Tag Archives: House Flipper 2

Game of the Year 2024 – Top 10

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With all of the other lists behind us, we find ourselves here at the top ten games of 2024. In a year jam-packed with critically acclaimed games, I kind of found myself struggling to find games that resonated with me for large chunks of the year. For example, this was kind of a huge year for JRPGs, which is a genre of game I don’t really enjoy that much. So a lot of the biggest titles from this year are notably absent from this list.

But with that little caveat out of the way, I present to you the top ten games that I played this year.

10 – House Flipper 2

House Flipper 2 is a great example of not messing with success. Built with the same ethos in mind as its predecessor, House Flipper 2 puts a bunch of properties that are in varying states of disrepair in front of you, and tasks you with fixing them up. It’s a simple premise that sounds unremarkable because it is, but I find these kinds of games really calming. Games like this are a great way to occupy my hands while I watch TV or listen to a podcast, and House Flipper 2 is among the best in the biz in that regard.

9 – TCG Card Shop Simulator

Piggy-backing on what I said about House Flipper 2, TCG Card Shop Simulator was a real surprise for me in terms of games I would enjoy. After a miserable few years working in retail, I would never have thought playing a game about running a shop would click with me in the way TCG Card Shop Simulator has. Hell, I don’t even like card games, but selling booster packs to the same 7 ugly character models is actually kind of fun. It also helps that this game presents an idealized version of the world where no one is toxic and shitty. Some people do come in with stink lines around them though, so that is realistic.

It’s unfinished. It’s janky as hell. It’s one of my favorite experiences from this year, and I’m really excited to see this one evolve over time.

8 – Dungeons of Hinterberg

I think the best word to describe Dungeons of Hinterberg would be ‘uneven’. It’s a game that has some pretty glaring mechanical flaws, but makes up for them with clever puzzles and charming characters. I said it back in July, but had this solely been a puzzle game with a heavy focus on social interactions, and not have any combat in it whatsoever, I would have enjoyed it much more. Still, it’s one of the best games I’ve played this year.

7 – Thank Goodness You’re Here

Thank Goodness You’re Here is more of an interactive cartoon than a video game. It’s delightfully weird and hilarious, but you don’t really do anything besides walk around and hit the interact button on people and objects. The story and jokes are the only things that Thank Goodness You’re Here can really hang its hat on, and if they aren’t your jam then there’s nothing here for you. Luckily, I found this game hilarious and thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end.

6 – Minishoot’ Adventures

I wasn’t expecting a mashup of top-down Zelda games and shoot-em-ups to be such a compelling combination, but y’all, do not sleep on the terribly named Minishoot’ Adventures. With tons of exploration, navigation-based puzzles, and some pretty excellent shooter mechanics, Minishoot’ Adventures is the video game equivalent of discovering that chocolate and peanut butter go great together.

5 – Animal Well

I’ve already spoken about how much I loved Animal Well, both earlier in the year and earlier this week, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to see it on the top 10. I can’t think of many games I’ve ever played that were as shrouded in mystery as this one is. Every screen — every pixel of this game is deliberately placed to feed into a broader puzzle. Layer by layer you start to peel back this digital onion until you find that at the center, you still have no idea what’s happening.

I mean that in the best way too. I think Animal Well being an enigma is its greatest strength and not a shortcoming. It’s also a really good puzzle-platformer at its core, but what that platformer is in service of is what’s so amazing about Animal Well. It’s opaque and obtuse, but playing Animal Well for the first time was an unforgettable experience.

4 – Chants of Sennaar

Speaking of unforgettable experiences, Chants of Sennaar is one that I won’t ever forget for multiple reasons. Both Animal Well and Chants of Sennaar occupy a similar place of being wonderful “multiplayer” games that my partner and I enjoyed. But we both agree that Chants of Sennaar was the better experience from top to bottom. While it did technically come out last year, we only played it for the first time in 2024.

But for those few days it took us to blitz through the entirety of Chants of Sennaar, it was the only thing we could talk about. I never knew that the act of translating languages could be so engaging, but it is. I really hope another game like this is in development somewhere, because it’s a concept that’s so good that it shouldn’t be limited to one game ever.

