I was originally planing to make this post a list of my top five games from the past year, but I felt like (1) It is hard to leave out the rest of the games I liked, (2) I have not even played so many games from 2023, and (3) what about the ones I disliked? So I'll instead list all games from 2023 that I managed to play (according to my Steam review) until the end of the year, a format I like to read in other blogs such as [Tyler Glaiel's](https://medium.com/@tglaiel). I won't rank the games but divide the list into three categories, with no particular order within them: games I loved, games I thought I would love but were sadly disappointments, and the others (that I also liked). There are a few games I played but don't want to include in this list, like *Dave the Diver*, because I didn't spend enough time on it, or *Tears of the Kingdom*, because everyone has already said so much about it.

**Games I loved:**

***Season: A Letter to the Future***

*Season* is a game where you wander around a dying world to explore and record its sounds, images, and people. Despite this premise that sounds dark, the game is super relaxing and its visuals are stunning. I really enjoyed obsessing over decorating my scrapbook pages in the game.

![screenshot from the game Season, showing the in-game scrapbook pages](./season.jpg)

***Cocoon***

It is kind of hard to describe what *Cacoon* is about, both because the game does not explain anything in it —there is no HUD and no in-game dialogue or signs— and because of its worlds-within-worlds puzzles. Still, the game manages to teach how it's played without explicitly telling anything. This is mainly a puzzle game, although it has a few short boss fights in between puzzles. Each puzzle manages to be unique in some way and I never felt frustrated as they got more and more complex. Both puzzle and world design in *Cacoon* is amazing, I was constantly impressed by how so many puzzles from different areas in the game are interconnected. Its wordlessness fits well with the game's mysterious alien world(s), where you have no idea what any of the things you see in the game are and everything is very much open to interpretation.

![screenshot from the game Cocoon, showing the player character in front of an entranc](./cocoon.jpg)

***Cobalt Core***

A rogue-lite deck-building game with super cute characters would normally be convincing enough for me, but *Cobalt Core* is at the same time a successor to one of my favorite games, *FTL*. Its mechanics are more creative than any deckbuilder I played since *Slay the Spire*, and the positioning of the ship and its parts as an additional mechanic is quite fun. I loved everything in the game, from its music to its dialogue lines (it is especially fun when the characters comment on the choice of a card you play). There is sadly not a huge variety of cards and items in the game, so I hope it gets more content soon and I can continue to play it.



![screenshot from the game *Cobalt Core* showing a hand of attack cards, the spaceship, and its crew.](./cobalt-core.jpg)

***Chants of Sennaar***

This one is a linguistic puzzle game where you need to translate different symbols to solve an overarching mystery. I know it sounds kind of like *Heaven's Vault*, but *Chants of Sennaar* has less side-action, the whole game is about decoding multiple unique languages, and everyone in the game except your character seems to speak at least one of these languages. As I began the game I also expected it to be less hand-holdy and more mysterious, like *Cocoon*, but (to my disappointment) the game asks you to guess and verify each symbol, by matching them with an image or equivalent symbol in one of the other languages, which then reveals the English translation of the symbol. I think it would be much more rewarding if I could just interpret the words as I wanted and then see if they make sense in the different contexts I encounter later, instead of trying to match them with a definition right away (unavoidably, at times, by trying different combinations until I get it right). This would also make it more interesting to talk about the game with other players, as you could compare the different translations. I still enjoyed *Chants of Sennaar*, and liked how the designers put extra effort into making each language have unique grammatical and syntactic features.

![screenshot from the game Chants of Sennaar, showing the in game notebook and instructions for translating glyphs in the game](./chants.jpg)

***Against the Storm***

*Against the Storm* has been my holiday season game, I've only started playing recently but already spent a lot of hours in it. It blends rogue-lite with city builder, which also makes it much more fast-based than a typical city builder. In each run (which takes somewhere between one to three hours) you create a settlement from scratch with random modifiers and a set of buildings, trying to achieve a set of goals. These goals are randomized but they can still be achieved in multiple ways, by focusing on different things like the economy, population, exploration etc. Since it is a rogue-lite, there is also overall progress and each successful settlement unlocks more content. For me, no run so far felt the same and I will probably continue to play this game for a long time.

