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Game of the Year 2025!
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We did it! We got to 2026! Hooray!
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Plumbing. Sure. Sure. Basic construction. Yeah. Electrical. Depends. Yeah, it depends. You know what else is depends? What's that? Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pixel It. My name is Kevin. With me as always is Phil. On today's show, we are doing our games of the year. We know you wait ah sitting on your hands all year for this episode.
00:00:28
Speaker
And it's back, baby. it's been It's been an entire year since we actually, our last ah last year's Game of the Year episode came out a week later, but who cares? Whatever. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's it it's the vibe year. Year vibes. Year of vibes. Vibe coding. vibes a i ah And next year will be the year that AI collapses on itself.
00:00:54
Speaker
Oh, God, I'm looking forward to that. God. Yeah. ah's It's my lips to God's sultry, perky ears.
00:01:06
Speaker
um Just dripping with the saliva of everybody's prayers. Absolutely. Because that's the only way he listens. Fucking pervert. only way he listens. and He's a fucking pervert. God's a pervert. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. He's always watching.
00:01:24
Speaker
We're just covered in spit. Anyway, yeah you know where you can hear more stuff like that is our website. If you go to patreon.com slash pixel at pod, you can ah pay us money. We have...
00:01:39
Speaker
Three tiers for if you consider for free joining for free. um And we have one dollar, which gets you ah Phil's books, ah book reviews and ah gets you early access to the episode. Five dollars gets you access to the bonus episode and ten dollars gets your name.
00:01:59
Speaker
Shout it out in every episode. And to that i end, I want to thank, and you are hiding, Song 85, Jesus loves you, Kyle, Seaman, Ruthless, Mudder, Middle, Thing, Sigma, Sal, Sanguine, Flatulence, Big, Stemmer, Thick, and Friendly Friend, thank you so much for being a friend.
00:02:15
Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixelitPod. Do it today.
00:02:25
Speaker
and okay so game of the year of the year game of the year there's no real body to put in the marsh because it's not a book we're just game of the year Yeah, we're just, yeah. Let let the body have a have the day off, you know? Let the body have the day off. The body is celebrating.
00:02:44
Speaker
ah Let the body put its feet up. The body is watching the Dick Clark rockin' New Year Eve featuring Ryan Seacrest and his new face.
00:02:56
Speaker
Oh, boy. Yeah. That's...
00:03:00
Speaker
I don't know why i didn't think that was going to happen to him, but oh boy, it sure did, man. Boy, it sure did. And it the like frosted hair. i don't know, Ryan. He already looked like a guy who had had plastic surgery. He just had that kind of face, that kind of shiny,
00:03:18
Speaker
plasticky sort of face. It's not helping. It's not helping. Not helping, Ryan. Not helping. All right. So this year, we did in previous years, normally we just go back and forth through our list of 10 games. And whenever we get to one where we both have the game on the list, we both and we stop and discuss it and all that fun stuff. This year, Phil and I only have one game of overlap, which is wild thing to happen. Actually, we have two. did notice we have two. Oh, okay. But that won't come up. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, we have two. But still.
00:04:00
Speaker
But still, it's crazy. um So let's start with one of our overlapping games, at least. Yes. And that is my, the award I gave this game is the Curtains Propaganda Game of the Year, Look Outside.
00:04:17
Speaker
And the award I gave it was the Make My RPG Maker Game Paranoid Award for Look Outside. ah ah ah So Look Outside, for those you who don't know, developed by Francis Colombe. ah The synopsis, Look Outside is a survival horror RPG set in a single apartment building. A mysterious event turns anyone who looks out the window into grotesque monsters, leaving the world in absolute chaos. Scavenge the building to seek food, supplies, and weapons while encountering strange characters. ah Look Outside is
00:04:52
Speaker
It's a delightful little game. It's crazy. Yeah. It is. you decided to take ah Fear and Hunger and Undertale and slap them together, you would get Look Outside.
00:05:06
Speaker
It is a horror game filled with monstrosities, but are overcome by the power of friendship. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes. the power Sometimes by the power of a hammer. but ah yeah Sometimes by the power of a hammer. Sometimes the hammer is really all you can do. Sometimes your French-Canadian janitor ah is the only one who can clean up that mess. um The thing I really appreciate about the game is how different it can be from...
00:05:41
Speaker
note Whenever two people play it, it's very different because one of the things about it is that the support characters that you get are almost totally randomized ah when you when you start the game.
00:05:56
Speaker
ah It really just depends on who knocks on your door asking for help and who you let in and who is a terrible, horrible monster. Yeah. Yeah. And, and as far as monsters are concerned, um, it has some of the best monster design, uh, of several years, maybe, it, it, there is a grotesque level of body horror, uh,
00:06:23
Speaker
It is shocking ah because it is cartoony, ah but at the same time, it is it is grotesque. it the The things that these people have become, it really fucks with you. I feel like every time I played that game, there was a new moment for me to say, oh, what the fuck? And it usually had something to do with the latest thing that was trying to kill me.
00:06:47
Speaker
Right. um Yeah, the one that... One that sticks out for me ah it happens relatively early on as you go into one of your neighbor's apartments and you find that the baby ah of the family looked outside and the baby was teething.
00:07:07
Speaker
And then it starts biting the other members of the family, mutating them into horrible tooth monsters. Yeah. That was the one I was thinking too, actually.
00:07:18
Speaker
that is That is some... And you're right. That's like one of the first bad guys you encounter in this game. and that's just And that's kind of the perfect introduction to this world. It's like cranks you into it. It's 60 miles an hour right off the bat. And you're like, okay, that's what we're doing here. Okay. That's what we're dealing with. And the wild thing is...
00:07:42
Speaker
there is a one of the members of the family who you can, I, when I played, I thought he was just, ah ah another enemy to encounter and you can actually recruit him. Uh, the, the older brother, the oldest brother rather, uh, can be, can be talked into joining you. Um, and I, I thought that was fascinating. I saw that on somebody other, uh, somebody else, uh, somebody else's, uh, run through. was like, Oh, yeah,
00:08:12
Speaker
you don't have to kill him. Right. It's wild stuff. ah So Look Outside a very fascinating game. Survival Horror RPG. um And it does what it says on the tin.
00:08:27
Speaker
Um, the look outside if you want to be turned into a horrible, uh, monster being, uh, after your brain is broken from a cosmic entity.
00:08:42
Speaker
Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really, really good game. Really yeah want looking forward to anything else that this team comes out with in future. This is. Yeah. And I think it's mostly one guy.
00:08:55
Speaker
ah matts Of course it is. that's I think there there might be some additional people helping out, but the developer is just Francis Colombe. ah so Anyway, ah that that is our our first game. That's our first duo game.
00:09:10
Speaker
um Phil, you want to go go next? Yeah, yeah. For my first, ah well, not my first award, but my second award of the evening ah is called the You Motherfuckers Trick Me Into Working a Menial Job and I Can't Wait to Do It Again Award for Dead Letter Department.
00:09:32
Speaker
I think it's funny that we both have a similar award for different games. Oh yeah. so We absolutely do.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it is, ah if for anyone who hasn't played this, ah you should, there is a demo, get it now while I'm telling you about it. This is developed by Mike Monroe and belief engine. It is a atmosphere is daddy style kind of horror game where you play a menial worker in a strange, lonely,
00:10:06
Speaker
urban landscape. And your job basically is to go into a computer in an isolated office and you are sent mail. ah You're sent screen caps of mail that for whatever reason, the computer that reads the addresses and everything else on it, ah these ones got missed. So you have to manually type in anything on the mail or postcard or what have you that is highlighted.
00:10:33
Speaker
And this is a right off the bat, a very strange kind of unsettling ah atmosphere to begin with. And then you get into the menial labor of sitting down. You have to...
00:10:50
Speaker
you have you have to type it in. ah they they give They have some mercy on you. You don't have to, ah you know, do capitalizations just so, or the spacing just so you just have to type it in.
00:11:03
Speaker
um But you have to do it right. ah You have to, or it will send it back to you. You have, you can do ah address searches and that kind of thing. And,
00:11:15
Speaker
Like a lot of these games, as you continue, the mail you start to get ah starts to get thoroughly unhinged. um It starts with little mentions of things. Someone writes a postcard and it's kind of a manic, strangely suicidal postcard, but it's like, oh, that's weird.
00:11:37
Speaker
And then you start getting letters and stuff that say things like you get a lot of letters and postcards that are just the history of someone who was killed horribly and how it happened. and You have to type out the entire story.
