The Video Games That Got Me Through 2021
Last year, I published The Games That Got Me Through 2020. It provided me with an enjoyable opportunity to share some of the games I loved playing that year and, more importantly, the ones that helped bring a little light into such a tough year. I hope to, again, showcase some of my favorite titles I played this year in the hopes that some of them might bring some light into your lives.
Eastshade
(Trailer)
I tweet back and forth at local developer and founder of Eastshade studios, Danny Weinbaum, about this game he made alongside Jaclyn Ciezadlo and many other contributors. Danny, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry it took me so long to finish this game, but it was lovely and I’m so glad you all made it. Eastshade is a calm, slow-paced adventure through the island of Eastshade as a traveling painter. Your mother has just passed away and it was her last wish that you visit her favorite island and paint at her favorite spots all across the island. You’ll have to gain access to the top of the highest tower in the island’s main city of Nava, craft boats to get across the river to the Tiffmoor bluffs, and much more. Along the way, you’ll meet various fully voice acted characters and help solve their problems to gain glowstones, unlock new areas, and get new craftable objects. You’ll do everything from helping a bear’s brother pull a prank with pastries to solving a true crime mystery at a tiny hotel during a thunder storm.
Danny, the studio’s founder, was originally an environmental artist at other game studios before going on this solo venture. These quests will take you to every corner of this beautifully decorated and lush island full of sounds, animals, plant life, coastal views, distant mountains, and gorgeous sunsets. The painting mechanic of the game is essentially taking a screenshot and then that picture appears on a canvas nearby. The places you’re tasked to paint are so vibrant you’ll find yourself spending more time that you’d like to admit lining up the perfect shot to make a flawless painting for your next commission.
Omno
(Trailer)
Another solo developed game from Studio Inkyfox based in Germany. A colorful, simple, and elegant 3D puzzle platformer. You, armed with your staff and flying squirrel buddy, venture through vast low poly landscapes. Every new level you enter provides you with a new ability from gliding, to distant teleportation, to staff surfing down snowy mountains. Every level provides you with a minimum number of objectives (little white collectable power orbs) to get to the next section, but for the achievement hunters, there’s many more to collect if you want to stay a while. There’s not much more to say besides that this was an elegant gem from a solo developer this year that provided me with a great deal of enjoyment and plenty of screenshots to share.
Twelve Minutes
(Trailer)
At this point, I’ll play any game published by Annapurna Interactive and Twelve Minutes is no exception. It is certainly one of the darker games I’ve played this year, but also one of the most unique. The story follows you, the protagonist, who is caught in a time loop upon coming home for dinner with your wife. After a few minutes, a storm rolls in and a cop comes knocking on the door coming to arrest you and your wife for the murder of her father. Once you get handcuffed and 12 minutes has expired, the time loop resets and it’s up to you to find new information in every loop to try to uncover this mystery. There’s a deep story to be uncovered and multiple endings to find. Twelve minutes stands out as one of few modern games taking huge risks in game design for big payoffs. If you’re looking for a dark, twisted puzzle story experience, you’ll be amazed with how engaged you are with this one 12-minute span of time.
Superliminal
(Trailer)
Superliminal did not come out this year, but I did finally get around to playing it in 2021. It is a puzzle game that plays with perspective. Ever pretended to hold a far-off building or object in your fingers brought up to your eye? This is that but as a video game. You can bring objects up close to your field of vision to make them physically larger and put them far away to make them smaller. You’ll make tiny chess pieces into giant bridges and giant blocks into little scraps on the ground to clear your path. You’ll resize doorways to make yourself larger and smaller and by the end of the game you’ll be creating logical paradoxes in order to progress. It is one of the most inventive puzzle games I’ve played in quite a while and truly explores what a game could be in non-Euclidean space.
My personal favorite feature that I need to go back and complete is the Developer Commentary mode which you unlock upon beating the main game for the first time. It is the same game but in every level one of the developers speak over the main audio explaining some of the development challenges or ideas they worked through to create the current level you’re playing. It gives some excellent insight into how a game like this gets made and also highlights some of the great thinking by the developers who worked on Superliminal.
Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2
(Psychonauts trailer) (Psychonauts 2 trailer)
Yes, I did go play through the entire 2005 game, Psychonauts, before playing the brand new sequel, Psychonauts 2. Mechanically, the original unfortunately did not hold up over time, but if you’re willing to get past some clunky platforming mechanics and input delays, Psychonauts introduces you to a cast of wacky characters and you’ll be provided with an incredibly cute and hilarious story about Razputin Aquato, a kid from a family of circus performers who is now a psychic learning to hone his abilities at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. You’ll adventure through the minds of these zany characters, each presenting a hand crafted and unique level design based on the personality of the character. Levels range from Milla’s Dance Party to the famous level, The Milkman Conspiracy, which takes place in the twisted mind of Boyd who is the conspiracy theorist who also guards the mental asylum across the lake. There’s no surprise in my mind at all how this game became a cult classic.
Now, imagine all of these ideas but put them into a modern title with updated platforming mechanics, next gen graphics, and even more wild and hilarious level designs. That is what you’ll get with Psychonauts 2. I’ve got an incredible number of screenshots from this game from every single level. The sequel plays even more into the mind-related puns of the original like how the health pickups are gaining “mental health.” The enemies you’ll fight range from “Regrets” (flying enemies with weights that “weigh you down”) to “Panic attacks” (psychedelic teleporting enemies that you have to “slow down” time to be able to defeat). You also get the opportunity to learn much more about the Aquato family and get many more interactions with other psychic kids and families that you met in the first game. The game is gorgeous, funny, thoughtful, quirky, and is such a lovely sequel to a the original.
Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye DLC
(Trailer)
Can you believe Outer Wilds made this list two years in a row? This year, Mobius Digital released the DLC, Echoes of the Eye, for its base game, Outer Wilds. I bought the DLC the day it came out and played nothing else until I had completed it. At this point I own an Outer Wilds phone case and an Outer Wilds patch on my jean jacket. Last year’s article delves into the base game details if you’re interested. As soon as you think there’s nothing more this game could give you an entire package of new content, ideas, mechanics, and story to unfold. You explore a new area with an entirely new alien race to discover how their history played into the existence of the current universe as we know it. They introduce new puzzle mechanics and this DLC fits itself perfectly into the base game without detracting from the original or feeling like it would be incomplete without the DLC. You are even rewarded with a new base game ending after completing the DLC as one final reward for your commitment to the game.
My only gripe is that as soon as you start the game with the DLC you are offered a “Reduced frights” option which I absolutely needed as someone who does not do well with horror games. The entire DLC is not a horror experience but there were many moments where I had to mute my TV and play ambient music in my living room to be able to make it through, afraid I’d get jump scared at any moment. However, if you can make it through that you’ll be gifted with another incredible story experience from Mobius Digital that’s worth every penny.
Halo Infinite and Forza Horizons 5
(Halo trailer) (Forza trailer)
These games are not similar, but they are my most popular opinions of the year. Both are Xbox Game Studios first party exclusive titles and are just some incredibly polished AAA titles from two veteran studios.
Halo Infinite has received a ton of praise for its tight multiplayer gameplay and all new open world campaign, many calling it an experience they’ve been looking for since Halo 3 launched in 2007. What is there not to love about playing as Master Chief, the most iconic and epic protagonist in any video game series, rolling around in a warthog with a rocket launcher and a gravity hammer clearing out covenant enemies and, yet again, saving all of humanity? The multiplayer is incredibly fun, I’ve already had many nights with friends spending hours in an Xbox live party chat driving off cliffs in a mongoose together creating many laughs and an overall excellent experience.
Forza Horizons 5, winner of the Innovations in Accessibility award of the year at The Game Awards, is the game that turns non-racing game fans into racing game fans. It is, undoubtedly, the showcase game for next generation graphics, looking closer to real life than any game I’ve played thus far. Between hurtling down volcanoes in a Ford Bronco, whipping through the rivers around flocks of flamingos in a Porsche, or taking my dark green 1969 Mustang Fastback for a drive down the Mexican coastline, this game has a huge amount of content to offer, and I haven’t even touched the online modes yet.
