Welcome to the first of Indie Ranger’s 2022 end of year features, over the coming days and weeks, the indie ranger team and maybe some guests, will be sharing their personal 2022 games of the year, indie or otherwise. First up, Indie Ranger editor-in-chief, Robin Smith.
What a season, what, a, season!
And what an odd couple of years, not only for myself, Indie Ranger, and everyone everywhere on the face of the earth.
We at Indie Ranger went a bit quiet there for a while didn’t we, but we are now back, with a new team, of faces old and new, here bringing you fresh games to read about and maybe fall in love with.
For me, I started the year out running a 7-day long non-stop solo charity live stream over on Twitch ( twitch.tv/seiibutsu , cheeky personal plug), an event that nearly broke me and also lead to a new career working for one of the very charities I was originally raising money for.
A year that saw me take over as the new Editor-in-chief of this very website, something I didn’t exactly picture happening this time last year. Life, they say, is ever-changing and wonderful.
Life is also filled with wonderful wastes of time, adventures from our sofas, nightmares in our monitors, and colourful characters to touch our hearts, both in ways lovingly or violently depending on the game. Sometimes both at once.
For me, this year was about getting lost in adventure and rediscovering my favorate lost dreamscapes.
So for my games of 2022, I thought I’d share my…
FIVE GAMES I GOT LOST IN (BOTH LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY) IN 2022!
Fez
Fez is a title that will forever hold a special place in my heart. A title that helped to define what an indie game is in many peoples eyes and helped to legitimise the idea of a smaller development team. So when its 10th anniversary came around I couldn’t just ignore it, I had to go back and revisit its world of diorama like spaces. To see if it could still retain the mystery and magic it once had so long ago.
I needn’t have worried, it’s charming, strikingly cute, colourful, and unique vistas are as endlessly enjoyable to explore as they were a decade ago. Supplimented by one of the most complete and beautiful soundtracks in the genera, an ever-changing soundtrack of whimsy and mystery that just worked to amplify the beauty of each set piece. It helps that the soundtrack by Disasterpeace triggers one of my favorate memories, walking in my local town at night, in the snow with my now wife, headphones on with the plinkity-plink of Flow playing on our shared headphones.
Seeing the game peel away like a multi-layered onion is always a brilliant experience. Leading with the tease of its apparent cover feature, rotating the world creates a new perspective that affects how you practically traverse its landscapes, and actually hiding its true mechanical agenda behind its surface sheen is always wonderful to re-experience. Time gave the game enough breathing room to allow me to revisit its mysteries, with enough knowledge to know some of what needs to be done to truly progress, while retaining it’s hidden depths. If you’ve not played it, grab some paper and revisit one of the greatest and most moving 2d, 3d, or is id 4d (?) platformers ever made.
Elden Ring
What can I say about Elden Ring that hasn’t already been said. From the moment the title screens now hyper impactful and stirring main theme started I was in and in deep. I was actually fortunate enough to get into the early server test, and right away I knew that this was something special. It’s rare that such a niche genera of game should blow up like Elden Ring has. Sure, the Soulsbourne series has always been solid and a deeply treasured games experience for those that they ensnared, including me, but this is still an unexpected juggernaut of a success.
This is especially astounding when you take into account the general gaming communities perception of Dark Souls as being over hard, unapproachable, inflexible challenges for only the most hardcore (a statement that has always been a slight misunderstanding culturally), and in the wake of declining success for the series of games quality wise. Dark Souls 2 is considered worse than the first, three considered a further decline from the series highs.
It’s clear, though, that the stars were aligned to tip the games into the mainstream. It’s not one thing, but a combination that really works to make Elden Ring the astounding experience it is.
Injecting that mix of the classic tight souls combat experience, with fantastic, yet mysterious world building, and a beautiful expansive landscape to endlessly explore. Taking influence from the best games of the last few years also didn’t hurt. Stepping out from what was a prime example of the classic Dark Souls style dungeon onto the startling visa of Limgrave was a revelatory moment that stays with you long after you first clap eyes on the swaying grass, cloud covered castle, and monumentally beautiful golden tree towering over the land.
Atomicrops
Rogue likes and me, we have an unhealthy relationship. It takes very little for me to become sucked all the way into that ever rolling loop of progressive discovery. For a good few months I was infected with a sickness, unable to pull myself away from the need to tend to my hyperkinetic farming passions.
Plopping seeds down, holding off mutant gun toting rabbits, and growing my manically laughing carrots to a massive size, the loop has me every time.
Rolling off out into the corners of the world, fighting against a basket full of crazed mutations to collect ever more useful upgrades, and all important seeds, nodding my head to a blue radioactive greengrass bumpkin orchestra’s always entertaining songs, before rushing to protect my turret cows from yet another alien abduction attempt. Atomicrops is squishy, addictive fun. Sure, it suffers from the RNG problem that often haunts roguelikes, but this never effects the overall experience.
Tunic
Tunic, for me, could be right up there as game of the year. There’s something very special about its Link’s Awakening inspired set up that really connects. A charming and one of a kind visual style, cute main protagonist, and perfectly sized world all work to make this a deeply touching experience.
Coming directly after my play though of the previously mentioned Fez also didn’t hurt. These titles are like a two pack, a double feature of charming mystery worlds, filled with beautiful art, hidden depth, and memorable encounters. A SoulsLite, action adventure RPG that uses classic tropes, both real and game world, to tug at both your heartstrings and nostalgia.
Every time you pick up a page from the ever expanding, classically styled game manual, that features as the game’s literal in game guide, you are hit with just how much love and attention went into the whole experience. It has Fez’s mysterious world building and hidden depth, Zelda’s classic charm and adventure, with a macro recreation of Elden Ring‘s tight but challenging combat. An often challenging experience, but also always a rewarding one.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
There are two games I always go to when I need a pick me up, two games of a very similar origin, but completely dissimilar in tone and style.
Dear Esther, and The Stanley Parable.
Like two sides of the same coin, at odds and also simultaneously complimentary to each other, when I need solace or a pick me up when feeling low, both of these games have the ability to speak to me in a way no others can.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, A.K.A. The Stanley Parable 2: The duck arrives, A.K.A. The Stanley Parable 3: Time to Paperclip, A.K.A. The Stanley Parable 4: Balloon Keeper, is the follow-up to the Stanley Parable that breaks new ground by being exactly the same game, but with twice as much more, and the most wonderful feature addition of all Stanley Parables, the bucket.
Why imagine yourself reading a feature, right now, on the original classic hit game The Stanley Parable, just picture how good that experience might be, and now, imagine, also having a bucket. Just wonderful, words cannot describe just how amazing that feature reading experience could be. Honestly, I’m not sure if I could even find enough words in our feeble human dialects to do it, or the game it would be describing justice, let alone doing the same for The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. In fact, I’m not even going to bother.
I think it’s best, if you, the discerning gamer, just go out and purchase a copy of The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe right away, and take the time it deserves to really see what the experience has in store. An experience beyond your wildest dreams, really it is.
Go now, I’ll just wait here. In fact, you just go experience The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe for, mmmmmmm, let’s say one whole year, and when you’re done we can meet back here, and you can share exactly what you enjoyed about the game. Go on, toddle off now…