00:11:51
Speaker
And so it really forces you to pay attention to what is important in this game. um There are some puzzles where, you know,
00:12:03
Speaker
based on how things are highlighted, you have to kind of parse out, ah you know, what it would be. I'll give you a good hint. If you guys get one that has a zip code that's kind of smudged or smeared, check the return address because I bet they've got the same zip code that that one would have had. Stuff like that. Yeah, just stuff like that. It's, yeah, it's clever. It's fun. And it's really really amazingly written.
00:12:31
Speaker
ah There are multiple endings, takes about two hours to play. ah They have a thing where they ah they won't let you, um you can save once and that's it. And and and and normally i don't I don't care for that. It's like, what the fuck is the point of that? There's a point to this. ah There is a momentum you build in playing the game. It Playing it in one session really is the optimal optimal way to do it ah so that you get the full momentum.
00:12:59
Speaker
ah It is unnerving. It's frightening. There are no, I'm going to tell you right front, there are no jump scares on purpose. ah There are several moments in the game where things shifted and i shit like jumped. ah right It's, it's just my kind of game. It came out right at the beginning of the year. ah So it's easy to miss this one. ah But fuck me. So good. So yeah, the you motherfuckers tricked me into working a menial job and I can't wait to do it again. Award for dead letter department.
00:13:36
Speaker
Awesome. Kevin. Yeah. All right. ah So going back to the top of my list, even though the list is not in any particular order except for the last game, which is just my game of the year. um But yeah, top of the list, the Resident Evil game of the year goes to Tormented Souls 2. There was actually some stiff competition this year for the Resident Evil game of the year. The problem is I didn't get... through a bunch of them. ah There is Bloober Team's new effort, which is Kronos New Dawn. um And well we have, before we get to our game, ah our final game of the year, we'll we'll mention our honorable mentions.
00:14:17
Speaker
um So there's Kronos New Dawn and I believe Heartbreakers um or Heartstoppers, I can't recall. um there's There's a few ones out there that were You know, they they they could have been in the in the list had I actually gotten through them. But Tormented Souls 2 is my Resident Evil game of the year. The developer dual effect. ah If you played ah Tormented Souls 1, it picks up not long after that.
00:14:45
Speaker
Carolyn Walker returns in the sequel to the award-winning survival horror classic. Explore the decaying remains of the secluded Villa Hess, use improvised weapons to confront terrifying creatures, and bend the fabric of reality to save your sister from a twisted cult.
00:15:04
Speaker
Tormented Souls 2 has a story that belongs right up there with any other Resident Evil, in that it's convoluted. don't look at it too hard. it's got It's got some Silent Hill spice to it because as we all know, Resident Evil has more it more in common with science fiction horror than supernatural horror, right?
00:15:32
Speaker
Everything Resident Evil is based in science. say
00:15:40
Speaker
Happy New Year. Happy New Year, kid!
00:15:46
Speaker
hair looks great.
00:15:49
Speaker
Your hair looks great, kid. Happy New Year. Thank convoluted resident evil bases everything in science and i use that in the loosest terms it's very science fiction it's very science fiction yeah ah whereas tormented souls 2 is more mystical magical um and that's why i say it has the silent hill spicing uh especially with the occasional with the idea of there's two worlds that you kind of travel back and forth between two, ah between in Tormented Souls and Tormented Souls 2.
00:16:29
Speaker
Uh, it's a lot of fun though. I mean, if, if you are looking for a classic, uh, fixed camera style survival horror game,
00:16:42
Speaker
with puzzles and such in the vein of old school resident evil, you're not going to do much better than tormented souls too.
00:16:54
Speaker
Um, and I thoroughly recommend, uh, anyone who is into that kind of game, picking it up. Nice.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I never finished the first Tormented Souls. I think you've convinced me. I need to go back and wrap it up. Yeah, go back and give it a shot. Tormented Souls 1 starts with the most gratuitous nudity I've ever... really does. The main character, Caroline Walker, just wakes up and she's naked. She's naked.
00:17:26
Speaker
She's naked and missing an eye. ah Yeah, yeah. Double whammy, really? Double whammy. um Yeah. doesnt that She never gets that eye back.
00:17:39
Speaker
No. Okay, good. Good to know. Good to know. She does gets dressed. gets dressed. so at least through that And she has an eye patch in Tormented Souls 2. So good for her. Yeah. Good for her. Yeah.
00:17:54
Speaker
Okay. um I know ah that this year there was one big release that people who know me and maybe listen to the show knew.
00:18:05
Speaker
I knew that people were curious about what my opinion on it would be. ah You know, so the good news is is I'm going to talk about it here. So my, the 4X civilization Sid Meier style strategy game of the year award goes to foundation.
00:18:23
Speaker
yeah First and foremost, Foundation didn't hide any of its ah best aspects and ah traits behind a paywall. And it didn't immediately try to go into some, ah you know, games as a service style, whatever. I don't know why I'm bringing that up. It just it's just on my mind for whatever. Just on your mind, you know, just on my mind. What, what, uh, foundation does well is the level of custom ability. It is a medieval town builder where you it's, it's most things in this game you've seen before.
00:19:01
Speaker
However, the quality of life to it, um, the level of customization that you can ah go with. And also, especially early on the laid back quality of it, it is a relaxed game at first. This is not, it does not last. It just like any ah game like this, everything slowly ah starts to completely fall out of your grasp and get completely out of control. Um,
00:19:31
Speaker
But by that time, hopefully you've got a plan. And but I think the best part about it is just how it looks. Your village turns into this city, turns into this kingdom. ah The roads are built based on the natural progression that your citizens take.
00:19:50
Speaker
So you get to watch the net and it gives you kind of a foundation. but There it is yeah to to build around. And it and it it makes for this really nice, organic. That's one of the words they use to describe it. And I think it's completely correct. ah This organic experience. Not orgastic experience.
00:20:12
Speaker
No, no, not or not or justic or gastic or or ah any other like that. no Yeah, it's it's the orgastic green light that represents a future ah no unattainable by a nouveau rich man like Gatsby.
00:20:29
Speaker
Not yet. i'm I'm hoping that that comes into some DLC. I'd pay money for that. But this is Polymorph Games really made something that is simultaneously relaxed, but also deep. There's some depth to it without, you know, tearing your hair out. Yeah.
00:20:49
Speaker
You know, your mileage may vary, but it just it just hit kind of the sweet spot for me in terms of the level of fun and the level of involved that I wanted and being able to control the growth of your ah city in certain ways and not control it in other ways. Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
it it It really keeps things moving along. I really enjoyed it. They just released a quality of life update for free that came out last month. I haven't played that yet, but it was already a really, it just felt good to play. And I invested some serious time in this one. I might have to come back and check out the quality of life. So foundation.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Foundation. Okay. ah Next on my list is ah deeper meaning hidden behind Silly Control's Game of the Year to ah Baby Steps.
00:21:48
Speaker
ah Baby Steps, the developers, Gabe Cazillo, Maxi Bosch, and Bennett Foddy of... ah Bennett Foddy, who is ah famous for getting over it with Bennett Foddy, and I think he was responsible for...
00:22:04
Speaker
uh, was it quap? Um, Oh, okay. Yeah. the The rag, the, yeah, the running game where you have to control like all the guys body parts. Uh, so like baby steps is more in common with quap getting over it. Uh, but in this instance, you're only controlling, ah you only have three controls and that's direction, left foot, right foot. Um, yeah, The synopsis of the game is you play as Nate, an unemployed fail son with nothing going for him until one day he discovers a power he never knew he had, putting one foot in front of the other. um
00:22:42
Speaker
It is... It's hilarious because... The game presents itself as, ah this is just basically like getting over it. It's these weird, very ah minute controls. like The control is like a very minute detail and in the level of control. ah And that's going to be it.
00:23:07
Speaker
But in all honesty, the game, like getting over it, has a lot to say about... just like getting up and and kind of going, um getting your life moving. um Now, I haven't finished the game.
00:23:24
Speaker
I've put several hours into it. I don't know. I don't think it's particularly long, but hey enjoyed every moment that I put into the game because once you get into a flow of controlling Nate,
00:23:43
Speaker
You find yourself kind of in a little meditative state. Like you're you're like, okay, I can left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. I'm having a walk. I know what I'm doing. I can walk. And then you'll run into some weird character and he sells like ah shoes. Like you'll be like, oh, you need shoes. And be like, I, yeah, ah I'm a size this. And the guy's like, well, i don't have any shoes that small.
00:24:07
Speaker
<unk> just And it's like behind him, you just see all these giant shoes or or I think that was the encounter, one of the encounters early in the game. um And or another and moment where you keep going and you run into a guy who's like, ah you run into this guy voiced by Bennett Foddy early on.
