That's a great write-up! I never played Alan Wake but I've seen a lot of the story and it's definitely a creative game. Er, in more than one sense of the word. Always neat to hear these types of "how I came to do what I do" stories.
@slag: I defi itely agree on DQ5. I have only played a handful in the serjes but that onestands out for its plot and characters. Most modern DQs feel bland in comparison.
Great list. That bit about your daughter is pretty darned heartwarming. Might also be the burrito I ate from Taco Fred's but I'm guessing it's the excellent writing.
I don't even particularly like Spelunky and I'll agree 100%, character of the year.
Good list! Townscaper is really neat and I'd love to tinker with it more. I hit a lot of issues with bugs in Valhalla that soured my first impressions up through the end of the Christmas event, but the new patch has mostly stabilized things. Still getting an occasional desktop crash and the controls will go fuzzy from time to time, but at least all the enemies aren't stuck at level 90 and I'm not coming into the world drunk all the time.
Regarding Sanderson, I liked his work on the tail end of the Wheel of Time series. He was absolutely the right guy for that. I wish I liked his other work more, but unfortunately I bounced off hard from Mistborn for its deus ex machina and Stormlight for being wordy for the sake of being wordy. I used to like that but anymore I like shorter fantasy fiction.
I've had a couple of Martha Wells books on my Kindle for freaking ever. Need to jump on that at some point.
@slag: Oh yeah, absolutely. It's why my GOTY lists never actually just feature current year games. And it would be fun to have some status and list update sections for the site. Again, don't think it's going to happen, but hey, maybe.
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