Legend
🌟 A personal favorite. (Not necessarily for everyone.)
✔️ Beat the game. (🏆 if I got all the achievements)
👍 Recommended if you haven’t played it.
👎 Avoid it. It’s terrible.
PC
I played a lot of older games this year in an attempt to earn all their achievements. I think I did pretty well; I finished all achievements in 14 games.
Against the Storm👍🌟
The Riftbreaker👍✔️🏆
Bought the DLC toward the end of Steam’s winter sale. I still love Riftbreaker’s gameplay. Came back to the latest DLC after the Autumn sale and my opinion hasn’t changed: great action gameplay with base building.
Oxygen Not Included
Destiny 2
Season of the Seraph was a great end to The Witch Queen expansion that bid farewell to an old friend and set things up nicely for Lightfall.
Lightfall was… Not great. Strand was a bit rough at the outset and the story revolved too much around the new power. The story left a lot of gaps open which was unsatisfying. The Season of Defiance was fine (nothing special), but the new exotic quest was fun and reintroduced a long-lost character.
Season of the Deep helped with a lot of the story gaps Lightfall left open. The seasonal “Deep Dive” event was fantastic, introducing some “roguelike” features to make runs more interesting.
Season of the Witch was another solid season, with an interesting story and fun activities. The roguelike features were used in the “Altars of Summoning” activity via the “Deck Of Whispers”, a set of cards with special effects that you could set up ahead of time and was drawn from for each encounter.
Season of the Wish has an interesting story involving the Ahamkara, but thus far, the activities aren’t as interesting as those in Deep and Witch. This season is going to be stretching until June 2024, so hopefully it picks up some steam.
High on Life
Clanfolk
Arcade Paradise
Marvel’s Midnight Suns
I like the card-battling combat, but hate most of the “RPG” stuff. Especially the “relationship” thing. Just makes the game take longer than it needs.
Patron ✔️🏆
Patron’s not bad, it’s just not that great.
GridMiner✔️🏆
A little space station building puzzle game I got at the end of last year. Good for a few hours of puzzle solving.
Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal
I’ve always enjoyed the Creeper World series; each entry has been a solid tower defense game. I finished Creeper World 4 at the end of 2022 and decided to finish Creeper World 3 (which I had barely started). I’ve been working to finish out the achievements, but some of them are very grindy (build 10000 of something or collect 500 things).
Juno: New Origins
I already owned Simple Rockets 2 in Early Access, and the name changed to Juno at launch. It’s an expansive game that’s as creative as Kerbal Space Program but more flexible and runs a lot better.
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
An interesting survival game where you take on the role of survivors during a medieval city siege. Manage food, water, and defenses for yourself and the bastion during the day, sneak into the city to scavenge by night. Pretty difficult.
Surviving the Aftermath 🏆
Came back to this one to finish out some new achievements. Picked up the DLCs on sale to get it back to 100%. Still a solid survival city builder.
Endzone: A World Apart 🏆
Like Surviving the Aftermath, I came back to this game to finish out achievements.
Nebuchadnezzar
A old-school 2D city builder centered around the history of Mesopotamia. There’s historical context given before every campaign mission which I really enjoy. The campaign itself slowly introduces new mechanics over time.
Star Survivor
A Vampire Survivors-like where you control a starship and slowly upgrade it over time. There’s a deck-building mechanic where your upgrades are drawn from a deck that you can upgrade over time. There’s also a campaign where you move across a map and finish with a boss fight. Your weapons are slotted in different quadrants on your ship which encourages some planning and requires positioning and aiming to hit targets. Plays OK on Steam Deck after some tinkering with controls, but I’m hoping for an update that gives it better controller support.
Phantom Brigade 👍
A tactical mech combat game. The “prediction engine” that shows you enemy movements and attacks allows you to play much more aggressively than similar games like XCOM or Battletech. There were many battles where careful planning let me finish off missions without a scratch, having my team dart in and out of cover just in time to dodge shots. After each round and after the battle, you can watch a replay of the action.
