I played a fair number of games this year, but that said, I had a decided indie bent involving shorter games so I don't feel I played as much in 2022 as others. My top three picks of 2022 are marked with an asterisk (*) as I do every year, but it was much harder to pick my top three than usual. I ended up leaning indie because even though I may have dropped ten or twenty times the number of hours into a time sink like Civilization VI there aren't the same number of people talking about the bittersweet gem that is Hungry Hearts Diner, and it's games like that that I want to sell people on.
So with that said, these are the 12 games I liked the most out of the ones I finished in 2022, in the order I played them. If the game is available on multiple platforms, the one I played on is listed first.
Hungry Hearts Diner (iOS, Android) *
I downloaded this on a whim, and two things stood out at me from the user reviews that immediately made it different from most restaurant sims. 1) The game has a story and 2) it has an ending. Aside from that, you play as an elderly grandmother and how often do you get to be one of those? When Grandpa gets laid up, Grandma takes over the diner and serves food to a variety of customers, most of whom have their own stories which progress as she serves them helpings of their favorite foods. The overall mood is just a little melancholy with discussion of loss and lost opportunities, but also learning to move on and reconcile with family. It's a short little game (probably 10-15 hours depending on how fast you are), but very charming. You may need a tissue at the end.
Sid Meier's Civilization VI Anthology (Windows, Mac, Switch, PS4, XB1)
Bundle containing Civilization VI and all its expansions and DLC. It's the usual pick a civilization, build them up, and "win" by a variety of methods before other civilizations get a chance to meet their own goals. It's not anything groundbreaking for Civ fans, but it's a graphical upgrade and some nuances have changed so a few strategies from Civ V are no longer necessary or even desirable. I feel like the spread of non-western and/or southern hemisphere civs is a little better than in years past (I love that DLC introduces cultures like the Maori, Vietnamese, and Mapuche for the first time), but European countries still outnumber any other continental group despite their small geographic footprint.
Metro PD: Close to You (iOS, Android)
This is one of Voltage's Love 365 pay-per-route otome games. I didn't cover this one on my blog because I was playing sporadically, picking routes every now and then, and wasn't sure I'd like the game that much. You play a newly assigned detective to the Special Investigation 2nd Unit and solve crimes while getting involved with a variety of the unnamed protagonist's coworkers. Some routes jump awkwardly from the explosive ending of the prologue to several months later where the protagonist is an established member of the team, which I found weird. I didn't like Himuro, my first route, but played his route for free as part of Love 365's then weekly promotion. One of my friends likes this game though so I gave it another shot. Of the other routes I've played, I enjoyed Eiki, Kirisawa, and Nomura.
Billionaire Lovers (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Don't let the cheesy title fool you. There's a pretty good story locked in its 2-4 hour playthrough. Much like Doki Doki Literature Club before it, it uses dating game tropes (this time from otome) to suck the player into a game that really isn't about romance. Though it has some creepy moments, it's not as horror-oriented as DDLC and is more about the strange things happening in the main character's life. There is a content warning and it's warranted, but despite the 18 and up age inquiry upon starting the game, there is no sex or nudity. (This was originally a Chinese title and I suspect the 18+ may have to do with the in-universe gacha game, which is part of the story.)
The Battle of Polytopia (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux)
My brother described this as a simplified version of Civilization, and there's certainly a similar feel to it. You make new cities, you learn new things to build or ways to train your people through a tech tree, but it's all wrapped up in a small package that makes it easy to pick up and put down at a moment's notice (because you're playing on a phone and it's now time to go). The best part about the mobile version is that it can be played offline with no internet connection and there are no ads.
