not miss it while the text moves at slow enough a pace to feel time slipping away. Any one of these segments would make an excellent game on their own. Together they form an incredibly sharp and focused work.
2. Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes
The best fighting game has only gotten better. Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes doesn’t make any drastic changes the way you’d usually expect from a proper numbered fighting game sequel, but it didn’t need to. The game was already great: it just needed better online play.
Under Night In-Birth is a series that has been quietly persisting over the years. It’s gone from just another super niche anime fighter to gaining recognition alongside many of the popular mainstream names in fighting games. It’s as much the achievement of the community’s unyielding support as much as it is developer French Bread’s own success. I can’t imagine the series would have gotten here had the community not been so fervent in pushing it at locals and tournaments over the years. It’s heartening to see.
Even beyond the game itself, it’s been a conduit for community. From the small crew of folks on Discord I’d play it (and other fighting games eventually) with almost daily for a time to the local/regional scene for UNI2 specifically (shoutouts to everyone in the PNW Airdashers server), Under Night‘s gone from just a game I play to something bigger. The game is excellent, and I hope it continues to thrive, but it’s the people around it that make it special.
Long live the night.
1. Death of a Wish
I’ve spent the entire time leading up to this list’s publication trying to think of what to say about Death of a Wish. It is easily the best game of 2024 in my eyes, an incredible work that has stuck with me throughout the year. But I’ve struggled to figure out how to properly communicate that without repeating what I’ve said before, just slightly reworded.
So I’ll just let this excerpt from my review do the talking for me:
Death of a Wish is quite possibly one of the best action games ever made. That’s hardly surprising given how its predecessor, Lucah: Born of a Dream, was similarly one of the genre’s best. Its blend of Souls-like and character action design was unique, a stylish and satisfying kind of play that took the best parts of its inspirations and spun them into something entirely new. Death of a Wish builds off that in a slightly different direction, maintaining the core aspects that made Born of a Dream spectacular while iterating in fun and exciting ways.
But Death of a Wish is more than just an incredible action game. It’s a heartfelt story of resistance, of fighting for your right to exist in a world that doesn’t want you. It’s a game born of looking at a world that is constantly doing harm and falling apart at the seams and figuring out what to do about it. Like Extreme Meatpunks Forever and Umurangi Generation before it, Death of a Wish is a game that feels so of the moment, so pointed in its anger, that it’s hard to see it as anything but a reaction to the current state of affairs. But it is also, like many queer-led stories, about community and solidarity and found family. It is about trauma and the struggle to overcome it.
It’s a frequently intense game. The final stretch is particularly difficult due to some fun mechanical twists that come about due to events late in the game. It’s also when Death of a Wish becomes its most hopeful and cathartic. After so much misfortune and tragedy, things finally start to look up. It’s a brief window, the proverbial calm before the storm, but one that makes the events prior — all the pain and suffering Christian and his friends endure — worth it. If not for themselves, then at least for whoever comes after. Death of a Wish is a difficult game in many ways — both in the traditional challenge sense and in how heavy the events of the plot can be — but it’s also one that is so very worthwhile.
Games worth shouting out that I didn’t have the time to properly write about here: UFO 50, Felvidek, Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom, Pangolin Cassowary, The Hand is Faster than the Eye, Dread Delusion, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Arctic Eggs, Crow Country, Habitat Infinity, I Am Your Beast, Phantom Spark, Parking Garage Rally Circuit, Animal Well, Arcus Chroma, spirits mirror::digital possessed, Tetrachroma, Nidus, Another Crab’s Treasure, Nine Sols, Racing Lagoon, Hauntii, and Brush Burial.
Games I wish I’d gotten around to (and hopefully will in the future): Lovely Lady RPG, Pepper Grinder, Moonlight Pulse, Moth Planet, Interstate 35, Pinball Spire, Stardust Demon, Caves of Qud, Proximate, Judero, Frogmonster, Starstruck: Hands of Time, Dreamwild, Sorry We’re Closed, Void Sols, Decline’s Drops, Fountains, and Phoenix Springs.
Callum Rakestraw is the Reviews Editor at Entertainium. You can find him on Bluesky, Mastodon, and his blog.