00:24:29
Speaker
right And he's kind of like your guide through this after you've fallen asleep in your basement and woken up into this magical land. ah He kind of is like, oh yeah, you know ah I'll be your guide. And you're like, no, no, I just want to get going.
00:24:46
Speaker
Okay, bye. And your character, you just start walking away from him. Eventually you run into another hiker and the hiker's like, oh yeah, ah do you didn't like let the let The first guy finishes his tutorial. He gives you a map and the the hiker puts up a map.
00:25:04
Speaker
And for a split second, you get a mini map in the corner of your screen showing you exactly where you are in the game and where you need to go. and then the hiker takes the map away and it's gone and you don't get the map.
00:25:17
Speaker
but it Oh, that's hilarious. It's just an amazing bit that stuck with me. I love that shit. Oh, that's awesome.
00:25:28
Speaker
But it's like, oh God, um baby steps is um it's death stranding for people who only really want to focus on the walking.
00:25:40
Speaker
And that's that's pretty much my pitch for it. um i don't I don't have much else to say about it other than, don't know, take give it a shot.
00:25:51
Speaker
It's weird. And ah it at the very least, you'll start thinking about it, ah thinking about things and and life as you walk through the mountains ah of of baby steps.
00:26:06
Speaker
I love it. I love it. um Okay. ah For my next award, I'm offering up the does what it says on the tin award for a game about digging a hole.
00:26:21
Speaker
um this I was just so kind of in love. You played this before I did. And I remember that it's by double B yeah and you played it before I did. And you were like, you really need to try this. This, this is something you would enjoy. And you, you absolutely nailed it. It was, it's just the kind of perfect combination of absurdist humor and,
00:26:47
Speaker
casual silly do nothing kind of gaming. You're literally just digging a hole in your backyard. Um, and slowly cutting through different layers of strata as you go and facing new challenges and upgrading your digging equipment, uh, by selling gems and stones and all kinds of other shit that you dig up.
00:27:11
Speaker
Uh, it does It's probably one of the best ah about faces I've ever seen in a game where the genre shifts at the end. I won't give it away, ah but the twist at the end ah ah took me and my wife completely off guard. Yeah. I, I, she, it happened. I literally grabbed, she was walking by. was like, you got to sit and watch, you got to watch this. You got to watch this. This is nuts. And she sat and watched me play like the last half hour of the game. And I was like, what the fuck is this game? Exactly.
00:27:44
Speaker
um I'm also pleased to announce, I just found this out looking it up on ah steam. ah It has an official novella. that you can buy. Holy shit.
00:27:57
Speaker
That's right. ah So I think we might have to put this one in our back pocket for a day where we we need ah a one episode day or something like that um because it's written by, this is a German company, I believe, and it's written by a German science fiction author. um It, it, uh,
00:28:15
Speaker
And it costs the same as the game, which is five bucks. ah it is it is a It is just the right price. ah In fact, you know and no, it's too good of a price for this game. The game, i got so much enjoyment out of it. ah so many weird and wonderful moments out of playing this game. And, and that's what I love about these kinds of indie games. Where else am I going to get this kind of experience that takes me several hours and I can just kind of soak it up and enjoy it and cost me five bucks. Like that is, yeah that is a gift. And, and that's something that ah ah frankly is going to be in common with a lot of the games for me for game of the year. ah for the for the foreseeable future.
00:29:04
Speaker
um i I loved this game. i enjoyed this game. I laughed and and got spooked and, ah you know, enjoyed the ah rotation of dig, sell, buy that came with it naturally.
00:29:23
Speaker
And I got a feeling I'm going to enjoy the novella. ah So, ah yeah, a game about digging a hole. Check it out. A tale about digging a hole. Uh-huh.
00:29:34
Speaker
I guess it's a prequel. Interesting. Well, I'm, yeah i I bought it. So yeah that's done. Might squeeze, might squeeze it onto the calendar. Um, it just sounds like a lot of fun and right up our alley.
00:29:49
Speaker
Um, yeah, that's awesome. All right. Uh, my next, uh, game on the list. Uh, I can't, did we, eat was this something that we, uh,
00:30:01
Speaker
both had a roguelite or light. I don't really care. ah game of the year ball pit. No, that was not on my official list. Yeah. Okay.
00:30:12
Speaker
ah Ball Pit or Ball X Pit. I can never remember with the rules if if the if the X is silent. Developed by Kenny's son and friends, Ball Pit is a brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite.
00:30:25
Speaker
Batter a hordes of enemies with ricocheting balls and gather the riches of the pit to expand your homestead, generate resources, and recruit unique heroes. All right. So the main conceit of the game is that there was a kingdom...
00:30:38
Speaker
And then a meteor with like an alien ship hit it and it caused this crater, um ah the pit, so to speak.
00:30:49
Speaker
And what you're doing is you're sending heroes out to the different levels of the pit to go through, fight enemies, gather resources and kill the bosses. And as you ah do that,
00:31:06
Speaker
um every time you do that, you come back up and you have a town. So there's two levels to the game. There's the the ball pit level and then there's your town level. And you you build out your town, your little town builder,
00:31:22
Speaker
thing And you you put out buildings and then in order to build the build the buildings, every you have to shoot your dude out um similar to the ah the gameplay, which is a lot like um ah what's the what's the ah the old game? It's like a brick breaker um ah type of game. Yeah. Where you break out. Break out. That's the game I was thinking Yeah.
00:31:49
Speaker
It's a lot like breakout. um So you shoot your little dude up into the town and every time he hits it, the the building gets one step closer. And every time he goes over a wheat field, you collect one wheat. And every time he hits a forest, you collect one wood. And every time he hits a rock, you collect a stone. And that's how you kind of generate resources. And you do that every time...
00:32:10
Speaker
uh, in between the levels and the levels have hordes and hordes of enemies. And the cool thing about them is they have, uh, they're synced to the music, which is kind of cool. So every time you you get to a cool part of the music with like, uh, like heavy drums, the, the creatures are like bouncing to the, to the drum beat and you can hear the sound of them jumping and landing.
00:32:34
Speaker
um almost like a chorus. It's, it's, it's, it's really cool to, to listen to and watch. It's an audio visual feast for the senses. It's overstating a little bit. It's neat. ah It's Um,
00:32:52
Speaker
I put so many hours into the demo, which just was the first level, that when I got to the full game, which let you use your demo save, I had so much money, which made me kind of blow through the main game a little bit faster than I think most people would have. yeah because I had so many so much money and resources. was like buying, buying. I'm going to unlock this. Now I got this hero.
00:33:20
Speaker
um Each hero that you unlock changes the way the game is played. um So you have basic more basic heroes that are just like, okay, this one...
00:33:32
Speaker
um shoots his balls out faster, but they're less aimed. They're going all over the place. This one shoots all the balls out at the same time in an arc. But then there will be like a later guy called the tactician, I believe, ah that turns it into a turn-based game.
00:33:52
Speaker
So like instead of just like a continuous, like you're you're fighting against these enemies, the the tactician will have a turn and then you can put him wherever you want on the field and then the enemies get a turn.
00:34:08
Speaker
And it just continues like that. And it was it was actually really fascinating to see how many different ways... you could change the game, the the the rules of the game with the heroes that the developers came up with.
00:34:27
Speaker
And to add another wrinkle onto it, there's a modification that you get Later, where you can have multiple heroes go out on a run and the rule sets will be kind of merged into ah like a third different thing. ah um that That's when it gets very ah vampire survivors. That's when it gets completely unhinged.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yes, exactly. ah So yeah, Ball Pit, it's it's a fun, re and I'd say it's almost, it's it's not super mindless, but it's mindless enough where it could be a third screen game if you are, you know, you're going to bed, you're just listening to something on the TV and you have a Steam Deck or something like that out and you're you're playing it.
00:35:14
Speaker
um So Ball Pit is my roguelite or light, I don't really care, ah game of the year. Nice. um My next award is the make my city builder paranoid award ah for the king is watching.
00:35:32
Speaker
Um, this might have been the game, ah that I played the most of its demo when it came out, or I don't know if it came out during next fest, but that was when I found it.
00:35:44
Speaker
Um, and I played the shit out of its demo so that when it was finally released, I was all too happy to, to pick this one up. It is a city builder with a regular combat stream. You've got hordes of enemies coming at you at different, ah you know, ah displayed moments. And you've got to build up your kingdom and be ready for the next attack and the next attack.
