Games: Simon Parkin’s five best games of 2024 | games

1. Balatro
LocalThunk
Built with simple poker hands, Balatro distorts, twists and reshapes the classic card game into something overly loose and unique to the video game medium. You assemble a deck of modified cards that allow for exciting combinations, while also considering how the decisions you make in the current game might affect the ten that follow.

2. Dragon’s Dogma 2
Capcom
This freewheeling fantasy game has a rollicking atmosphere that is undermined by the perilous journeys you must undertake through the hilly landscapes that connect the ancient cities and settlements. Out there, in the bushes, you might encounter a cave troll who, if you’re not careful, will follow you into a dragon’s clearing to trigger a chaotic, massive, unscripted battle unique to your experience. A wonderfully idiosyncratic adventure.

3. UFO 50
Mossmouth
A collection of 50 vintage games that never existed, UFO 50 is a generous homage to early video game aesthetics, underpinned by modern game design sensibilities. The hit rate is stratospherically high: Many of these games are mini-classics at first glance – no surprise, since co-creator Derek Yu is one of the brightest lights in the indie game firmament.

4. The rise of the golden idol
Color Gray Games
Explore crime scene dioramas to collect clues – rendered as names and nouns – then deduce whodunnit, whydunnit, and wheredunnit in a series of interconnected scenes. The pleasure of fitting the right words into the holes in a summary solution is exquisite, as is the 1970s atmosphere and the way the game’s individual events come together to form a coherent mystery.

5. Animal welfare
Billy Basso
Seven years after its creation, the debut of solo developer Billy Basso – for whom he worked as an artist, writer, composer and programmer – is a mystical dive into a labyrinth of dark caves full of puzzles and secrets that must be solved through a combination of skills and logic. A fascinating journey.