Coint and Plick 2014 - The Seventh Annual ILX Video Game Poll

Honorable Mention: Fiz: The Brewery Management Game – iOS/Android – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/bEt1Ypw.gif

Website | Metacritic | Touch Arcade | New School | Trailer

i can confirm that Fiz is a lot of fun! for those of you who enjoyed a kairosoft game or five (game dev story, dungeon village, grand prix story) but wish that they would do something new, this is the game for you. here are a few elements from the game, just to give a feel for it.

once you get going, the game has a nice flow to it. while your team (all of whom you've give names that would make your mother disown you, of course) are making your brew, you're looking at the available markets for a future brew. every market has different preferences. there are dive bars where you can send your cheapass lager, there supermarkets with lots of customer (and lots of competition), and there are fancy places where the customers expect high-end expensive shit. there are also seasonal places where you can reliably unload a ton of brew during certain months. in addition to looking into what the customers like, and their affluence, you can also research your competitors offerings at the same market.

once you've sold beer at a certain market, you have good data to plan your next brew that you'll send there. you can take a look at the history of your sales there, particularly at the quality of the batch that was sold, the price that you sold it at, and how quickly it sold. each batch of beer has an expiration date (usually around 2 months, to start with). you want to set your price at the magic spot where it just barely sells out just before the expiration date. if the price is too high, you won't sell out and some of the beer will expire. if the price is too low, then you'll sell out but your profits won't be as high as they could have been. the magic price point is different every time you make a shipment, because a) the quality of your beer will be different than the last time, and b) the competition may have changed up their offerings at the same market.

there's also all the stuff you'd expect, like being able to upgrade equipment, events (i.e., make at least 85 units of a 700 quality beer by October in order to unlock a new character that you can hire; beer tasting competitions), unlockable recipes, etc etc.

bottom line: kairosoft just got out kairosofted by a mile. - Karl Malone

i quit playing it 2 days later btw

;_;

lol polyphonic, did you animate that one just for me? <3

lol karlz

i don't know if Fiz is still a dollar, but if it is, it's totally worth it imo. you're not going to look back on it in a few years with nostalgic teary eyes, but it is genuinely entertaining for several hours. if i went to the arcade as a kid and was able to play a game for 5-6 hours on 4 quarters, i'd probably be pretty happy!

not hard to guess what game(s) jjj is referring to, but i avidly await their reveal. i should probably try to play one/them before it appears, haha

yeah I dl'd Fiz after hearing about it on here, and played it for a couple of days and then haven't gone back. I don't know why, it was fun, but I dunno...

that's just how i felt about beating 100000000 a few days ago, it's over and done, no regrets. hyped for YOU MUST BUILD A BOAT.

lol polyphonic, did you animate that one just for me? <3

There will be some caveman-level gifs from time to time to mix it up.

Sorry for the general shittiness of the overlays. I really need a Wacom.

Honorable Mention: The Swapper – PC – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/UBQtT3k.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Destructoid | Edge | Trailer

One-by-one, area-after-area, new elements pile on. Various types of light prevent aspects of the Swapper device from functioning, transport beams whip you and/or your clones from place-to-place at spine-compacting speed, gravity gets turned on its head, and crates need pushing. That’s just a light sampling of all the wrenches Swapper tosses into your well-oiled puzzle-solving machine, and it’s quite good at layering them on top of each other. One moment, I was synchronizing clones such that’d they walk opposite directions onto switches, and the next I was doing something similar while upside-down, unable to swap into other bodies, and seconds away from splatting into hair-and-skin-flavored space jelly. - Nathan Grayson, Rock Paper Shotgun, apparent hyphen addict

The Swapper has interesting world-building and truly challenging puzzles, the latter of which have been missing from too many adventure games of late. - one way street

the images look great dude

At this point, if iPhone games keep me entertained for a week's worth of flights, I'm satisfied.

poly, please hit me up if writing for any of the games i nominated is nonexistent. i will justify.

poly, please hit me up if writing for any of the games i nominated is nonexistent. i will justify.