00:36:12
Speaker
And the that's nothing too different on its face. But the conceit is that you have a grid system there. You have all of your ah spaces that you can put farms and and and training camps and lumber yards and all that other good stuff out. But you only have ah you have kind of a Tetris piece ah shape that you can put over this grid. And anything under that is the only thing that works. so You have to literally be watching as the king. You have to be watching certain sections of your grid to make them productive. So things aren't always working. They're only working if you're watching, ah which is a really neat idea. You find yourself ah getting really good watching.
00:37:02
Speaker
balancing and arranging certain ah types of building or resource ah in certain shapes, depending on what shape you have, ah you get really good at that or you do not continue on. um It's, it's a lot of fun and, and it's got a very silly cartoony style ah initially. Yeah.
00:37:29
Speaker
it's ah I love the style of it. is It is very 16-bit. ah animation style ah ah graphics to it that gives you a lot of moments for like kind of Pratchett-esque kind of cuteness. Like there are dragons that you can you can you can build these dragons with a certain resource. If you have enough flour, you can produce flour based on how much wheat you produce. And those flour ah resources can be put into a ah dragon making factory and you will produce flour dragons. and ah Just kind of whimsical and funny, but it's also very dark and it gets into this bleak. I played it a little bit.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah. yeah It gets into that cosmic horror kind of thing. The monsters can be ah you're fighting goblins, you're fighting, you know, kobolds and stuff like that. And then suddenly you're fighting these horrible masks, things like they could have come out of bloodborne or something. right It's, it's, it's, it gets unsettling really fast. There is a ton of content to this game.
00:38:43
Speaker
I have put about 50 hours into it and I am nowhere uh, uh, finished with it, quote unquote. Uh, it is huge. That is a very huge game. They just came out with a free update for it. Uh, that adds in new bosses and new strategies and new resources. Uh, it's a lot of fun. It's got a great sense of humor. It's got a nice, uh, a nice dark flavor to it. I, I highly recommend it. Uh, the King is watching.
00:39:11
Speaker
All right. Um, next on my list is, ah they silked on my song until I hollowed my night award goes,
00:39:23
Speaker
goes to hollow night. Silk song. Uh, the developer team cherry synopsis, discover a vast haunted kingdom and hollow night. Silk song, explore, fight, and survive as you ascend to the peak of a land ruled by silk and song.
00:39:37
Speaker
um, It's probably the dumbest synopsis that is, or the weakest synopsis of of all the games. But what else do you got to say? Everybody's been waiting for Silksong for a very long time.
00:39:52
Speaker
ah Silksong came out, and to me, it lived up to the wait. ah and Not that the the length of the development cycle was necessarily justified, but...
00:40:05
Speaker
Goddamn, it's a beautiful game. ah you're You play as Hornet, who is a ah is a side protagonist, occasional antagonist in the first game.
00:40:19
Speaker
ah She starts out as an antagonist, becomes a what's it, a Duder protagonist or something like that in the first game, and then is now the pro the protagonist of her own game ah where you she is being she has been captured at's some at some point after Hollow Knight.
00:40:38
Speaker
She's been captured by this group and they're transporting her ah to a far off land. And during ah the process of her kidnapping, there is some event where Silk shoots down and knocks the carriage over that she's being transported in and she falls, falls, falls and lands at the bottom, the very bottom of this land. And ah literally you spend the game entire game fighting your way up to this church-like structure where ah it's like ah there's like a religion that has been ruling this land ah ah over over time. And the whole game, at its core, the themes are about like you know the corrupting influence of of religion. it
00:41:32
Speaker
kind of has a ah I sound like the, I sound like the tweet of the guy who has only seen boss baby saying this movie has a lot of boss baby. Uh, but for me, it's blasphemous. Um, ah sure, sure.
00:41:50
Speaker
Because you know, it's, it, it, Silksong and blasphemous kind of have a similar theme to them. um, Now, Silksong is, i'd say, in the end, a lot harder than Blasphemous, whereas Blasphemous is a pretty hard Metroidvania.
00:42:10
Speaker
Silksong has additional platforming that is yeah just requires some some real tight timing. um That being said...
00:42:22
Speaker
ah I loved it. And I put in, i don't know, 70 hours into Silksong before I finally beat it. ah got the Got the complete ending.
00:42:34
Speaker
um It's one of those games that has a false ending. If you don't do everything right, you you'll get a false ending at the end of Act 2. um And ah people early on were like, well, that's it. I beat it. we're like, wait, there's more?
00:42:50
Speaker
it's a real It's a real upside down castle moment from Symphony of the Night. um But yeah, Silksong, if you bounced off of... Here's one thing I'll say. If you bounced off of Hollow Knight...
00:43:04
Speaker
It might be worth giving Silksong a try just because it plays differently to Hollow Knight in that ah Hornet is a lot faster. She's a more agile character, whereas the knight is ah is a tanky little boy. um So it it might be worth a shot.
00:43:22
Speaker
um Otherwise, Silksong is my, my ah they silked on my song until I hollowed my knight award game of the year. Nice. um For my next award, I am awarding the Is This Cute or Completely Perverted Award to Promise Mascot Agency. na we are we also I also have Promise Mascot Agency on my list, but I'll let you talk about it first because it it got a little bit of a it's got a different award for mine. for mine
00:43:58
Speaker
Sure. Sure. ah it's, it is, uh, and I, and I, and I won't have near as much to say about it as you do. And, and, and it's, and I fucking loved it. So that tells you something. Um, I've never played a game like this before. I don't think anyone has. ah it is somehow sincere And absurd at the same time, ah for those of you who are not familiar with this game, ah you play a member of the Yakuza who has been sent to a tiny Japanese town ah to clean it up, quote unquote.
00:44:38
Speaker
And basically he's he's in he's in hiding. And it is a town where mascots who in this world are sentient creatures, ah live And you, through this game, are cruising around. i think it's an island. You're cruising around the area in your in your little Japanese ah pickup truck and solving problems.
00:45:06
Speaker
Crimes and and helping people and starting various mysteries. You're yeah cleaning. You're cleaning shrines for people. Yep. All the while running a mascot agency. That's right.
00:45:22
Speaker
Where people need your mascots to attract ah customers for businesses. Right. And you've got to choose the right mascot for the right jobs. Some mascots are better at certain kinds of jobs than others. And the mascots in this game are what make it in a big way. Just my favorite.
00:45:45
Speaker
Filled with with character. Filled with character. yeah It's in it strange characters. My favorite is still the constantly crying piece of tofu. I adore him, but you cover a lot of um attitudes, let's say, from the really super cute ah to the horribly, ah uncomfortably perverted.
00:46:10
Speaker
ah It is a strange, absurd, really addictive game. it ah It really knows what it's doing in terms of the collect-a-thon aspect of it, the satisfying ah buildup of this town because you are you are slowly building up the town from the shitty little one-horse town, basically, to a a you know a metropolis, quote-unquote. Right.
00:46:42
Speaker
nuts and crazy funny and just kind of hard to put down, ah which is such a great comedy. You don't run into that. Usually games that are really, really funny or really clever in the way that this game is, um the gameplay is fine, ah but that's not what you're there for. And vice versa. This manages to get both ah just right. It's, it's, it is ah a very over, over, ah overarchingly just,
00:47:15
Speaker
satisfying game with four or five different play styles in the game. It's a deck builder at some points. It is a ah a collect-a-thon platformer at certain points. It's for all in intents and purposes, a JRPG at different points. It's nuts and it all works. I think that's the thing.
00:47:37
Speaker
Ties together beautifully. Exactly. They tried to put so much shit in this game and it all works somehow. It's not baking.
00:47:48
Speaker
It's cooking. Because if you like if you just throw things together while you're baking, it's going to fucking fall apart. That cake is going to might not even be a cake when you're done. But if you're cooking,
00:48:01
Speaker
And you just feel like, I'm going to try something. I'm going to throw a little this little that I'm going to I'm going to make I'm going to cut a donut in half and make it the buns of a hamburger. I'm going to make a donut burger.
00:48:14
Speaker
ah um Yeah, that it's it's it's the donut burger of games where you take two you take two things or multiple things that you wouldn't expect and they work together.
00:48:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um I finished it. And i think for me personally, one of the highest pieces of praise I can give this game is that if they came out with an expansion or some DLC or something like that, that had some more adventures and more mascots to collect, i i I'd start playing this again. Day one. which Yeah.