![screenshot from the game Against the Storm, showing a settlement and status bars for different character species](./ats.jpg)

**Games I expected more from:**

***The Talos Principle II***

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I find every aspect of *The Talos Principle* sequel a step down from the first game. My main issue with the games are the puzzles, which are repetitive and they **never** become more difficult. I was especially disappointed by the "star puzzles" that I found mind-blowing in the first game. In Talos II, these extra puzzles are tedious tasks like walking between two beams that are not at all hidden. Design elements I found interesting in the first game, like the option to leave messages for other players and puzzles where you need to bring in an item from another puzzle are replaced with an enormous game world with supposedly hidden locations to discover, which are all marked in an in-game compass (as they would otherwise be too frustrating to find because of the vastness of the game world). The writing, on the other hand, lacks subtlety to an annoying degree.

***Oxenfree II***

Another case of sequelitis. I was excited to play it when I heard about *Oxenfree II*, although I am not sure if I ever felt like *Oxenfree* needed a sequel. Sadly the result was a game with flabby writing. I don't even remember enough of the story to get into details.

![](./oxenfree.jpg)

**The rest (which I liked):**

***Handshakes***

This a cooperative Sokoban game where two players extend their virtual arms and push objects in the way to eventually grasp each other's hands. *Handshakes* takes only around an hour, but I had a great time playing it. I will continue to recommend this game to everyone I know as a game guaranteed to get a laugh. I should probably also mention that it is [free](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2171690/Handshakes/). I am looking forward to the follow-up to it.

![](./handshakes.jpg)

***Dune***

*Dune* was probably the only RTS/4X game I played in 2023. It is a pretty solid game in its genre, and I love that a session is completed in two to three hours.

***Dredge***

*Dredge* was enjoyable enough, but I have no clue why it became as popular as it did as soon as it was released. 

***Luck be a Landlord***

A slot machine roguelike deck-builder (without cards) about trying to collect enough money to pay an ever-increasing rent. While *Luck be a Landlord* is not a very complex game, it has incredibly fun synergies. I might have played it a bit too much.

***The Bookwalker: Thief of Tales***

*The Bookwalker* was a pleasant surprise. I didn't know anything about it except that its artwork looked intriguing (and kind of Disco Elysium-ish) before starting to play. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes classical point-and-click adventures and metafiction.

***Outlanders***

This is another city building survival game that has a set of goals in each level, like *Against the Storm*. In contrast to all the gloominess of *ATS*, *Outlanders* is as cozy as it gets, with its colorful low poly visuals, relaxing music, and lack of any kind of combat.

***Word Factori***

Another unusual example of its genre on this list has to be *Word Factori*, a minimalist factory/automation game where you construct letters out of the only material you have in the game: `the letter i `. I mainly liked the puzzle aspect of it, i.e. finding out the different ways to create each letter out of the letter i, but in general, I am not a huge fan of automation games so I haven't spent much time trying to make my construction chain efficient, which is a big part of the game.

![](./word-factori.jpg)

***King of the Castle***

An interesting medieval party game where one player plays as the monarch, and others as the nobles who want to scheme against the monarch. It is also a narrative-heavy party game with many possible branches and somewhat visual novel-like dialogue screens where each player can read out their lines after selecting what to say.




Minimalist strategy and high score games —I need more of them. I’m talking about games like *Mini Metro* (see my older post about it [here](https://mostlyindie.com/minimetro)): simple mechanics, minimalist design, relaxing music. 

I still go back to *Mini Metro* every once in a while, and when [*ISLANDERS*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1046030/ISLANDERS/) came out in 2019, I  played it non-stop for months. *ISLANDERS* is a lot like *Mini Metro*, but the city-building high score gameplay makes the game a little bit harder to go back to after taking a break from it because you need to remember how many points the buildings get and which buildings work together. I guess you can’t make a city-building game as minimalist as *Mini Metro*, in which you literally draw lines to connect a bunch of shapes to each other, but still, building a beautiful landscape by just placing pieces together is also super relaxing and addictive.

![Tiles in Dorfromantik](./Dorfromantik.jpg)

The upcoming game [*Dorfromantik*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1455840/Dorfromantik/) might be the closest game to *ISLANDERS*—and I’ve been looking for more games like it forever. I tried [*Townscaper*](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1291340/Townscaper/) when it first came out, and it looks very pretty, but without any kind of scoring system or strategy aspect, I think it’s just not the same. In *Dorfromantik*, you have procedurally generated tiles of land to place together, instead of individual buildings to place on different parts of terrain. If you’re familiar with the board game *Carcassonne*, the tiles work just like the tiles in it, except that the ones in *Dorfromantik* are hexagons.

![Highscore in Dorfromantik demo](./highscore.jpg)

The scoring system in *Dorfromantik* is super simple but brilliant (it took me a while to fully understand it when I played the demo, so if there’s anything I still get wrong, just let me know!): You get 10 points for every edge of a tile you place that matches any adjacent tile. Some tiles also come with quests, which give you additional points and add more tiles to your stack when they are completed, so you can keep playing as long as you keep completing quests. This scoring system makes the game perfectly minimalist and super easy to get into. And unlike *ISLANDERS*, you don’t really need to be playing *Dorfromantik* for a long time to beat your high score.


I’m already obsessed with the [demo version](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1455840/Dorfromantik/). Right now it sadly allows you to only play until you place 85 tiles, but it's also getting an early-access release on Steam on March 25, and I can’t wait to play more of it!

  



I spent most of my free time in 2020 chilling at the beach, gardening, and clothes shopping — in *Animal Crossing: New Horizons*. Considering the popularity of *ACNH*, as well as indie games like [*A Short Hike*](https://ashorthike.com/) and [*Mutazione*](https://mutazionegame.com/) throughout this year, it seems like I cannot be the only one who wanted more **wholesomeness** from games in 2020?

This post is not a rant on violent games, and it’s also not a love letter to *ACNH*. While I continue to enjoy *ACNH*, the new little game from [Ustwo games](https://www.ustwogames.co.uk/), *Alba: A Wildlife Adventure* is probably the most feel-good game I ever played. I also loved the studio’s previous game, *Assemble with Care* which came out earlier this year (the devs are also known for *Monument Valley*, btw).

![Alba: A Wildlife Adventure](./Alba.jpg)

*Alba* has super-cute graphics and animations, vibrant colors, and great chill-out music. The gameplay never asks you to do anything in a rush. I know, these are kind of like the wholesome game conventions, but what makes *Alba* and any game in general cozy for me is more about **a familiar environment** and **mundane tasks**. I especially liked the setting of the little warm Meditteranean town in *Alba*, because I already miss summer, and traveling (who doesn’t?). It’s not surprising that gardens and beaches are very common settings in wholesome, relaxing games because that’s what many people think of as peaceful places. At the same, I think this is why so many people also find such games utterly boring: because there’s nothing interesting to do or see — at least at first glance.

Without spoiling the game, *Alba* is about environmental activism, but making a difference looks much easier in the game than in real life. In the game, you have simple tasks like helping save animals and picking up trash, which you perform at your own pace while running around the island every day until dinner is ready. The tasks never give you in-game rewards, except for some hearts popping up, and the feeling of doing something good.

![A picture of an owl in the game](./owl.jpg)

An important part of the gameplay is taking pictures of the animals on the island, and as with the other tasks, you don’t have to get it 100% done, or catalog every single animal on the island to complete the game, but taking these pictures was my favorite thing to do in the game. You can also picture other things and save the photos on your phone (which will be in your pictures folder on your computer and I discovered this two days after finishing the game). 

When you picture and catalog an animal, you can use your photos to replace old signs around the island, but the game will pick a default image for every animal, even if your picture is cooler. I think it’d be great if I was able to choose which picture I wanted put on a sign, but I can imagine this would be difficult to implement because the game has to know I’m not putting this picture up on a sign about an owl:

![You can basically make a picture of anything](./not_an_owl.jpg)

*Alba: A Wildlife Adventure* is available on [PC](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1337010/Alba_A_Wildlife_Adventure/) and [Apple Arcade](https://apps.apple.com/app/alba-a-wildlife-adventure/id1528014682). The game takes around three hours to complete, and I already wish I could erase these three hours from my mind and play it again. I need more games like this!


  [*Baba is You*](https://hempuli.com/baba/) was my game of the year. It's a mind-blowing puzzle game and it has cute graphics. But beyond that, it's also the perfect game for a semiotic analysis! 
  
  ![Rose is red, violet is blue, Baba is you](./rose-is-red.png)

This might not often be relevant when talking about games; but I studied linguistics in college, and that was a while ago... Also, linguistic theories can get quite complicated, even when you didn't forget about half of them. So I'll try to keep it as simple as possible.

*Baba is You* is essentially a sokoban game, but instead of crates, you get to move blocks of texts that constitute the rules for the current level, or what those text blocks **represent** in the game world, i.e. you can push a block of text that says `rock` as well as an image of a rock on the screen. 