Variable Barricade (Switch)
Teenage heiress Hibari Tojo knows that one day she will need to find an appropriate husband, but she didn't think her ornery grandfather would saddle her with four potential suitors while she's still in high school! I love Hibari for being unafraid to speak her mind if someone happens to piss her off. She's not in a position where she wants to get to know her potential love interests, let alone romance them, and of course her grandfather has managed to find four unemployed men with such awful flaws that she wonders just what he was thinking by making her live in a house with all of them until she picks the one to marry. I enjoyed the common route a lot, but the wacky hijinks drop off in favor of angst on most of the routes after the common one is over.
Crystal Warriors (3DS, Game Gear)
I bought this because the 3DS eshop is closing and I never beat Crystal Warriors on Game Gear when I was a kid because my battery backup died, making it impossible to save. Despite only getting partway through the game, I had fond memories of it, with its elemental strengths and weaknesses system, and my first experience with permadeath in a strategy RPG. Playing it now, thirty years later, there's something to appreciate in its low frills approach. The maps are smaller and the story elements light, but the tactical gameplay is all there. It's too bad the sequel never came to the US.
Pre-Odyssey: Odysseus, Penelope & her Ducks (Windows, Mac, Android) *
Delightful little VN made for the NaNoRenO 2022 game jam. You play as Penelope, who (in this timeline) is better known for being surrounded by ducks than as a Spartan princess. She meets Odysseus after he arrives as one of Helen's suitors, and from there you can follow the mythology or deviate as you like. The characters are drawn in an anime style and the dialogue is present day vernacular, but all that combined with the general ridiculousness of Penelope's duck friends makes for a charming story that made me laugh. You don't need to know Greek mythology to play this, but if you do, you'll get so much more out of it.
Strange Horticulture (Windows, Mac, Switch) *
Short binge-worthy game about taking over a strange little shop in a strange little town that sells a bunch of odd plants for various purposes. I love how the story gradually unfurls through conversations with customers and notes you can discover as you explore, but even though there is some flexibility in solving various problems and thus earning one of multiple endings, the plants themselves are static so it didn't feel like there was enough replayability for me to want to do it more than once. Discovering what something is and what it's used in is most of the fun and that's completely absent a second time around.
Yrsa Major (Windows, Mac, Linux, Browser)
Another game jam VN, this one came out of Otome Jam 2021 and follows the titular carpenter Yrsa. Being a big, strong woman capable of killing monsters with a shovel, she has concluded that she will never fit into the neat little box of a "typical" woman, and thus she has cut off some of her desires as being unsuitable for a person like her. So when she has the opportunity to bond with an elemental spirit she hopes for an earth spirit to help her defend her village, but what she gets instead is a peace-loving water spirit, Uribel. Though there are a few action bits, this is a lovely story about how what you ask for isn't necessarily what you really need. Bonus points for the atypical protagonists, with Yrsa's body type (and age given the genre) and Uribel's appearance. As an ageless water spirit who can change his appearance at will, he has chosen to look like a frail elderly man.
Escape Simulator (Windows, Mac, Linux, PS5, Xbox Series X)
Online multiplayer escape room game that comes with pre-built rooms, DLC rooms, and the ability to play user-made ones. I played with one other person and it was pretty fun, though I found the rooms to be very small and cramped compared to real life rooms, or even the rooms in the Zero Escape series. There's no player collision so there are no worries about bumping into another person, but it feels a bit claustrophobic because of the room size and if this was a real room it would feel very small for a single person, let alone four. If you want a quick fix though, this is affordable (especially compared to real world rooms) and will scratch the itch.
AI: The Somnium Files - nirvana Initiative (Switch, PS4, XB1, Windows)
Sequel to 2019's sleeper mystery game AI: The Somnium Files. I loved the first game to bits, but found the sequel to be a mixed bag due a particular narrative trick that I'll go into spoilery detail about in a later blog post and some new gameplay mechanics in the somnium segments that I just didn't like. The new characters are fun and quirky in the manner of the older ones, Ryuki might be my favorite protagonist in the series now, but the story isn't as personal as it was in the last game. Combined with a disappointing finale, I just couldn't like it as much as its predecessor.
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