It’s not exactly a secret that I’m a big gamer, but it’s not something I talk about nearly as much as I should in my content.

Gaming is one thing I’ve reserved for myself (for now) that I can take pure joy and enjoyment in. While I’d love to work on writing (and potentially even developing) some game ideas I have in the future, I really like the separation of not having games be a part of my career right now.

With books, I have always been a big reader, but being a writer has slowly eroded my love of reading for many reasons. For one, I can never publicly review or discuss the books I love (as much as I want to!) since those are my fellow peers and it would be in poor taste to do so. And as I get better at writing every year, I also become more critical of books that I read. I can’t help but notice things that are poor quality, that I would have happily overlooked years ago in place of enjoying the story, but now, really take the enjoyment out of reading for me.

So, that really sucks. But it’s all part of the gig.

And it’s why, I love gaming as my main outlet. I game far more than I read, and I can completely switch my brain off while doing it. Because of that, I played a lot of games this year… and I want to talk about some that were on my most anticipated list, and others that simply stuck with me.

Discounty

Discounty was my #1 most anticipated game of this year… which is why I didn’t expect my review to go quite like this.

First of all, I do recommend this game. It really hooked me from the start and I played it for 2 weeks straight before I started to lose steam.

It is a really fun game, where you play as a supermarket owner and your job is to establish local trade deals, scan items, design the layout of and keep your supermarket stocked (the entrepreneur within me loved all of these aspects of the game!)

But, one thing that initially sold me on this game was the premise of being able to chose whether you go down the unethical, global corporate mega-store route vs helping the locals. And one disappointment I have with the game is that it doesn’t actually feel like you get this choice at all. The story simply progresses in a way that paints you as the villain.

In my opinion, having more pathways for solving problems and option choices would have given this game more replayability, which is already a complaint I’ve seen in other the reviews of the game.

As mentioned, I really enjoyed establishing and levelling up the trade deals and unlocking various items, but I do wish there had been more than 4 trade partners to work with since you unlock each of these fairly quickly.

I did find the pacing and the mini games in this game a lot of fun (which is surprising, since I’m not a big fan of ‘mini games’ within games). There’s a maths-game that I (again, given my loathing for maths, surprisingly) enjoyed for checking out items, which later becomes a scanning tool that feels a bit like dance-dance-revolution supermarket edition. But regardless, both are really fun.

Overall, I think this is a solid game but there’s definitely room for expansion. I know the development team is very small (4 people) and they plan to expand on the game and it’s post-ending playability, but as someone who has played a lot of early access games, I actually think this game could have benefited from being in early access upon release. It doesn’t feel like a ‘complete’ game, but rather, something I’d still be expecting content for. And I think a lot of people would have bought and supported this game (along with the added development of it) in early access to achieve a more fulfilling experience overall.

Forspoken

This is the first, and so far only, big RPG game I played this year (that I actually finished and played for longer than a couple of hours).

I went into this knowing it didn’t review very well, but I actually really enjoyed it and still think about it all these months after finishing it.

Forspoken is exactly the kind of story I like to write books about. It follows Frey, an orphan who stumbles into a fantasy world by accident and finds herself ‘cuffed’ (hehe) by Vambrace (aka: arguably one of the best characters I’ve ever encountered).

The bond between Frey and Cuff is… complicated. I don’t want to spoil anything, but this was an emotional rollercoaster and I had theories but did NOT see the plot twist of this game coming.

And the annoying part is… looking back in hindsight at all the dialogue, it’s actually SO obvious (if you’re a psychology major, you’ll probably pick it up real quick). 

The twist of this game really shook me. I couldn’t believe it, then found myself not *wanting* to believe it, then basically having an existential crisis as my mind began dissecting this game, the story, and it’s characters in an essay-like fashion.

Let’s talk about the gameplay itself: I have to be honest, I didn’t really get how the mechanics or level-up system worked until halfway through. But I was able to fumble my way through and had a lot of fun. Unlocking new powers was one of the more enjoyable parts, and I found myself looking forward to trying out new abilities.

