This year’s listicle is the most unusual I have ever put together. Three entries are nonviolent; they contain none of the stereotypical hack-and-slash, run-and-gun gameplay which has become emblematic of videogames in popular culture, for good or ill. Another arrived with a lot of hype but was reviewed quite poorly. I champion it anyway. The last sounds in summary more like a gimmick than a masterpiece. I include it on this list because of what it says about videogame players, culture, and how we remember our history. I don’t know whether this unusual list reflects the kinds of videogames that were released this year or my own mood. I don’t think I’m contradicting too many people when I say that 2024 was a bad year all around. It has set us up for many more worse ones. These five videogames, at least, were beacons of joy in a tide of misery.
Botany Manor
Developer: Balloon Studios
Publisher: Whitethorn Digital
Playable On: Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Xbox One, Steam
Botany Manor follows Lady Arabella Greene’s efforts to complete an illustrated herbarium she titles Forgotten Flora. I guide Arabella around her lavish private estate, the titular Botany Manor, as she searches for the seeds of twelve different flowers, plants them in a pot, and nourishes them into adulthood. Solving all the puzzles around a specific flower causes it to bloom, allowing her to add a detailed illustration and her observations of the conditions it requires to grow to Forgotten Flora. All of this is set against the backdrop of the era in which Arabella lives. Somerset in 1890 is a frustratingly patriarchal era for a woman scientist to conduct her research. The documents spread across the Manor are filled with snide and condescending remarks about her capabilities written by her peers and colleagues. This effectively forces me to adopt her perspective while solving puzzles. Being dismissed feels frustrating. Succeeding at her experiments despite the lack of professional support from the male-dominated profession feels great.
Arabella’s manor home is posh and opulent, but not unusual as a private residence for someone of her class and wealth. It’s when I begin to unravel the mysteries woven through its rooms, hallways, patios, and gardens that it reveals its magical qualities. The flowers which should take weeks or months to sprout and bloom can be coaxed to full maturity in an instant when exposed to the right conditions. Discovering these conditions forms the puzzles. Arabella uses unexpected devices like a water heater, a 19th century camera, a wax cylinder phonograph, and a telegraph to induce the special and often unusual conditions the plants need to grow. Discovering these devices is the easy part. The hard part is identifying and deciphering the clues buried in the many notes, letters, articles, advertisements, and diagrams scattered across the manor that explain how the devices should be operated to prompt a flower to bloom.
Botany Manor is wonderful for feeling both timely and retrogressive. Its puzzles are just devious enough to make me stop and think for a few minutes to decipher their solutions, yet not so abstruse as to keep me stuck for a discouraging length of time. I can solve every puzzle and see Arabella’s story from start to finish in about four hours. Its feminist themes, particularly its depiction of a talented and hardworking scientist who is barred from her full potential by the dismissive assumptions of men, is relevant today and is lamentably to become even moreso in our troubled present. It also feels like a throwback to foundational videogames like Myst, which are better remembered than they deserve to be. Botany Manor is the best puzzle videogame I played this year.
Read my full Botany Manor review here.
Another Crab’s Treasure
Developer: Aggro Crab
Publisher: Aggro Crab
Playable On: Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox One, Microsoft Series X/S, Steam
Another Crab’s Treasure tells the story of Kril, a young hermit crab whose precious shell is repossessed by a loan shark. Venturing out from the safety of his tidal pool, the timid and fearful hermit crab travels into the ocean to the crustacean city of New Carcinia in search of his shell. Discovering it in the possession of a pawn shop, Kril makes a deal with the owner: Follow a newly-discovered treasure map to its ends and deliver its prize, and he will be given his shell back. Kril’s adventure takes him across a diverse ocean environment, from shallow coastal shoals, to seabeds filled with coral and ivy, to oil rigs, and down to the blackest depths of the ocean. Everywhere he travels he encounters the trash polluting the ocean, releasing a noxious Gunk that transforms crustaceans and other small sealife into mindless berserker zombies. These are only the beginning of the treasure hunter’s problems. His chief rival for the treasure is Roland, a capitalistic horseshoe crab whose greed is slowly destroying the ocean Kril so desperately wants to escape.