00:48:48
Speaker
that's That's not something I can say for most games. Usually I play the game. I put it down. Thank you very much. That was very nice. Yep. Kaizen Gameworks fucking knocking out of the park with they Promise Mascot Agency.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yep. Yep. um And I'm going to speak more about Promise Mascot Agency in a bit. But first I want to talk about my work is better than work award. going to Power Wash Simulator 2 developed by FutureLab, which actually, FutureLab was so successful with the first game that they were able to self-publish the second one. The first game was published by Square Enix, um which is just a weird, that's not a combo you think about is Power Wash Simulator and Square Enix. That's wild. Yeah.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yeah, Power Wash Simulator is back, bubbling with fresh locations, superior equipment, and splashy features. Effortlessly transform soiled surroundings into clean, serene scenes, solo or with pals. Satisfaction is a spray away.
00:49:56
Speaker
got to tell you.
00:49:59
Speaker
I got to tell you, I love this game. And I put whatever it is, 60 hours into it. I've beaten the game. um I'm all caught up. I did every mission in it.
00:50:13
Speaker
At this point now twice ah because I played i played through it 75% of the way solo. And then the last quarter ah with my daughter, we played co-op and then went back and started playing her quest line ah co-op. so with my like higher end, you know, tools that I buy at the bought at the end of the game, helping her with the early game stuff.
00:50:42
Speaker
um it is a lot of fun, very relaxing, very therapeutic. therapeutic You can throw on a... There's no music in this game and they know what they're about.
00:50:56
Speaker
Why are you putting music into the game when you're they know that their players are going to put on a podcast or put on a YouTube video and put or put on their own damn music in the background. In fact, the one quality of life thing i would recommend for the, for future lab for power wash simulator too, is to just like let you link your, ah your Apple music or your podcasts, ah RSS feed or whatever, right into the game.
00:51:26
Speaker
So you don't have to ever leave the game. You can just go be like, well i can i'm just I can go to YouTube within the game. There's a YouTube browser right there. Future Lab. Get on it. um Power Watch Simulator 2 continues the story, quote unquote, of the first game.
00:51:44
Speaker
There is a story happening in the background of these games, by the way. They have to do with like UFOs and ancient alien theory and all that stuff.
00:51:54
Speaker
So, you know, ah keep that in mind as you're playing it.
00:52:02
Speaker
yeah ah But the game is more of the same from the first one, and except with some quality of life updates. Like ah soap is not something that you have to buy anymore. It's just something that you have ah and you can you spray it and then it regenerates over time rather than having to go back into the store and and spend money on soap. Yeah.
00:52:25
Speaker
Otherwise, ah if you've played Power Wash Simulator 1, you know what to expect to expect with Power Wash Simulator 2. ah It's more of the same but better.
00:52:37
Speaker
lot of fun levels. lot of little neat twists and turns in some the levels. And they just announced ah the first DLC for Power Wash Simulator 2 is going to be Adventure Time.
00:52:53
Speaker
ah Oh, okay. Yeah, it'll be adventure and adventure time DLC. And then ah as with any DLC paid DLC, they release also additional free levels ah free free content and and all that stuff. So 2026, the first three quarters of 2026, they have a DLC scheduled for each quarter ah with free content ah for each one.
00:53:23
Speaker
So Powerwatch Simulator 2. It's great. Go get it. What am I saying here? ah Love it. ah Yeah, that's that's that.
00:53:36
Speaker
Nice. up The, I can't believe none of these cook cousins ever hooked up award goes to the root trees are dead.
00:53:49
Speaker
I know this game came out in 2023, want to say, but I didn't know about it. Initially, the browser version of the game. Yeah. And I didn't know about it until this year. This is a remaster with voice acting and professional art. It looks great. And it doubles the game because there's the second half of the game was not in the browser version.
00:54:10
Speaker
That's right. That's right. ah This is a mystery a puzzle investigation game. ah You are working for this family where a bunch of this very rich old family and a bunch of them died in a plane crash. And you have basically got to go through the family tree and identify everybody and show who's a blood relative, who isn't, so that they know how to divvy up their incredible obscene wealth.
00:54:42
Speaker
um And of course, it's not as simple as that. There are mysteries and all kinds of little lurking shadows around the corner. Uh, it's, it's fun. It's serious, but not at the same time. it it, not that it's not that it's goofy. It's just got a, I don't know kind of a family friendly vibe to it. Uh, uh, despite it being, you know, a murder mystery kind of thing. It's, uh, it's nice. Uh, and yeah it is one it's going,
00:55:11
Speaker
Oh, I was just going to say, if you're if anyone played a Return of the Obra Dinn, it uses yeah the same mechanics. Yes, this is, and I was just going to make that comparison. This is a less hair tearing version of the Oberden.
00:55:26
Speaker
ah The Oberden had a level of, of difficulty to it that I think many people, despite themselves ah were put off by um even as they admired it. um And the root trees are dead feels a little more accessible. At least it felt that way to me. um there it It takes place in the late 90s. You are actually searching on this old-fashioned browser-style internet um for information. ah
00:55:59
Speaker
The methodology... of looking people and things and places up and saving certain pieces of evidence, pictures, all kinds of, it's just very, very well done. It's very clever yeah and just, and crazy satisfying.
00:56:19
Speaker
You, you will run like, like any of these games, you'll, you'll run into a wall several times and you'll, go over things and you'll grind your teeth a little bit and eventually something will slip and you'll be back in it, baby. And you feel like the smartest person on the goddamn planet. It's great. And root trees are dead is, is in my honorable mention list. Uh, uh,
00:56:41
Speaker
It actually was in an early draft of my game of the year list before I, you know, I was just sorting things out. But yeah, it's, I agree. I really loved a lot of what it does. And I think that moment of you, that eureka moment that it grants you because you'll be like, all right, I did this. I did this. Why, why am I not? And then you'll be like, um,
00:57:04
Speaker
fuck, wait a minute. and Let me check the library because there's like a library card catalog thing for that. and you'll like and' be like, oh, there's a book. It's great.
00:57:16
Speaker
And then you'll click on that and it'll be like, and then suddenly like a whole new branch of investigation will unlock because you found, you you just decided, wait, I should go down this way. um It's, yeah.
00:57:30
Speaker
it it's, it's so satisfying. It just feels good. Uh, you feel real levels of reward, as you go along. It's, it's, it's pretty cool.
00:57:41
Speaker
yeah So yeah, the root trees are dead. Awesome. All right. Uh, I, I just realized I skipped a game on my list. um Isolated with Aliens Game of the Year Award goes to Routine.
00:57:55
Speaker
ah The developer, Lunar Software. Routine is a first-person sci-fi horror set on an abandoned lunar base designed around an 80s vision of the future. Explore and investigate your surroundings as you survive against unknown threats. I'm going honest with you. Routine is basically, ah hey you like Alien Isolation? Ha ha ha ha Kids like alien isolation. It's like it's like ah you know a shady man pulled up in a van next to me and he said, I heard you like alien isolation, kid. And I was like, like alien isolation. And then I went into the van and he showed me routine. um yeah And almost beat for beat, it's it's it's a lot like alien isolation in that the first half of the game you're dealing with
00:58:45
Speaker
with robots. And then the second game, half of the game, you're dealing with a stalker alien. Um, it's a lot shorter than alien isolation. I'll, I'll say that routine only takes about five hours to play, but the vibes are immaculate. Uh, it, you are, it's a future where somehow, uh, you,
00:59:11
Speaker
Low-res projectors ah still maintain some sort of ah existence in the hierarchy of technology. Your tool, your multi-tool that you use has a CRT screen on the back of it that you have to degauss when you walk past an area with magnetism.
00:59:32
Speaker
It's amazing. They added degauss button. For those of you kids who never had a CRT monitor, you don't know there is a button on your monitor that you hit and it made it go boom.
00:59:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:51
Speaker
degauss or degauss whatever it is it did a thing and it it made the monitor work again after being being exposed to magnetism all the static popping off of it all the static popping off of it and everything uh Yeah, you have this little multi-tool. You have no weapons. You just have this multi-tool that has three modes as you collect through the game. One of them is a a little shock thing that will stun a robot.
01:00:21
Speaker
ah The other one is ah a little thermal camera, which you can use to see fingerprints. And the third one is It basically acts as a flash ah for a like a camera flash.
01:00:36
Speaker
ah But it's your it's the security connect like you. It's like Duck Hunt. Security is based on Duck Hunt rules where you have to line up the security on another monitor, the little triangles and you click it and it flashes onto the monitor and back into your thing. And it's like security. You have the security level. um It's.
01:00:58
Speaker
Fascinating. ah What is the game about? but i don't know. I wasn't super locked into the story. um There's an alien life form on the moon.
01:01:11
Speaker
The moon's haunted. ah Basically, the moon is haunted. It starts in the eighty s in the It's like as if...
