Greg's Cool Games from 2023
...and beyond!!!!
(This is part of my “Game Musings” newsletter where I write thoughts about game design and development. If you just want news and updates on my projects, you can edit your subscription here.)
With 2023 coming to a close, I wanted to take a moment to shout out some exciting games that came out this year! I do try to take the time to play lots of games, as it helps fuel my work with diverse ideas… this year I also helped out jurying the Independent Games Festival (IGF) which exposed me to a TON of cool games I would have otherwise missed. This is not an exhaustive list of every game I liked, or even a proper ranked list or anything… this list also excludes games made by any friends of mine. These are just some really cool games I recommend in no particular order! OK??? OK!!!!
(Also note that all(?) of these games are on sale…. right now!!!)
Thirsty Suitors
In Thirsty Suitors, you play as kind of a garbage-fire college-age skateboard punk with a rocky relationship history who abruptly comes back home after several years and has to deal with the fallout of all her past mistakes. You’ll be skating around town to visit friends, cooking dishes to impress your parents, and hashing out your emotional baggage in turn-based RPG battles. The writing is some of my favorite I’ve seen in a game in a long time, and the animation is also outstanding. It’s outrageously funny and gets really personal as well.
Chants of Sennaar
A game about deciphering language! As you explore and climb a Tower of Babel, you’ll be exposed to different symbols and it’s up to you to use context to slowly piece together what they each mean so you can navigate a foreign world. What’s most remarkable to me is how NOT daunting this game is - it’s very precisely crafted and paced so that every step from bottom to top was a satisfying little puzzle. (That must have been VERY hard to do!!! Games like this are usually very obtuse!!). It also introduces a number of different languages which each express subtle and interesting details about the cultures they represent, from the way the symbols are shaped to the grammar of their sentences. It’s very well thought out and very engrossing to play… I could NOT put it down and wound up 100%ing it in one long session.
Final Profit: A Shop RPG
You’re Queen of the elves, except the elvish kingdom is languishing under the boot of the Bureau of Business, a powerful and shadowy organization of businessmen who control seemingly everything. So you hatch a plan to destroy them by becoming the BEST at business. Hilarity ensues as you fall deeper and deeper into the rabbit-hole of economics, finding new and exciting ways to exploit people and optimize your finances. It’s an ugly-aesthetic RPGMaker game but I’d argue that its cheap veneer only adds to this game’s sublime charm. If you like managing inventories, collecting resources and numbers going up then you will get a LOT out of this game, and a lot of good laughs along with it.
A Highland Song
A story-rich side-scrolling adventure where you play as Moira, a runaway girl on a journey to find her uncle in a distant lighthouse in the Scottlish highlands. Along the way you’ll come across abandoned towns, dim caverns, strange people, ghosts, folklore and most importantly, MAPS! This game is all about getting lost and finding your way through ambiguous directions and sketchy maps that can point out hidden shortcuts or send you even further off the trail. It’s hard to capture what’s really special about this game because it’s succeeding in a way I have a hard time comparing to anything else. For a side-scrolling game it does an exceptional job of capturing the vast feeling of a 3D open-world game, but rich with little stories and discoveries that make every moment a delight. There’s also inexplicably great musical game elements while you sprint through the fields as fauna run alongside you.
Cassette Beasts
A monster-taming open-world turn-based RPG! You find yourself thrown into a strange world under threat by giant glitchy hellbeasts where people can “record” monsters and transform into them! The game has a couple standout features, namely: when your meter’s full, you can fuse any two beasts to create a temporary new super-beast! And, every beast has its own type(s) which have advantages and disadvantages against other type(s), but the way every type interacts is unique and creative - for example, a fire move can melt a plastic-type beast and lower their offense. This game offers satisfying open-ended exploration and cool strategic battles as well. I had my gripes with it, but as someone who has been looking into many different games of this format, this one stands out quite a bit. And for anyone following the development of Beastieball, I strongly recommend this game to enjoy in the meantime!
Games to watch for next year….
I’ve also had the opportunity to see a lot of games that aren’t quite done yet! I recommend you keep an eye on these next year.
Anthology of the Killer - A collection of short story games about a zine artist in a surreal murder-friendly world. They’re weird, witty, incredibly funny, and incredibly well-paced too. There’s a potent creative energy here that harkens to zine culture or, at least to me, the wild world webcomics. 8 out of 9 episodes are actually already available! But with the release of the final episode it will be collected into a single handy anthology experience which might be worth waiting for.
Phonopolis - This is a game by a new team under the umbrella of Amanaita Design, known for titles like Samorost and Machinarium. Phonopolis is an incredibly exciting project full of playful interactive dioramas and character animation. The art direction is just divine.
1000xRESIST - An intense and high-concept walk-and-talk game about a cult of clones in a post-apocalypse underground bunker. A lot of the game revolves around exploring memories and piecing together the history of your cult and the apocalypse that birthed it, and it quickly gets into some heavy and confronting things. It’s as resonant and compelling as some of the best Prestige TV I’ve seen but constructed out of many creative interactive setpieces. The dev team comes from a background in stage performance and that skillset comes through really clearly here.
See ya next year!
I have so many other articles and things I wanted to write up this year that I just couldn’t make the time for. But, I want to thank everyone following my newsletters and everyone who’s sent in a nice comment or reply too. It’s been really fun for me to have a space like this to collect my thoughts and talk more about what’s exciting to me in games lately.
More to come soon! :) Happy new year~
These are indeed some cool games! As always, big ups to thecatamites!! Let us all bask in the Harmony Zone.
I've thoroughly enjoyed reading your musings, thank you for sharing! Happy new year! ✨💛