Gaming is a divisive topic in the trivia world. A lot of players know a lot of things about a lot of games. A lot of players know very little about games except that Luigi is the one with the green hat, and they’re often less than thrilled when we ask about them. Our staff, though, we know things about games. Let us tell you a few of them.
Games We Liked in 2024
Michelle’s Picks
I love pixel art, I love a restaurant manager, and I love games where you can lose hours to the satisfying chores of a digital world. That is why in 2024 “Dave the Diver” was a game that got over 100 hours of my playtime. I appreciated the easy play and the gentle progression loop as I swam through the various levels of the sea encountering new ingredients and fish for my sushi shop. It kept both me and my souls-like partner entertained through and past the final credits.
“Cities Skylines I” is like “Sim City” tuned to 2024 with a whole community of modders continuing to add new buildings and features to the game. To start, you’re given a plot of land, a connection to a highway, and a vague goal to build the largest, most efficient city you can. Build your city layout, plan where your citizens will work and what public transit might get them there. Add parks, manage power plants, deal with noise pollution. Solving your traffic problem with a new subway system might not be your favorite late night, house-to-yourself activity, but it sure is mine. (Note: The sequel to the original game, “Cities Skylines II”, came out this year, and it’s just not as well supported or optimized as “Cities I” yet. If you're looking for a game to try, go for the first and you’ll have a much less frustrating experience.)
Honorable Mention: “Stardew Valley” continues to be the game I can’t quit, and the new 1.6 content released this year has brought me back to the 8-year-old game for a new playthrough.
– Data Manager Michelle
Sophie’s Picks
I’m a few years behind on the latest game release schedule, which means my favorite game I played this year is 2022’s “The Case of the Golden Idol.” I first picked it up because someone described it as a spiritual successor to “Return of the Obra Dinn,” an absolutely fantastic and unconventional mystery game in which you puzzle out the events that led to the abandonment of a merchant ship by tracing the gruesome deaths of its passengers and crew members. “The Case of the Golden Idol” has a similar concept, as you work through a series of deaths surrounding a mysterious golden idol as it passes hands throughout the years. The game has very simple mechanics — you’re mostly just clicking through a frozen scene to add words to an answer bank, which you’ll use to create a mind map of the events leading to each death. But that’s not a knock: simple mechanics can be deceptively difficult to get right, and “Case of the Golden Idol” pulls it off well. By and large, “The Case of the Golden Idol” is an exercise in efficiency, as its vignettes give you just enough information to solve each individual case, while still keeping you engaged and furthering your understanding of the idol’s larger narrative. Highly recommend if you’re a fan of puzzle or mystery games! (Bonus: if you have Netflix, you can download it as one of the many mobile games they offer for free, along with its 2024 sequel, “The Rise of the Golden Idol.”)
– Editor Sophie
Greg’s Picks
I spent most of my time playing couch co-op games this year, and “Nobody Saves the World” was the star of that show. This top-down Zelda-like lets you pick and choose transformations from such wide options as Rat, Mermaid, Snail, Horse, and Bodybuilder. What makes it unique is that leveling up your forms lets you carry over your skills to others. Want to be a prancing pony with poisonous kicks? Make it happen! The art of the world and characters is grubby and expressive. Two players can team up on the same console for significant mayhem. We passed the controller back and forth for our other favorite pick, “Thank Goodness You're Here.” This game flings players into an animated version of Northern Britain for a truly madcap and uniquely hilarious experience. It’s a short game, but the voice acting and humor are top notch.
The busy holiday season of Private Events kept me too occupied to dive into some single player experiences, but the ones I’m aiming to tackle during these slower weeks are “The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom,” “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown” and the “Elden Ring” expansion “Shadow of the Erdtree.” Though I fear my skills at that game have grown… Tarnished.
– Private Events Manager Greg
Aaron’s Picks
I’m no elite gamer. The only thing I played in 2024 was a game that came out in 2023 and certainly doesn’t need any assistance from me on the sales or critical-acclaim front. It’s “Baldur’s Gate 3,” and golly, it’s a big sprawling gory raunchy romp. And hey, if you ever felt like doing your bazillion-hour playthrough as a giant fish (you know you do!), you can now get mods on the console version.
– EIC Aaron Retka
Tony’s Picks
After years of deciding, “I can skip this,” or “I can’t get wrapped up into another hobby,” I decided to take the leap and get into the Pokémon Trading Card Game and playing at local events. I’ve had a great time learning the game and all of its different strategies, connecting with old friends and talking to new people at events, and am pleasantly surprised with how having and maintaining a fairly competitive deck in a TCG game hasn’t ruined me financially (your mileage may vary).
– Content Creator Tony
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