(Editor: This week, one of our Game of the Year judges has offered her own personal take on our annual Games of the Year That We Played in the Year (AKA GOTY-TWPTY) nonsense, and who was I to say no? So without further ado, I present to you…)

My Most Thrilling Case

Disco Elysium has come up in all three years of our GOTY-TWPTY conversations for good reason. The gripping fantasy realism of the setting, the bickering voices of the protagonist’s psyche, the captivating cast of Martinaise inhabitants, and the murder mystery deeply entwined with the socio-political landscape of Revachol blend together in a perfect brief, but unforgettable window into another world.

And I impressed Kim Kitsurugi with my pinball skills, which means I won the game.

The Game That’s Way Better Quality Than It Should Be For How Horny It is

I am a gremlin who is deeply amused by weird horny games, which has led me to some very interesting (Editor: *cough*) discoveries over the years.

Cloud Meadows was an extraordinary surprise for the Horny Game genre though; typically, games have an inversely proportional relationship between horniness and mechanical depth. The hornier games tend to have vanishingly small returns in the gameplay department.

Not so with Cloud Meadow, which is absolutely trying its best to be a farming simulator, turn-based RPG, dating simulator, and monster breeding simulator - and when I say breeding simulator, I mean breeding simulator. In lovingly hand-animated cutscenes.

Also the monsters are people.

Listen, don’t think about it too hard. The cowgirl has big tiddies, and that’s all you need to know to get started here.

The Coziest Game I Cozied With

I was on a quest this year to find quality mobile games for my relaxing on the couch time, and Dicey Dungeons was definitely the most chill and relaxing of the bunch. No time limits, pretty forgiving roguelike mechanics, and a clever combo of card and dice mechanics create just the right amount of challenge for an engaging puzzle while still being easy to put down when needed.

There’s also a solid soundtrack, cute art style, and charming and funny dialogue to wrap up the mechanics in a twee little package!

The Best Game I Played Again

Frog Fractions is an unforgettable experience, but familiarity with its strange turns makes it no less delightful. With the fall of Flash, Frog Fractions was ported properly to Steam, and I had a new excuse to discover it all over again.

Of course, the Steam re-release begged for new content with the secret sequel hidden in Hop’s Iconic Hat. Knowing Frog Fractions, I knew I would have no idea what the fuck was going to happen, but I really was not expecting the surprisingly emotional reflection on the original. Frog Fractions: Game of the Decade is not just a re-release, in fact, but a love letter to the bizarre legacy Frog Fractions has earned.

Also there are 500 terabytes of bug porn.

My Most Emotional Gaming Moment

I knew this would be my most emotional game of 2022 when I played it in January.

Spiritfarer follows Stella, the new ferryman of the afterlife, as she brings souls to move on from the beautiful glassy seas and islands of limbo and into their final resting place. But gradually it’s revealed that all of the spirits are people in Stella’s life, each with their own stories and circumstances that were achingly relatable to my own experiences. A childhood friend who regrets causing her early death reminded me of my own friend who passed a few years ago at 25; Stella’s missing uncle whom she never got to say goodbye to reminded me of losing my own uncle during the pandemic lockdowns while no one could be there with him; Stella’s elderly mentor’s dementia was devastatingly familiar after losing my own grandmother to the terrible disease. As these moments remind Stella that the price of getting to experience life is its eventual end, and the price of love is eventually loss, it all came to remind me how incredibly precious life can be.

Alright, time to cry again.

The Best Game I Played in One Sitting

Soft, cute, and goofy, by the end of the Frog Detective series I was so delighted with the wild directions it went that I was actually distressed no one else I know had played it because I wanted to share my delight at the ending with anyone.

It was also almost entirely made by just two people!

Best Game I Played in 2022 That was Actually Released in 2022

This entry is almost entirely based on its gameplay, unlike almost all of my other entries which are heavily weighted towards story, character or tone. But between some of the more hidden horror aspects of the game, and its cheeky bestiary (and utter lack of vampires), there are hidden delights even beyond the endless stream of insane projectiles. Having played Vampire Survivors from the early days of its development, getting to come back to it weekly or biweekly for new updates really added to my attachment to this already fantastic game. It’s the perfect one-bag-of-popcorn game, perfectly customizable for the level of challenge you can handle at any given moment.

Everyone I’ve recommended it to has gone through the same period of obsessive upgrading. Sorry!

The Best Game I Played in the Year 2022

The Hex + Inscryption

And the rest of Daniel Mullins Games library too

These two games together are my Game of the Year, or maybe that number is closer to fifteen. I started with indie smash hit Inscryption, the most recent Daniel Mullins release, but after getting partway through it I realized I was missing information. So I tackled The Hex so I could learn more about Inscryption’s Macguffin-game-mechanic. Oddly, the only stylistic similarity between the two is the meta-narrative layers, games containing other games, and seemingly unrelated games hiding extra lore. Daniel Mullins Games are basically an invitation to get out a corkboard and red twine to parse out wild theories based on tiny clues hidden across 20 different games. It’s hard to explain without spoilers, but both (and all) are worth playing through.

2022 Mood Board

Cults
Cards
Cute shit
Memorable settings
True insanity
Actual meta-game gaming
Five million (and counting) projectiles
Hot monster people
Botes

Melinda's Games of the Year (That She Played in the Year 2022) List