A good rule of thumb is that if you think it doesn't have a blurb it probably doesn't.

2013 for me is the year that I finally boiled over with rage about the love affair slobberfest about downloadable and indie games. SO much ink spent on half-assed stuff simply because it was some dude doing his ill-conceived art project that really means something maaaaaaan that i just couldnt take it anymore. This isn't to say this stuff all sucks or anything, i am glad we get things like fez and limbo, but this seemed to be the year that any mawkishly sentimental bore-fest or ugly as sin minimalist crap was going to get gold awards across the board.

so gutted that you're alread married

mawkishly sentimental bore-fest

surely this is critical darling gone home

ngl I think what jjj is railing against describes my entire ballot. the only new PC game I paid money for this year was Gone Home :P

Swapper looks cool. I got it but haven't been able to play much. The ease to which you can clone and destroy your clones puts some spooky existentialism into it.

i've definitely gotten less interested in narrative as i've gotten older and more interested in rawer/ludic/mechanical elements of a game. there was a time when i was like 12 and could play a jrpg w/ 100 hours of cutscenes + be mollified.

Honorable Mention: Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC – PS3/X360/PC/Mac – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/GQSX9FN.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Eurogamer | Washington Post | Trailer

first things first, the borderlands team is as good at DLC as anybody our there, the only competitor MAYBE being both fallout games. this is no exception, but where it really shines is watching a bunch of behind the scenes dork let their tabletop freak flag fly. great writing, hard as hell, brilliant execution in wrapping the core game in some totally different vibe without breaking anything, and tons of in jokes and easter eggs that fly by so fast you will miss half of them the first time out. basically, if you like the game and you are plenty leveled up, you have no excuse to skip this. bonus points for making a DLC that will fucking pwn you if you just try to roll into it to test the waters, its crazy hard. - jjjusten

Tiny Tina may be the best post-release DLC I've played for anything. - Telephone Thing

It's more fun than the main game imo. - gbx

Wow I own that as part of the season pass and never even got around to installing it because I'd burnt out on the other DLCs before it got released. Will give it a go.

Honorable Mention: People – Browser – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/TtSQe4c.gif

Website | Developer's Blog

Arrow keys or WASD to move. Please make sure you can hear the game since the sound is an important part of it. Also be sure to play through to the end, it's worth it. - BenW, creator

I am like a rolling thundercloud of stormy love! - KevinZuhn, May 4, 2013 @ 1:56pm

love the gif. good game w minimal gameplay, moody aesthetics, doesn't overstay it's welcome; more arty indie games should be like it- short evocative & sweet.

Should I keep going?

Sure! I'm following along by zing. Comments on other honorable mentions: fiz fizzled out quickly for me, borderlands 2 was fun but since I never finished it I didn't bother w the expansions. Haven't tried the other 2 yet- looking forward

with people, i never heard the mission statement and i assumed the game was about saving the little black guys from being snagged up! just played it with the opposite impetus in mind and "beat it"
what does it say about me that i've seen enough limboesque sad guy games that i assumed this one was about protecting your friends from being snapped up rather than helping be a matchmaker

yeah, keep going!

glad someone voted for "people", it was the last thing to fall off my ballot. i also panicked at first when my little guys got siphoned off, it went against my hoarder's instinct.

also, loving the rollout format, polyphonic!

also following this with a mix of enjoyment and shame, having forgotten to vote :(

imgur is being a dick at the moment

Honorable Mention: Year Walk – iOS/PC – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/ZP7FTK5.jpg

Website | Metacritic | 148 Apps | Slide to Play | Trailer

The super old school gameplay wasn't frustrating because it added to the oppressive creepy atmosphere so effectively. - if

Spooky 2D/3D adventure game Year Walk, based on Swedish folklore, came out this week. I'm liking the Contre Jour aesthetics. - Sanpaku