Mount & Blade II: Warband
Been wanting to play this since I heard it was coming to Game Pass. I always loved Mount & Blade, and this one is more of the same. I had a slow start since I wasn’t entirely sure what to do early on. Once I became a mercenary for my preferred faction, things started getting interesting.
Strange Horticulture
Bought during the Steam Puzzle Fest. It’s a weird one, but a lot of fun.
Jurassic World: Evolution 👍✔️🏆🌟
I’ve owned Jurassic World for a while, and with Jurassic World: Evolution 2 just released, I decided it was time to go back and finish the first one. It’s a solid dinosaur theme park game, with an actual campaign and objectives to complete. I’ve really enjoyed it.
Jurassic World: Evolution 2 👍✔️🏆🌟
As soon as I finished Jurassic World: Evolution, I went straight into playing Evolution 2. It’s much improved over the original, with some more detailed mechanics that make more sense. It’s much easier to have dinosaurs cohabitate now, and the addition of lagoons for sea dinos is great. I bought the big expansions (Biosyn and Malta) during a sale to finish out the achievements, and they both add some interesting new mechanics for the few missions they add.
Cliff Empire✔️🏆
Daemon X Machina
Been watching it for a while, and it finally went on sale with a deep enough discount for me to bite. It’s like Armored Core Lite, with some decent customization and buildcrafting. Weird story that I didn’t care about, but the combat was fun. There’s a combat mechanic in the game I never really used because I didn’t feel I needed to. Getting the achievements is really grindy, but I enjoy the gameplay enough that it’s kept me hooked.
Superliminal
A puzzle game in the vein of Portal, but is based around perception instead of portals. If you like Portal, you’d probably enjoy this one. It’s not a very difficult game, but it does require some out-of-the-box thinking in some areas.
Honey, I Joined A Cult ✔️🏆
Got this through May’s Humble Choice. Similar to Prison Architect, but it tends to work more like building a shopping mall: you have a bunch of rooms that “followers” come to and your cult members run, which produces income and influence, which you use to buy and research things. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure it’s as fleshed out as it could be. There’s also a bunch of minor but annoying little bugs.
Banished ✔️🏆
Another oldie that I returned to in a quest for achievements. Still a great game, though the rough edges are a little more obvious since the genre has evolved so much. When things are going wrong, it’s often impossible to figure out why, and things can go wrong very quickly.
Before We Leave 👍✔️🌟🏆
Yet another game I came back to for achievements. I had forgotten how much I loved this game. While I had forgotten practically all the nuances of how to squeeze the most out of my towns, a lot of it came back pretty quickly. It’s also a relatively forgiving game, and the updates since the last time I played have smoothed out a few of the rough edges (for instance, it’s possible to remove Astrobaleenium now instead of having it permanently ruin an island). Great game, and it’s renewed my excitement for the sequel, Beyond These Stars.
Beyond Sol ✔️🏆
Another for achievements. I like a lot of what Beyond Sol tries to do, but unfortunately it gets boring pretty quickly.
Framed Collection 👍✔️🏆
I’ve played Framed on my iPad in the past but had never played Framed 2. It’s a unique puzzle game where you rearrange comic book-like frames to alter the story and allow the protagonist to escape.
Per Aspera 👍✔️🏆
Per Aspera has had several expansions since the last time I played, expanding the options available once Mars has oceans and adding new objectives for housing colonists. The DLCs also nicely close out some side storylines, which is nice.
Satisfactory
Came back after Christmas to open the advent calendar. I need to rebuild a few factories due to updated recipes…
Death Must Die
A bullet heaven game with some inspiration from Hades.
Dorf Romantik
A cozy puzzle city-builder.
Dwarf Fortress
The great granddaddy of survival city builders. I’ve wanted to play for a long time, but was turned off by the ASCII graphics and keyboard-only interface. The Steam version is much improved, but I’ve got a lot of learning to do before I really understand what I’m doing…
Songs of Conquest
Picked up during the Steam Winter Sale. A great turn-based strategy game in the vein of Heroes of Might and Magic 3.
Solar Settlers
A space exploration card game I’ve had my eye on for a while. A solid card game with very simple graphics.
A Little To The Left
An organization puzzle game.
