COINT + PLICK 2021-2024: THE LOST YEARS results

Main poll rollout planned for April 6 (watch this space!), have some early-access side poll results until then. (I didn't realize that Will retired these but oh well!)

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
1. Alan Wake 2, 2 sadbois
2. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, 1 sadboi
2. Nintendo losing a bit off their fastball, 1 sadboi
2. Cult of the Lamb, 1 sadboi
2. Return to Monkey Island, 1 sadboi

FAVORITE CONSOLE
1. Switch, 4 console warriors
2. PS5, 2 console warriors
3. PC, 1 console warrior
3. Your favorite emulation handheld, 1 console warrior
3. Xbox Series S, 1 console warrior
3. PS4, 1 console warrior
3. Xbox 360, 1 console warrior
3. iPad, 1 console warrior
3. Steam Deck, 1 console warrior

I didn't vote for anything in these categories, just didn't feel strongly enough. Would like to ask the Cult of the Lamb sadboi what was disappointing about it - I keep thinking I might try it out as it looks cool, but am on the fence about how much I'll actually love it. I really liked Return to Monkey Island but it def wasn't amaaaaaazing, so I can get why a series fan would find it disappointing.

How many ballots did you get Leee?

I started Cult of the Lamb but the combat half of the game didn't grab me. I was interested in the cult/basebuilding part but not enough to keep going. It may just be that I didn't give it enough time.

I got 17 ballots!

Cult of the Lamb doesn't have the deepest combat, but I really liked it! Sinister kawaii farming sim was the main draw for me, though.

I started Cult of the Lamb but the combat half of the game didn't grab me. I was interested in the cult/basebuilding part but not enough to keep going.

Yeah, this is what I foresee happening to me.

17 ballots is more than I was expecting, that's v cool!

Who are the heretics giving Alan Wake 2 the “biggest disappointment” award? Blasphemy!

I'll own up to it. I hated AW1 (not fun in any way), but I was hoping Remedy would make AW2 more like Control, which I really liked. But it still plays like AW1, and some of the puzzles just were too opaque and were what drove me away.

*reluctantly raises hand* I liked AW1 well enough (though I disliked the combat, and toward the end, made myself invincible with a cheat so I could finish the story). I loved Control. But while I dug AW2 at points, I bailed on it. I didn't like having to stop and put clues up on the pinboard to progress. It also felt more derivative, like the nods to Twin Peaks etc. were so obvious and numerous that there was hardly anything original left.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, 1 sadboi

don't think i played anything that disappointed me so i didn't do this category

always been mildly peeved with how ugly Return to Monkey Island looks

apologies on not getting a ballot in, looking forward to the roll out

I am the one who nominated Monkey Island as the disappointment. I had been looking forward to this game for a couple years now since it was announced, and as a massive 80's/90's Sierra/LucasArts adventure game fanboi, to have this drop and be disinterested in it within 2 hours felt like a massive let down.

Maybe it's nostalgia, but revisiting the older games and some of the Sierra classics like Kings Quest 5 & 6, Gabriel Knight, and modern adventure/puzzle games like Blue Prince reinforced that disappointment.

i had a list of games to figure out point values for a few days before deadline and then got busy with work and forgot about it, whoops

this is the problem with this sort of ballot, it's too much work

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Can bump this up to two since it was probably my biggest disappointment too. I guess I'd scrubbed it from memory during polling time.

I'm the wrong person who voted EoW as biggest disappointment. To be clear, I don't think it's a bad game at all, and I enjoyed my time with it well enough. I just felt like they could have done a lot more interesting stuff with the echoes mechanic, and towards the back end of the game it started to feel monotonous to me, to the point that I never finished it. I found a few echoes that suited my purposes, and just spammed those over and over. I would 100% be down for a follow-up game that deepens and refines the core idea.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1I9VhxrtSvkc6rmLo_kOkjSG3DU-_QEks

50. Unpacking — 20 points — 3 votes

(Hopefully the image shows!)

Image showing up for me - looks good!

Does Unpacking have much of a storyline to it? From what I've read it definitely seems to be more about vibes than gameplay, but I don't know if there's also a narrative element or not.

Not having played it, I've heard that it relies more on environmental storytelling than explicit narrative.