Year walk is frustrating. Memorising sequences and revisiting old areas of the map to see if anything's changed are the dudliest of dud game mechanics. - ledge

i really want to play year walk

Honorable Mention: Resogun – PS4 – 5 pts – 1 vote | Top PS4 Exclusive

http://i.imgur.com/OguE7WL.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Polygon | Gaming Age | Trailer

Resogun's DNA comes from Defender and Robotron: hulking, high-scoring chasing 80s arcade cabinets from Williams that placed skill front and centre as your lone spaceship cut swathes through patterns of flitting bad guys. That is Resogun in a nutshell, retaining that purity of gunning down alien invaders in a scrolling siege. But don't be fooled, the heart of its gameplay may be timeless but there is modern fizz to its makeup.

It is beautiful for a start; sparkly, glitzy laser fire exchanged over the neon wreckage of the last human cities, enemies exploding in a shower of voxels. It is busy but eminently readable, with distinct colours and patterns keeping your eye fixed between your ship and your foe. Resogun is a side scrolling shoot 'em up, but its levels are cylindrical, wrapping around a central point like a carousel. - Tom Hoggins, The Telegraph

I had forgotten how much I enjoy side-scrolly shooters before I started playing this. Super simple, super fun. -DJP

Top PS4 exclusive! Yeah this is why it's more fun keeping this poll insular.

Honorable Mention: Lone Survivor: The Director's Cut – PS3/Vita – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/gDEbNpC.jpg

Website | About the Director's Cut | Metacritic | The Digital Fix | Gaming Age | Trailer

Lone Survivor is Jasper Byrne's psychological survival adventure game that allows players to choose the method of their madness: Shoot everything that goes bump in the dark or sneak around quietly to escape the ravaged city; stay healthy with food or pills; seek out other survivors or go it alone. Jessica Conditt, Joystiq

Lone Survivor hearkens back to the classic Team Silent installments of Silent Hill, and shows how expressive pixel art not strictly tied to evoking nostalgia can be. - one way street

lone survivor was pretty good. i can't remember why i stopped playing it, i think i forgot about it. so maybe not that good...

This is a lot of work here Poly, nice rollout!

just keepin ya seat warm

Honorable Mention: The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1 - Faith – PS3/X360/Vita/PC/Mac/iOS – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/shqqGx8.jpg

Website | Metacritic | Eurogamer | Washington Times | Trailer

Classifying this adventure as a game seems almost silly. There are some quick time events and a little bit of investigative action but as a whole you're taken on a choose-your-own-adventure storytelling thrill ride. Highly stylized in its presentation the player is put into the role of the Big Bad Wolf himself. After the exile from their Homelands he tries to clean up his image as Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of Fabletown. What follows is a well-acted and absolutely gorgeous to watch film-noir style mystery into the seedy underbelly of Fabletown, its denizens and its daily struggle to keep everything together.

Aside from a very select few the exile has not been kind to most of the characters we know and love. Their 'happily ever afters' have long since been forgotten and what's left is dark and gritty characters pushed to the brink of survival. Who would have thought that the hero of Red Riding Hood would be a foul mouthed woman beater who strolls Fabletown for hookers? I know I never would have and The Woodsman is just one example of a great hero's fall from grace that you'll encounter here. This treatment sinks its hooks into you and doesn't let go and is easily one of the best things about the story as a whole.

To be quite frank, as much as I'd like to give some commentary on the opening episode’s plot it really would take away from the enjoyment of watching it unfold for yourself. It's crafted so well that taking even a single piece of the pie and handing it to you on a plate would take away from the impact you'll feel discovering it on your own. - Shawn Petraschuk, Canadian Online Gamers

This game is absolutely amazing! - AnalDoomsday, Nov 6, 2013

iirc walking dead finished much higher in its year. was this not as good?

The first episode is strong, but there's just not that much on the basis of which to judge yet--I say this not having played the second chapter. Thanks again, polyphonic, for your work on this poll!

walking dead was top 10 last year, i believe. i'm interested in this but i'm not familiar enough with the source material to pre-pay for the whole season up front.

