My Selection Box picks are from three games that I didn't vote for in the Advent Calendar. Two of them didn't come out this year, which is an easy disqualification, but the reality is that I don't think any of them really deserve a place in one of those hallowed chambers either.
However, all three are games that in some way defined my year and I have a fondness for each of them. Let me explain why.
To the core
Last year I mentioned “incremental games” to some gaming journalists, and most of them hadn't heard the term before. As far as I know, it's a recent and understandable attempt to rename certain “idle games”, to better communicate that most under that label require at least some interaction from players.
To The Core is a good example. On each exit to the surface of a planet, you are challenged to drill towards its center, but you can and should steer your ship if you want to maximize your chances of success. Decisions have to be made about what minerals to search for, what upgrades to buy, what planets to visit next, and there are failures, however modest, as a yardstick by which to measure progress. It's a light touch, but the feel is similar to what might happen if 2000s PopCap created an RPG. It's certainly an ode to joy, as your screen fills with the spectacle of pixel art explosions and you become a computer-vibrating wave of death, complete with self-firing missiles, orbital lasers and grenades like a surviving interstellar vampire.
Is this junk food? Personally, I'd say the dopamine rush of loot boxes and gameplay mechanics are the fast food of video games. For The Core and its incremental peers, (the) Gnorp Apologue, as another example, they seem more like the Huel of video games to me. They technically contain your doctor-recommended daily allowance of video games, delivered with maximum convenience, but they won't nourish your soul.
Victory Heat Rally
I regularly try out new retro racers, each of which attempts to imitate one era or another from racing games' past. Most fail to hold my interest for more than a few minutes, because even following in the footsteps of others, it's harder than you think to create an interesting and satisfying driving model.
Victory Heat Rally achieves this thanks to its simple implementation of drifts. Press and hold a button when turning a corner and you'll lean into a swerve; Do this long enough and you'll fill up a meter that will give you a speed boost as you exit the corner. There may be a certain finesse to this maneuver that I'm not accessing, but I enjoy it because I don't need that finesse. I can drift and accelerate through every corner and I always feel good.
This has made VHR the equivalent of this year's Horizon Chase Turbo for me, as I keep firing it up for a quick ten minutes of racing on the Steam Deck. I saw a lot of people rave about Parking Garage Rally Circuit this year, but Victory Heat's speed boosts and vibrant sprite work are more my style. That said, the dialogue is pretty awful and I would give anything to eliminate the pre-race banter entirely.
Fall Guys
There's no way I can argue that this was the “year of Fall Guys.” The It's A Knockout-style inflatable multiplayer game appears to be past its prime, even as it launches on mobile devices and receives updates designed to make it more friendly to newcomers.
But who cares? I play Fall Guys with my son, who has been completely obsessed with the game for almost two years. It occupies a space in our lives similar to Jenga or table tennis, and neither of those games have had substantial live service updates this year either. No, Fall Guys keeps us coming back because it's fun, competitive, and kid-friendly, with less violence or pay-to-win or other predatory monetization than many of its peers.
Fall Guys has become a perennial in my life in a way I could never have predicted. I can't argue that it should be in the Advent Calendar, but it deserves some recognition for all the joy it has brought me.