I keep hearing about that game, seems like something fun and quick

Leee, are you rolling out the entire top 50 today or splitting it up?

there's a narrative; it's slight but told effectively, 100% environmentally

octo: 50-41 today, we'll finish on Friday.

i tapped out fairly early from Unpacking because it was too fiddly for the mood i was in, but it does a great job of telling its story, and the game is fun - if fiddly sometimes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/12BOU1AQa1FCX_SdNvHFckEU8IybJsC-9

50. Rollerdrome — 20 points — 1 votes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1aorgETLj9Qq3u3KW2fd9dYJuIldh5I9y

50. Little Nightmares II — 20 points — 1 votes

BOY.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1r7NeHz-PdOvO6uJRPcTQvn4XDjBKEvyU

50. God of War: Ragnarok — 20 points — 1 votes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/19DpMmsJgLu733HaGas8tr5eJ7PSQeBpR

50. Persona 3 Reload — 20 points — 1 votes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1ZEnGqn8oVpN87jZ0aAKn0_aEEXBcKbto

50. Hi-Fi Rush — 20 points — 2 votes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/17lf2xAyQQdpRy8jx7TpipF5n94H85zli

50. Kirby and the Forgotten Land — 20 points — 2 votes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1EG5zngmDoXdFZLEWkz0qK9MznNZN9ex-

50. Blasphemous 2 — 20 points — 1 votes

That takes care of the ties in this batch! Out of those, I've only played:

- Ragnarok: pretty good, but I tapped out before finishing the challenge arena as well as most of the later optional bosses. The story dragged from being overlong, IIRC.
- Hi-Fi Rush: I'm pretty miserable at rhythm games so this one will sadly continue to gather dust in my library.

I am also shit at rhythm games but I found Hi-Fi Rush relatively forgiving for the genre, for the most part you are rewarded for being on rhythm but not punished for being off (except for a few annoying mandatory parrying bits).

Day 1 gonna be a 10 way tie for 50th

Kinda surprised at Ragnarok being so low. I haven't played it yet fwiw

I voted for P3 Reload. Yeah it's a remake, but the amount of polish and the (admittedly minor) extra content make for the best possible introduction to P3 and Persona in general, if anybody who isn't already on board is interested in finding out

also a rare example of developers filling in backstory without diminishing the original story

oh dang, did i forget to post a disappointment? cos it definitely would have been 1,000,000,000,000 layoffs

oh dang, did i forget to post a disappointment? cos it definitely would have been 1,000,000,000,000 layoffs

Don't worry, you'll be able to submit this for future polls.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1vuBXJ8WyNxY3sBvCfHIbm5gPZ7_9zoVv

48. Chained Echoes — 21 points — 1 votes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1cg-p4pPoYgo5CsfvyCPjlHfVfOsa_wKU

48. Death's Door — 21 points — 2 votes

xps I found the little narrative in unpacking v cute

think that's the only game I've played so far on this list!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1SYMMTEJPUxcHCmMNEeww5W0Ndw6_kydO

47. Norco — 23 points — 3 votes

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1ZPZBd-sJrZPaLxL2xtqyQKioRR-idBFX

43. Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo — 25 points — 1 votes

Surprised Norco didn't make it higher, though looking back at my own ballot it did end up getting shoved down to the lower end. Wonderful writing and world-building, maybe not that exciting on the gameplay front.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/16hNHMdooRGnoRtJmgDmCECpkTqWTLvyI

43. Metaphor: ReFantazio — 25 points — 2 votes

Octo, close your eyes.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/1KVK9wgeDeu-RcHp2AI7eHsVH926W00i1

43. Return to Monkey Island — 25 points — 3 votes

Where are my RP degenerates.

https://i.ibb.co/Vc6n5jQM/Baldur-s-Gate-3.png

4. Baldur's Gate 3 — 116 points — 8 votes — 1 first place

Almost every BG3 image is appalling to me because it has some other player's dumb ass character in it

I didn't even finish BG3 and I still put it joint first with Stray (I don't think those votes officially count as "first place" because I gave them 25pts not 30... I definitely voted for too many things and spread my points out too much, damnit). I don't usually play big games like this but I did get obsessed for a while.

