I'm not here to talk about 2020. That's what therapists are for.

However, I am here to talk to you about several games released in 2020 that perhaps slipped in under the radar, even during what was a relatively scant year for releases. It's all in the service of eventually constructing my own top-ten Games of the Year, of course, but it couldn't hurt to shine the spotlight on a few Indies and raise their profiles a little for others putting their lists together also. After all, we are getting ever closer to 2021 and the new horrors that await us there (we have some promising vaccines being tested and a way less crappy president though, so I'm all for a little optimism).

Giant Bomb's holding off on their GOTY deliberations until January, a decision that would make way too much sense even outside these current trying circumstances, so this will be a month-long series of Go! Go! GOTY! that'll terminate on December 31st with a final list of (at least) ten items. It'll come down to the wire, but it doesn't feel right to get into the GOTY spirit before the site does.

In case you missed the 2017 or 2019 iterations of Go! Go! GOTY!, here's a quick refresher on the rules:

• Each game will receive a review upon completion, released sporadically across December as I complete them (or get sufficiently far) until I either run out of games or month.
• All these games were released in 2020 on something, though a few may have debuted earlier on platforms I couldn't access.
• If you've got any tips on some excellent freeware games released in 2020 (say, on Itch, Steam, or in browser form), I'd be happy to hear about them. Leave links/descriptions in the comments here so others can check them out too.

For the sake of that last bulletpoint, I'll put some big hints for the upcoming entries in this ongoing table of contents:

The Reject Pile

If I remove an item from the above list because it proved incompatible with my hardware or I simply didn't care to play it for more than five minutes, I'll discuss it here.

• Valentina: Bought this platformer on Switch for 8p and, well, you get what you pay for. Shovelware of very little value, in other words, which is apparently an ongoing issue with the Switch eShop. Played with it a bit, but I'd be struggling to find anything about it worth writing about or, honestly, the motivation to finish it.

2021 EDIT: We're bringing this back for the 2021 season, happening now in 2022. It's a recession, gotta recycle everything:

And with those last-minute additions, we have the final (for now) 2021 GOTY list right over here.