Awesome news, friends! Monochrome Heights, a challenging platformer with a unique mechanic created by Patrick Knisely of One Frog Games, now has a demo available (which he also updated recently)!
I’ve been working with Patrick to help develop and write the narrative for this game, in which Happy the robot must climb a tower to defeat an old comrade before she destroys the last of humanity. It is so amazing to see Patrick’s hard work as this game comes together.
Oxenfree II: Lost Signals (Night School Studio) is a narrative adventure game about Riley, a 32-year old woman who returns to her home town to work on a local project to monitor signals in the area. Partnered with Jacob Summers, she is tasked with placing transmitters at strategic points in the remote hillsides. Planting the first transmitter results in a sudden burst of light and launches the characters into a deep mystery full of ghosts, a local cult, and inter-dimensional time travel.
Lost Signals expands on the mechanics from the first game. As before, the player can use the radio tuner to tune into strange frequencies and interact with supernatural elements, but they can also use the radio throughout the night to listen to news and music on various stations, which might provide helpful information. In addition, the player can use a walkie talkie to connect with various people, learn about them and their lives, and receive and give aide.
Horror stories have a long history of paralleling raw, painful human experiences, and Silent Hill: The Short Message, the latest release in a franchise known for exploring the dark depths of the human soul, leans heavily into such subject matter. Co-developed by Konami Digital Entertainment and HexaDrive and released for free on PS5 at the end of January, The Short Message explores potentially triggering subjects, such as suicide, depression, bullying, and child abuse and neglect.
Life is Strange 2 (developed by Dontnod Entertainment) exists within the same universe as the first Life is Strange, but presents a different set of characters. Like the first game, the player interacts with people and objects in the world and makes choices that affect the final outcome of the narrative — but the impact of those choices feel so much more weighty here.
What fascinates me about the gameplay in Life is Strange 2 is that the game positions what might otherwise be the sidekick to the main character as the main character. Sean Diaz (in his teens) is the older brother to Daniel (9 years old). When a confrontation with a racist neighbor leads to a cop shooting their father and a strange explosion, Sean takes his brother on the run with the aim of reaching their father’s property in Mexico. Eventually, the two brothers come to realize that Daniel has telekinetic powers — and Sean is forced to make choices to protect his brother and help guide him through the world.
It’s been a great year for me when it comes to games, and I found a ton of wonderful game experiences that I loved — making the selection of my favorites a bit challenging.
I started or continued playing 32 games in 2023. Of these games, I completed 23, leaving seven unfinished and ongoing games (specifically two mobile puzzle games that don’t have a proper end point). The unfinished games include: Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian Entertainment), Starfield (Bethesda), Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian), God of War (Sony’s Santa Monica Studio), Dishonored (Arkane Studios), Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio), and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Bennett Foddy).
Most of the games that I played were released prior to 2023, and because of this, all of the games on this list were also older titles. I explored a number of gameplay genres throughout the year, from adventure games to bullet hells to puzzle games. Among my favorites, my interests tended toward survival horror, narrative-intensive adventure games, and casual puzzle games.