I also spread my points too thin...starting to think Tactical Breach Wizards isn't gonna make it ;_;

600+ hours in BG3, finished 4 campaigns, including beating the game on Honour Mode, and another time in multiplayer, it's not surprising that it was a #1 vote for me, but I am surprised that I was the only one who gave it 30 points. Although TBF I was in the middle of a new campaign before the fatigue set in, I still think that one of these days I'll dive back into it.

cocoon was dreadful!!! i was thinking this list had been alright but having it this high is disgraceful

it's extremely shallow, utterly style over substance. the recursion puzzles are cool in theory (see say, patrick's paraboxes for what can be done with that sort of mechanic) but it's completely uninterested in actually being a puzzle game, as it fairly aggressively holds your hand the whole way through. solving the puzzles generally required little real thought or understanding, with most being completely trivial as they never made the solution space big enough to require much thought at all.

Creepy vibes, rogue-like deckbuilder edition:

https://i.ibb.co/sJRG2ZDS/Inscryption.png

3. Inscryption — 117 points — 8 votes — 2 first place

Oh wow, I had given up on this one making it! I genuinely thought it might have been me + 1 other person giving it not enough points to enter the chart, but it beat Baldur's Gate?!?!?!

inscryption is fantastic, i think i would have had it at #4 or so. i kinda just assumed it had a good chance of being #1 given the general vibe of the results so far.

case of the golden idol and ufo 50 are both great, would have voted

lorelei and the laser eyes is pretty good and i'd have voted for it, though i found the ending very disappointing in how uninspired it is and how unambiguously it wraps everything up - if you're going to make a game this blatantly inspired by lynch you could at least understand that ambiguity is compelling! especially disappointing given how good it'd been up until the end. i also found the sort of pen & paper brainteaser nature of the puzzles a bit uninteresting but they're not bad puzzles at all. the lack of any sort of back button was a fairly exhausting design decision too.

bg3 & totk would have been at the bottom of my ballot. they're both solid enough games that are waaaaaaaaaay too big for their own good and i never finished, burning out after something like 100 hours each, at about 3/4 through each game. some day i might go back but idk when i'll ever feel like it

i guess top 2 is elden ring and something else that will seem completely obvious but has slipped my mind

Balatro.

Tbf I'd forgotten about Elden Ring - up until you said it I was scouring my brain trying to think about what massive games had come out in this period, and I knew there was something I kept forgetting.

It's definitely gonna be Balatro and Tactical Breach Wizards

i would have voted for elden ring and tactical breach wizards but absolutely not balatro which i have very strong thoughts on

https://i.ibb.co/C53pxVHS/Elden-Ring.png

2. Elden Ring — 148 points — 7 votes — 3 first place

The jokers are kings!

ufo did you vote for UFO 50? hah

Wild the differing opinions on Cocoon, but that's taste for you.

oh yeah Balatro is winning this. Probably rightfully so.

Between Balatro and Elden Ring, those games have taken at least 500+ hours of my life.

i would have voted for elden ring and tactical breach wizards but absolutely not balatro which i have very strong thoughts on

I've got good news and bad news.

https://i.ibb.co/9k8d8CHC/Marvel-Puzzle-Quest.png

1. Marvel Puzzle Quest — 167 points — 8 votes — 6 first place

Ahahahahaaaaaa

ELDEN RING O ELDEN RING *gestures*

OK sitting on this long enough, actually playing a run as I type.

https://i.ibb.co/bqrFs1w/Balatro.png

1. Balatro — 179 points — 9 votes — 3 first place

I can hear the music now

well deserved!

I did a chart that roughly tracked ballots as I saw them, and for the first several weeks, Elden Ring had a sizable lead over everything, and Balatro was nowhere to be found. Then the Cocoon surge happened, and *finally* my Jimbo bot army came online in the last week like an Idol build to just nose out ER in the end.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSyBCPw-tCnsAfQbkBVnGJTuZ4yNeX6JV5rF39CmEMs2ZnVpn8K65HRnjgaKIdcpf6Zf5nqMmEdRLe2/pubchart?oid=1665161858&format=interactive

Full list. (Sorry that I didn't include platform/year, that was dumb of me, I can provide if needed.)