Fables isn't done yet, we'll have a better idea once the season is complete. Same w/Walking Dead Season 2.

what a cool thread. I can't wait to try some of these out.

Lol who the hell is AnalDoomsday

Sad I missed the first day of this on account of being dead w/ a cold, but psyched to follow it today!

general complaint: is GOTY edition supposed to mean something? Game of the year according to who? seems like every mediocre major release has one of these now where they charge an extra $30 to make the case black plastic!

def. prefer the more generic "Ultimate"/"Gold"/"Complete" subtitles for monetizing DLC on disc

A Game of the Year Edition is any video game that has been repackaged and advertised as having earned either one or many Game of the Year awards from any number of recognized publications or websites, often times with a discounted price and additional content.

So anything from here I guess. But anything that fails to get a GOTY seems to just use "legendary edition" or something anyway.

Honorable Mention: League of Legends – PC/Mac beta – 5 pts – 1 vote

http://i.imgur.com/Wm2Jjx7.jpg

Website | Metacritic | World's Final 2013 | Trailer

League of Legends - do we do this? We should do this.

The most-played PC game in the world isn't the Sims or SimCity or even World of Warcraft. It's League of Legends, and it's a lot of fun.

Part of this game's success is that players can compete in tournaments against other players from around the world. At the 2013 championships, the top two teams gathered in front of thousands at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. A team from Korea, called SK Telecom T1, took home the $1 million prize. - Business Insider

did anybody see the League of Legends piece on HBO real sports? They threw out the stat that "1 in 20 people play LoL" which sounds utterly false. - forks

The free 2 play esport. What's fun about it? Short learning curve, relatively level playing field. Your character evolves in a matter of minutes while playing so it satisfies that rpg itch. This was my WoW pvp substitute for awhile. The community is like any other online game, totally fucking horrible. - bnw

1. Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign (iOS) - 20
2. Bubsy 3D (Browser) - 13
3. Ni No Kuni (PS3) - 12
4. Fish Out of Water (iOS) - 11
5. Pocket Mine (iOS) - 10
6. Time Surfer (iOS) - 9
7. Knights of Pen and Paper (iOS/PC) - 8
8. Ridiculous Fishing (iOS) - 7
9. Quadropus Rampage (iOS) - 5
10. Type:Rider (iOS) - 5

guess my primary gaming platform

01 gone home - 30 points
02 rayman legends - 20 points
03 shin megami tensei iv - 10 points
04 the stanley parable - 8 points
05 fire emblem: awakening - 7 points
06 ni no kuni: wrath of white witch - 5 points
07 brothers: a tale of two suns - 5 points
08 papers please - 5 points
09 europa universalis IV - 5 points
10 pokemon X/Y - 5 points

emil.y's ballot is awesome btw

Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign (iOS/Android/PC)

Nimble Quest (iOS/Android/PC/Ouya)
Scurvy Scallywags (iOS)

Cookie Clicker (Browser)
Candy Box 2 (Browser)
Dungeon Plunder (iOS)

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (PS3/PS4/Vita/X360/Xbone/WiiU/3DS/DS/PC)

Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Geometry (Browser)

A Dark Room (Browser)

TownCraft (iOS)

This is the list of a group that largely plays games on the bus or in a second window imo

― polyphonic, Tuesday, March 11, 2014 2:55 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Add the toilet & you got me

All 10pts:
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) (top game)
Euro Truck Simulator 2 (PC)
Gone Home (PC)
Hotline Miami (Vita)
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (360)
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (PS3)
Super Mario 3D World (WiiU)
Tearaway (Vita)
The Last of Us (PS3)
The Stanley Parable (PC)

Gratz Will, THANKS Poly. I know I had a rant about iOS games that don't work offline but at least that stopped me playing MPQ for more than a day or two.

thanks poly!!

my boring ballot:

1) Dishonored DLC (Xbox 360) - 30 pts
2) The Cave (Xbox 360) - 30 pts
3) Tomb Raider (Xbox 360) - 10 pts
4) Batman - Arkham Origins (Xbox 360)- 10 pts
5) Flower (PS4) - 5 pts
6) Candy Box - 5 pts
7) The Stanley Parable (PC) - 5 pts
8) The Wolf Among Us - Episode 1 (Xbox 360) - 5 pts

emil.y told me privately that her 11th place game was Call of Duty Black Ops 2 in case you were wondering

Hahaha.

