Red Pages Podcast
Red Pages Podcast Games of the Year 2018
Gord's Pick
Also Return of the Obra Dinn!
Obra Dinn is art. It's compelling, the story delivery mechanism is nonlinear and fascinating and constantly makes you drastically reevaluate what you know about the plot.
It's not the game I've spent the most time on (rest in peace, Heroes of the Storm) and it's not punchy and fun, but it is consistently interesting and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it on top of the hours I've played..
The art design evokes a particular strain of nostalgia I don't feel personally, but I can appreciate how striking it makes a game look that doesn't have textures or even colors.
Like the art style, the audio doesn't do too much, but what it does do it does well, and I was surprised to find that you can find clues even in the accents of the voice actors.
The game is very well thought-out and I think the full effect of the game would not be improved the least bit by having a triple-A budget behind it.
Runner up
Dragalia Lost
I've been operating on the belief that there was an uncrossable line between phone games and PC/console games. Sure, you've got The Room and match-up games and fruit ninja and I guess you can play KoL on it, but you'd never play Diablo (sorry Wyatt Cheng) or Fortnite (I guess this is possible, but why would you?).
Dragalia Lost deserves mention for changing my mind.
It's a gacha, and the gameplay that exists is simple and short, bite-sized, and there are very few verbs, but what this is is a PC hack-and-slash game on a phone. And it's multiplayer. And it runs on my phone.
I don't think this game is anything like the full realization of what can be done, but it's the first game to make me rethink my assumption. Throw in some puzzles, get rid of the cookie-cutter level design and monster recolors, add combat mechanics other than "don't stand in that", and I think we've got something.