Blog: 2020 in Games

It's time to take a quick look at my yearly gaming wrap up for 2020, wrapping up what I played the most (and least) and what I enjoyed the most. 

Top Games by Time Played

I don't think it's too much of a surprise that my most played game of 2020 was Animal Crossing: New Horizons at 205 hours. Animal Crossing was exactly the right fit for a year where we avoided contact with other people and mostly stayed home. In a lot of my recent monthly tracking posts, I've mentioned that this particular Animal Crossing feels a little hollow compared to some of the ones that come before (I'm a relatively recent convert, but Tama Hero has a video on what changed). I'm not sure as things stand AC:NH will be that high on my 2021 list, but it was certainly a pleasant way to spend the year.

Following up AC:NH, we have Europa Universalis 4 at 84 hours and Dragon Quest XI S at 83 hours. EU4 filled a lot of my time in the first half of the year. It's enjoyable and has the right amount of challenge that I'm engaged without being too frustrated. I'm not exactly good at it, but it's also not a game you really need to be good at, it's just interesting to see slightly different ahistorical version of Europe turn out.

Dragon Quest XI was also a lot of fun. It is Dragon Quest, so if you're not interested in straight ahead JRPGs you're apt to not enjoy it too much, but it's a nice addition to the series. I found it a little bit longer than I'd really have enjoyed but the late game had the right level of challenge and fun.

My two least played games of the year were Bloons and Space Hulk Tactics at roughly 6 minutes each. Bloons is (was) a free flash game so that's no great loss. Space Hulk Tactics was pretty wildly disappointing and I wish it had the Warhammer 40K name on it because I probably wouldn't have tried it.

For the record the "middlest" game I played was Risk II. This was a version of Risk (the board game) produced in the early 2000s published by Hasbro/Mircroprose. It's abandonware and my PC did not enjoy trying to play it (even with windows XP compatibility turned on). It's an ok version of classic risk, but it has a fun construction of "Same Time Risk" where you put in your orders and then the game reveals everyone's orders at once, so you can have armies clashing over boarders if two players decide to attack each other. It's unbalanced and honestly has some problems, but it's a game that has really stuck with me. It also has the mechanic that bigger armies get bigger dice so if you do it right you can role a d20 against your enemies d4 (that's not quite how it's implemented but that's the idea). Kinda odd for a thing I didn't download until after Christmas (and can't switch away from once it's started).

In total I played 799 hours of games in 2020. This is a bit up from previous years, but given the nature of 2020 I don't think that's a surprise.

For fun, I also keep track of how often games appeared in the games of the month. So in case you were curious here's how often each game appeared in the lists:

Top Games by My Rating

My favourite games that I played this year are (in alphabetical order):

• Chrono Trigger
• Hades
• Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Super Mario Odyssey
• XCOM: Chimera Squad

I never look back at previous rankings, so this is my subjective list from late 2020. I think it's a solid list of games. Chrono Trigger is a classic and Breath of the Wild will be too. Hades is seriously one of the best games I've ever played. After feeling ambivalent about most of the XCOM reboot, Chimera Squad is a breath of fresh air and a total blast to play. Odyssey is maybe the game that's most on the bubble in this list, but it's an absolute tour de force in how to put fun movement mechanics into a game that easy to pick up an play for a minute or an hour.

Thoughts on Games in 2020

I'm pretty happy with a lot of what I played in 2020. Ending the year with Hades was a delight and it topped off a year with a lot of other things that I was pretty glad to play. I was pretty intentional with what I played (especially considering there was a pandemic on) and generally I didn't feel like I was supposed to be doing something else for a lot of my play time.

Beyond Hades, I also really enjoyed starting the year with Chrono Trigger and then Dragon Quest XI. I also really enjoyed XCOM Chimera Squad, Golf Story, Mario 35 and ending the year off replaying Illusion of Gaia. 

I did end up feeling uncomfortable towards the end of the year. I wasn't as good as I should have been about being intentional and additionally I found myself very tired, so I was doing less and playing more. I'd like in 2021 to be a little better about getting things done outside of playing games. In particular I'd like to actually *make* some games, so that's a thing I'm going to try to focus on.

The other thing I found towards the end of the year is that it was hard to really get engrossed in a game. That's a thing that's hard to control, but I think it's worth it to try to push myself through a couple of games that I haven't stuck with so that I can see them and feel done about them.

I also want to find some quick-fun games that I can play in 5-15 minute chunks when I need a break from getting stuff done.