1. Balatro — 179 points — 9 votes — 3 first place
2. Elden Ring — 148 points — 7 votes — 3 first place
3. Inscryption — 117 points — 8 votes — 2 first place
4. Baldur's Gate 3 — 116 points — 8 votes — 1 first place
5. Cocoon — 105 points — 6 votes — 2 first place
5. UFO 50 — 105 points — 7 votes
7. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — 101 points — 7 votes — 1 first place
8. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes — 80 points — 4 votes
9. The Case of the Golden Idol — 73 points — 9 votes
10. Stray — 70 points — 4 votes
11. Tunic — 67 points — 6 votes
12. Chants of Sennaar — 65 points — 5 votes
13. Super Mario Bros. Wonder — 62 points — 6 votes
14. Vampire Survivors — 61 points — 7 votes
15. Hitman 3 — 60 points — 3 votes — 1 first place
15. Alan Wake 2 — 60 points — 2 votes — 2 first place
15. Thank Goodness You're Here! — 60 points — 3 votes
18. Pentiment — 59 points — 6 votes
19. Citizen Sleeper — 58 points — 5 votes — 1 first place
20. Animal Well — 52 points — 4 votes
21. Metroid Dread — 51 points — 5 votes
22. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown — 45 points — 3 votes — 1 first place
22. Void Stranger — 45 points — 3 votes
24. Astro Bot — 44 points — 3 votes
25. Immortality — 43 points — 4 votes
26. Dredge — 36 points — 4 votes
27. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon — 35 points — 2 votes
27. Valheim — 35 points — 2 votes — 1 first place
27. Unicorn Overlord — 35 points — 2 votes — 1 first place
27. Venba — 35 points — 2 votes — 1 first place
31. Resident Evil 4 — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
31. 1000xResist — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
31. A Space for the Unbound — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
31. Dead Space — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
31. Deathloop — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
31. Earth Defence Force 6 — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
31. Caves of Qud — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
31. It Takes Two — 30 points — 1 votes — 1 first place
39. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth — 29 points — 1 votes
39. Dave the Diver — 29 points — 4 votes
41. Chicory: A Colorful Tale — 27 points — 2 votes
42. The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie — 26 points — 1 votes
43. Videoverse — 25 points — 1 votes
43. Return to Monkey Island — 25 points — 3 votes
43. Metaphor: ReFantazio — 25 points — 2 votes
43. Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo — 25 points — 1 votes
47. Norco — 23 points — 3 votes
48. Death's Door — 21 points — 2 votes
48. Chained Echoes — 21 points — 1 votes
50. Blasphemous 2 — 20 points — 1 votes
50. Kirby and the Forgotten Land — 20 points — 2 votes
50. Unpacking — 20 points — 3 votes
50. Hi-Fi Rush — 20 points — 2 votes
50. Persona 3 Reload — 20 points — 1 votes
50. God of War: Ragnarok — 20 points — 1 votes
50. Little Nightmares II — 20 points — 1 votes
50. Rollerdrome — 20 points — 1 votes
58. Returnal — 19 points — 2 votes
58. The Forgotten City — 19 points — 2 votes
60. Slay the Princess — 18 points — 2 votes
61. Lake — 17 points — 1 votes
61. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom — 17 points — 2 votes
63. Signalis — 16 points — 3 votes
63. Strange Horticulture — 16 points — 3 votes
63. Cult of the Lamb — 16 points — 3 votes
66. Tactical Breach Wizards — 15 points — 2 votes
66. Fall Guys — 15 points — 2 votes
66. NYT Connections — 15 points — 3 votes
66. Cassette Beasts — 15 points — 1 votes
66. F-Zero 99 — 15 points — 1 votes
66. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader — 15 points — 1 votes
72. Rise of the Golden Idol — 14 points — 4 votes
73. Tinykin — 11 points — 2 votes
74. Resident Evil Village — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Sifu — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn — 10 points — 1 votes
74. In Stars and Time — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Octopath Traveler II — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 — 10 points — 2 votes
74. Crypt Custodian — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Viewfinder — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Neva — 10 points — 1 votes
74. Marvel's Midnight Suns — 10 points — 2 votes
85. Psychonauts 2 — 9 points — 1 votes
86. Dungeon Encounters — 8 points — 1 votes
86. Roadwarden — 8 points — 1 votes
86. Repeat the Ending — 8 points — 1 votes
89. Lil Gator Game — 6 points — 1 votes
89. Isles of Sea and Sky — 6 points — 1 votes
89. Elephantasy: Flipside — 6 points — 1 votes
89. Jupiter Hell — 6 points — 1 votes
93. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Metroid Prime Remastered — 5 points — 1 votes
93. PowerWash Simulator — 5 points — 1 votes
93. RPG Golf Legends — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Soul Hackers 2 — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Taiji — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Astalon: Tears of the Earth — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Patrick's Parabox — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Paper Trail — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Storyteller — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Bonfire Peaks — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Aeterna Noctis — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 — 5 points — 1 votes
93. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist — 5 points — 1 votes
93. The Excavation of Hob's Barrow — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury — 5 points — 1 votes
93. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes — 5 points — 1 votes
115. Mask of the Rose — 2 points — 1 votes
115. The Salt Keep — 2 points — 1 votes
115. Of Their Shadows Deep — 2 points — 1 votes
118. Occult Crime Police — 1 points — 1 votes
118. The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark — 1 points — 1 votes
118. If On a Winter's Night, Four Travelers — 1 points — 1 votes
118. Overboard! — 1 points — 1 votes
118. Wildermyth — 1 points — 1 votes
118. Horizon Forbidden West — 1 points — 1 votes