The Entropy Centre
A puzzly FPS like Portal, just with a time-rewinding gun instead of a portal gun.
Trombone Champ
Toot!
Board Games
Calico
A cute game about making quilts and having cats curl up on them.
Habitats
Build habitats for animals in your preserve while competing with other players for animals, environments, and amenities. Pretty easy to play.
Gaia Project
Point Salad
Canvas
Theomachy: The Warrior Gods
I’ve owned this for a while and finally got around to playing it. It’s essentially Texas Hold’em where you play gods and bet your worshippers, with some deckbuilding and combat mechanics. We enjoyed it, but the god abilities can be extremely unbalanced.
Evolution
I’ve owned this for a while; bought it after playing the digital version and enjoying it. Some of the rule adjustments for two players seemed to make things pretty unbalanced, though. I had an intelligent carnivore early on and was able to pretty easily pick off other creatures by disabling their abilities. Since the two-player rules limit you to two traits per creature, there was little to be done to stop that sort of attack.
Maglev Metro 👍
Great little engine builder where you build rail lines and transport passengers.
Earth 👍🌟
My board game of the year. An easy to understand tableau building game. There are lots of ways to score, and despite my wife and I playing very differently and striving for different objectives, our scores were only three points apart: she won 199-196.
Exploration 👎
I got Exploration a few years ago from a Kickstarter. I had heard it wasn’t very good, but rulebook updates improved it a bit. After playing, I can say that the initial rulebook is terrible: there are icons everywhere and the rulebook doesn’t even explain what they mean. The newer rulebooks available online were better, but still don’t fix what seems to be a broken game. The components are great, but the gameplay is sorely lacking.
Galaxy Trucker
I’ve owned Galaxy Trucker for a long time, and after seeing the opportunity to get Fit to Print from a Kickstarter for a different game (Point City), my wife wanted to try the game before I purchased Fit to Print. We played further than I think I ever have in Galaxy Trucker: two rounds. It’s still a lot of fun, I just always feel satisfied after a single round. Anyway, great game.
City Hall
Played for a final time before deciding to sell. It’s not a bad game, just not for me.
Cowboy Bebop: Space Serenade
I’m always skeptical of games based on a popular IP, but this one had good reviews and I’ve always enjoyed Cowboy Bebop. It’s a deck-builder with character powers and “coop-etition” gameplay: you work together to take out bounties but want the most fame to win at the end. The game ends with a “boss fight” of sorts against Vicious. Quick, easy to play, and great art (mostly straight from the show).
Assembly
A cooperative puzzle game with limited communication. A lot of fun. My wife and I barely managed to make it out alive.
Hero Realms
Another game I’ve owned for a while. It’s basically a fantasy Star Realms with optional character classes. It’s fun, but it also plays almost exactly like Star Realms.
Tiny Epic Vikings
I’ve heard this is basically a small version of Blood Rage. I haven’t played Blood Rage, but I enjoyed moving my tiny Viking ships and meeples around.
Tiny Epic Galaxies
I’ve owned Tiny Epic Galaxies for a long time and never had the opportunity to play it. Finally played with my wife and it was a lot of fun. Very easy to play with a very light 4X style.
Fences: The Ranch
My wife loves Fences; it’s basically a lighter version of Carcassonne with cute little farm animals. The Ranch adds a series of small expansions that can be combined to add some more depth to the game, and it definitely accomplishes that goal: the game is significantly improved with the extra options. I also liked that it came in a big box to contain the entire original game and organize things neatly.
Healing Blade: Defenders of Soma👍
Another game I’ve owned for years and never played. I think I held off for so long because I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy it, but it turns out it’s a pretty good asymmetrical card battler. One player plays “The Pestilence”, attacking villagers with diseases; the other player takes the role of “The Apothecary Healers”, defending the villagers from those diseases. There’s an educational aspect to the game: all the diseases and defenders are personified versions of actual diseases and medications. There are only a certain number of rounds, and early on, the defenders have an advantage because they can easily defeat any disease. But as defenders are used, they unlock resistances for the Pestilence player, which can be used to limit the Apothecary’s options. There’s a decent amount of depth and strategy, and it feels like the game accurately portrays the real-world battle against bacteria and drug resistance. I played Pestilence and ended up winning in the final round with a tetracycline-, cephalosporin-, and penicillin-resistant strain of syphilis.
