Blog: Games of December 2020

I'm not sure I was in a great mind-space in December. Looking at how I felt about most of what I played none of it really seemed to be great. I've been thinking about how to manage happiness and fun and so hopefully for the stuff I play next I'll be able to enjoy it more.

My top five games (by play time) for December were:

1. Civilization VI - Coming out of November I had a few fun games and a few games that weren't so fun. I want to love this game, but sometimes it just feels so draggy.
   
   
   
   
   


2. Hades - I'm a little frustrated that I'm not better at Hades than I am. On the other hand even as someone who isn't very good at it the game is still fun and interesting and doesn't make me feel like I'm really missing out. I wonder if playing mouse and keyboard has held me back some (I don't think much), but mostly I think I'm just a little too impatient with the game. I'll talk more about it in my 2020 wrap-up post, but the fact that this became a top 10 game in less than 2 months of play time really speaks to just how good it is.
   
   
   
   
   


3. Illusion of Gaia - I don't pick up Illusion of Gaia every year at the holidays but it's definitely the time when I want to play it again. It was nice to have a couple of days to play and I was able to get all the way though quite quickly this year (9 and a half hours) at least partly because I learned the speed running tactic (fact?) that the game gives you all of the XP even if you don't defeat the enemies. So it was nice to be able to tour through the parts I liked and keep going. It felt interestingly dark in the year 2020, with a lot of people not really responding to the crisis the world is facing in the game. 
   
   
   
   
   


4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - I dunno. It's cute but I'm finding less and less urge to actually play. I've given myself a goal of getting my island to 5 stars in January and then we'll see what's next but without a significant update, I may just drift away from my island.
   
   
   
   
   


5. Luigi's Mansion 3 - If you are an animator you should play this game. Other than that I'm not sure. I think there are a ton of fun ideas in here and it's certainly charming, but I just didn't every feel that invested.
   
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for December:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month: