These are games that, for one reason or another or a whole host of reasons, I have wanted to play, have possibly even started playing, but do not feel I have spent enough time to confidently call them among my favorites of the year. I hope to rectify this soon but until then, this is as honored as they will get.
Dwarf Fortress
On one hand, Dwarf Fortress just launched on Steam, the ubiquitous PC gaming platform, at the start of December, and it’s been a busy time around these parts. On the other hand…Dwarf Fortress is an absolutely legendary game that has been available essentially for free for twenty years. I have downloaded it before, I have tried to play it before, I have watched hours of others playing it to attempt to understand it. Before the Steam release, Dwarf Fortress was a simulation game about shepherding a colony of dwarves through literally generations of existence, using a simulation so deep that it ran in single frames-per-second despite only having ASCII art available out of the box. There were tilesets to pretty it up and tools to make it slightly less impenetrable, but it is still the Platonic ideal of a world simulation. The Steam release adds, to my knowledge: an official tile set (or “graphics”), a bare-bones tutorial, and the ability to use your mouse to select menu options. There may be other things, but trust me when I say these are revolutionary. In a week on Steam, the brothers who made this titan have made $5 million dollars, and good for them. The Steam release only happened because they needed to pay for US health insurance. This is not a joke - Patrick Klepek at VICE reported on it. I’m eager to play the hell out of this, but I’m waiting for my copy of “Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress: Learn to Play the Most Complex VideoGame Ever Made” to arrive. This book is published by O’Reilly, who I learned about when I lived with hardcore CS students who swore by their books as technical resources.
Triangle Strategy
The Diofield Chronicle
Warhammer 40,0000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters
Symphony of War
Tactics Ogre: Reborn
Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark
The list above are six tactics games I have picked up in the last 6 months. I have played a shockingly little amount of them despite them being right up my alley. I don’t have much more to say except that I WILL play all of these in 2023. Or buy more tactics games I never quite get around to. Shit, there’s a new Fire Emblem coming out real soon. Probably the latter.
God of War: Ragnarok
Did I buy this knowing I had a glut of other games to play? Absolutely. What makes me think I’ll get around this despite respecting the God of War franchise more than enjoying the prior games? Easy: Richard Schiff (aka Toby from The West Wing) voice acting as Odin. I have to hear this, and I will.
Live a Live
Live a Live was a 1994 role playing game made by Square, the legendary RPG developers from japan, that wasn’t released in America until this July. It looks incredible, with updated art, translation, and 8 disparate stories that I trust all tie together after spanning eras like the Wild West and the far flung future. But it came out in July - I was finishing a major project at work and ramping up for two more. So it lives on my pile of shame.
Terra Invicta
This is a grand strategy game from the people who made The Long War, a beloved mod for the X-Com franchise. It puts you in control of one of seven factions of humans vying for control of the Earth (and beyond) once we know that aliens are real; they’re here; and we need to do something about the situation. I have not started this game despite a glowing recommendation from Waypoint’s Renata Price because it frankly intimidates the hell out of me. Timberborn
Our final game on this list is Timberborn, and I’m splitting the blame on this one not getting more play between the game and myself. Timberborn is a city builder al a SimCity with resource management, but with the twist that your city/society is a colony of beavers. I spent a few afternoons with it and really, really liked what I played. It’s also in Early Access, meaning it’s playable but in active development. I decided to wait for more major updates and haven’t seen one that caught my eye or made me think what I had played would be significantly different from what I had seen.
Next up: My favorite games of 2022.