I hope disco elysium and tunic are both in the rankings, because they’re probably two of the most perfectly crafted experiences in the last 20 or 30 years, never mind just 1 decade.
The Last Campfire is delightful, and feels like being read a bedtime story. God, it’s good. I could listen to the narrator read the back of a shampoo bottle.
Planet of Lana is a drop dead gorgeous side scrolling puzzle platformer with a beautiful soundtrack and world building.
Beacon Pines isn’t technically linear, in that you can complete some stuff in an order of your choosing. But the overall experience is quite linear. Its an exquisite experience, I can’t recommend it enough.
If you enjoyed Undertale, play OneShot. No question. Its splendid.
Night in the Woods is a joy as well, it makes me nostalgic for a childhood I never had. Must-play.
Stray - you are a cat doing cat things in a broken future. Splendid experience.
Mirror’s Edge is a game I think everyone should experience at least once. It’s beautiful.
Celeste - it has the best tuned difficulty curve I’ve seen in any game, and it wants you to succeed. It also tells a really beautiful story. God the platforming is good. Its so good. By the end of it, you are doing things you never thought you’d dream of doing. You’ll feel like a speedrunner with all the little movement tricks you’re able to do.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a thought provoking masterpiece and a little spooky.
QA is part of the game development process and its supposed to happen before it reaches end users. They’ve made some good games but they can’t act all surprised that selling a game and letting users be free QA doesn’t cut it.
There’s no jubilation at “seeing a big game fail” there’s jubilation at seeing a game fail that is developed by a studio that is doing fucked up shit, or a game that is shovelling some fucked up agenda, or the like.
We dance on the graves of any game developed by Actiblizz, Ubisoft, EA, etc not because they are big games, but because they are developed by evil corporations.
You said in your comment “they tend to have appearances” which in itsself alludes to the true fact that there’s some who won’t be “covered”. I was more upset by your dismissal of their experiences than I was by your game design suggestion.
I think you’ll find a good many intersex folk would have something to say about being “covered” by being entirely excluded by your arbitrary choice of categorisation.
But like, not everybody is born one of two biological sexes, so if we’re doing away with societal constructs we may as well get rid of this nebulous concept of a rigid biological sex binary.
Prism launcher is pretty sweet but its very barebones. If you want “features” (mods) like badlion comes pre-installed with you’ll have to add them yourself, but its very simple to do.
Bonus that prism launcher is developed by hella queer folks!
Favourite: Steam Deck, hands down. It has totally revolutionised the way I play games. I very often choose to play games on my deck instead of on my far more powerful pc.
Least favourite: Smartphone. The closest I’ve come to having an enjoyable traditional gaming experience on a smartphone was Sky: Children of the Light but even then I was constantly getting frustrated with the touchscreen controls and dealing with my phone getting as hot as the surface of the sun. Its also just not a comfortable shape to hold while you game.
I have no doubt that Eddings wouldn’t want to have anything to do with anything remotely close to Pitchford after that kind of treatment. If he did, that’s a toxic as fuck environment to create.