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Best Week 2015, Overlooked!
With so many games releasing each year, it’s inevitable that some of the best will slip through the cracks. Today is about those lost souls, the bright crazy children who dwell at the periphery.
Of course, the danger of not paying all that much attention to the prevailing hotness is that I could be completely wrong about some of these. For all I know, this might as well be a list of the ten most popular games of the year. My only criteria are: one, that the games in question must be superb, and two, that I haven’t heard much about them.
Best Week 2015, Consternated!
On occasion I grow frustrated with the state of our hobby. Specifically, with the critical side of it. About a month back, maybe two, somebody was upset over one of my reviews. It was for a game I had found interesting and thought-provoking, though certainly not “fun” in the traditional sense of the word, the sort of thing I was glad to have played a few times but never intended to return to. As I conversed with this critic of critics across a handful of emails, we finally got to the bottom of his complaint.
“You never said if it was FUN,” he wrote. “A game should be fun, period. If you can’t tell me if it was fun, you should not write a review.”
Absurd. Just as I can read a book for many reasons, or listen to a piece of music for many reasons, or watch a film for many reasons, so too can I play a game for many reasons. I can play a game because it’s fun, absolutely! But I can also play a game because it educates me in some way, or brings people closer together, or provides an experience that sparks my imagination, or shows off something innovative. I can play a game because it makes me sad. And to me, that is fun.
That’s what today is about. What follows are ten of 2015’s best games that I probably wouldn’t describe by simply slapping the adjective “fun” over the top. Instead, I found them interesting, or innovative, or enjoyable with some provisos.
Best Week 2015, Rebaked!
Sometimes, things take a couple tries before they hit their stride. Best Week, for instance, which was originally a passing flight of fancy but has morphed into one of the most-anticipated and best-read internet series of all time. No, you can’t see the numbers on that. They’re confidential for reasons of national security.
On occasion, even good board games need a second chance. Which is why our First Day of Best Week 2015 is celebrating the year’s best rehashes, the titles that were better the second time around, and the games that morphed into something entirely new — and better.
Best Week 2014, Staff Mutiny!
![Wait, what's going on? Wee Aquinas, is that— [muffled scuffling]](https://spacebiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/0-best-week-occupied.jpg "Wait, what's going on? Wee Aquinas, is that— [muffled scuffling]")
Ah. Hello. You were probably expecting Dan, weren’t you? I can tell by the facial tics projected through your webcam that you’re a little surprised by this turn of events — after all, hasn’t Best Week 2014 come to an end?
No. It has not. Because we’re in charge now. And this only ends when we say it ends.
Don’t worry, Dan will be fine. Brain damage on par with a night of heavy drinking, or maybe drowning for a few minutes. So let’s just call this a guest submission. Because we, the undersigned, are not content with Dan’s tyrannical “Top Thirty” list, or whatever he’s calling his puppet regime these days. We merely aim to correct his errors with the actual top games we played this year.
Best Week 2014, Day Five!
At long last, here we are. The top six games of the Space-Biff! year, sort of sorted into a coherent list of preference.
Appropriately, every single one of them contains zombies.
Okay, that was a big damn lie. Only some of them contain zombies.
Best Week 2014, Day Four!
“Why thirty?” someone asked me long ago, on Monday. “Why a top thirty, and not a twenty-five? Or a ten? Or a fifty?”
And honestly? It’s because I think thirty is one of the most underrepresented numbers among our generation. Anyone can do a top ten, or a top twenty-five, or a top fifty. But a top thirty?
Only on Space-Biff! Literally.
Best Week 2014, Day Three!
Fun (And Informative) Best Week 2014 Fact: One particular publisher has been highlighted every day of Best Week so far, and will be highlighted again today. Can you spot which one it is? Five space pennies for the victor, and off with the heads of the losers.
Yes, all of them. Off with all their heads.
Good luck, gladiator. If you won’t do it for your country, do it for your head.
Best Week 2014, Day Two!
Another day, another gaggle of six of the best games we played this year. It’s Best Week 2014, and today we’re playing mancala, flicking some monsters, and programing the weeks to come.
Best Week 2014, Day One!
Over a hundred games enter. Thirty games leave.
You know what that means: it’s Best Week 2014, and we’ve got five straight days of the year’s best games! Provided “the year’s best games” is strictly interpreted as “the games Dan Thurot and his gang of pals played and reviewed in 2014, whether they came out this year or not.” But what else could it mean anyway?
Welcome to Day One, also known as The Dog Day Legacy of the Dystopian Shmup in Boomtown Space. As you were, cadets.
Best Week 2013: The Index
I do these index posts for two reasons. First, because I’m a bit obsessive about indexing. I just love it. Mmm, indexing. And second, because every time I write a multi-part series, there are one or two people who request that I compile all the parts into a melange of linky goodness. I’m going to pretend the second reason is the one that actually compels me to do it. Sure isn’t my OCD, nuh uh, nothing to see here.
Anyway, with 2013 days behind us, now is probably a good time to do the index of all my best-of and top-games stuff from last year. Before I forget. And also before it’s completely irrelevant. So here it is: all my favorite games from 2013, plus some from 2012 that came out at the tail end of the year or that I just counted as 2013 games for some reason. Enjoy, and here’s to 2014!
SPACE-BIFF! 