Top 10 Games of 2019
Hello and welcome to my final article of 2019. They say dress for the job you want, so since I want to work for a video game website and all of the video game websites are doing top 10 games of the year, I figure I should too. Something I’d like to point out before we get started is that I’m a fairly busy person, between my full-time job, writing these articles and trying to get some sleep, so I often don’t have time for big-budget AAA games. This means I play a lot more indie games and thus more of my list will be populated by those smaller games. I could lie and say it’s about getting smaller games some much-needed exposure, but I feel like I shouldn’t lie to you. With that out of the way, let’s get this started.
#10 - Islanders
Islanders was the fifth game I ever reviewed and it was the first time in my life I gave a second look at a game that was full-price at less than $5. Before I played Islanders, I tended to ignore small or cheap games. But Islanders changed that habit, thanks to its wonderful aesthetics and clever mechanics. The way each building’s bonuses and penalties apply to other kinds of buildings wordlessly tells a story about the adorable little town players build as they play and the visual design is simplistic while still retaining important details. It’s simple, sublime, and an all-around great game.
#9 - Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling
As I said in my review, I don’t think Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling does anything new or innovative, but it does what it does well. Clearly inspired by the Paper Mario series, developers Moonsprout Games crowdfunded Bug Fables, presumably out of distress over the drop in quality of the Paper Mario games. What they ended up making was a top-quality game with solid mechanics, fun gameplay, and great writing. Bug Fables is even so good that it made me move past my dislike of bugs, which is saying a lot. I was never unhappy when playing Bug Fables and I hope this team makes more games soon.
#8 - Heaven’s Vault
Perhaps my video game experience is more narrow than it should be, but I had never seen or heard of a translation puzzle game before Heaven’s Vault came along. I’ve never been especially good at puzzle games and I’m even worse at learning new languages, so honestly it’s a shock how much I liked Heaven’s Vault, but the way the game presents players with only a few tidbits of information and gives them the tools to make their own discoveries and then build on those discoveries is undeniably fantastic. I’ve said it before, but playing Heaven’s Vault had me so enthralled, I got excited about how to pluralize nouns.
#7 - Outer Wilds
I feel like Outer Wilds and Heaven’s Vault are cut from the same cloth in a weird way. They both give players only the barest scraps of a lead to investigate and let them work out the rest of the way there, but where Heaven’s Vault is about translating an ancient script, Outer Wilds has players tracking down a disappearing moon. The world, or rather worlds, of Outer Wilds, with their black hole forges and world-wide storms, are amazing to explore and players can approach the mystery hidden within from an admirable number of different avenues. I enjoy so much of this interplanetary Groundhog Day, I just wish they’d left out those terrifying space-fish.
#6 - Dicey Dungeons
Dicey Dungeons combines a game show, a rogue-lite dungeon crawler, and the chaotic, random joy of rolling dice into a colorful, exciting experience. Though it initially looks overwhelming, Dicey Dungeons does a great job of slowly easing players in to the game’s mechanics through clever character design and themed dungeons. Then, once the player is ready to dive in, Dicey Dungeons lets them build wild new arrays of abilities that let players win in just about any way they want to, so long as the dice cooperate, that is. Personally, my fondest memory of Dicey Dungeons will always be a battery of laser rifles powered by a crowbar.
#5 - Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark
I think if any game on this top 10 list benefits from personal bias, it’s Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. However, just because I’m the biggest sucker on the planet for Final Fantasy Tactics doesn’t mean that Fell Seal isn’t a fantastic game. Between a variety of well-designed character classes that help players build the warriors of their dreams, cool animations, a compelling story, and a developer dedicated to improving and expanding an already excellent game, Fell Seal didn’t need any help getting on this list. Like Bug Fables, Fell Seal knows what it wants to be and nails it at every turn.
#4 - Investi-Gator: The Case of the Big Crime
I think I owe Islanders a special thank you because I don’t know that I ever would have played Investi-Gator: The Case of the Big Crime if I hadn’t played Islanders a few months prior. Investi-Gator is a shining jewel in the crowns of both crowdfunded games and indie games, because this little game is one of the funniest games I’ve played in years. Alternating between slapstick and meta-commentary subversive humor, Investi-Gator is hilarious, well-written and backed by an excellent score. Ignore the price tag and playtime, because this game is a genuine treasure.
#3 - Remnant: From the Ashes
Calling Remnant: From the Ashes “Dark Souls but with guns” is honest, but also perilously reductive. Yes, it contains a host nearly-identical game mechanics to the Souls series, but Remnant also features a healthy trove of different weapons and modifications that allows players to play as anything from a wasteland samurai to a demon-cloaked conjurer of floating skulls and radioactive insects. On top of that, the excellent multiplayer features and highly variable worlds, Remnant is a fantastic game that can be played over and over again while still getting new experiences. On top of that, developer Gunfire Games has proven they’re committed to adding new content to the game through 2020.
#2 - Skybolt Zack
If you would have told me at the beginning of this year that one of my favorite games of 2019 would be a game about a man with rocket-fists punching his way through a world-conquering robot army, I would have said that sounds pretty cool and all of that adds up. But Skybolt Zack isn’t content with just being a very cool premise. Instead, it goes above and beyond to be a fantastic game that helps players of all skill levels feel like the ultimate hero by incorporating multiple, self-sorting paths through levels and an incredible soundtrack that increases in speed and complexity as players perform better. Add to this a great visual design and smart mechanical design, and it’s easy to see why Skybolt Zach is one of the best game of the year.
#1 - A Place for the Unwilling
A Place for the Unwilling is the kind of game that is so good it knocks me on my back. The thing that impresses me most about this game is how many different ways it can be played. Though the grim start of a friend’s suicide and the acquisition of their business is always the same, the next 21 days are totally malleable. Players can choose to focus on the trading of goods and the amassing of wealth, trusting in money to avoid the end of the world. Or, players might elect to ignore finance and instead spend their days talking with the people of the town and uncovering its deep secrets to understand why the world is ending. Another option is to use both business and personal relationships to get involved with local politics, suppressing or supporting the local worker’s union and becoming the mayor’s trusted adviser in hopes that he knows a way past calamity. Beyond that, there’s gambling on rats, attending murderous plays, collecting ancient books, falling in love, and even ignoring the cries of a desperate friend and a dying city and simply walking away. Every choice changes the world and how its denizens react to you and I never found a bad bit of writing in my time with A Place for the Unwilling. The characters are wonderfully brought to life through dialogue and a weird, amazing world is brought to life in the narration and the secrets the player discovers. I’d never heard of developers ALPixel Games before, but I know now that if I meet them, I’ll treat them to dinner for making a game that moved me so powerfully.
