I’ll remember 2020 for so many things: Coronavirus, my first year of cat ownership, and games. Oh God, I played so many games in 2020: board games, video games, tabletop roleplaying games, you name it. The games on this list didn’t necessarily come out in 2020, nor are all of them actual standalone games, but these are the games that got me through 2020.

Honorable Mention

The Last of Us Part II (PS4) - An ambitious return of possibly my favorite PS4 franchise. Amazing gameplay but the story really overstayed its welcome.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch) - One of my favorite games of all time but this was my second runthrough and it wasn’t as gripping the second time.

5. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch)

My girlfriend looked over my shoulder and judgingly whispered, “Oh my god, you’re not even doing anything!” I acknowledged this statement was partially true while my custom designed islander happily crafted his 500th flimsy shovel.

It would be a bit of an understatement to say I was hyped for this game. AC:NH was slated to release during the crescendo of the Coronavirus panic. My friends and family were sanitizing their groceries before they were even allowed to set foot in their kitchens (admittedly, I never took this precaution). Desperate for a digital escape, I even tweeted at Animal Crossing’s Raccoon mascot, Tom Nook, “PLEASE DROP ANIMAL CROSSING EARLY. WE NEED IT.”

The AC:NH loop consists of of fishing, hunting bugs and fossils, and finding materials to upgrade your home. Pretty simple stuff. The relaxing gameplay wasn’t enough to keep me playing through the whole year, but I will always have fond memories of hopping around on my friend’s islands in a time when that wasn’t remotely possible. For my friend’s birthday we even sent her a framed poster of all of our Villagers hanging out.

4. Eberron: Rising from the Last War (Tabletop RPG)

Eberron isn’t actually a game, rather it’s a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting. Think about your traditional fantasy setting with elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. Now, imagine what those societies would look like after a huge war that ends in a mysterious mass extinction event. Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron, cites post World War I as a huge influence to this game setting and it clearly shows. There are tons of fragile partnerships, shady dealings and power struggles to throw a character into.

I’ll remember Eberron fondly as the first DnD campaign I ever DM’d. Being a dungeon master was possibly the most immersive gaming experience I’ve had, staying up late to draw maps, listening to Eberron podcasts and tossing around adventure ideas on the official Eberron Discord channel. Even though the party’s excursion into a realm of dreams ended in failure, I had a total blast orchestrating it.

3. Galaxy Trucker (Board Game/iPad/Steam)

Galaxy Trucker came out in 2007, at the dawn of the era when people realized that Monopoly sucks and that we can actually make fun board games. Galaxy Trucker has two phases. The first phase is a frenetic, asynchronous ship building process where you’re pulling tiles out of the center of a table and trying to build a better ship than your competing truckers. The next phase is a turn-based race to deliver your cargo, fly your ship through asteroid fields and fight alien slavers.

I really loved the pacing of the asynchronous building phase and the more strategic racing section. I probably played this game about 50 times and maybe won twice. That win-loss record is a testament to how bad I am at my favorite hobby and how much I wanted to keep returning to this game. I played the really excellent Galaxy Trucker app, and I can’t wait to play it in person someday.

2. Tabletop Simulator (Steam)

Okay, so TTS isn’t really a single game as much as it is a physics simulator that lets you play other board games. (Yes, I also realize that I put a board game as #3 and I could have played Galaxy Truckers on TTS at any time I wanted to. Whatever, this is my list).

It feels like I made a weird Faustian bargain with the gods of gaming. I really wanted to play more board games in 2020, but I’m mostly able to do that because everyone is stuck at home and because of TTS.

Initially, I kind of judged TTS because of the lo-fi graphics and the fidgety physics engine. But once I got past that, TTS is a board gamer’s dream. A bunch of nerds have implemented and shared almost every imaginable board game in the TTS workshop. A friend recently showed me his favorite game, Star Wars Armada, on TTS. Star Wars Aramada is a complex war game that has hundreds of individual figurines and sophisticated measurement tools. The TTS implementation has all of these components lovingly imported and ready to play for free.

1 Hades (Nintendo Switch)

Could I get any more basic than choosing Hades, the game that won multiple Game of the Year awards, as my top game of 2020? Maybe. But Hades is so good, it totally deserves the praise that gets heaped upon it. I’ve really fallen for some roguelike style games before (Into the Breach, Slay the Spire and FTL come to mind). With those previous titles, I would try really hard for awhile, beat the end boss one time and then exhaustedly tuck the game away. With Hades, I beat the final boss ten times!

In a typical roguelike, you fight through a bunch of random encounters, die/win and repeat the cycle over again. It’s a little bit of a bummer to die in these games because you think of all the progress you lost. In Hades, dying is actually part of the way you progress the story. The convincingly voice-acted denizens of Hell remember your escape attempts and give you unique dialogue based off of the way you die. The core gameplay loop is also just insanely fun. You get to chain together power-ups from gods in sometimes unexpected ways that makes each run feel unique. I don’t want to sound too effusive with my praise, but Hades is a masterpiece.