Rich Gallup is Executive Producer at OtherSide Entertainment and the scruffy on the outside, soft on the inside Zamboni driver for his family’s backyard ice rink. Find him on the side of the road scanning cars for a Wyoming license plate, or on Twitter.
Hello everybody!
It’s true, another year has passed! What a weird time to try and track time. I’ve written and rewritten this preamble, trying to capture the emotions that emerge when reflecting on another year of bunkering down with my wonderful family, while feeling so much concern for people around the globe, and so much frustration with others. Just know that if you are reading this, I wish you well and will do my best to fill some of your day with lighthearted stories about how my family and I spent our isolated leisure time in 2021.
My year in video games was split between continuing to work on one that’s rad and (still) super secret, and playing a bunch of fun, family-friendly stuff with my kids. I still haven’t figured out how to get console games back into my rotation. I brought the PS4 down here into my wood paneled basement office, and tried playing Ghost of Tsushima during spare moments. But those huge games require dedicating big chunks of personal time to get through a satisfactory session (let alone the whole game!) and that just doesn’t fit my daily routine anymore. Related, I’ve yet to enter the current generation of consoles, but it doesn’t feel like I’m missing out on too much just yet?
Before we get started, I want to say thanks to so many of my coworkers (Christina, Gabe, Jamie, Lauren, Sahil, Zach, and many others), as well as Colin Spacetwinks for so many great recommendations. Thanks to you, my Steam and itch libraries are now stocked with so many rad-sounding games that I have yet to play. Though I do feel safe recommending co-open, Sewer Rave, and maybe Forklift Load(?) based on my short time playing them. Now, onwards to the awards!
My Kids’ Switch Game of the Year: Luigi’s Mansion 3
The Saturday morning routine of family pancakes and video games that I mentioned last year is still going strong! Sometimes this involves plugging my laptop into the TV (more on that below) but most often it involves firing up the Switch and playing something co-op. And this year our favorite Switch game was Luigi’s Mansion 3. We got it just before Halloween and consumed nearly every ounce of it. I played as Luigi, our 8-year-old was Gooigi, and his younger brother provided commentary and direction throughout. It was great to see my son work through his confusion and frustration with the controls and camera to get to the point where he was doing most of the primary damage on the boss ghosts. We loved the humor, the way the ghosts were kinda scary but not really, the boss ghosts, and of course blinding each other with our flashlights in the elevator between floors. We didn’t want to stop playing, so we found every gem and caught every ghost - except for the ones locked away in ScareScraper mode, which is way too hard for the two of us to complete in the time allowed.
If you are looking for a cooperative family board game that feels a lot like Luigi’s Mansion, check out Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters, or as it's known in its original German - Geister, Geister, Schatzsuchmeister! We just picked it up and love it.
Honorable Mentions: Mario Party Superstars, Super Mario 3D World/Bowser’s Fury
Game that made me nostalgic for another game that I hold dear: WarioWare - Get It Together
The early WarioWares for the GameCube, DS and Wii are some of my favorite games of all time. WarioWare - Get It Together doesn’t quite hit the same note for me, it doesn’t feel as wacky or loose but it’s great to see the series back on my TV for the first time in 14 years. Plus my kids love it, and the narrative conceit that Wario runs a garbage game company with his friends is a nice touch. More please!
Honorable Mentions: Dodgeball Academia, Big Brain Academy
The Outer Wilds Award for the Game that Everybody Said I Would Like and I Really Truly Believed Them But It Just Didn’t Work Out for Me, but it’s Totally Cool That You Like It: Inscryption
“Tell me when you get to the part.” That’s what a co-worker said to me about Inscryption. Every year or so a great game comes along with a unique or fun twist, and folks do their best to simultaneously express their enthusiasm while not spoiling the surprise. And with Inscryption you have all done a great job of both getting me excited to play it and keeping the twist hidden. Unfortunately the game has done too good a job of the latter, too. I’m over 5 hours in and calling it quits. This game is hard! The RNG can really smack you down in a bad moment, and I’m not getting better fast enough for my patience to keep up. And if one more person helpfully asks “Did you walk around the cabin?” I did all of the cabin stuff, no worries. It’s still too difficult for me. It’s also kind of oppressive, it drones with this foreboding vibe that I can’t handle anymore. So don’t worry about me ruining the surprise, because I have yet to see it! But you should probably play it, or Daniel Mullens’ previous games The Hex or Pony Island, they’re good too.
Honorable Mention: Unpacking (so stressful!)