Last year, alongside family time, professional development and traveling, I also played some games. 2019 Gaming in Review is my way of sharing what I played, liked and strongly disliked. Some of what I played, I even finished, and added them to my list of perfect games on Steam:
- Fist of Awesome
- Trüberbrook
- Eventide: Slavic Fable
- Armored Kitten
- Poly Bridge
- Tales from the Borderlands
The year started with still a lot of Civilization, but I didn’t come around to finishing the blog posts yet.
For example I played a lot of Fall of Rome on Deity difficulty with various factions. Some nice insights will follow later this year. I also played the Into the Renaissance scenario with Sweden and won. But unlike with other civilizations I didn’t stop there: I played several hundred rounds more and defeated every other faction and conquered all of Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa.
![2019 Gaming in Review - Civ V - Into the Renaissance: Sweden conquering everything](https://i1.wp.com/www.kalle-online.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/civilization-5-sweden-beyond-victory.jpg?fit=700%2C394)
When we moved house, gaming stagnated, and when I picked it up again, I played mostly casual games:
![2019 Gaming in Review - Fist of Awesome](https://www.kalle-online.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/fist-of-awesome-1024x576.jpg)
Fist of Awesome for example is a really nice little beat’em’up. Funny story to play (once) and funny characters and opponents. Unfortunately the achievements would take years to complete without changing some game configurations, so achievement-hunters beware!
Support your local game development scene: Trüberbrook is an adventure game made in Germany and is well worth playing. The story is cool, the puzzles are of medium difficulty and it’s just a few hours of solid adventure fun. A nice walk down memory lane if you played games in the 80s and 90s. Only with better graphics.
Eventide was the first hidden object game I ever played. I kind of missed that trend both in my childhood and then in the 2010s when they became popular on Facebook and mobile devices. I had purchased the game on Steam Sale a while ago. Good fun, but nothing I would engage in more often.
![2019 Gaming in Review - Eventide](https://www.kalle-online.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/eventide-final-achievement-1024x576.jpg)
(Otherwise you’ll have to replay the game)
Armored Kitten – hands off! I’ve played this game, but it’s a pain. Nothing more. 20 minutes of fun, hours of grinding to complete it. Just don’t even spend 50 cents on this.
Polybridge is just a great game! I’ve played it on and off over the course of 1.5 years and finally finished it end of 2019. 105 levels of great bridge building fun deserve a separate blog post that will follow here.
![2019 Gaming in Review - Polybridge](https://www.kalle-online.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/polybridge-1024x576.jpg)
December 2019 I concluded with yet another masterpiece from Telltale Games: Tales from the Borderlands! And what shall I say: An amazing story, your decisions matter, as always in Telltale games, great characters you start caring about and surprising twists. I finished this one just on the 31st of December.
So much for 2019 Gaming in Review.
Let’s see what 2020 brings!