Maybe we should've been talking about making an ilx FPS instead of an RPG.

Top 20 best selling games:

1. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
2. FIFA 14 (EA)
3. Call Of Duty: Ghosts (Activision)
4. Battlefield 4 (EA)
5. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
6. Tomb Raider (Square Enix)
7. FIFA 13 (EA)
8. Lego Marvel Super Heroes (WB Games)
9. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)
10. The Last Of Us (Sony)
11. Batman: Arkham Origins (WB Games)
12. Call Of Duty: Black Ops II (Activision)
13. Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft)
14. Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
15. Saints Row IV (Deep Silver)
16. BioShock Infinite (2K Games)
17. Killzone: Shadow Fall (Sony)
18. Need for Speed: Rivals (EA)
19. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (WB Games)
20. Skylanders: Swap Force (Activision)

(oh, that's just uk)

Top ten US:

Grand Theft Auto V
Call Of Duty: Ghosts
Madden NFL 25
Battlefield 4
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
NBA 2K14
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Just Dance 2014
Minecraft
Disney Infinity

i have played zero of those this year

nice work polyp. well done to the academy too, adorably ilxish results.

i hate when people call me polyp but thanks

http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2012/5/20/Herc_is_Disappointed.gif

2014 Biggest Disappointment: Bioshock Infinite

i was pretty excited for this game tbh. just garbage. like it was designed by people who heard about the first game but never played it. much much less absorbing setting and much much more boring gameplay. i made myself play it for a while and then just quit and never thought about it again. - Roberto Spiralli

I like that everyone else is kinda catching on to the fact that Bioshock is dumb and bullshit and not fun and not clever. Well, not everyone. Legit facepalms all throughout the game on account of how bad the "gameplay" AND how bad the "story" are but these were SOMEWHAT redeemed by the LEGIT LOLS at how AWFUL the ending of the story is. Unbelievably garbage, like if Christopher Nolan got a concussion and tried to make a movie with Dreamworks. InSHREKtion. God this game was dumb. It'd be less annoying if it didn't, like, stand in close proximity to a good story though? Like it was irredeemably bad but given the setting and themes it wouldn't have even been hard for this game's story to be good. Cyndi Lauper was the best part of this game. Fuck this game. – Will M.

Others receiving votes:

Deadly Premonition:

The PC port of Deadly Premonition was my greatest disappointment of the year: unplayable on release, with a strange text glitch that rendered all UI text and subtitles as unintelligible symbols. It's true that the game did live up to its uncanny reputation in that regard, but I couldn't play for more than five minutes out of fear that my laptop would melt and congeal into an eldritch mass or begin emitting messages from the Black Lodge. – one way street

The Stanley Parable:

... which said all it had to say in about a minute and then just got endlessly clumsy, not helped by being able to get endings in an order which further ruined the experience (e.g. I got the museum one first) - if

Tiny Death Star:

the stores update too quickly! too many notifications! and the food stores are boring: shoulda been like "Ewok Barbecue" and "Yoda's Yogurt". shoulda been funnier. - Euler

Pokemon X & Y:

I guess I didn't like this series as much as I thought I did – diamonddave85

Nimble Quest

Ducktales: Remastered was just a nice shining turd of everything wrong w modern gaming. NES for idiots.

my ballot:

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
Batman Arkham Origins (360)
Luigi's Mansion 2 (3DS)
Steamworld Dig (3DS)
Tomb Raider (360)
Lego Marvel (PS4)
Pokemon X/Y (3DS)
Rayman Legends (Vita)
Doki Doki Universe (PS4)
The Cave (360)

nimble quest was my biggest disappointment, forgot to blurb it.

