2025 GotY: Games of Other Years

It's end-of-year wrapup time, so let's go. Like last time, this is the pre-post for games I played in 2025 that didn't come out this year, or games I didn't get around to:

Games From The Past:

  • I played a couple of the "Metroidvania" Castlevanias to see what that side of the genre inspiration was like, and both Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow were compelling in their own ways. Symphony was big and trying to figure out what the formula meant, and Aria added the soul mechanic to let people really go wild with having different builds based on what they found.
  • I played quite a few document investigation type games this year, but Daemon Masquerade actually came out last year. This had a neat supernatural spin on the concept, since you're using your own power to summon documents about other characters to determine what their powers are.
  • ZeroRanger was the highlight of my shmup arc this year, as the indie one everyone talks about. And there's a good reason for that- it's got great music and presentation, and solid gameplay with what I understand are a lot of shoutouts to other classics of the genre. I didn't beat what I assume is the final final boss for reasons, but I enjoyed the path to get there.
  • Epigraph is probably the hardest of the language deciphering puzzle games I've seen. There's no context, no confirmation every time you get N words right: just a bunch of artifacts and a small note in English with a little starting point. But it's a fair challenge and one I found rewarding to untangle.
  • Not For Broadcast is an FMV game with the twist that you're running a broadcasting studio, so everything's been recorded in four cameras and you're choosing which one to air, bleeping swears, and other live editing features. I assume the plot was originally done as a Brexit analogy, but playing through it now led to some parallels with the current political situation.

Games From The Future:

Early Access makes GotY lists kind of weird, but in this case I'm mostly using this category as an accounting trick to free up some slots in the annual top 10 list:

  • Type Help is a "world's worst database" game about piecing together a story from fragments that you can only retrieve via an awkward interface. And as much as I hate the "just play it, go in with absolutely zero information" trope, it's hard to talk more about what sets this one apart without spoiling something you're supposed to figure out. It's fully text-based, which I know is a turn-off to some people, but it's getting a paid remake next year with voice acting, The Incident At Galley House (that's also my excuse for not putting it on the "this year" list).
  • Deltarune chapter 3 and 4 were cool. Even without hunting down all the secret/hidden stuff, there's a lot of fun story and bosses and a lot of heart. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
  • The Void Rains Upon Her Heart remains one of my ongoing roguelikes I can always go back to, and the thing that eased me into shmups in the first place, so it'll probably be on this list until it officially releases. It's been in early access forever, with the dev adding more stuff frequently.

Games From Another 2025:

Here are some games that I probably would've enjoyed but I didn't get around to. Maybe we'll see them in the future.

  • Citizen Sleeper 2
  • Dawnfolk
  • Everhood 2
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Star-Crossed World
  • The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-
  • Metroid Prime 4
  • Monster Train 2
  • Monument Valley 3
  • Neyyah
  • Puzzle Depot
  • Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo

I'll be back hopefully before the year ends with my top games that actually came out this year.

You should also read:

Musings on metapuzzles, part 3: Resource metas in puzzle games

At the start of this I defined metapuzzles as being about collecting information or resources, but as I bring it around to actually talking about puzzle games I'll flip the order and talk about resources first.

This'll have some extremely minor early spoilers for Talos Principle 1 and Bonfire Peaks, and significant spoilers for the Hall of Innovation and Factory Floor rounds from the 2023 MIT Mystery Hunt.

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Monthly update: February 2025

Offline project stuff was the big progress this month. The main thing I can share publicly is the metapuzzle blog post series. I'll probably post about that more broadly once I've done part 3, so if you're keeping up with this blog you've been getting a free preview. :)

I've had "try doing something in PICO-8" in the back of my mind for a while, but seeing Adam Saltsman's games lately have reawakened that itch. Maybe I'll give that a shot next time I have some gamedev cycles?

On the gameplay side, King Hesper's still looming large. I'm approaching the end of chapter 7, but the levels have gotten very difficult. I could maybe do a post about Nextfest demos too- the short version is Gentoo Rescue and Art of Reflection were puzzle highlights, and Angeline Era was intriguing even though I haven't played the games that inspired it.

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