Building a mech in trailmakers because it's fun. I got the weapons worked out but I can't get this picky fuck to walk. It really wants to skip about. Normally I'd support my machine going rogue and having fun with it's newly gained free will but it has a chance to randomly explode and stomp on civilians. So unfortunately I have to digitally lobomize it
This year didn't have much going for it. "Could've been worse" is little comfort these days. I'd say I kept myself busy, but honestly, not really? I worked on some small projects, but everything mostly just sort of… existed this year. Here are some specific things that existed this year.
(2024 ⇐ 2025)
Monument Valley
Another year, another assortment of puzzle games, narrative games, and general miscellany. Games I could chip away at a few levels at a time when I had a spare moment, or games I could run through in a session or two but linger in my mind long after. Somewhere in the overlap between all those categories was Monument Valley (the first two games, and the third whenever I get around to it), one of those perfect little experiences that seems tailor-made for my tastes in particular: neat puzzles about navigating vibrant Escher landscapes. Still holds up today, over a decade since the first game was released.
(Honorable mentions, puzzle: River Towns, LOK Digital, Strange Jigsaws, CIPHER ZERO, Leap Year, Proverbs)
(Honorable mentions, narrative: Frogsong, Welcome to Elk)
(Honorable mentions, miscellaneous: A Solitaire Mystery, ENA: Dream BBQ, Elephantasy: Flipside)
LUMINES Remastered
"Puzzle game" sure does encompass a lot of subgenres, huh. As far as arcade puzzlers go, there are a lot of different ways to do falling blocks, and Lumines has always sort of felt like its own little corner (but not an isolated corner, given the likes of Tetris Effect and Lumines Arise). Having now played it, I can say it's well earned: simple mechanics with a lot of depth and challenge, wrapped in excellent sound and visuals. And the truest sign of a good falling blocks puzzle, the patterns lodge themselves in my head and I keep thinking about ways to fit them together long after I stop playing. Squares upon squares upon squares.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
My sister got me this one as a gift, and we had a good time with it. It's a fun twist on the old-school Zelda format; still has the exploration and dungeon crawling, but with a completely different and much larger set of tools. It's fun to play around and find different useful summons for different scenarios.
Or just, like, set everything on fire. That works too.
ABI-DOS / Last Call BBS
I went back to the well of programming games this year: I picked up the other half of the Zachtronics collection, and played through TIS-100, SHENZHEN I/O, and Last Call BBS (I'll get to EXAPUNKS sooner or later, and now Kaizen as well). As far as programming games go, the closer they become to being Actually Just Code the more they need to do to keep my interest, but TIS and SHENZHEN have some a good variety of constraints and challenges to work around. Last Call BBS goes in a different direction, being a collection of smaller games that opt for breadth over depth — a bit of programming, a bit of solitaire, some puzzles, even a nifty little model kit builder. All three titles present themselves as period pieces about tech culture ('80s, near future, and '90s respectively), tying them all together nicely. Looking forward to what Coincidence puts out in the future.
That's not to say they're the only ones out there, though. Earlier in the year I also tried out ABI-DOS, which quickly climbed up the ranks of my favorite Zachlikes. It hit all the right notes, with a mechanical complexity that keeps building upon itself and an extra layer of optimization challenges. The best kind of programming challenge, one that makes you spend hours puzzling out a single level, but also makes you want to come back and keep doing that over and over.
Trailmakers
I've seen a few people play this game over the years, and it always seemed like a fun time. One Steam sale later, and hey wait where did the last three weeks go. It's a fun vehicle builder and physics sandbox, though some parts were more intuitive than others (I could build decently functional cars and boats and submarines, but never really did figure out airplanes…) I played through both campaigns in the base game to completion, though it feels like I only really scratched the surface: there's still co-op, DLC, and generally tinkering around in the sandbox to build more efficient machines and/or overengineered contraptions. Things to revisit in the future.
The Wandering Village
…Though with all the games coming out, I'm always playing catch-up. I got a backer key for this one when it launched in early access, but I've had enough on my backlog that I could wait patiently for this one to reach 1.0. Worth the wait, I think. A nice city builder with an interesting premise and aesthetic, and a campaign that's just about right, not too short but not too challenging.
Onbu is a friend.
Root
Going into 2025, I decided I would force myself to socialize a little more. Progress has been… slow but steady. I found a local group that runs a weekly board game night and have been making an effort to attend (semi-)regularly, and it's been one of the few bright spots for me in an otherwise grey year. I don't have the social battery for it often, but when I do it's a good time, and a good excuse to try out a game I've never played before.
Root is on the list both as a representative of all the board games I tried this year, and because it's a fascinating game in its own right. I had a chance to play the tabletop version a couple times (but only a couple times, hard to organize a group for it unfortunately) and quickly developed an interest both aesthetically and mechanically; eventually I picked up the digital version so I could understand it more on my own time. There's some neat things going on here, and it's sparked some inspiration for my own work that I'd like to carry forward into the coming year.
(Runner-up: Betrayal at House on the Hill)
Peggle
This has been a weird year for picking up old hobbies. I found a reason to start playing board games again. Card games too; I've been playing Eternal more often. I recovered my old Neopets account and have been following through on some old goals I left unfinished. And somewhere between those I replayed Peggle Deluxe (and Peggle Nights), which I hadn't touched since before I even had a Steam account. For one reason or another (overlapping reasons, sometimes) I was drawn back to all of them this year. Nostalgia is funny like that.
Nuclear Throne
For all the games I played back in the day, there are just as many I could've played but never got around to. I reached deep into the backlog for this one; picked it up in a bundle ages ago but never played it, and the recent anniversary update was as good an excuse as any. It's fun, but it's probably the most challenging game I picked out this year. Even winning a single run was an ordeal. I mostly don't regret it, though, and I'll have to keep trawling my backlog for more in the coming year. Some of these games have waited long enough.
NAIAD
One more I've been wanting to play for a while. It's… something special. Slow, meandering, and beautiful. A lovely little ecosystem to explore and see how all the little pieces of flora and fauna interact, and collect little fragments of music and poetry. Every chapter I want to look at it and listen to it just as much as I want to play it. File NAIAD right next to TOEM under "games that make me a little happier when I think about them".
I like to start or end the year with something nice. I think this will do just fine.
i was trying to make a vanship in trailmakers but i couldn’t get a canon design with the building system so i made my own and then i made lore for it and now i made a whole new subsection of the sky pirates called the Vultures who scavenge remains of battles to make their own vanships and the names are all bird themed i only have one vanship created at the moment though but it’s called the hummingbird it’s purpose built to be able to be rushed together from scraps when needed and it gets its name from its speed, finickiness, and unique ability to (somewhat) go backwards
I’m a Trailmakers player, one of my top 5 games easily, a block based vehicle building sandbox, and it’s one of the few I’ve found with really nice buoyancy and lift mechanics.
I’m telling you all this because I wanna brag about the fact that I’m 22nd in the world on one of the boat races right now with a sub 1 minute lap and the jet boat I made is super pretty. 530kph in a straight line and handles like it’s on rails.
It has an airliner turbine behind the cockpit, which pushes it forward and down, and the two paddles on the front skids hold it up off the water on hydroplane. There are two more in the back that act more as an elevator, holding the back end up and balanced on the front planes. Two points of contact with the water, super streamlined body, minimal drag.
