In 2015, I decided to keep a record of what media I consumed, with a short record of my thoughts about each (one or two sentences only).
This is every videogame I played for longer than 30 minutes, and some of the games I spent less than that with (I was very inconsistent recording brief play sessions or prototype/game jam games).
The complete 2015 review:
- games I made
- books I read
- films I watched
- videogames I played
- boardgames I played
January
Ittle Dew
Master Cave is great, rest of the game a bit easy/undirected.
868-HACK
Really good, but I can’t play quickly so it becomes a bit of a timesink for me.
Framed
Playing these early levels a second time is really tedious, animations take so long.
Hexcells
Lots of rote work, lots of too-big puzzles. Not super-fun but not awful either. Felt bad playing with laptop touchpad.
February
No games, just finishing A Good Snowman
March
Stellar Smooch
Like a more trial-and-error-based Castles in the Sky.
Framed
Got a bit better after I got out of the bit I’d played before.
Hexcells Plus
An improvement over Hexcells. Soothing.
Toki Tori
Mechanics weren’t terrible but the level design wasn’t good enough to hold my attention.
RUSH
I feel like I could teach a design course using only this as an example of what not to do.
Toki Tori 2+
An unbelievably massive improvement over Toki Tori & RUSH, so many annoyances removed. Didn’t hold my attention though.
Assault Android Cactus
Played the bosses, skipped the rest. I didn’t hate it.
Helldivers
Very satisfying mech-suit.
Stephen’s Sausage Roll (beta)
So good!
Aunt Flora’s Mansion
Some puzzles are kinda awkward but it’s neat overall.
Laser Hundo
I wish the feedback for the laser charging was more visible.
Nerdy Dwarf
Good puzzling. Levels got a bit too big towards the end though.
Tetrobot and Co
Great puzzle game.
April
Ernesto (beta)
Some good puzzles, some okay puzzles. Will be better with hidden optional tasks.
Inbetween a Land of Grass
Less fun working out the mechanics than solving it, but a good puzzle.
Bloodborne
It’s okay. Couldn’t get used to the controls.
The Beginner’s Guide (beta)
It didn’t blow me away. At one point I realised that some of my problems with it were actually intentionally there for narrative reasons, which was interesting but weirdly offputting.
Tiltagon
Missed opportunity to do that eyetracking thing to make things seem 3D. Possibly the only good use of tilt controls?
Line Wobbler
Visually impressive, game works well for what it is.
Else Heart.Break()
An event was really not the right setting to dip into an RPG.
Future Unfolding (preview)
Initially I thought this was just a tech demo, but then I found much more mystery than I was expecting to.
Codex Bash
Does exactly what it aims to. Hectic and funny.
Infinite Viking Quest 2
Not really playable, but a great idea.
Code 7
Incredibly unsubtle. Pretty impressive for a week’s work though.
Lucid Trips (preview)
Input was incredibly buggy/awkward, hopefully that can be improved. Potential for being a really neat experience.
Mario Kart 8
It’s Mario Kart.
New Super Mario Bros
Kill the life system. Kill it dead.
Gauntlet
Probably fun if you like hitting things with swords and collecting gold.
Rabbids Land
Weird that for lots of games someone has to be left out.
Mario Party 10
Arrrrgggghh. Please just give me minigames without the terrible random overworld bit.
May
Snakebird
Good puzzles. Mechanics can be slightly awkward, but you get used to it.
Samurai gunn
Sometimes I can be good at this game.
June/July/August
No videogames but lots of boardgames.
September
Sage solitaire
I’m not sure why I played this as much as I did. Fairly addictive, which is not exactly a recommendation.
Okay?
Nice design, good if slow pacing. Not too deep but I played until I hit a particularly inelegant level.
Alien Hive
Full of F2P horribleness. Blitz mode was more appealing than main mode.
Memento+
Fairly pretentious. Mechanics were interesting but the levels themselves not so much.
Ms Pacman
I played against someone who’d played a lot, and it was very very obvious.
Chesh
Played against the AI and nothing clicked, then played against humans and it was great.
Shadowmatic
A nice looking but fairly empty experience. Awkward UI in later levels.
Secret legend (preview)
Beautiful and enticing.
Her story
I had heard a single word spoiler on Twitter and that drastically affected my experience. Still had an engaging time though.
Plug and play
I don’t think I have anything unique to say about it.
October
Mario maker
This reminded me that I don’t really enjoy playing Mario.
Fantastic contraption (beta)
Really neat! Not sure how much scope there is for more levels than this build had though.
Sage Solitaire
Started playing again to try Vegas mode.
Imbroglio (beta)
I had to delete this from my iPad because I kept playing “one more game”.
Pry
Really neat interaction design!
Parallax
Puzzles weren’t as deep as I was hoping they would be. Nice aesthetic though.
12 Minutes (preview)
Really promising! Keen to see where it goes after the introduction.
Unseen Diplomacy
Great use of the Vive. The wall indicators were frequently immersion-breaking though.
Imaginal
Was surprised to read an anecdote in the game that I’d also heard from the developer in person. Was a weird flashback moment.
November
Cubic Space
Adam mentioned on a podcast that it’s his favourite game he’s made but that no one played it (not true, I played it when it came out too). It’s too abstract to be really compelling, but “one more try” enough to grab me for a while until I got a high score of 50.
Road Not Taken
It looks great, but I just can’t get behind the procedural puzzles and turn-counting.
December
Nethernovel
Not as bad as it could have been.
You Die
This has been done a lot and I don’t need to play another one.
Stachey Bros
Tedious on so many levels. Couldn’t stand it for more than three levels.
the Sequence
Could be an okay programming-type game, but took too long to get interesting so I guess I’ll never know.
Upsquid
Took me a while to work out the controls. Would be nice if it got harder over time, but still enjoyable for a while.
Rust Bucket
It’s a better looking version of Ending but that’s probably no bad thing. Got more into roguelike mode than I did in Ending, and had 2nd best score worldwide.
Elements
Argh so much room escape awfulness.
Ending
Went back to this for comparison to Rust Bucket. The lack of text in menus is really alienating, the roguelike mode gets harder faster, and the graphics are readable but soulless.
Imbroglio (beta)
Oh no help I reinstalled it. Actually I’m doing better at not getting sucked into it this time though.
Super Smash Bros 4
This feels really bad to play with the sideways wiimote.
Noby Noby Boy
I will play this if you thrust the controller into my hands.
In summary
Best puzzle game - released
Tetrobot and Co
Best puzzle game - unreleased
Stephen’s Sausage Roll
Best multiplayer
Chesh
Biggest timesink
Imbroglio
Common themes
Games being shown at game festivals
Free mobile/flash games.