Globetrotting
A game about planning trips around the globe, with miniature globes you get to write on. It’s pretty fun and the components make it unique. There’s some competition for goals, but otherwise there’s little player interaction.
The Fox in The Forest
Hadrian’s Wall👍
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Tiny Epic Dungeons
Fit To Print 👍
It’s like the spaceship-building part at the start of Galaxy Trucker, but that’s the entire game. It’s easy to play with some great artwork and funny headlines and ads. Played well at 2 and 4 players.
Deep Dive
Point City 👍
Backed this one on Kickstarter because I enjoyed Point Salad so much. Just like Salad, it’s a quick and easy-to-play city builder. Fun and colorful.
Compounded: The Peer-Reviewed Edition
My wife bought me the original Compounded for my birthday (and crushed me when we played), and we always enjoyed it. You collect elements like Carbon and Oxygen to create compounds like water or carbon dioxide to score points. The Peer-Reviewed Edition cleans up a lot of the artwork and makes things a lot clearer. Unfortunately, it also uses some slightly altered rules so I need to play them back-to-back to determine which version I like better…
Moon 👍
A city-builder on the moon with wacky buildings (your city can have a taco truck). Great artwork. Another one that’s easy to play.
Roll For The Galaxy
I love this one but my wife hadn’t played it, so we finally managed to get it to the table between all the new games. Still doesn’t disappoint.
Sanssouci 👍
From the designer of Azul (one of my wife’s favorite games), where you’re a designer planning the garden around the titular Sanssouci Palace. You select and lay tiles on your garden board and try to create a path for nobles at the top of each column to travel down.
Tiny Epic Pirates
Cascadia 👍
Patchwork (Halloween Edition)
This is a tradition on our anniversary: we play the Patchwork Halloween Edition and my wife crushes me.
The Search for Planet X👍
An app-based deduction game. A lot of fun and pretty easy to play.
Jaipur
A very fast-playing set-collection game where you’re competing to be invited to the maharaja’s court. It’s a great small-box two-player game.
Takenoko
That little panda is adorable.
Magic Maze
A hectic real-time heist game with no communication. Took us a few tries to get the hang of it.
Roll Player 👍
I’ve wanted this game for a while and picked it up on sale. A fun dice-rolling game where you’re building a tabletop RPG character. The randomness leads to some characters I’d never actually create or play, like my Orc Wizard craftsman, who lost to my wife’s Dragonkin Ranger hunter.
Great Western Trail👍
Another one I picked up on sale. I’d heard good things about this game years ago, but I’m not typically into the western theme. The gameplay is really solid, though, and I had a great time delivering my cows.
Tiny Epic Crimes
Can be played competitively or cooperatively. Played cooperatively with my wife, and we won on a coin flip, having narrowed the murderer down to two options. The game felt slightly too short; another turn or two would have given us the evidence we needed to know for sure.
Lords of Waterdeep 👍
Been a long time since I’ve played this, but it was my wife’s first time. I remembered enjoying it, and a replay confirmed my recollection. Still a great game.
Project L 👍🌟
A board game where you get to play a lot of little games of Tetris. A lot of fun and very easy to play.
The Fox Experiment👍
Another great game from Elizabeth Hargrave. Breeding fox pups to create the friendliest pups. Naming the pups you create is a nice touch; I was always upset when the artificial third player blocked one of my pups so I couldn’t pick them.
Ceres
A worker-placement game about mining the asteroid belt. There are a lot of different ways to earn points, which sometimes makes it difficult to know what to do next.
Space Base
A game I’ve been interested in for a while. The first play annoyed me a bit; it was a little too random; unlucky rolls early in the game gave my wife an early lead which kind of snowballed. I want to try it again before I give up on it, but I wish there was some better roll mitigation.
Railroad Ink
Played with my brother and his wife to make sure they enjoyed it before gifting it to them.