3 – The Rise of the Golden Idol

At the end of this block of puzzle-game excellence is The Rise of the Golden Idol, one of the best puzzlers I’ve ever played. It’s a game that’s solely about observing your environment and making logical conclusions based of the information gathered in that, and previous levels.

It boasts remarkably engaging story whose twists and turns are even more impressive because you yourself are uncovering them. Understanding the motives of characters and what their mere presence in a scene implies are some of the most rewarding feelings of puzzle solving I experienced this year, and possibly ever.

2 – Astro Bot

Astro Bot is an incredible 3D platformer that’s either packed with nostalgic delights or filthy with advertisements, depending on who you are. I can understand the viewpoint of the latter, but I err on the side of the former in this regard. Astro Bot is a tremendously fun and positive experience that celebrates the long and storied history of the PlayStation brand.

But it’s more than just a nostalgia trip — it’s a really good platformer at its core that is constantly throwing new things at you, both in terms of mechanics and level design. Divorced from the PlayStation branding, Astro Bot would certainly lose a lot of its charm, but the core gameplay is solid enough that it could support just about any theme you throw at it. It’s truly remarkable and a must have for any PlayStation 5 owner.

1 – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

There might be a bit of recency bias going on here, but I really do think that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would have been my favorite game this year regardless of when it came out.

Holy cow, this game came out of nowhere for me and blew me away. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle takes the best parts of immersive-sim games, like Dishonored, and mushes it together with the excellent active stealth you’d see in the modern Hitman games to make something truly amazing.

Every aspect of this game shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, but it came together so perfectly. A large part of it has to be thanks to the phenomenal Harrison Ford impression that Troy Baker does, which once again, was a pretty dicey proposition on paper. But he disappears into the role and truly embodies the role, making it feel like I’m watching a long lost Indiana Jones movie. Which by the way, this is probably the best Indy story since Raiders of the Lost Ark.

But everyone is doing an excellent job portraying their roles in this game. The lead villain, Emmerich Voss, is perfectly portrayed as this slimy, miserable Nazi with the most punch-able face you’ve ever seen. Regardless of which character you’re talking about, everyone is putting in an excellent performance, all of which help to elevate this game.

And what of the game itself? That’s really good too! Machine Games is unsurprisingly adept at making the act punching fascists in the face feel as good as you’d imagine. The sound work is incredible, really emphasizing each hit with a heavy ‘thunk’ noise. Between solid melee combat and the versatility of Indy’s whip, whether it be used as a grappling hook or a cool way to choke fascists out, you have a surprising amount of variety in how you approach each encounter.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle isn’t a perfect game, but it was the best thing that I played this year.

So that’s it. That was the Game of the Year. I hope you enjoyed it. Consider subscribing to The Bonus World so you can get an email updating you whenever we publish something new.

I’ll be taking some time off, but I’ll catch you all at the end of January. Happy New Year, everybody.

The Spotlight – 06

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The Spotlight is a monthly summary that encapsulates some of the more notable media experiences I’ve had over the past thirty days. From insights on games played, to articles worth checking out, and even cool stories from tabletop role-playing games, it all has a place in the Spotlight.

For the month of July, 2024, here’s what I’m shining the spotlight on.

Games

Steamworld Dig 1 & 2

The Steamworld Dig titles are excellent and are representative of exactly the kind of gaming experiences I find myself searching out these days. They’re short, they’re direct, and there’s rarely any ambiguity to where you need to be going or what you need to be doing because the answer is usually, “dig deeper.” In the Steamworld Dig games you’re a little robot armed with a pick-axe that’s staring down an unfathomably deep mine-shaft. You mine downwards, collect gems, slice up enemies, and return to the surface to sell your bounty off and buy upgrades that make future delves just a little bit easier and more efficient.

While they’re technically games about digging downward, they aren’t solely about digging downwards. Whether it’s some blueprint for a new tool or ability you can craft, a puzzle or platforming challenge that rewards you with some upgrade, or even just a collectible from a time before every sentient being was a robot and humans roamed the earth, there’s always something precisely placed on the map to shift your focus to and keep you engaged. I really like these games and wish there were more of them, but I’m happy with what I have regardless.