343 Industries and Turn 10 / Playground Games have shown exactly what comes out of giving your veteran development team plenty of time and resources. They are a showcase of great game development coupled with years and years of iteration on beloved franchises to create some of the most polished experiences in gaming.
Unpacking
(Trailer)
Please play Unpacking. It’s great. Watch the trailer. You’ll be hooked the moment you see you can put a toilet paper roll on top of another toilet paper roll and then put the entire stack together on your toilet. Unpacking is a game about, well, unpacking! You’ll start by unpacking boxes into a bedroom, then a dorm room, then an apartment, and so on. It is everything that is satisfying about fitting things perfectly into a drawer or closet, with none of the actual stress of moving. Clicking on an empty box zaps it out of existence leaving you with a perfectly unpacked and organized room. The real beauty of the game comes when you discover the story that is being told through these levels simply by showing you how the home changes and also seeing which objects carry through your childhood and into adulthood. The game also has a host of very silly achievements for placing certain items in certain areas. It is my favorite indie game to come out this year and the attention to detail and sound design is top notch. Once you’ve checked it out, I recommend this podcast interviewing the developers of the game discussing how the game got made and the methods they used to put it all together. You’ll find a great moment where they ask a question from “Adam Konig on twitter.”
It Takes Two
(Trailer)
I’m hoping this game needs no introduction as it did win Game of the Year at The Game Awards this year and it is incredibly well deserved by Hazelight Studios (known for their other big co-op game, A Way Out). I am fortunate enough to have a committed co-op buddy with whom to play through this game and if you find yourself with a co-op friend, this game should be at the top of your list. It Takes Two is a game about the married couple, Cody and May, wanting to get a divorce and instead being turned into their daughter’s dolls and must find a way to turn themselves back into humans by rediscovering their love for each other. The game takes you through a huge number of uniquely designed levels each with their own abilities and power ups.
The co-op is asymmetrical, meaning that working together is not only encouraged, but it’s necessary to progress. The first level gives Cody nails that he can throw on walls for May to swing on with her hammer to get across gaps to then knock down bridges for Cody to cross. The rest of the levels follow this pattern of giving the two players unique abilities that work best only if they’re used together. The game is filled with fun and often comical dialogue from the bickering couple and from Dr. Hakim, the talking book of love who acts as the couple’s therapist, helping them rekindle their relationship.
Even if you strip away the unique co-op level and game design, the game is built on a foundation of a very solid 3D platforming move set rivaling many games whose core genre is 3D platforming. It also has some incredible next generation graphics with colorful bright explosions, psychedelic musical levels, and slow gorgeous moments floating through space. This game absolutely nails it in every single department: from storytelling to level design, to game design, to graphics, to audio design, to voice acting, to just being a great, lighthearted, fun co-op game for gamers of all experience levels. I was incredibly pleased that it was rewarded Game of the Year since it was certainly my personal game of the year.
Tetris
(Trailer)
The game I’ve found myself playing the most this year has been Tetris Effect: Connected. Tetris is by no means a new game and I don’t even know if veteran players like this modern version of the game, but I think it’s great. It has all the original modes like Classic Score Attack for people who prefer the original game mode mechanics, but also offers local co-op and battle mode with the new “Zone” mechanic that freezes time for a short while. It also offers all the niceties of modern Tetris like hard drop and being able to perform t-spins once the Tetronimo touches the ground. The other day I found myself getting my first “Perfectris” in a versus mode game (Getting 18 clears in the finite time when you go into the “zone”). I’m certainly new to the scene but the amount of improvement I’ve gone through from just playing a few months has been extremely rewarding. Don’t want to play competitively? No worries, as it also provides a single player “Journey mode” with slowly increasing challenges for any player looking to start stacking tetrominoes paired with some gorgeous visuals and music to boot.
