What's your 2024 GOTY? (+ 2024 games thread)

[Term]

What's your personal GOTY for 2024?

Also, 2024 games in general. What other new games did you play this year? Anything exceptional? Anything slip under the radar that you want to highlight? Any favorite characters, moments, music, etc from 2024 games? Was it a good year for gaming?

I have a few underrated ones I'll post about later but my GOTY is UFO 50:

Save 15% on UFO 50 on Steam

UFO 50 is a collection of 50 single and multiplayer games that span a variety of genres, from platformers and shoot 'em ups to puzzle games, roguelites, and RPGs. Our goal is to combine a familiar 8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design.

store.steampowered.com

It's 50 full sized (by 80s standards) games, conceptualized as an anthology collection from a fictional 80s developer. But they're not "bad on purpose", they're not even bad on accident (except CombatAnts). Nearly every game in the collection offers some kind of new take on its genre & there are many I would've been happy to buy standalone. Velgress, Valguard, Warptank, Party House, Rakshasa, Vainger, Mortol, Rock On Island, Magic Garden, Campanella 1 & 3, Camouflage and even Mooncat are games I could easily have seen myself buying standalone, and I still have a handful of games I want to play more of, even after 100 hours in the game. They even took the time to create fictional developers who can be seen recurring in the credits of the various games, some with stories of their own to be pieced together as you play. I should warn you that that stuff isn't the focus but there's meat in it for anyone that finds that intriguing. It's an immense accomplishment and I guarantee you can find something you're interested in here.

 

[Super Crab Deluxe Turbo X]

This was an excellent year for games and the only way I could see someone disagreeing with that statement is if they very specifically love western AAA games lol

I've played enough stuff that I can easily make a top 10 post, but I'm going to wait until the new year rolls around since there's still stuff I haven't got to yet. Number 6 will surprise you or whatever clickbait thing you're supposed to say

 

[KeplerElectronics]

UFO 50 didn't grab me immediately, and I actually ended up steam refunding it the first time I bought it, but I'm glad I gave it another chance. I'm not sure it's my GOTY since it feels difficult to call it a game due to the compilation aspect of it. I don't think any of the games on their own would be my GOTY, but as a package it's definitely more compelling. Regardless it definitely makes my top 10 releases of the year.

Current favorites in UFO 50 are Pilot Quest, Warptank, and Pingolf. I keep trying to beat the first Party House mission and failing miserably, but it is kinda fun even if I haven't figured out the strategy yet.

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Selaco is 100% my GOTY. It's an FPS made in the GZDoom engine, but with a bunch of modern improvements like hires UI elements and voxel based objects. It feels retro and modern at the same time, kind of like Shovel Knight. The music is awesome, the visuals are incredible, and it's really, really fun.

It's technically still in early access (with only 1/3rd of the story completed), but the first chapter that's been released is meatier than some whole games. I think I spent 20 hours on my first playthrough hunting for secrets and doing the optional bonus challenges. Current speedrun times are somewhere around an hour, but a straight-shot casual will probably take 10-15 hours first try.

Despite the early access nature of the game, the only crashes or bugs I've experienced have all been my fault from attempting to mod the game. Kudos to the devs for encouraging modding as well, the lead dev Nexxtic has helped me debug my mods a few times.

Selaco is very good, and the devs keep improving what's there too. You can replay the campaign with a ton of different modifiers (including a brutal mode that rearranges enemies and item pickups). There's a whole new "Special Campaign" that includes random enemy encounters, item rarity, and even wild upgrades. On my current special campaign save, I have a rifle that launches plates. There's also a diagetic cookie-clicker type game you can play in-universe after unlocking.

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