Hinterland • PC • Tilted Mill • www
Easily the most traditional game of the list (outside the crosswords apps), Tilted Mill’s PC strategy RPG makes it to the top 20 less for the bold choices of its visual or game design, and more for its artful mastery of managed risk. In a developer diary for Rock Paper Shotgun, co-designer Mat Williams said their goal was to integrate many of the same dynamics as a game of poker — short burst rounds influenced heavily by chance, but with an opportunity to learn how to game the system and employ overarching strategy in the long run.
In that they succeeded, and Hinterland was one of the year’s best obsessions.
LostWinds • WiiWare • Frontier • www
In many ways LostWinds — one of the first to see release on Nintendo’s console digital download service — is still the flagship WiiWare title: it was approachable but had just enough visual edge to make it uniquely Frontier’s, and perfectly took advantage of the promise the dual-wielded Wiimote and nunchuck combination held.
Players controlled both the vulnerable Toku and — via sweeps of the Wiimote — a wind spirit called Enril who could help Toku lift objects, cross gaps and climb through the vertically-constructed cliff dwellings, and hold back enemies. There was nothing quite like it before or since, and hopes are high for a return to the world sometime soon.
Minotaur China Shop • Web • Flashbang • www
Coming so close to its official release, I’ll not fully recap too much of what I’ve just recently said about Minotaur China Shop, except to again say that Flashbang’s management sim hits all the right notes: parodying casual management sims, staying just on the right side of dryly hilarious, and giving players enough room to experiment between playing straight and playing dirty to want to immediately return again, making it one of the year’s best realized web games.
Previously:
Gimme Indie Game: Minotaur China Shop, happiness in shattery …
Flashbang opening the Minotaur China Shop – Offworld
Multiwinia • PC • Introversion • www
You’d be forgiven if you neglected to play Multiwinia this year — I think we’re all growing a bit impatient waiting for its eventual dual-pack Xbox Live Arcade release alongside the original Darwinia. But those that did will have appreciated Introversion’s shoe-horning of frenzied skirmishes into Darwinia‘s “fractal vista,” particularly against live players. Not quite reaching the sobering and somber level of their earlier DEFCON, it was nonetheless one of the year’s more visceral RTSs. The companion cube was just icing.
Previously:
The art of vector-war – Offworld
Introversion playing with fire with unbeatable DEFCON AI – Offworld
N+ • Xbox Live Arcade • Metanet/Slick Entertainment • www
Slick Entertainment’s Xbox Live Arcade port of Metanet’s freeware ninja platformer N — even over its handheld duo — is a lesson to all on how to turn a giveaway game commercial. Nevermind the fact that its original PC release came four years earlier: by nailing its control and minimalist design, integrating community replays to learn lessons from the game’s most graceful masters, and continuing to support the game with lots, and lots, and lots of additional levels, Slick and Metanet made the game feel as fresh and necessary now as it did on its first release.