The marketing and press information for Another Crab’s Treasure shamelessly compares itself to Dark Souls. This is a broadly fair comparison, as it borrows several of that series’ familiar design staples, but it does itself a disservice describing itself solely in those terms. The aquatic environment and Kril’s unique tools—notably a hook and fishing line he can use as a grappling hook—gives exploration the feel of a 3D platformer, adding an appealing sense of verticality and acrobatics on top of the typical Dark Souls level design. That Kril is a hermit crab also adds a fun twist to Dark Souls combat. Instead of bearing a shield, Kril hides his vulnerable tail inside makeshift shells using the trash that litters the ocean floor. Different shells offer different combat abilities, like health regeneration, increased attack speed, or electrifying enemies who strike the shell.
Level design grows in competence as Kril’s adventure goes on. The early areas are large and flat, which combined with a purposefully limited draw distance can make them feel emptier than they really are. There are also some technical flaws on even the most powerful hardware; it’s probably best to avoid this adventure on the Nintendo Switch platform. These weaknesses make a disconcerting first impression, but only a first one. The deeper into the ocean’s depths Kril travels, the more intricate and massive the environments become. Playing Another Crab’s Treasure feels like experiencing a developer grow in skill and confidence in real time. The final area would not feel out of place alongside Anor Londo or Lothric Castle. This is one of the year’s best videogames if you stick with it past its rough beginning.
Read my full Another Crab’s Treasure review here.
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore
Developer: Seedy Eye Software
Publisher: Limited Run Games
Playable On: Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 4, Sony PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox Series X/S, Steam
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore presents itself with an intriguing challenge: What if Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, the Legend of Zelda series’ infamous licensed misadventures on the Phillips CD-i multimedia platform, were actually fun to play? The Jewel of Faramore recreates the memorable aesthetic of those two videogames which have been kept alive by internet fan culture, including the hyperactive animated cutscenes, the questionable voice acting, and the picturesque pre-rendered backdrops, and tightens the actual action-platforming into something I can actually enjoy spending hours of my life playing. I play as Arzette, the Princess of Faramore and its mightiest warrior, as she scours her kingdom in search of the fragments to a jewel that can imprison Daimur, an evil wizard who threatens her people.
Befitting the design conventions that were in vogue in the early 1990s, Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore combines elements of action-platforming and adventure videogames. Each level is broadly linear. During Arzette’s first visit to a level, her goal is to find a beacon placed near the level’s far end. Touching it returns her to the world map and unlocks the next set of levels in the sequence. During this search, she comes across many obstacles she lacks the tools to overcome. Dark caves require a lantern to be safely navigated. Magical tapestries create impenetrable barriers which can only be burned away by special candles. Other barriers can only be dispelled by a gun that fires enemy souls. Finding every secret in a level can take two, three, or more visits. Arzette’s thoroughness is rewarded with power that makes the final confrontation with Daimur easier.
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore’s greatest accomplishment is making the case that Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon had good ideas and were let down by inexperience and budget more than execution. The same is probably true of most videogames remembered among the all-time worst. An unfortunate truth about contemporary videogames fans is their tendency to dismiss certain videogames as bad. Their scorn is often based on an internet review, typically one whose purpose is to entertain more than inform. Rarely is their scorn based on time actually spent playing the videogame. Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore represents a renewed criticism for the 2020s. It recognizes the flaws of the videogames it imitates, but instead of mocking them for petty internet clout, it improves them to make a better experience. The world needs more of this kind of radical positivity. Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore builds instead of destroys.
Read my full Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore review here.
Little Kitty, Big City
Developer: Double Dagger Studio
Publisher: Double Dagger Studio
Playable On: Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox One, Microsoft Xbox Series X/S, Steam
Little Kitty, Big City follows one cat’s adventures on their way back home after they accidentally tumble from their person’s apartment window into the city street below. A cat’s particular luck not only ensures they survive the fall from the tallest building around, but also turns the Big City into the perfect playground for a curious cat’s first steps into the world outside their home. A sewer problem has flooded the city’s streets, keeping them free of cars and creating a labyrinth for the water-averse player character to navigate. A host of friendly animals lounge around the streets to teach the cat about living in the city and help them on their way home. Once they do find their way back, the skills and confidence they earned along the way let them come and go freely, letting them continue their adventures with their new friends.
