2016, videogame's best year to date?
- 8 years ago
Lost in Harmony (Android|iOS)
Okay, while all the game’s on this list surprised me, none were as much of a shock as Lost in Harmony. This game came out of nowhere and completely stole all of my attention in the tail end of January.
It is a game that packs in so much style and variety that it is hard to define exactly what kind of game it is.
Perhaps its most obvious inspiration is the endless runner genre. Your skateboarding character, Kaito, automatically accelerating towards the screen as you try to avoid and leap over the obstacles that are flying at you from all sides.
Here is where the more artistic indie elements come in, with each area drawing inspiration from a range of periods and art styles to give the action the look of a pop-up book filled with a collage of images draw from any magazine the developers could get their hands on.
Finally there is the music, and this is perhaps what sets Lost in Harmony apart. It uses the orb tapping gameplay fans of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and Elite Beat Agents will instantly recognize, but slides it in unexpectedly during each round.
Thus you will be dodging the various incoming missiles, motorbikes, and bears that are chasing down Kaito, and suddenly you will notice orbs filling the screen that demand your attention. This hugely mixes up the gameplay mid match, while also synergizing all of the different elements of gameplay and focusing your attention on the wonderful remixes of classical arrangements.
I cannot stress enough, that if you missed this game when it came to iOS you should get on it now, particularly as it just arrived on Android.
The Witness (Windows)
The Witness is a game that I had been intrigued by since it was first announced in 2009. But, in my mind, its success and quality were always a little bit in question. The game’s developer, Jonathan Blow, had only released one game previously – that was Braid – and while that was certainly brilliant, The Witness was a far bigger and more complex undertaking.
So, with almost 7 years between the game’s announcement and release I had become incredibly dubious about this “first person puzzle game”. But all of these fears were laid to rest the moment I started playing.
You walk about a beautiful, colorful island, finding a variety of grid shaped puzzles. The goal of all of these is simple – in theory, trace a single line from the start to the finish. But were The Witness excels is in how it complicates this by slowly layering in additional rules that must be applied across the various puzzle sets. This draw on shape, color, sound, the environment and more to organically increase the difficulty of puzzles. What more, it never explicitly explains a new rule – instead forcing you to experiment and work it out through play.
It’s fair to say I love it, and cannot get it out of my head. Literally, even now I am trying to work out a puzzle – but it will only be when I am trying to fall asleep that I will get that sudden flash of inspiration, which forces me to hop up, turn on the computer, and solve it.
Yes, much like Braid before it, there is a social commentary running under the surface – but it is entirely up to you whether you engage with this, or just sit back and enjoy the incredible puzzles.
Firewatch
Firewatch is a game I am certain belongs on a list of the best games I have tried in 2016, but still every time I think about it I end up feeling let down.
In some ways it came out of nowhere because, despite looking great when shown at E3, there seemed to be little known about this game from the new developer Campo Santo. What eventually arrived was a visually beautiful game with brilliant writing and voice direction.
You play as Henry, a firewatcher in a Wyoming national park, and live out the events of the summer there. All you really have to do is keep an eye out for fires in the sunbaked woodland, but in the isolation of the forest, events start to unfurl around you that leave you constantly wondering if all is as it should be.
I say isolation, because you are all alone through this 4 hour or so adventure, with your only communication and companionship being through a 2-way radio with another Firewatcher named Delilah. The two characters bounce off each other so convincingly, that you actually start to worry in how you respond to her. It’s a natural friendship, that gets you invested in her opinion of you – which is something games truly struggle to achieve.
The only problem is, I found the last half hour underwhelming. In part this was due to my own curiosity breaking Firewatch’s spell, as I searched areas for information even during dramatic moments. But also it was due to a rather unsatisfying conclusion to all of the stories various twists and turns which just left me feeling deflated.
Okay, while all the game’s on this list surprised me, none were as much of a shock as Lost in Harmony. This game came out of nowhere and completely stole all of my attention in the tail end of January.
It is a game that packs in so much style and variety that it is hard to define exactly what kind of game it is.
Perhaps its most obvious inspiration is the endless runner genre. Your skateboarding character, Kaito, automatically accelerating towards the screen as you try to avoid and leap over the obstacles that are flying at you from all sides.
Here is where the more artistic indie elements come in, with each area drawing inspiration from a range of periods and art styles to give the action the look of a pop-up book filled with a collage of images draw from any magazine the developers could get their hands on.
Finally there is the music, and this is perhaps what sets Lost in Harmony apart. It uses the orb tapping gameplay fans of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and Elite Beat Agents will instantly recognize, but slides it in unexpectedly during each round.
Thus you will be dodging the various incoming missiles, motorbikes, and bears that are chasing down Kaito, and suddenly you will notice orbs filling the screen that demand your attention. This hugely mixes up the gameplay mid match, while also synergizing all of the different elements of gameplay and focusing your attention on the wonderful remixes of classical arrangements.
I cannot stress enough, that if you missed this game when it came to iOS you should get on it now, particularly as it just arrived on Android.
The Witness (Windows)
The Witness is a game that I had been intrigued by since it was first announced in 2009. But, in my mind, its success and quality were always a little bit in question. The game’s developer, Jonathan Blow, had only released one game previously – that was Braid – and while that was certainly brilliant, The Witness was a far bigger and more complex undertaking.
So, with almost 7 years between the game’s announcement and release I had become incredibly dubious about this “first person puzzle game”. But all of these fears were laid to rest the moment I started playing.
You walk about a beautiful, colorful island, finding a variety of grid shaped puzzles. The goal of all of these is simple – in theory, trace a single line from the start to the finish. But were The Witness excels is in how it complicates this by slowly layering in additional rules that must be applied across the various puzzle sets. This draw on shape, color, sound, the environment and more to organically increase the difficulty of puzzles. What more, it never explicitly explains a new rule – instead forcing you to experiment and work it out through play.
It’s fair to say I love it, and cannot get it out of my head. Literally, even now I am trying to work out a puzzle – but it will only be when I am trying to fall asleep that I will get that sudden flash of inspiration, which forces me to hop up, turn on the computer, and solve it.
Yes, much like Braid before it, there is a social commentary running under the surface – but it is entirely up to you whether you engage with this, or just sit back and enjoy the incredible puzzles.
Firewatch
Firewatch is a game I am certain belongs on a list of the best games I have tried in 2016, but still every time I think about it I end up feeling let down.
In some ways it came out of nowhere because, despite looking great when shown at E3, there seemed to be little known about this game from the new developer Campo Santo. What eventually arrived was a visually beautiful game with brilliant writing and voice direction.
You play as Henry, a firewatcher in a Wyoming national park, and live out the events of the summer there. All you really have to do is keep an eye out for fires in the sunbaked woodland, but in the isolation of the forest, events start to unfurl around you that leave you constantly wondering if all is as it should be.
I say isolation, because you are all alone through this 4 hour or so adventure, with your only communication and companionship being through a 2-way radio with another Firewatcher named Delilah. The two characters bounce off each other so convincingly, that you actually start to worry in how you respond to her. It’s a natural friendship, that gets you invested in her opinion of you – which is something games truly struggle to achieve.
The only problem is, I found the last half hour underwhelming. In part this was due to my own curiosity breaking Firewatch’s spell, as I searched areas for information even during dramatic moments. But also it was due to a rather unsatisfying conclusion to all of the stories various twists and turns which just left me feeling deflated.