In semiotics, the study of signs, these two notions together can be called the sign **rock**. Using Ferdinand de [Saussure's terminology](https://www.amazon.com/Course-General-Linguistics-Court-Classics/dp/0812690230) the word `rock` would be the *signifier*, which means it's merely a form that a sign takes, such as a word or icon, whereas the image of a rock in the game would be *signified*, which is what the signifier represents in our minds (or the game screen?). Semioticians like to deconstruct signs, because meanings are unstable and what a signifier signifies can change over time and according to context. Just like  in *Baba is You*: Solving the puzzles in the game actually requires manipulating its rules, therefore changing the positions of the text blocks on the screen, which results in changes in their signified representations. For example, the three block rule `flag is win`, standing together, means reaching the signified flag is the **win condition** in a level. In a situation where your player-character has no access to the signified flag, but the signifier `flag`, and another sign combination, such as a rock and the text `rock`, changing the signified rock to a signified flag, by forming the rule `rock is flag`, can be the solution to the level, as this will turn the signified rock into a signified flag that is accessible.

![Flag is rock](./flag-is-rock.jpg)

However, signifier and signified, as a binary system, might be misleading, and although my rock example makes it look like the objectual representation= signified, meanings are more complicated than that. Think of  René Magritte’s [famous painting](https://collections.lacma.org/node/239578); the word “pipe” is a text referring to a pipe, but the image of a pipe is not the referent, instead, simply an image of a pipe. Charles Sanders Peirce makes [another categorization](https://muse.jhu.edu/book/41103) of sign systems, and he splits a sign into  three components: *representamen*, *object* and *interpretant*. And I feel like this might be a better fit for the case of *Baba is You* , especially in situations where you have a rule like the titular one `Baba is you`. Baba, the main character in the game, is pictured as -what I would like to think as- a white bunny on the screen. The rule `Baba is you` means that the player is in control of Baba. So the text `Baba`, signifies two things simultaneously: the fact that Baba is that white bunny and that *you* control it. This is where Peirce's categorization differs from Saussure's. Peirce's term *object* simply refers to the subject matter of a sign, so in the example of `Baba is you`, it would be the objectual image of Baba on the screen, while what he calls *interpretant* refers to the meaning of the sign, which would be Baba in the sense of the player-character (or *you*) on the screen. The text-block `Baba`, on the other hand, would be "representamen", which is just the Peircian name for Saussure's "signifier" as far as I understand. 


While *Baba is You* asks you to decide and mess with what a signifier means and represents, there are of course some limitations that make it impossible for you to just put together a sentence like `Baba is win` and complete every level with ease. For example, you are free to break the sentence `Baba is you` apart, by moving its components around, but doing so will result in you *not being* your player-character Baba, and you can't control anything on the screen anymore, unless you have put together another rule, such as `rock is you` to claim yourself as an object instead of Baba. This means there has to be a signifier or representamen which represents the idea of *you* at all times. But *you* can also be a part of another sign at the same time, thus giving *you* multiple properties. The game often provides a limited number of accessible text-blocks and forces the players into forming a horizontal and a vertical sentence that share a single block of text, such as: 

![Baba is you and flag is you](./flag-is-you.jpg)


This mechanic makes the game more complex, because it makes the players think of the blocks as more than just pairs of pictures and texts.  According to semiotics, this is also how linguistic signs work, they only make sense in relation to each other (a huge part of  Saussure’s theory and chess analogy). If that doesn't sound complicated enough, also keep in mind that signs can be a signifier of another sign system as well, and this way we keep building meanings on other meanings. *Baba is You* also wants you to use meta-signs and think of each sign in relation to others, but it also takes advantage of associations that players make outside of the screen. While playing the initial levels, I spent several minutes trying to figure out how I can go behind a wall, until I noticed that I could **simply walk through it**. As the rules for every level are literally written on the screen, if an object has no information in the form of a sensical and coherent text, it has no properties. So unless you see a text that says `wall` is something, it won't have any mechanical attribute, as if it's not there. But even after I figured this out, I sometimes found myself thinking a wall or lava was blocking my way when there was no such rule. Sure, the game still has many levels where you see `box is push`, `wall is stop` and `key is open`, which makes it even more of a challenge to notice that they're not doing what they are expected to do, when the rules are different. 