All the other nimblebit games have been stupid but addictive. This was just a dull as rocks ios also ran, all grind and no gusto. and hardly any charm.

I didn't feel right voting for Ni No Kuni higher b/c I've barely played it, much tho I love Level-5 and Studio Ghibli.

Limiting my voting to games I actually played(and mostly beat) makes an interesting contrast for the usual top-10 lists that incorporate all games on all systems.

I like the graphic used for the #1 pick.

1. 868-HACK - 20
2. Saints Row IV - 15
3. Papers, Please - 15
4. State of Decay - 10
5. Spaceteam - 10
6. Ridiculous Fishing - 10
7. Rogue Legacy - 5
8. People - 5
9. Stanley Parable - 5
10. Card Hunter - 5

yes bagman in the fight is key

1. Gone home - 20
2. Gunpoint - 20
3. Assassins Creed IV -10
4. Lego Marvel SH -10
5. Tomb Raider -10
6. Thomas was Alone -10
7. Saints Row IV
8. Stanley Parable
9. Shadowrun Returns
10. Guacamelee

Papa Louie 2: When Burgers Attack! (Browser) - 20
Cookie Clicker (Browser) - 10
Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing (Browser) - 10
Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective (Browser) - 10
Pom Gets Wi-Fi (PC) - 10
Gone Home (PC/Mac/Linux) - 10
The Last Door: Chapter 1 - The Letter (iOS/PC) - 10
Paint it Back (iOS) - 10
A Dark Room (Browser) - 5
No One Has to Die (Browser) - 5

looking over it now, i see my ballot is split between shortish games whose concept/writing/humor i enjoyed, and more grind-y games that i fixated on for a month or two and then abandoned. that's probably due to low finances steering me toward games that are cheap or free. i'm interested in checking out some of the longer PC games on the rollout once they start showing up in bundles.

thanks poly

Batman: Arkham Origins (PC) - 5
BioShock Infinite (PC) - 30
League of Legends (PC) - 5
Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign (Android/iOS) - 20
Tomb Raider (PC) - 10
XCOM: Enemy Within (PC) - 5
Pikmin 3 (Wii U) - 10

from what i played since I'd give Rayman Legends at least 15-20 pts

Well hey I've started ni no kuni and hey this is goddamn depressing

game takes basically forever to ramp up but hey thats a jrpg for you

Ok and now it is tremendously charming

someday i wanna go back to it when i have no job

cool list, thanks polyphonic and everyone who voted

'gone home' is 8 bucks on steam today, fyi. even though i voted for it, i think it counts as my 'disappointment' of the year; it just didn't quite live up to what i was anticipating. the ability to pick up objects was pretty pointless, no traditional puzzles, and i guess i just wanted more of a creepy/scare factor. i think if it had been a flash game i would've been supremely impressed by it, but as a downloadable title i just expected there to be more.

someday i wanna go back to it when i have no job

This is what I tell myself about every game

Yeah I mostly agree on Gone Home, the main flaw for me was the fact it gave me a specific character to play then didn't really let me play that character realistically. If the set up had been "you are just some dude exploring an abandoned house" then spending ages rifling through drawers and cupboards reading old receipts etc would've felt fine, but telling me I'm a sister who's home from college to find my family missing spoilt that, because I wanted to be calling the cops, not wandering down to the basement to search for old newspaper clippings about the previous owner of the house etc (or spending the first 15 minutes going around turning all the lights on ffs). Didn't feel like it needed a scare factor, but did think it was a bit cheap of them to imply early on that it was going to have one when it ultimately didn't.

Still voted though because once I'd got past all that I really really enjoyed the period detail, I'm the right age now to have been around the same age as the main characters at the time the game's set, and they just got a lot of the "being a late teen in the mid 90s" stuff dead right.

Where's my family? I know! I'll sift through my dad's vinyl to find out.

'gone home to vibe out'