This Bed We Made

It’s the 1950’s and I am a maid at the Clarington Hotel in Canada, and while I am good at my job I cannot help but stick my nose where it doesn’t belong and snoop through everyone’s shit whenever they aren’t around. Normally this isn’t a problem, but while snooping in room I found photographic evidence of me snooping in another room. Somehow that has launched me into a mystery that I, Ari, am not entirely sure how I got swept up in but whatever.

That’s the basic premise of This Bed We Made, a detective-styled mystery game in which I am piecing clues together and making decisions based off of them that influence the outcome of the story. The story itself is pretty decent, even if I did find myself getting a bit lost in character names and motivations from time to time, but that’s probably on me and not the game. The way that This Bed We Made makes good on all of your decisions, even the ones you didn’t know you were making, is pretty impressive. It tries to position itself as a game you need to play more than once to explore all of your choices and whatnot, but once I got to the end and kind of saw that mechanic play out, I more or less got what it was going for.

I very much enjoyed my time with This Bed We Made, but your mileage may vary.

House Flipper 2

At some point in the house-flipping process, I got sick of actually decorating the homes so much that I’d neglect to even put a dang toilet in the house. But these buyers are not deterred by my awful aesthetic choices or lack thereof because all they really care about is that the trash and dirt are gone from the property. As long as the place is spotless, these chumps will pay thousands over the asking price for an undersized beach bungalow.

That, in a nutshell, has been my House Flipper 2 experience. I absolutely adore this game just as much as I did its predecessor, and am very bummed out that I’ve exhausted all of the content included already. It’s games like this and PowerWash Simulator that sink their hooks into me so deeply that I’m unable to even fathom playing something else until I’ve blitzed through every bit of content included. I love this game, and in a way, I’m kind of glad I’m free from its thrall.

Dungeons of Hinterberg

Dungeons of Hinterberg is a game that I really enjoyed playing despite some of its obvious shortcomings, and probably would have enjoyed even more had it narrowed its focus just a bit. The game is broken up into three main pillars: the monster slaying action game part, the puzzle-solving adventure game part, and the third bit where you’re choosing how to spend your downtime and which villagers you want to engage with. That third one is important because it determines what upgrades and unlocks you have access to.

It all works together really well, but when you examine each element individually you notice how underdeveloped they are. The combat is janky and repetitive, and the social stuff is hit-or-miss depending on which characters you engage with. The puzzle solving was my favorite part, but even that wasn’t as deep or challenging as I would have liked.

The game is broken up into four main mission hubs that have entrances to higher level dungeons scattered about. In each of these mission hubs, you have access to two special powers that serve as your main puzzle solving mechanics for all the dungeons on that particular map. For instance, the first powers you get access to are the ability to throw a large steel ball on a chain and retract it, and also summon a massive bomb in front of you. The second world has two different powers, as well as the third and so on and so forth.

Honestly, if Dungeons of Hinterberg was solely a puzzle and social game, and those elements were really fleshed out, I think this would have been a much better game. As is, the combat feels like padding despite monster hunting and dungeon delving being the whole crux of the story. Despite all of that though, Dungeons of Hinterberg is still one of my favorite games I’ve played this year.

Watch List

Monk

My partner is a big fan of certain crime procedurals and tends to gravitate towards them when the time comes to pick out a new show for us to watch. Shows like Psych and now Monk make their preferences a lot more tolerable because they’re infinitely less self-serious than others in the genre. It might be a little bit tougher to tolerate these days considering most of what I’ve seen of Monk so far is just people yelling at a man because of his “weird” mental illnesses. But beyond that there’s a genuinely fun show that’s very entertaining if you don’t look at it too closely.

Listening Party

Sodas in the Freezer – Flycatcher

tarot cards – saturdays at your place

Top Notch (Live) – Manchester Orchestra

News

Game Pass Hikes Prices Again

FTC Criticizes Game Pass Price Hike

Cities: Skylines 2 Indefinitely Delayed on Console

Thanks for checking out The Spotlight. We’ll be back at the end of August with another installment. Consider subscribing to The Bonus World so you can get an email updating you whenever we publish something new.