The title of this post made me think about the best and worst I’ve played this year.

The best:

• The Case of the Golden Idol. Short and sweet mystery game in the vein of Return of the Obra Dinn. Not quite as good IMO but I still liked it quite a bit.
• Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Don’t let the IP fool you, this is a really solid turn based strategy game, occasionally with really solid writing. The “dating sim”/downtime parts were surprisingly fun at best and dragged down the pacing at worst.
• Death’s Door. Really cool, minimalistic, take on a Zelda-like game. Similar to Tunic in a lot of ways. Funny, cute and probably the best game about death I’ve ever played.
• Moving Out. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much while playing a game as I did with Moving Out. It will always hold a special place in my heart for allowing me to connect and laugh with people I love but don’t get to see very often.

Generally I mostly play games a while after release and based on recommendations I trust. As such there aren’t many real stinkers I can think of (plenty of games that I found overrated though). With that said, here are my worst:

• Doki Doki Literature Club. With the way this game is set up it’s all about the twist. The problem is that the game it pretends to be until then is incredibly boring. Maybe it would have helped if I wasn’t somewhat aware of what is really is but generally I found this game to be a slog.
• Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. Games that rely heavily on humor are always hit or miss. Unfortunately this one wasn’t for me in and the actual gameplay was incredibly bare bones.

Thanks for reading! What is your list?