01:01:24
Speaker
It's as if we were ah had um a base on the moon starting in like the 70s. Okay. think Think of it like that. And you're it's in the 80s now. And you're you're playing an engineer who landed on the moon and you were held in a seven-day quarantine. Everybody's held in like a seven-day quarantine before they can get out into work. Right. But in that seven days while you were in quarantine, shit got fucked up.
01:01:51
Speaker
Got fucked up real bad. ah And the robots are out there and they are locking everything down and security is on red alert. And you have no idea how this happened except for environmental storytelling and picking up ah recorders and reading journals on computers and things like that, you find out that something weird happened. some There's some biological thing that happened. The ah AI who runs the security decided to lock everything down. So step one is you you get all that figured out and you head over to another part of the moon base that was
01:02:31
Speaker
that you go to another moon base that's older. And that's the, that's a really interesting part of the game is like suddenly now you're in a moon base that in the technology is more like the 1970s as opposed to the 1980s.
01:02:46
Speaker
um It's really fascinating. ah Only five hours, but vibes are peak. And if you like alien isolation, I think you'll like routine.
01:02:57
Speaker
So check it out. Routine. I think of all of the games that came out this year that I didn't get to that one might be the one that I wish the most I'd i'd gotten to that. Just, it just looks fantastic. I got to get into that. ah Right. Okay. So my wait, that was it award goes to slots and daggers. Uh, in recent episodes, some of you might remember this one. I, I played this one all the way through. This is a, uh, roguelike, uh, RPG dungeon crawly kind of experience, uh, where the mechanics are based entirely around a slot machine. And,
01:03:43
Speaker
ah You're building up your weapons and unlocking different abilities and even ah extra ah slots that you can use um to defeat an increasingly strange ability very, you know, pixelated collection of bad guys that also, that still have quite a bit of style to them and, and, and, uh, kind of ah a creepy dark fantasy factor to them. Uh, it gets real deep into that good, ah vampire survivors, slot machine, Ooh, Ooh, kind of bells and lights, uh, satisfaction. Um,
01:04:23
Speaker
I think ah the name of the award comes from the fact that the peripherals that surround the game, literally when you're playing the game, there is a surrounding around you. You're playing a game within a game and you will never find out what that's all about. I played it all the way to the end because I assumed there had to be some kind of ah reveal.
01:04:46
Speaker
I did research after I beat it. ah There is nothing. The game is just what it is. And that pissed me off so bad for a minute. And then I went, you know what? No, this is this is the game they wanted to make.
01:05:02
Speaker
ah It's intriguing. It's very satisfying. It's quick. It's got style. um And ah it's it's a lot of fun. It's another one of these games that you can just kind of kick back and play and really crank through it. um And probably if you're more talented at ah at you know stopping the slot machine panels, ah if you're more talented at that than I am, you could probably know burn through this in eight hours, something like that. It's more like 15 hours.
01:05:33
Speaker
um but it's, ah it's, it's very cool. It's relaxed. It's got terrific visuals done by Friedemann is the name of the developer. I don't, they've done a couple of other things that haven't really ah caught my attention. ah Pizza possum, which came out a couple of years back. I don't know this one. Yeah.
01:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, very cool, very enjoyable, very relaxing in a kind of high impact sort of a way. um Absolutely worth your time. Slots and Daggers. Check it out.
01:06:08
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. All right. Next on my list, light on gameplay, big on feelings. Game of the year goes to Dispatch. ah developed by Ad Hoc Studios. Synopsis Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy where choices matter. Manage a dysfunctional team of misfit heroes and strategize who to send out to emergencies all around the city, all while balancing office politics, personal relationships, and your own quest to become a hero.
01:06:38
Speaker
All episodes are out now. right, Dispatch. ah The important thing here is ah the developer Ad Hoc Studios. They are basically ah the old the former Telltale guys.
01:06:53
Speaker
um Telltale had a whole bunch of things happen and people got shook loose. ah They are now over at Ad Hoc Studios. And the the game was published by them and I believe Critical Role.
01:07:07
Speaker
ah Yes, that critical role as in Matt Mercer and his merry band of friends, um which you realize once once, you know, look at the credits and be like, oh critical role. ah um It's a telltale game for all intents and purposes, but it is animated beautifully. It's got a it's got a great style, ah very, very fun looking game. Yeah.
01:07:36
Speaker
The lead character is voiced by Aaron Paul. Aaron Paul, right? Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad. ah Oh, yes. Yes, Aaron Paul.
01:07:46
Speaker
Aaron Paul. I was like is like, I'm not missing mixing them him up with the like one of the Paul brothers brothers. Yeah, no, Aaron Paul. It just struck me weird as I as i said it out loud.
01:07:58
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's that's a name that has been, you know, tarnished from henceforth. Yeah. ah Jeffrey Wright is probably the ah the other big name in the game. ah But then you got Laura Bailey plays ah from Critical Role, plays in Visigal. um You have Matthew Mercer, Travis Willingham, and two of my favorite...
01:08:25
Speaker
old school YouTubers are Jacksepticeye plays character named Punch-Up, um ah a short little Irish ah guy who is a, his powers were, he was a carnival strong man who wished he had the strength of 10 men Um, but the wish also made him, ah half, half his size. So he's just a little, little Irish man who, with the strength of 10 men. Um, and, uh, Alana Pierce plays Malevola, um, who a tall buxom, uh, demon lady.
01:09:03
Speaker
So enough about Alana Pierce, but enough about Alana Pierce. Hey, yo, um, So, yeah, ah it's a lot of fun.
01:09:14
Speaker
Every episode has a sequence of like the dispatch gameplay and the dispatch gameplay is is is is a blast. It's not like mind blowing, but it's fun to do. um And then in between, it's all it's all your dialogue choices, ah FMV dialogue choices, basically, where you got, you know, you're building the relationships with the different characters. So and so will remember that.
01:09:40
Speaker
um There's two romance options in the game as you go through. So like it's there's branching paths for that. And then there's a whole bunch of other branching paths um for the the different to get to different endings ah for the game.
01:09:57
Speaker
So if you're into, um, you know, old, the old telltale games, Wolf Among Us, um, things like that, and you like a well acted, well written this, by the way, I got to tell you, this is a game that made me laugh out loud multiple times through the course of the game. um,
01:10:20
Speaker
If you're into that kind of thing, then Dispatch is worth checking out. And it was a game that... It it was it was it was close to being my game of the year.
01:10:32
Speaker
ah my My overall game of the year. um Yeah, Dispatch. Nice. Uh, let's see. oh yes, yes. My next award is the, my spectacular year of low effort gaming award, uh, which goes to tower dominion. Uh, I've said it several times through this year that this is the year of dad. This is the year of I'm focusing on my family on buying a home, and all that other good stuff.
01:11:02
Speaker
And, uh, uh, so I do not have time for your 70 hour open world games. I do not have time for games that are going to require me ah to put a shit ton of thought into every little decision I make. ah No matter how much I used to like those games, I still do on a certain level.
01:11:20
Speaker
Tower Dominion is a tower defense game. um It has a style to it that is ah almost litigiously similar to Warhammer 40k. It has a... um it has a very clever dynamic to it where you are the one building the path that the, ah the bad guys, the alien bugs will spawn through. So you are creating the route that they go while trying to get to your tower. You have different generals to unlock. You have different weapons to unlock different doctrines and, and strategies to unlock. Um,
01:12:01
Speaker
It's a lot of fun, very straightforward, ah very nice ah style to it, really good back and forth, challenging, but also laid back. And I played it on my PC and and unlocked every achievement. um And then ah just when there were no more worlds to conquer, they released it on ios So i I have it on my phone now, which is the perfect game to play at work because I will literally stop what I'm doing, set up the next wave, hit, you know, the button for them to send the aliens through, put it off to the side, do my typing, do my shit, do my work. And then I'll later look back and go, oh, how did i do You know, ah it's it's it's pretty great. There are three different armies to choose from. Each one has a different strategy.
01:12:59
Speaker
I feel like I'm overselling ah the strategic quality of it. It is just very satisfying, especially in building the roads. If you can manage to build the roads in a spiral around your base, not only is that ah probably the best advantage you'll get strategy-wise, it's also just very satisfying. It's just nice to see the monsters come in this end and slowly Wittershins their way towards ah their impending doom. ah Tower Dominion, I really liked it. I liked that one a lot. The Spectacular Year of Low Effort Gaming Award. Fantastic.
01:13:42
Speaker
dia Fantastic. um All right. My second to last game to talk about ah made me feel like a kid again. Game of the year. a Drifter ah developed by Power Hoof and Dave Lloyd. ah A pulp adventure thriller, a murder drifter awakens alive again seconds before his death. haunted Hunted and haunted help him untangle a mad web of conspiracy in this fast paced point and click thrill ride.
