Like this. My advent calendar picks weren't embarrassing enough, so now I can throw you a few extras, like the discarded licorice pieces I found on the back of the sofa. Open wide.
I'm kidding, of course. They're almost exclusively fun little games that keep me busy for hours because they're so damn fun to dive into in short bursts, making them perfect for the holidays. Go to your in-laws, play one of them for an hour, go to the other in-laws, play for another hour, go to your in-laws. Wash, rinse, repeat. Then realize that it is January, and the inexorable advance of time does not stop for anyone.
Once upon a time in Katamari
My first introduction to the game Katamari was at an after-school club. I remember almost instantly falling in love with its strange charm, but couldn't remember what it was called when I begged my parents to buy me a copy to play in my free time. You are a tiny prince. Your father, the record-breaking, talking selfish King of the Cosmos, is somehow corrupting the galaxy. So you go to Earth and roll objects into balls to form new planets and stars.
Once Upon a Katamari is like that, but this time you play through levels set in different historical eras. Feudal Japan, Ancient Egypt, the American West, the Ice Age – they're all here, and each has unique things that you need to roll as quickly as possible or form into as big a ball as possible. Some levels also offer strange twists on this simple formula, such as the one that puts you in the middle of a war between samurai bears and cows. The challenge here, assuming I wasn't hallucinating, is to roll as big a ball as possible without picking up any of the ubiquitous cows or bears until the very end.
Along the way, you collect the prince's cousins ​​to gain more quirkily shaped characters to play as, and customize them with the cosmetic gear you receive as gifts. Bun Bun is my favorite because he's just a little guy with donuts.
Stick it to Stickman
Stick It to the Stickman is a game I haven't even heard of this year. I played his demo and since then I can’t get enough Wrath Legs Office brawler from the developers of Free Lives. The idea is simple. There is an apartment building where you, a stickman, get a job. Then you lose your rag and have to fight your way through floors of fellow assassins to fight your boss and take his place as the red man in the snazzy top hat.
Along the way, there's plenty of cringe-worthy corporate satire going on. Being a bit like a roguelike, the game's tower evolves as you fight it, using different character builds – all based on office worker stereotypes – with purchasable upgrades adding new areas or additional design features to make scaling easier as enemies get tougher. Meanwhile, weapons range from punches and kicks to chainsaws and fire extinguishers, which you gradually upgrade or add to your arsenal along the way.
Every time you reach the top, you replace yourself with the same corporate drone that must answer to a group of vengeful god-like overlords, or defy those overlords and suffer their wrath. His in early access At the time of writing, Free Lives is still adding late-game features that further enliven the surprisingly enjoyable central loop. It's great now, so naturally I'm looking forward to the day when it's fully implemented.
Promise Mascot Agency
I have to give credit to Nick (RPS of the world) for putting me on Promise Mascot Agency. He lyrically about it when I was at my old house, blissfully unaware of the existence of mascot management games. I wonder if he was disappointed with the full version. He found his central cycle of traveling to places in search of things and tirelessly managing the work of mascots annoying. In the meantime, I found the game's pacing of collecting and commanding to be very hectic at times, but I managed to get to the point where I had enough spare cash to I could take the time to smell the roses in the wonderfully atmospheric rural Japanese climate of Kaso-Machi.
Most of the characters are mascots and townspeople, whom the dynamic duo of yakuzaman Michi and evil thumb mascot Pinky become acquainted with when they launch the titular mascot agency, trying to help the former pay to keep his gangster family alive after a deal with the underworld goes wrong. Their charming and quirky personalities are the game's biggest strength, as they can handle the more boring and frustrating aspects of getting around town in Michi's kei truck and interacting with interfaces to earn money, likely dictating how tuned you are to PMA.
I dig it. Of course, sometimes I wished he would let me explore without telling me where things were. Or if he couldn't shake money out of me every five minutes. But I'm too interested to see if this matcha cat can achieve her dream of opening a tea shop. I like Mottsun, the mascot doomed to spend his life promoting the smelly offal dish, with the same gusto that Red Dwarf's Dave Lister expresses his love of curry. I like Karushi, a ghost of office burnout past who speaks in cryptic novel-style metaphors and just wants to advocate for unionization. They are worth any stress that managing a mascot causes.
