2020 Gaming in Review

What a crazy year! While in 2019 I didn’t play much, this changed completely in 2020: Several lockdowns caused childcare to close, so it was a lot of playing at home with the little one. Of course not video games, but loads of time was spent outside. After the double shift of childcare (morning or afternoon) and work (afternoon or morning) and the evening routine, I was just too exhausted to work on private projects or Medium posts, so I “wasted” the evenings playing. 2020 gaming in review is sharing what I liked and disliked.

I caught up on several titles that already had been in my library for a while, and also discovered some hidden or not so hidden gems. Oh and while doing that I got curious about how much money I have already spent on Steam. Of course I even finished some of the games I played and added 21 (!!!) of them to my list of perfect games on Steam:

30. Paper Train Traffic
31. Deponia – an older point and click adventure that I wanted to finish for years.
32. Ironclad Tactics – a nice little tactics game with an “American Civil War” story line plus Mechs!
33. Driftland The Magic Revival
34. Merry Glade – a horrible game the developer should be punished for 🙂
35. LYNE – draw the line puzzle game
36. Lovers Smiles – drawing plus physics puzzle game
37. Barro – little indie racing game, similar to “Micro Machines”
38. RUNNING WITH RIFLES
39. Zup F
40. Zup 9
41. 12 is Better Than 6
42. Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth
43. Zup! S
44. Gravity Wars
45. Command & Conquer™ Remastered Collection
46. Pirate Girls
47. Day of the Tentacle Remastered – another point and click adventure classic I haven’t played when I was young. Great to catch up on that.
48. Card Hog
49. Last Resort Island – casual match three game, nicely done, but nothing special.
50. Knight Swap
51. Catan Universe – yes, you’re reading correctly: I love Catan so I tried the digital version. It’s a nice game, it’s got Steam achievements and I’ve got all of them.

2020 Civ gaming in review

Aside of playing I’m happy to have caught up on missing blog posts regarding Civilization. By now I’ve finished all posts for the Civilization 5 Scramble for Africa Scenario that is for the 11/12 civilizations with which I’ve won the scenario on Deity difficulty. I also finished most guides for the Civilization 5 Fall of Rome Scenario, where most games had been played years ago. One of these guides even became my first Steam Guide: Fall of Rome Spec Ops – The Huns Deity Strategy. In total that’s 61 blogposts on Civilization 5 on this site. Whew. The passion for Civilization V was fueled even more by my newly discovered passion for playing asynchronous Civilization 5 Multiplayer Games using the GIANT MULTIPLAYER ROBOT.

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The lockdown has shown that people are still interested in Civilization 5 when all of a sudden they have more time. Check this out:

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2020 gaming in review: Robert’s highlights

RUNNING WITH RIFLES

Running with Rifles easily makes rank one of my 2020 highlights. Really good gameplay and comic-realistic, but super nice graphics make this top-down tactical shooter a gem. Great fun playing even though the campaigns are a bit repetitive. First game of this kind to captivate me for hours and hours.

Paper Train Traffic

Paper Train Traffic is a top-down train time management puzzle which requires quick reactions in later levels. On nicely drawn maps you’ll start and stop trains, switch turnouts and bring those trains to safety in the best possible times. Easy to learn, hard to master.

12 is Better Than 6

“Twelve is better than six” refers to 2 revolvers being better than one, which definitely is true, since in this top-down western shooter a lot of people are after you.

Driftland The Magic Revival

Driftland – The Magic Revival is a solid RTS with intense base building and medium level economic aspects at play. A good story surrounds the campaign and made for a good 40 hours fun playing.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth

This one has been in my Steam library since 2016 when I made some of it’s achievements. It wasn’t the best Civ experience. Wanting to finish it however, I gave it a go this year and enjoyed it quite a bit. In the long run it doesn’t stand a chance against any of the originals (Beyond Earth kept me busy for 50h of play time compared to already 2500 in Civilization 5), but it’s worth playing. Get it on sale!

LYNE, Knight Swap, Lovers Smiles, Zup F, Zup 9, Zup! S, Gravity Wars

I like puzzle games. I grew up with what nowadays would be called “casual games” on DOS (games like “Digger” and “Boulder Dash”). That is why between some more “heavy” games I enjoy a break of gaming during which I play a level or two of a puzzle game a day. This year brought out many highlights of this category:

LYNE and Lovers Smiles both come up with simple but innovative and fun gameplay and pose a bit of a challenge in later levels. Good fun, sitting over one of the later levels figuring it out for 15 minutes and seeing it finally work.

Knight Swap is basically “chess puzzle” meets “Portal”. Challenging from level 10 onwards and coming up with new puzzle aspects every few levels, combining them intricately without ever frustrating the player (too much)…

And Zup? Well: Zup is high on the list of each Steam Achievement hunter, because each of the games in the series grants several hundreds of them without much effort. Zup trading cards also grant the absolute coolest Steam profile backgrounds (like the one below). I actually played it for the fun of the game. It’s just a really nice physics ball puzzle game.

So much for 2020 Gaming in Review. Let’s see what 2021 brings! Liked this post or the Steam game reviews linked? Leave a comment here or directly at said recommendations. Happy playing!