01:14:11
Speaker
ah Drifter is... If you go to Steam.com and look up Drifter or The Drifter, ah you will see that it is ah exactly my kind kind of shit. um It has got...
01:14:29
Speaker
Great pixel art. Great. And I would say, I'll say great point and click pixel art, because I think there's a degree of difference there. Point and click games usually have a, have a certain genesis. a quad about their, their pixel art that the drifter really nails.
01:14:47
Speaker
Um, it's It's a point and click where you are just you are going around to different... In the early part of the game, you have like a city map, right? And you're going around to different parts of the city to find ah to kind of like solve each of the puzzles to unlock more of this meta narrative of what the fuck is actually going on with the fact that in the opening moments, you clearly ah die
01:15:18
Speaker
And then you're like, wait a minute, I'm awake. What just happened? um And the game begins unwinding and unraveling this mystery that goes from...
01:15:32
Speaker
okay, this is some weird conspiracy cover-up thing, ah you know, and obviously everybody I'm talking to is insane, to oh, wait a minute, ah nobody is insane, everybody is kind of telling the truth, ah there is some scary hard sci-fi shit happening in this universe. it it's like ah It's like an X-Files episode in that, you know, you start out with the,
01:16:02
Speaker
ah I wouldn't say you ever start out as the Scully, but you kind of are like, well, you know, it's probably going to be something obvious or whatever. And then it just molders as it goes and gets more and more unhinged as you go through it. And because point and click games really rely on, you know, the the puzzles on the story, I don't want to talk about it too much, but ah the Drifter, it may...
01:16:32
Speaker
I say it made me feel like a kid again because there's a sense of discovery and problem solving that really drew me to ah point and click games as a kid.
01:16:45
Speaker
You know, some of my favorite games growing up are going to be Maniac match maniac Mansion, Zach McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Day of the Tentacles, Sam and Max Hit the Road. ah Phil, I know you were big on the Sierra side.
01:16:59
Speaker
of the games. um And I, I was so deep into the LucasArts games, you know, yeah all the way up through Grim Fandango. And, ah it's, it, they were just thing. They, they were my love of gaming. Uh, they felt like to me, they were something more thorough and,
01:17:20
Speaker
uh, complete about playing them than, than playing a platformer. Not to say that, you know, platformers aren't great, but some, just something about the engagement I got out of them, ah really thrilled me.
01:17:34
Speaker
And so when I picked, picked up the drifter, it really hit me right there. And I, and it's, it's not nostalgia. Um, it's not remembering what that feeling was like. It was actually feeling that feeling again.
01:17:50
Speaker
um so that's why I'm so high on the drifter and, uh, why if you're a point and click fan, I 100% you go out and pick it up.
01:18:02
Speaker
Um, it's, it's a, it's a great game. Nice. Yeah, I definitely have to play that one. That looks terrific. Okay. Uh, well, I think that puts us into the honorable mention, uh, section of the show. um we've got a couple that we're going to, that he and I both have in, in, in common and, and I'm sure we're going to ah go into them a little bit, uh, uh, So i'll ill i'll I'll tear through mine pretty quick. ah Dawn of War, ah definitive edition. ah
01:18:34
Speaker
at most, for the the highest amount you can spend on this is $30. And I say that because they offer a discount if you already own ah the original Dawn of War. um It is the first four Dawn of War games slash the first Dawn of War game and all of its expanded ah expansions and and everything else ah with a new coat of paint. I think it's 64 bit or something like that. And it looks good without it looking too slick. It still has kind of a ah fun pixelated quality to it. um
01:19:07
Speaker
A lot of fun. i just finished up the ah the first games campaign ah for probably the 10th time in my life today. ah Very fun. if you're If you like those kind of games and you've never played this one, this is the perfect opportunity to pop in there and try this one out. If you have, it's a great opportunity just to play it again. Good excuse.
01:19:29
Speaker
um I also had i had ball ah Ball Pit. i'm i'm just I refuse to say Ball X Pit. I don't know why. ah and I also really enjoyed ball pit. I was a big ah breakout ah fan growing up. And so there was something very, very satisfying about this game. Kevin ket said very well.
01:19:46
Speaker
yeah um The count of Monty Clicker. ah If this made my top 10, it would have been my Clicker of the Year award. It i managed to take the Clicker formula. and apply it to a a work of literature in a way that was both silly and kind of took the piss out of the original source material while also teaching you about the source material. It doesn't go through the entire book.
01:20:12
Speaker
ah But what it does is really very good. And I think we talked about ah this on the show where I said, if they if they kept doing this, if they had a ah Moby Dick ah clicker, a Huckleberry Finn clicker, like that could be a really cool thing to do.
01:20:27
Speaker
i would I would love to see more of that. yeah And last report, ah which was a nice, you know small indie experience, ah creepy shit happening at the state park.
01:20:41
Speaker
ah really atmospheric, ah a lot of fun, really enjoyed that one. um Nice. I have a couple others that I know we both have in common and I'm sure we both have a lot to say about both of them. So we'll take more time with these ones. We'll both we'll get into these. ah The Children of Clay.
01:20:58
Speaker
Yeah. A free half hour game that thought like crazy to keep in my top 10. Yeah, me too. At one point, I put it in my top 10 just for like shits and giggles at one point. I was like, let's see if anything dethrones it. And I moved it out relatively quickly while I was doing my list. But, you know, still, it was in there. I had a thought to put it in there.
01:21:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. There's something very special about this. ah As I said, this is free guys. You can get this on steam for free. It's ah developed ah one person. Their name is, I believe it's ballas run. Yeah.
01:21:39
Speaker
I I'm, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly. I apologize. Yeah. But ah it's archaeological horror. You have got this little artifact, this spooky little goddamn Lovecraftian artifact, and you've got to figure out what this is all about by ah reading your texts, by investigating it, by magnifying glassing all over it. And it is creepy.
01:22:06
Speaker
ah It is crazily atmospheric. The stop motion ah aspect of it is so true. yeah it's It's nuts that this is I want to see more from this guy. I want to see like something bigger in the same vein, you know? Yeah.
01:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. um ah it It was ah so very creepy. um it has It has real moments of genuine terror without resorting to jump scares, um I'll say. And it feels like everything feels like it's leading up to a jump scare. And then it...
01:22:48
Speaker
No jump scare ever happens, but at the same time, you're just like, I don't feel good about what's happening here at all. um So, yeah, I agree. It's it's ah it's an amazing little game um and ah worth ah worth checking out for the low, low price of ah free.
01:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Um, we have another one in common, but I'll let you, uh, introduce that one when you will, and we can get into that. Uh, so, uh, uh, Kevin, your, uh, honorable mention, sir. All right, my honorable mentions. Absalom, which is a side-scrolling beat-em-up in the ah vein of Golden Axe, but ah really cool forward characters to choose from. a lot of splitting of the ah levels, like you can go in different directions. Probably and closer to the Dungeons & Dragons side-scrolling beat-em-up.
01:23:45
Speaker
ah So this game, is this next game, It's on the game, everybody's game of the year list. ah It didn't end up on mine only because there was the weird stuff with the the AI. They have since come out saying we're we're not using AI. We're never going to touch it it again. ah Thanks to this. It's ah Expedition 33. This the other one that was on mine. Yeah, yeah. huge game, and won every award and rightfully so. I just wanted to like, I was just like, I'm going to, you know, um I'm going to just wait and and see how this shakes out before putting giving it my game of the year.
01:24:26
Speaker
um And, you know, it's fine um ah to to be where it is. um ah South of Midnight.
01:24:37
Speaker
um Now, this game would have normally been on my game of the year list, but it gets bumped to honorable mentions only because of the No Games for Genocide pledge. um Unfortunately, South of Midnight, which is a beautiful game ah featuring...
01:24:56
Speaker
um ah Featuring a lot of storytelling in ah black Southern mythology. um if you if you ever watched the movie Big Fish, it kind of gives you that kind of feeling as well.
01:25:13
Speaker
um Honestly, it's a wonderful game. And I feel conflicted about leaving it off my game of the year list because... had this, had the, had the node games for genocide ah pledge not happened. If there wasn't an issue with Microsoft,
01:25:32
Speaker
and their ongoing contribution to the genocide in Gaza, um I would have easily listed South of Midnight on the list. But um i i i couldn't do it. But I will say if you can pirate South of Midnight and then make a donation directly to the people who made it somehow... I i would do that because it's a it's a tremendous game.
01:25:59
Speaker
um So South of Midnight. ah Root trees are dead. We talked about it a little bit already. Kronos New Dawn. ah Bloober Team's new game. Sci-fi horror. Really dark.
