Looking back on 2014 there’s been much to do about player agency in games. Many players I've talked to have said “The choices I made mean nothing because if I had chose the other binary choice I would have met the same result.” This has happened in the Telltale games, Far Cry 4, Wolfenstein and others. Players expect good outcomes for their decisions and the games in 2014 have run against this grain. The irony is that disappointment and sorrow are always more believable than happiness and love. In film we've known for a while that “realistic”, typically means that movie had an unhappy ending. Games are finally collectively reaching that point of realism in storytelling and it’s being met with resistance. Moving forward if this amorphous medium is to endure and mature, we’re going to have to accept that the convictions of the power fantasy is too limiting.

10. Fans of rogue-likes often take for granted that the genre they love is becoming bigger than they are. Dungeon of the Endless is an example of a game that incorporates elements of rogue-likes, real time strategy games and tower defense minimally while incorporating depth that is compartmentalized and easily to grasp. More specifically, it does what I think most great strategy games do, focuses more on your logistics. The puzzle of randomly generated levels unfolds and you eventually notice patterns for exploiting.

9. Far Cry 4 is a more polished, dynamic sequel, that is both better than its immediate predecessor while retaining many of the flaws previously festering in it. Open world games are not known for their stories and both Far Cry 3 & 4 stories are bad in ways that are comical. Despite all of this the actual game is the story. The astringent nature of the main story is made up for every anecdote of the open world. When Ubisoft learns to get out of the way of me creating anecdotes they’ll have a game that is far less flawed, until then we’ll have to settle a game in Far Cry 4 that is merely brisk in its myth making.

8. Often times you hear racing games garner praise for approaching a “good” middle ground of arcade style racing and simulation racing. In terms of the feel of the speed, momentum, torque, handling and acceleration of racing games there is no middle ground. You either do it very well or you don’t do it at all. The difference in being successful with the arcade, simulation and simcade subgenres are paramount, requiring unique approaches in each circumstance. Wreckfest, in it’s current build, feels American in it’s style of approach. Which is ironic to say since it’s developed by Bugbear from Helsinki in Finland. There's a small town feel that is reminiscent of the time my father and I would go see together to watch amateurs race that Bugbear has tapped into. (This was an excerpt from a previous blog post earlier this year)

7. Luftrausers is fast and stylish fun, but it takes a bit to get used to the haziness that is it’s aesthetic. When you do, you find a solid state experience that hearkens to a time when games weren't afraid to send your ass back to the title screen. Luftrausers also made me fall in love with a developer. Vlambeer has garnered a lot of critical acclaim and up to Luftrausers I never understood it. From the way the music seamlessly transitions when you tweak your plane, to the two-tone aesthetic to solid state experience the game is unique and wonderful in ways that their previous games don’t approach.

6. Orc society has the great misfortune of either being too bold that they are unwilling to take any precautionary measures or too terrified of the enemy to be willing to attempt any offensive. Dominating ignorant orcs through fear and hubris in a systematic manner makes for procedural gameplay typical of independent games not a AAA game. When this quality of textures and modeling is applied with such a brutal system it left a lasting impression. Not to say that it's the only impression, but it's a unique and special one. It's almost the Assassins Creed game that I've always wished Ubisoft would make but seems incapable of making. Now they just need to drop all pretense of structured story through acts and allow you to make your own story fully through manipulating the world dynamically.

5. Wolfenstein is a game that suffers from having too good of a direction. It’s direction is so well implemented that it highlights it’s mistakes in storytelling. It introduces micro and macro storyline, it has scenes without dialog, and it clearly coordinated these elements well with it’s voice actors which gave the came a cohesive delivery. It does all of these things in ways that make the gameplay better while having a story preoccupied with ridiculous gallows humor that doesn't quite land most of the time but makes up for it with pulp sensibilities. The direction of Wolfenstein, is by far the best of the year. So glad this team got to make this game.

4. When Trey Parker and Matt Stone are on their game you might as well put down whatever you’re doing and listen. And when Obsidian Entertainment release a game that is without serious bugs you should put down whatever you’re doing and play it. South Park: The Stick of Truth is a perfect marriage between these two forms. This game is an interactive season of the television show, with all the bells and whistles that go along with that.

3. Every unit that is not supported is a defeated unit. This is the primary rule of Factorio. For me strategy games focus too much on the conduct of your actions, and Factorio instead focuses copiously on the means therefore. This appeals to what I love in strategy games. You learn quickly the beauty of automation applied to an efficient operation magnifying efficiency and consequently the dread of automation being applied to an inefficient operation magnifying inefficiency. He conquers who endures.

2. Much of The Fall can be broken down by the conflict that arises when Asimov's Laws are expected to commingle with recursion. The power to define something which is infinite by a finite statement is in opposition to establishing formal frameworks of control. The Fall’s first episode approaches this subject masterfully and the puzzles have a logic to them that follows this thread. In the upcoming episodes I wonder if the light that was supposed to liberate the ARID on-board a Mark-7 combat suit is an even more efficient means of bondage. We will have to wait and see.

1. The making of atmospheric perspectives and environments goes on all over game development, and they increase both in their suggestion and vastness as their value is recognized. This is the nature of a craft. Everyone needs beauty as well as substance, but Retro Studios has set itself apart from it’s contemporaries. Tropical Freeze is a game that does these things so well that you shouldn’t simply play it once, you must decant it first. Every level is buzzing with music and life, yet the game takes a cassis turn at points in it’s aesthetic going places that Donkey Kong has never gone. I care for this list to exist only to entice my friends with games that I’ve loved from this past year, and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze loveliness is the game which most stood out to me all year.

0. Incrementalpunk or incremental games have become my favourite trend of this past year. These games have been often lauded, as with the case of Cookie Clicker or Candy Box for their latent variables. Many are superficial in this way. That is with the exception of Kittens Game by Bloodrizer where being numerate feels as important than being explorate. This trend more broadly has a lot of upside. Low barrier of entry for Inrementalpunk development and hopefully more of a melding of ideas between econometrics and computer science gives hope for an organic union of these two disciplines.