Man, it sure takes a while to go through all this hashtag content that comes up during the Game of the Year (GOTY) deliberations. I only just managed to get through it all and I like this new format a lot. Here’s to the crew thinking of us with bad memory, to give us an actual recap of what all these games, good and bad, are about. Please continue doing that, because I drank a lot and lost most of my short term memory.

As every other respectable Gamer™ in the world, I made my own GOTY list, which is the only definitive list out there and I’ll accept no substitutes! All I can say is: Y’all should play MapleStory 2, dammit. (Jan, back me up here) However, going through everyone’s lesser lists of GOTY flunkies for dumb dummies, I did also finally remember that other video games exist. I guess it’s too little too late, huh? Again: Lots of drinking.

I’m sorry, I fucked up! Have yet another list of GOTY picks to make up for it. Here’s my list of choices that would’ve totally slid into my actual nominees, if I remembered they were things that we got this year:

5. Frostpunk

Frostpunk should get to hang! It needs the comfort. It needs anything to make the people inside feel something else than the sharp, uncaring sting of a laborious existence and an inevitable death. This game looks good, too! We didn’t give it enough credit for getting the point of its misery across mostly by staring at an expanding, yet ever tragic, dystopia. The tech-punk skyscrapers, the propaganda-like flags, the billowing smoke in between it all; it’s such a stylish damn game, man. I have no idea how this game made up of mostly systems and text painted such a compelling picture, but it did. Cry. Cry at your freezing, metal mishmash.

4. Wandersong

Wandersong released a demo through that Humble Monthly bundle I subscribe to and get disappointed by every month. It’s not only one of the only not disappointing things I got in that subscription in recent times; that game itself is just precious. If you’ve been reading Giant Bomb editor lists, then you’ll know that most of them go a little something like: “Something something 2018 sucked butts.” In these trying times, Wandersong is a radiant beacon of optimism. It’s an adventure where the protagonist’s unwavering dedication to being good and cheerful simply can’t be beaten. Hell, it can barely be dented. I think everyone can use a little cheering up by playing Wandersong.

3. Florence

I bought Florence immediately after hearing Vinny talk about it in the Day Four Deliberations for Best Moment. That moment of hearing Vinny being all-in deserves a nomination in itself. No one will ever be able to say that Giant Bomb isn’t genuine. I bought Florence, despite my phone being a stale potato chip. I didn’t reach the end, before my phone overheated and died, but I absolutely agree this game is worth the buy-in. The art and sounds of Florence are instantly impactful and it marries that by cleverly asking the player to be the agent in the motions the game is going through. The game turns investment into emotion. That’s so smart!

2. RimWorld

Wait, RimWorld actually left Early Access? That means you can just bring this simulator up again and nominate it? Why didn’t anyone tell me this? I had to find out by scrolling through Steam’s sordid awards screens, which Valve uses as an extra excuse to surface big sellers. Discoverability in 2018, it’s a bummer, huh? Anyway, this game has always been great and continues doing that. Build a colony, painstakingly mine resources while half of your colonists are throwing up everywhere, stack up on guns and defenses, to then succumb to a random horde of Boomalopes just passing by. Boomalopes are exploding, flammable antelopes. Yeah, thanks for running at me and torching the entire map. It’s a bummer I couldn’t foresee that. You know what? Maybe Rimworld sucks, after all.

1. Kingsway

I bought Kingsway during the Steam Winter Sale. This roleplaying game (RPG) is another one of those clever style choices, turning an old Windows OS into the actual game. The windows and tabs themselves become the playing field, including the map, your inventory, enemies; everything! Man, I love developers who use their creativity to alter a known concept. You go east and try to save the world in a roguelike model, by the way. You know what that’s like, but I guarantee you’ve never played it like this! The structure and gameplay alterations are so clever that I played it start to finish in one sitting, across 5 or 6 hours. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that. Kingsway is so fucking good!

Now that I’ve done my penance, it’s back to playing thousands upon thousands of hours of Overwatch and PUBG for me, which I both hate, instead of playing other, better games. I’m a person of habit and that habit is hating myself with a passion. Those games are so embarrassingly bad, who could ever nominate them for a Game of the Year award? That would just be nuts.

Enjoy 2019, y’all!