While I would go so far as to say that I have affection for the team here at RPS, they definitely tested my patience when it came to voting on the advent calendar. How dare they not play and love the same games as me all year long? Here I am, the new main boss, and I couldn't find anyone from the group who had put in the required number of hours into Chip and Close vs. Brainoids. Shameful.
Thank goodness I can fix this with my selection frame.
Next year, after a full 12 months in the editor's chair, I'll explore all the levers of power that will allow me to create an advent calendar that truly reflects my tastes. Or I'll learn to love this democracy they talk about*.
Although, in truth, my first game is more of an admission of omission.
Deep skin
I started playing Deep skin It's too late to include it in this year's advent calendar vote, and I think I'll be kicking myself for this oversight for a long time. In Blendo Games' little im-sim, you play as an insurance commando cryogenically frozen on deep space ships piloted by cats. In the (surprisingly common) case of pirates boarding a ship, you have to rescue the purring crew members and escape the ship.
Like the best simulation games, how you complete your mission is up to you. You can sneak up on the pirates and slam them into the nearest wall, or throw soda cans at a window until it shatters and send the marauders flying into space, or use the soap dispenser to create a cloud of flammable gas, attract an unsuspecting pirate, throw a lighter into the flammable flame, pick up the head of a just-dead pirate and flush it down the toilet.
Skin Deep is a welcoming and fun genre game that sits just as well alongside the Dishonoreds, Preys, and Deus Exs of this world. However, it has one advantage over them: it has significantly more cats and a James Bond-style opening theme song.
Strange Antiquities
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While remaining in charge of your boss's antique store, your job is to sell customers magical charms or trinkets that suit their needs. They may come in knowing exactly what they want—say, a shadow grab—but you'll have to consult your catalog for a rough description of the item. At this point, you have to search the shelves and drawers of the boutique, relying on all your senses to identify the item. For example, you can guess what is most likely a pumpkin with an intricate engraved design “used to contain the Oshad spirit” or a wooden box that is strangely cold to the touch.
As well as Hardspace: Shipbreaker With a permanent docking port in my heart to teach me the ins and outs of a job I will never actually have, the path to becoming an expert in identifying and selling magical items is deeply satisfying. If this were a fair world, 16-year-old me would have spent a week of my work experience helping customers find the perfect pigeon proof, rather than working behind the counter at a video game store telling someone they really shouldn't worry about Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.
Hurdling
Will be completed in one evening, Hurdling sees you running out of a dirty city with a pack of strange animals called calicorns. These shaggy, horned creatures are part bear, part goat, part guinea pig, and all heart. You lead them into the mountains on a journey to the music of an orchestra, saving them from man-made and natural dangers.
Edwin wasn't a big fan of Herdling. when he reviewed it in August. And while I agree that its story is simplistic and the “city bad, nature good” themes are cliched and your role as a shepherd/tamer isn't questioned or explored, I found it a much-needed tonic. Herdling rejuvenated me in a month when I felt cornered by the short winter days and noisy traffic on the streets around my apartment.
Let's hope that the Free Shepherd, a game where you play as a border collie herding a flock of sheepgives me the incisive critique of the shepherd-shepherd power dynamic I'm looking for…
Chip 'N Close Vs. Brainoids
Looking like a lost Saturday morning cartoon, Chip and Claw vs. the Brainoids finds you trying to save what's left of Earth from alien invaders with brains in jars. In this co-op game that combines real-time strategy, tower defense and MOBA, you fight back against invaders by collecting resources, building towers that spew units, and leading your troops against enemy bases.
Your troops are placed into fairly simple rock-paper-scissors style counters where artillery destroys buildings, aerial drones smash artillery, ranged troops destroy drones, and melee units outnumber ranged units, but the small maps and low number of units make for a forgiving environment for micromanagement. However, it can be a challenging strategy game at times, especially if you're playing the single player game. From map to map, you'll have to wield your units like scalpels, cutting through each layer of the enemy's base defense one at a time.
For someone like me who loved the genre-blending strategy games of the early 2000s like Giants: Citizen KabutoHostile waters and War zone 98, Chip 'n Clawz is the gaming flavor that's been sorely missed.
Count Monte Clicker
As I wrote in my advent calendar entry for The AltersI've spent a lot of time this year playing idle games on a second screen while doing less-demanding work.
It's not a genre I'd fully recommend, as I think most of my enjoyment comes from the smooth delivery of dopamine when pressing refresh buttons, rather than any challenge associated with making meaningful choices. And Count Monte Clicker doesn't change that. However, he has obvious savvy… chutzpah… an unbridled desire to retell the story of Alexandre Dumas' “The Count of Monte Cristo” with the blunt instruments of an idle clicker.
With scenes where you gradually improve your masonry-crushing tools while digging a tunnel out of a prison, and others where you increase your stroke speed and unlock dolphins as you swim from the shores of a prison island to nearby land, Count of Monte Clicker remains in my memory among all the other idle games I've played this year.
It's great to see the same mechanics that I've encountered over and over again in other games take on new life with a simple change of theme. I don't know if it's my algorithm or if Steam is actually seeing a spike in the number of idle games, but if there are a lot more of them, then I hope they share the same ingenuity.
*Honestly, the Treehouse folks are a great bunch and it's been a pleasure working with them and hearing about the games they've enjoyed this year.
