I have one last really big award to give, but that is a post for tomorrow (or later). Yesterday, I gave out my game of the year to the best non-From (indie) game I played this year. I wanted to do a post about games I enjoyed, but didn’t quite make it to the ‘best of’ list, and then I remembered a game I played a ton of mid-year and quite enjoyed. I have to give it a lot of credit because it’s another smallish indie team (25 employees the Google tells me), and it made a game with a lot of heart. I actually enjoyed it more (at the time) than the two games I gave awards to in the post before yesterday’s.
I’ll talk about that first and then give out a bunch of honorable mentions to games that I enjoyed playing, but fell off of for whatever reason. Most of them are indie games, of course, and there are a lot of cats involved.
Best game in which you get to play as a cutely animated (but beleaugured) Death as he tidies up the underworld
Have a Nice Death (Magic Design Studios)
I played this in May, apparently. I completely forgot about it until I was thinking back on the games I’ve played this year. Then, I was confused as to whether I played it last year or this. I had to reinstall it on Xbox so I could see when I played it, and much to my surprise, it was June. I had thought it was late last year or if later than that, then in January or February of tihs year. But, no. It was June.
I had to play it on easy beacuse platforming is not my thing. At all. I have lousy reflex/reaction times, and I have no spatial assessment abilities. This has all gotten worse since my medical crisis, and I have to be realistic about what I can and can’t do. I tried to play the game on normal difficulty, but at a certain point, I realized that I had to knock it down in order to finish it.
Technically, I did not finish the game because even playing it on easy mode, I could not beat the real final boss. I could barely even unlock this boss, let alone do any real damage to the boss. I think in all my time playing the game, I only reached this boss once or twice? Hell, I don’t know if I’ve even reached the true final boss because the way to unlock them is very unforgiving, especially for soomeone like me with all my hidden issues.
I had fun with the game and was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable it was. Again, platforming is not my thing, but there was enough here to keep me engaged. I will say that this game has less to offer than others of its ilk, but it’s still a good game. I liked the Twinsie as my main weapon, and there are plentiful cloak weapons (powerful, but with cooldowns), and spells with different abilities (statuses like bleed).
One thing I like is that you have to unlock different bits and pieces of the characters’ stories by finding them in different areas on different runs. Some have really sad stories while other stories are amusing, frustrating, and other emotion-provoking tidbits.
In the end, there was something lacking about the game. I can’t put my finger on it, but it fell just short of great. I’m sure that’s partly because of my frustration with not being able to beat the true last boss, but that wasn’t the only reason.
Still, it was a game I really enjoyed as I played it. It had a lot of heart, was fun and funny, and the gameplay loop was very addictive. I am pleased to give it a shout-out.
Two cozy cat restaurant games that were just a delight to play
Galaxy Burger (Galactic Workshop)
Supurr Cat Cafe–Sandwich Rush (2 Nerdy Nerds)
Both of these games are made by two people. Both of them are restaurant sims. Both have cats in them! Both of them have very cute design that are pleasing to the eye. That’s where the similarities end, though.
In the former, you are a purviewer of restaurants in the galaxy. You open restaurants on different planets and serve customers, including cats. Many cute cats! You have to make foods for the customers, but there is no time limit. It starts out simple and then gets more complicated. Making the burgers takes a bit of getting used to because placing the pieces of food on each other isn’t exact, and you can end up puttin the items on the counter rather than the burger itself. You don’t have to put the ingredients in order, but you get a better score if you do.
I’ve only just started the game (unlocked three planets, I think), but I can tell it’s going to get much harder as I go. I want to get back to it because there seems to be a lot to unlock in the game. I wanted to shout it out because it didn’t seem to get any love when it released.
The latter game feels very Diner Dash-y in vibe if not gameplay. It’s also made by two people, which is really impressive. The basic premise is that you move to a town and open up a cat cafe so you can donate money to a local animal shelter (I think). You adopt several different cats that you have to unlock (you start with one), and you can unlock different accessories for them to wear.
The basic gameplay is that your character runs around and catches ingredients on her tray. Customers come in endlesslessly, and you’re trying to match the ingredients to their orders. You don’t have to stack the ingredients in order, though, thankfully. There are different appliances you can buy and upgrade as well. This is a very small and short game, but that’s perfect. You can play longer if you want to unlock all the recipes, but I found three or four hours was just rigcht for this game.
It’s easy to tell that this was a mobile game first because some of the buttons/tutorials are unclear on PC. I was frustrated that they did not explicitly say that you needed to use the…I want to say D-pad for certain controls. It took me awhile to figure it out, and I think I had to infer from what I read when I Googled it.
Both of these games were fun little games that probably won’t stick with me for long, but they scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had at the time. I may cover a few other desultory games in tomorrow’s post–or I may just get to my actual game of the year. We shall see.