elden ring is good but not fromsoft's best. some very high points but the open world structure does far more harm than good in the end, there's way too much bloat in the end with too many barely distinguishable catacombs and caves. would have voted for it still but not near the top.

i hated balatro because it actively doesn't want to be a strategy game and prefers to be a slot machine bullshit game instead. it deliberately makes trying to play it strategically as tedious as possible because there is way too much maths involved.

https://gmtk.substack.com/p/balatros-cursed-design-problem

LocalThunk says…

“My personal belief is that the game is more fun when you set up your Rube Goldberg machine and watch it go before knowing whether or not the hand will win the round.”

And Balatro totally plays into this! There’s so much hype and pageantry after playing your hand. The numbers tick up, with escalating sound effects. Each card and joker steps forward in turn to add their points to the total. If you’re lucky, the score multiplier will set on fire and start to burn hotter and hotter with each multiplication.

i hate this! that isn't fun at all to me. it's the same slot machine bullshit as vampire survivors, except even worse in some ways because it's getting more directly in the way of what at least had the potential to be an interesting strategy game.

i didn't vote because i forgot and then ran out of time but my ballot would have been something like the following, in descending order. no idea about points allocation, i didn't get to that before the deadline so maybe not all of these would have made it on there.

Void Stranger
Unsighted
Tunic
Inscryption
Lies of P
Nine Sols
Death's Door
UFO 50
Afterimage
Pentiment
The Case of the Golden Idol
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Blasphemous 2
Tactical Breach Wizards
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Astalon: Tears of the Earth
Axiom Verge 2
Elden Ring
Dwarf Fortress
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
Isles of Sea and Sky
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Metroid Dread
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Baldur's Gate 3

Starting to feel an almost spiritual connection to the ILX hivemind. My top of ballot

18pts Elden Ring
17pts Balatro
16pts The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
15pts Baldur's Gate 3
14pts Astro Bot
13pts UFO 50
12pts Pentiment
11pts The Case of the Golden Idol
10pts Vampire Survivors

broadly you can mostly separate my ballot into three categories, with some overlap. puzzle/mystery/strategy games, action-adventure (all falling somewhere between 'zelda-like' and 'souls-like'), and metroidvania (which is still a sort of action-adventure but a slightly different one)

Balatro is the only game I think of other than Marvel Puzzle Quest that I have deleted multiple times due to it ruining my life

ufo otm, though i'd rather have more catacombs/caves than wasting another hour horsing around an empty field searching for a game to play.

bloat indeed, it's why ER didn't make my ballot at all despite being the single game i put the most hours in during the polled period (perhaps ever?)

what good is there is really really good, stormveil and haligtree may be my favourite areas in all of souls games, shame about the sprawl

I think Cocoon is fantastic, but it's definitely not a hardcore puzzle game. For me it did the thing where it continually introduces new mechanics and lets you feel like you're really figuring it out, even though it's giving you enough guidance to go on (without ever being didactic, because there's no text or words).

I think Baldur's Gate would have been my fantasy game as a kid, a full-on way to play D&D by yourself, but it's just not what I want out of a game now (I need more twitchy gameplay that fully absorbs my brain).

Playing Inscryption with my wife was amazing, the ideal game for the two of us. Cocoon was up there too.

And I guess Elden Ring isn't in my top 3 From games, but it's still a modern classic.