01:26:13
Speaker
um almost too dark in terms of it's like physically too dark. What the fuck's going on? um Blueprints, ah which is an amazing, a lot of people are giving this their game of the year as well.
01:26:30
Speaker
ah It's a, it's an amazing roguelike ah puzzle game. that does things that I've never seen before. Road to Empress, only because i'm ah I'm a sucker for FMV games.
01:26:47
Speaker
ah Children of Clay, we already talked about it. Labyrinth of the Demon King, which if you are a fan of, um fuck, what's the the series that predated Dark Souls?
01:26:59
Speaker
um Oh, a Dragon's Dogma. No, not Dragon's Dogma. ah From Software Games. im good Oh, shit, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, you know what I'm... Kingsfield, if you're fan of Kingsfield, or Kingsfield-style first-person dungeon crawlers, Labyrinth of the Demon King is really neat.
01:27:28
Speaker
PS2-level graphics... ah You're just kind of hacking and slashing your way through ah this haunted ah castle, Japanese castle.
01:27:38
Speaker
ah And, you know, you get a, you have a the enemy demon stalker at one point. um Really cool. The Darkest Files, ah if the Darkest Files was meatier, like had more,
01:27:53
Speaker
going on, ah it would have been an easy game of the year. Very much, it's like if Obra Dinn and Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney had a baby, you would have the Darkest Files.
01:28:06
Speaker
ah But the game is, whereas like with Phoenix Wright, you get like all these different cases and the Darkest Files has two cases. um It's like Okay. I mean, I understand it's supposed to be based on a real true story, but give me a little bit more. um minja guide and ragebound ah side scrolling nija Ninja Ninja Gaiden game.
01:28:30
Speaker
Really fun. ah Tainted Grail Fall of Avalon. This has been on and off my lists. um I played it earlier in the year, came away not liking it, have restarted playing it, and I'm liking it more...
01:28:44
Speaker
So this leave this as a question mark. um Last report, which you had on your your big boy list ah and horses, which could be potentially on my game of the year list if um the other game, there was an there was a game I wanted to remove, but I mean, i like I loved horses. I had a lot of positive things to say about it, but ah it just wasn't enough to to crack the the top 10.
01:29:18
Speaker
so Nice. Yeah. Those are my honorable mentions. um So for the game of the year, I'll go first because we already started talking about this game. Yeah, sure. My game of the year is promised mascot agency.
01:29:33
Speaker
No surprise there. None. No surprise there. Love this game. Collect-a-thon with a heart of gold. ah ah You're basically running a your mascot agency out of a love hotel, um which is just a fun little detail. The town that you're in is cursed and run down. The backstory is that any ah any Japanese gangster who is sent there is ah doomed to die.
01:30:06
Speaker
ah ah because of a curse in the town. And so there's there's so many different levels, as we were talking about already. There's like there's them running the mascot agency. There's driving around town collecting things. There's talking to people. And then there's also unwinding the je the the greater mystery of the entire game. It's like, why is this town supposed to be cursed?
01:30:37
Speaker
ah What's going on here? All the while you're trying to say, like, earn money to send back to the the matriarch of your Yakuza family ah so that the other Yakuza families don't take her out because in the opening of the game, like, a bunch of money gets robbed or or what have you. um So...
01:31:00
Speaker
i there's so many things to do. It's just a fun, relaxing game that ends up with a lot of, you know, it's, it's found family.
01:31:13
Speaker
I have a ah real soft spot for found family stories. Some of my favorite characters that I've ever seen and some of my least favorite characters that I've i've ever seen in terms of I don't want to meet this person. One of which which is Trooro, who is the cat mascot, who is covered in, they say it's like...
01:31:40
Speaker
it's like some sort of pudding or whatever, but yas or some yams something. But it looks like come. Yeah. yeah And his, the only, the main thing that you send them out on are opening adult bookstores and DVD stores.
01:31:58
Speaker
So Troro, no shame in his game, but I don't want to meet him or touch him. Um, Otherwise, yeah, ah Tofu, amazing. There's so many amazing characters in the game, um including Pinky, ah um who is your sidekick through it all. And she just rides in the flatbed of your your little truck as you ah go around town and you get upgrades for your truck.
01:32:27
Speaker
like some You add gliders to your truck and you can glide around town. It's... it's I don't know. i felt giddy while playing it the entire time. um i I had only last year, I believe, played their previous game, which was Paradise Killer, which is similar in that it's like a collect-a-thon, but you're also unraveling a mystery of... um It's like a murder mystery um set in a dystopian afterlife.
01:33:04
Speaker
For all intents and purposes, where you're you play some so as some sort of demigod in this afterlife, and ah mortals basically are just you know vehicles for the for the demigods to kind of like ah use up.
01:33:20
Speaker
And every time the app and afterlife ends, all the mortals have to get killed before moving on to the new version of the afterlife, because every time they do an afterlife, they're trying to get it more perfect. Um, uh, so yeah paradise killer,
01:33:38
Speaker
Uh, promise mascot agency. As far as I'm concerned, Kaizen game works is on a role here. Um, and promise mascot agency out of nowhere. It was, it was, the game was in the back of my head all year.
01:33:51
Speaker
And out of nowhere, as I'm putting this list together, I'm like, it's my game of the year. Yeah. So you sent me your, when you sent me your list, I was like, Oh yeah. Yep. That's what, that's where that belongs. Like, yep.
01:34:04
Speaker
Yep. So game of the year, promise mascot agency. Nice. um Well, my game of the year is one that the ah the demo came out last year, the very end of it. and I played the demo and on the show, I actually said it's coming out next year. I cannot wait to play this game.
01:34:22
Speaker
ah Holy fucking shit. It's it it might be my game of the year. And and it was. And that game is keep driving. ah came out this past February by VCJY Games, our Swedish developer.
01:34:35
Speaker
The game is kind of an adventure role-playing game. You play a kid who's graduated from high school slash college, and you have a busted up, beat up car. And it's the summer and you can just, give there's nothing to do like, but just drive. You just get in the car and you drive. You have a goal. Initially there's a concert you want to go to. Um,
01:35:04
Speaker
but you get new goals as you go along. You can pick up different hitchhikers. The hitchhikers have adventures of their own that you can help or ignore. You can upgrade your car. You can change its colors. And there is actually a non-combat combat system where you have different abilities um that help you with ah complications you'll run into along the way. Things like ah sheep, being out in the middle of the road and you have to navigate your way around them and certain abilities will help you get rid of, um, the, um, the little, I don't even know how to describe it. A bunch of different colored lights will come up and you have different abilities that can knock out different colors of lights. Um, and your, uh, hitchhiker friends, uh, will have different abilities, uh, to go with their personality. You've got the really hot hippie chick who, uh, uh,
01:36:02
Speaker
you know, her abilities involved, like making everyone laugh. Everyone's suddenly, you know, so excited and laughing so hard at and ah ah at her joke. That probably wasn't a very good joke. And that, that helps with morale and that sort of thing. You've got a guy who just quit his job and is, you know, ah just on the verge of a falling down moment. And ah you take that guy along with you.
01:36:27
Speaker
And along the way, you have to stop and get gas. You got to you stop and do odd jobs to ah to support your traveling habit as you make your way through this vaguely European countryside.
01:36:41
Speaker
All of this to say, the gameplay, the style of it, it's all wonderful. There is something about this game that really kicked me in the teeth in terms of nostalgia.
01:36:52
Speaker
ah There is a ah I don't know. There's kind of like elder millennial, uh, uh, alternative rock vibe to this game. It has a spectacular soundtrack, a bunch of bands I have never heard of.
01:37:09
Speaker
And, I feel like I've been listening to my entire life at the same time. Uh, it's, it's crazy atmospheric. There are a bunch of different ways to finish the game, to end the game. Uh, it can be pretty short. It can be pretty long.
01:37:26
Speaker
I love it. Keep driving. That's my game of the year. ah They're apparently trying to get it on the switch, which would be perfect. This would be a a wonderful a handheld game ah for those of us who don't have a who have a switch but don't have a Steam Deck.
01:37:44
Speaker
ah This is the kind of thing that is nice to just have on the couch yeah and tear through. Keep driving, man. ah Great game. Good piece of advice. hey yeah All right. Well, that brings us to the end of our game of the year episode. um Thank you all so much for for listening and watching and all that fun stuff. If you can, give us a like and a comment and a subscribe and a happy face emoji and ring that bell, bro.
01:38:16
Speaker
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01:38:30
Speaker
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01:38:44
Speaker
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