A particular design strength of this videogame is the careful balance it strikes between cat simulation and cartoonish exaggeration. The cat’s effortless balance on narrow ledges and incredible jumping skills look and feel almost life-like. Most jumps are made with a simple button press. For longer jumps and ones that require precision landings, I can hold down the jump button. This prompts the cat to crouch and concentrate, letting me aim their next jump complete with a visual indicator of their arc and targeting reticle marking where they will land. These skills feel authentic and are animated with lifelike detail. Less realistic is the slapstick. Whether the cat tumbles from a fence or plummets from a rooftop, they are never harmed by their fall. If they try to climb an unclimbable wall, their claws remain embedded in the wall while gravity slowly drags them back to the ground. There’s a great balance of precision platforming needed to reach the highest points in the city and a lack of consequence for failure, leaving the cat free to experiment and explore without fear.
Given its focus and setting, Little Kitty, Big City could easily have been a mean-spirited videogame. With every choice it makes, it avoids that threat. No matter what mischief I help the cat get up to, I never feel bad about any of it. In contrast to Untitled Goose Game, a similar concept where being mean to people is the whole point, the cat never harms another creature. It makes a game of pouncing on birds pecking for seeds on the sidewalks, but it always lets them go unharmed. The biggest threats they encounter are the faceless human workers, who at their worst will carry the cat away from their store or property. Little Kitty, Big City gushes with harmless and curious joy. No other videogame I played this year, indie or blockbuster, was such a pleasure.
Read my full Little Kitty, Big City review here.
Animal Well
Developer: Shared Memory
Publisher: Bigmode
Playable On: Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox Series X/S, Sony PlayStation 5, Steam
Animal Well is built on mystery. This alone makes it a challenge to describe. I play as a diminutive pink blob who is born from the heart of a blooming flower. As soon as it emerges from the flower, it spots a squirrel observing from the other side of the room. The player character pursues the squirrel as it scampers away, following it into a dark, dank chasm filled with water, ancient machinery, and many other animals, ranging from seahorses, to chinchillas, to ostriches, to cranes. Each animal occupies its own particular section of the Well. Interacting with them radically changes the platforming mechanics the player character must use to navigate the platforming challenges. In addition to the animals, the player character finds many discarded toys with unique functions. Items as mundane and childish as a bubble wand, a yo-yo, and a flying disc are indispensable for overcoming the Well’s puzzles.
The Well is a place filled with mysteries, ranging from the obvious to the obscure. The most obvious mystery lies near its center: A sealed shrine surrounded by four unlit torches. Finding the four flames and lighting the torches will open the shrine leading to Animal Well’s nominal ending. Another mystery involves eggs hidden across the Well. Finding all of them opens another possible ending. These are the most obvious mysteries, traditional and familiar to players experienced with non-linear platformers. The Well hides other mysteries as well, encoded into the walls and hidden in the darkness of the Well’s murky backdrops. These require much more deduction and experimentation to solve and are the source of Animal Well’s true brilliance.
If any of these five videogames are remembered in the long-term as all-time classics, I predict Animal Well will be that videogame. Compared to the other four videogames on this list and every other videogame released this year, its design has transcended to a completely different level of majesty. It is truly non-linear in a way other non-linear platformers can only aspire to achieve. Once the player character enters the Well, they can go in any direction. The number of possible routes through its initial and most visible goals are innumerable. This only scrapes the surface of what Animal Well contains. “Beating” the videogame will keep a player busy for many satisfactory hours. If they were to walk away assuming all there is to see is a non-linear environment and a credits scroll, they will miss out on Animal Well’s greatest secrets and the most fascinating videogame released in 2024.
Read my full Animal Well review here.