I loved the gaming year of 2019. It was an in-between year for me where I worked on many different things, and very different than the intense 2018 (which was all about Yoku’s Island Express release). But quite a lot of games played:
To start, my game of the year was Subnautica. Released on consoles in December 2018, I played it obsessively in January and was already quite certain the experience would be unmatched for the rest of the year. There are so many things in that game that inspires me as a game-designer: An amazing combination of open-world gameplay with a steady trickle of smart narrative to advance the story. Great balance of deep and accessible base-building. Gameplay progression that isn’t afraid to hold back some of the best (and probably most expensive) features until late – all the way up to the final sequence. Using depth as a soft progression blocker was super-effective and gave many wonderful tense moments. And doing all this as a small team using early access is such an impressive achievement. I’m struggling every day to stop myself from playing the upcoming expansion until it’s out of early access.
Continue reading Games Retrospective – 2019