In semiotics the relationship between a signifier and signified can be on two levels; which are denotation, the literal meaning, and connotation (theorized mainly by [Barthes](https://www.amazon.com/Mythologies-Roland-Barthes/dp/0374521506)). And although *Baba is You* is not a story-heavy game, a different setting and visuals, or lack of them, (if you pushed around geometric shapes, for example) could eliminate the challenge of misleading connotations. The words "wall" or "box" in the game have much stronger connotations than "Baba", and if all signs in the game would be names such as Baba and Keke (which are both based on [a linguistic experiment](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ben6qj/hi_im_hempuli_the_developer_of_baba_is_you_ask_me/el71s4i/)!) or simply gibberish, it would be less fun in my opinion, because it wouldn't challenge the connections my mind tries to make. 

I don’t think that *Baba is You* is intended to be a game about linguistics, and it doesn’t need to be, but just I like how semiotic theories are applicable to this game when it comes to deconstructing stuff and sense-making. If you still haven’t played *Baba is You*, it’s available on  [Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/736260/Baba_Is_You/) and [Nintendo Switch](https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/baba-is-you-switch/).


![INSIDE looks like LIMBO](./insidegame.jpg)
I got *[INSIDE](https://playdead.com/games/inside/)* during the Steam holiday sale. It is very much like *[LIMBO](https://playdead.com/games/limbo/)* and that’s great, because what else could you ask for?

The atmosphere and animatons are incredible! Swimming in this game feels so good –until it gets creepy. One thing I didn’t like is the story, which is almost non-existent. It freaks you out and keeps the hype up until the end… And then turns out to be nothing more than what you can make up out of the random clues you got in the process. That might also be cool, if you’re into open endings and all those theories and eastereggs, but for me the ending was just not good enough to make me care about its meaning.



These *Undertale* remixes... fill me with determination.

This is a cover album that has 24 songs from the game *[Undertale](https://undertale.com/)* on its two sides: red (metal boss fight covers) by [RichaadEB](https://www.patreon.com/RichaadEB) and blue (electronic) by [Ace Waters](https://amiewaters.bandcamp.com/). The first half has most of my favorite tracks from the original soundtrack and the battle music is amazing with metal tunes. But I’m also obsessed with the chiptune on the other side, it’s still so different from the originals. The whole album is just perfect!

![Determination album cover](./determination.jpg)

Buy it on [Bandcamp](https://determination-ut.bandcamp.com/releases) or order it on [CD](https://www.fangamer.com/products/undertale-determination-cd).



[*Mini Metro*](https://dinopoloclub.com/games/mini-metro/) is addictive. It might look super simple and zen-like at first glance, but does become quite difficult and stressful once you get into it and try to score higher and higher. As an endless high score game, this wouldn’t normally be my cup of tea, but *Mini Metro* manages to keep me (somewhere) on its high score lists almost every day, as it offers some different modes like daily and all-time leaderboards for different cities with their own struggles and it doesn't look like I'll get bored of it anytime soon. <3

![Paris metro](./paris.gif)

Also, I’m SHOCKED to see negative criticism on its soundtrack! One reason I wanted to play this game was its music by Disasterpeace. He is easily one of my favorite composers and I love every bit of his chiptune that you can hear in many other awesome games such as, *FEZ*, *The Floor is Jelly* and *Hyper Light Drifter* and the horror movie, *It Follows*.
[Check out his music](http://disasterpeace.com/music), if you haven’t already done so. You can listen to all of his music on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/artist/7rSMEcqv4Ez0OLgJKDjrvq), as well. 


The blog has been very inactive lately, so here is a game with annoying unpopularity: *[LISA](http://www.lisatherpg.com/index.html)*

![Lisa the RPG](./lisa-the-rpg.jpg)

It’s an rpg that is similar to *Undertale*, or *Earthbound*... or maybe *Fallout* or *Y: The Last Man* with its post-apocalyptic wasteland, where all women died out (except Lisa, duh). And the story is mostly about drugs, alcoholics, bullies, child abuse and such… I know these might not make it sound like the most fun rpg, but believe me, *LISA* manages to make you laugh hard in addition to driving you into depression! So if you're into post-apocalypse fiction and/or dark humour, you can give it a try by playing the short -and free- prequel *[Lisa the First](https://rpgmaker.net/games/4412/)*. Keep in mind that the story is incomplete without that prequel and the DLC, *LISA the Joyful*. I enjoyed the overall story and the ending in the DLC, but the base game has much more content than the DLC and the prequel.

What I liked most about *LISA* was definitely that your decisions really change something, but then they have to suck either way, like when you have to decide whether to lose an arm or watch your company die, or when it is highly possible to lose all your side-characters in Russian Roulette.

Last but not least: [Awesome soundtrack](https://widdly2diddly.bandcamp.com/releases) composed by [the one guy](https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/131274701) behind this game!