For me it did the thing where it continually introduces new mechanics and lets you feel like you're really figuring it out, even though it's giving you enough guidance to go on

see it never let me feel like i was figuring things out at all and never really explored its mechanics in any depth. it was a very short game that entirely consisted of introductory puzzles to gently familiarise the player with mechanics, where there were never very many possible actions to take so you can just stumble through most of it. i was really shocked when it ended just because it was so short and hadn't really gotten to the point of actually doing anything. it's gorgeously presented and could have been the first half or third of an actually interesting game, but it never got to that point at all. it really felt like a puzzle game designed to impress people who do not care about puzzle games.

I seem to be on a similar wavelength as other voters. No interest in shooters or online multiplayer.

I sort most of my votes into 4 categories:

'cryptic' games - games with unclear rules that you have to learn
Inscryption
Cocoon
Lorelei
Tunic
Void Stranger
Dungeon Encounters
Taiji
Isles of sea and sky

more straightforward puzzle/deduction games
patrick's parabox
chants of sennaar
paper trail
storyteller
bonfire peaks
golden idol 1 & 2

games like zelda or metroid - twisty games with barriers to get past
Tunic again
Animal Well
Metroid Dread
The Lost Crown
Astalon
Elephantasy Flipside
Aeterna Noctis

story games
Norco
The Forgotten City
Immortality

and here's my votes that didn't fall into those categories:
Vampire Survivors: invented a new genre. slightly cryptic with the powerups and secrets. although, i ended up playing Brotato for longer.
Tinykin - 3d collectathon platformer with an emphasis on getting high up
Lil Gator Game - cozy game similar to a short hike
UFO 50 - retro/multi-genre; around 10 of them are fantastic
Arzette - 2d platformer that is an excuse for the funny cutscenes
Xenoblade 3 - i like slow rpgs sometimes. just going around collecting sparkles.

Cocoon is a great game to play after a blunt. Which is how I play most of my games

Leee thanks for putting this on. I have a number of games I need to pick up because of this!

My only major objections are Cocoon and Stray being as high as they are, but otherwise… pretty solid list! Good job ilx and mega thx Leee.

Don't forget to thank poly for making the banners and putting up with some capricious requests!

Cocoon is really pretty. there was a game called Recursed that came out before it that had the same puzzle mechanic, but it was an ugly looking game.

patrick's paraboxes is a much better exploration of the same sort of recursion mechanics. it's very pure puzzle game though

Enjoyed this thread lots and good to read people's game thoughts. Thanks very much Leee and poly and everybody who played

Of the things I voted for that didn't make the final list, the one I wish more people noticed was Cassette Beasts. Maybe we aren't really into Pokemon-type games, but this one has enough of a spin on the concept to make something unique and it ups the difficulty for an adult audience. The soundtrack is also very, very good.

It’s by a UK studio and one of its charms is that it embeds national folklore and culture without being jingoistic or overly twee (it is still sometimes a little twee). There are place names riffing on real-world locations and bosses themed around Alice in Wonderland (who is unsettling) and Robin Goodfellow (who is very annoying and difficult), monsters that nod to Springheel Jack, Robin Hood, and Herne the Hunter.

many thanks to Leee and poly for putting this together!

Thank you Leee and thanks everyone for voting! I appreciate all the recommendations and have added a bunch to my wishlist.

I gotta make a plug for "Deathloop" especially for those who enjoyed the "Dishonored" games. I feel like it's just so well-designed and offers so many possibilities (both stealth and non-stealth) and rewards creativity and curiosity, all making it really fun. And I never got tired of using the "Karnesis" ability to throw people off the side of cliffs...very satisfying, ha.

Took a weed gummy and have been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator ‘24 all morning. I should’ve given this more points.

xp I played Deathloop for a minute but got distracted by other things. Appreciate the reminder, been meaning to give it a full go. The Dishonored games are pretty choice.

I completely missed this poll but tbh I'd only played a few games in the list anyway, which were Elden Ring, TOTK and Thank Goodness Yr Here (which was brill), honestly I just spent all my time (re) playing Oblivion (even before the redo came out), Civ 6 and BOTW. I'm a simple lass.

thanks for running this Leee! I think I need to give Inscryption another go, it never clicked but perhaps that was because I didn't get to the late game stuff...

inscryption very much has its twists and turns and it's worth seeing those through, but if you didn't like it early on i wouldn't expect anything later to really change your mind that much

the beginning of the game is ultimately the strongest part, and while the twists and turns really are quite cool they are just twists and turns?