From hundreds of hours to table top towers, Tom picks his favorite games of 2024!

Satisfactory

I had easily 100 hours logged in Satisfactory by the time it finally hit 1.0 back in September. In that time I’ve started well over a dozen new files across the game’s different biomes of varying starting difficulty, starting (as a novice would) by building  sprawling factories across the planet’s green plains before finally leaning heavy into efficiency and factory optimization, breaking everything down and starting over to create intricate assembly lines with peak efficiency in as small (and tall) a footprint as possible, then breaking it all down and rebuilding once I learned that I could do better.

Satisfactory ended up being a game best experienced by throwing objectives out the window and just living for the thrill of the build and the joy of pure optimization, which is something I gravitate towards whenever possible. It’s a fascinating take on the factory builder genre, and I look forward to seeing how it continues to improve post 1.0 release.

That said, I truly yearn for an optimized Steam Deck UI so I can keep those good vibes going when traveling or away from my desk.

Balatro

It takes a very special game to get me playing outside of my home, and even moreso to have me so locked in out in public that I miss my stop on the train multiple times, but my god does Balatro have the juice. Right out the gate this game seemed to captivate everyone I know, whether they followed new games or not, something that intensified after Playstack released a mobile version in the latter half of 2014. I’ve since ended up owning Balatro on 3 different platforms and sunk lord knows how many hours into it since.

The roguelike poker framework is deceptively simple at the start, and I’ll admit it took me far too long to begin to understand the importance of carefully selecting Joker cards and swap them out throughout the run to maximize point gains, but unlocking that knowledge felt like an achievement and it became so satisfying to see my runs get longer, bit by bit.

Fire Tower

I have a nasty habit of buying board games at PAX, specifically because they look cool or have really cool looking pieces, and then never touching them once I look at the instruction manual. At a certain point it feels like most board and tabletop games relish in long sessions and obtuse rulesets, which is where Fire Tower differs immediately. Designed for 2-4 players and a gameplay time of 15-20 minutes, it’s exactly my speed.

Gameplay is simple, and consists of spreading and directing a forest blaze away from your own fire tower and trying to be the last tower standing. It’s simple and straightforward, with a developer-made YouTube guide that clocks in at under 5 minutes.

This past year I picked up the Rising Flames expansion, which adds mechanics (and cool pieces) like water buckets and fire hawks that can help you drop flames elsewhere and negate threats in new ways, and although I don’t play it as much as I would like, it’s the best board game experience I’ve had in years.

Metaphor Re:Fantazio

The guys who made really good Persona games made a different game that has most of the gameplay mechanics I love, but seemingly no one in the art department to tell people no, which resulted in one of the coolest looking games I’ve played in a long, long time. It feels like it was tailor made for someone like me and I couldn’t help but want to inject it right into my bloodstream.

World of Warcraft

Blizzard has been updating World of Warcraft for 20 years now, and after finally taking the plunge 2024 I can absolutely see why. As far as MMOs go, I’ve taken a dip into one or another every year or so, trying out new ones and bouncing off of them after a couple weeks. I may still be early on in the grand scheme of things (and nowhere near touching the content from the most recent The War Within expansion) but I’ve been fully hooked in a way I haven’t since I went all in on Final Fantasy XI back in the mid-2000s, which is high praise.

Will I fall off? Time will tell. But I’m having a hell of a time.