In terms of the map… it’s stunning. And way too large for what it is. You spend so much time trying to reach each boss that you lose interest in clearing dungeous and completing challenges (all of which are very repetitive in nature) and I discovered much later on that if I wanted to be strong enough to proceed, I was going to need to go back through most of the map and do all of them.

I would have loved exploring more of the map and new areas if there had been more to discover, more story to learn, and more to do beyond these basic skills-building puzzles scattered throughout.

But, overall, still a really enjoyable game for me. I felt an emotional connection to the characters (even Frey, who is admittedly annoying most of the game), and a drive to progress the story and find out what happens. I found each boss to be (almost too) difficult and felt appropriately challenged fighting each one.

I also picked up Forspoken because it was recommended to be similar to one of my favourite games of all time: Horizon Zero Dawn. So, if you’ve been looking for something that has similar vibes (and a similar feeling while playing), then I’d ignore the negative reviews and give this one a try. 

Fields of Mistria

I have been playing a far lot more of Fields of Mistria this year, especially with their most recent update which adds romance options to the game!

Fields of Mistria is a farming game with magical abilities added in. I’ve already spoken a little about what I like about this game in a previous blog, but what got me back into it was a drive to progress the story, clear the mines, master fishing (which I usually hate in cosy games) and… pursue a romance! (In case you’re curious, I’ve been dating March).

This game has added something I’ve never seen before in cosy farming games, and that’s the ability to go on dates! You can choose the date you want to go on, and you even get a little keepsake photo to remember it!

This is a game I keep coming back to and, personally, heavily prefer over Stardew Valley (gasp!) Not that it’s a competition or anything, I’ve just tried Stardew Valley so many times and never make it past Year 2, yet I find myself really enjoying Fields of Mistra. If you haven’t yet tried it, I would highly recommend it! 

Waterpark Simulator

Okay, this is a game I only recently discovered, and it’s really dumb. But it’s also really addictive and fun.

As you can probably guess, this is a game where you build and run your own waterpark. But unlike complex builders like Zoo Tycoon or Theme Park Tycoon, it’s a fairly simple one to play.

You add pools and slides. You build food stands and serve food. You constantly mop up puzzles and fix stuff or else people slip and fall and get injured. You get fined when the ambulance comes. You scoop poop out of the pools when there are no more toilets available. It’s SO dumb and keeps you so busy that it’s really fun.

The uplevel options really give this game motivation. Gradually, you unlock new decorations, price increases, and other tools that make things easier to run the park. 

So, if you enjoy tycoon games, give this one a try! 

Grimshire

This game has a really interesting concept, but despite my many attempts to get into it, I haven’t played it enough yet to really experience it (that being said, I’m playing on an easier difficulty which has probably made it harder for me to hit a point of challenge right off the bat).

What drew me to this game is that it’s half cosy, half survival. Unlike most cosy games where you sell your crops, make your profit, and life goes on, in this game, the town depends on receiving your crops to survive. This creates a lot of variables.

For one, you aren’t able to sell your crops for money to progress other parts of the game, because you end up choosing between keeping villagers alive or earning a profit.

As the game goes on, keeping the cellar stocked enough to keep all the citizens alive gets harder, and you end up having to make difficult choices to make ends meet.

I *really* loved this concept to add a new layer to my farm gaming experience, but playing on an easy difficulty in early game means… things go really slow. And without a way to make money, it’s almost too slow to keep me engaged, since I’ve got my cellar stocked enough that my citizens can survive, but the moment I chose not to, it won’t be. I don’t want to move on to selling my crops until it get that baseline above a certain level, and yet… growing crops to achieve that is slow, slow, slow!

I’m still really interested in playing this game and exploring it further, but I’m definitely thinking about playing it on a different difficulty and reevaluating my experience with the game after that. So, you’ll probably hear me talk about this one again in the future!