Jurge Cruz’s Favorite Games And Moments That Made 2024 Alright | Winter Spectacular 2024
The forces of the universe are coping and seething that I have made it to the end of 2024.
This has been the busiest year in my time as a games marketing person in terms of the quantity of big things. Please allow me the self-satisfaction and catharsis to enumerate a few game releases I worked on that shipped this year: Another Crab’s Treasure, Arco, Arranger: A Role Puzzling Adventure, Caves of Qud, Helskate (Early Access,) Immortality (PS5), Mars After Midnight, Mexico 1921 - A Deep Slumber, Surmount, and Thank Goodness You’re Here. When you work at an agency, it’s truly hard to take a moment to reflect on all of the nice things you’ve accomplished, as it's usually then time to move on to the next big thing, so thank you for your patience, as writing it all down serves as mini therapy.
This write-up is going to reflect on a couple of neat games I played, cool moments from my year that you may have also heard about, and some stellar games/games-adjacent coverage that got a big 👍 from me.
If you want to get my RAW 2024 GOTY LIST - check it out here
Neat Game - Clock Tower Rewind
Back in the ancient year of 2018, I played a fan translation of Clock Tower on my SNES Classic (Legal). I poked at it for a few hours and thought “Oh hell yeah, this is a vibe”, and didn’t get very far. By some sort of miracle, WayForward got Capcom and Sunsoft to the table and then got Limited Run to fund and co-develop an official English release of the illusive, but significant, Japan-exclusive horror game. And folks, it’s good! Well, if you love horror game history and can have a good time playing with some stiff controls, it’s well worth picking up and poking at. It’s a 16-bit interpretation of Italian Giallo horror with its bright colours and its stinging progressive rock rules. The interview with series’ creator Hifumi Kono, where he essentially says, “Yeah man, I was watching a lot of Italian horror back then and thought we should do a game like this” is a gem.
If you pick this up, you have to get the wonderful physical edition by the folks at SuperDeluxe Games JP, it really brings the whole package together to make it feel like a premium re-release a la Arrow Video or Vinegar Syndrome.
Cool Moment - Venba Wins Multiple Awards At GDC/IGF 2024
Somehow I have been fortunate enough and in professional proximity to some excellent games to attend 3 IGF Awards in person and be sat in the nominees section of the show each time. Before I started working in the industry, and especially now that I have uploaded assets to multiple console backends, these awards always felt like THE AWARDS SHOW for our industry. Peers recognising peers for their standout work in this dorky medium we have fallen in love with and have decided to dedicate our lives to. But it wasn’t until this year where we were in person with a team nominated that had also won, and my gosh what an emotional ride! Seeing a group of folks you highly respect and admire be recognized by their peers for their exceptional work, that you also somehow had a tiny part of, really does feel magical.
Please go play Venba if you have not already and please be excited for what’s coming next from the wonderful folks at Visai Games.
Stellar Games/Games-Adjacent Coverage - The Nextlander Watchcast, Twin Peaks: The Return
More of you games-people should be listening to The Nextlander Watchcast and be watching/posting more about movies. The latter is a much more selfish demand, but I want more movie posts in my corner of the internet from the folks I follow.
Quietly, Alex Navarro has been putting together one of the best movie/television podcasts with his A+ production and curation. Hosted by some of my favourite voices going on for over a decade, The Watchcast is the highlight of my week when I’m able to keep up with that month’s programming. Once a week Alex, Brad, and Vinny watch a movie or TV episode together - assigned by Alex with some voting sway from The Nextlander patrons - and get on some mics to talk about it. Not a revolutionary idea, I know, but The Nextlander team really bring great questions and conversation to the table. If you’ve heard this crew talk about Doom (2016) with vigour, imagine that but about 1977’s experimental comedy horror film, House/Housu.
Anyway! This year the crew watched 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return, a landmark in “I cannot believe you got people to pay you for this” television. I watched the series way after its original run in 2020, I’d been thinking about it recently, and this podcast run was the perfect excuse to jump back in. Folks, it was an absolute delight, it felt as if I was watching it for the first time as it was airing, as I had also forgotten most of it. If you know about Twin Peaks, you can imagine how meaningful that is. It also VERY MUCH helped me better understand the subtext, and just plain text, of Twin Peaks a lot better.
So reader, I ask you to look at The Nextlander Watchcast archive, choose a movie from an old episode, watch that movie, and jump into an episode. It’s a good time.
Neat Game - The Wolf Among Us
[image link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Au-GHptBCWf21GRuKB-r1iBsNlX2kxGy/view?usp=sharing]
Hey! Did you know The Wolf Among Us came out 10 years ago? It’s true! Did you also know that, holy heck does The Wolf Among Us hold the hell up.
At the time I remember its five episode run, coming off the heels of The Walking Dead Season 1, to be very good, but not emotionally resonant. It was a game with heavy noir tones, dark subject matter, an interesting mystery, but not a story I found as weighty as Season 1 of The Walking Dead.
Now, I think The Wolf Among Us might be way better. I still don’t think its story of a community trying its best to survive and a detective trying to keep the house they live under from collapsing in on itself to be one that will pull on your heartstrings, but this is such a rich novel of a game with a lead that fits the structure of a choose-your-own-adventure so well. The writing team maximised its narrative design to make sure any option you choose for Bigby Wolf is a shade of grey, and it’s really hard to be a perfect cop. This is an adult game about government bureaucracy, public good support systems failing, sex work, and wealth inequality - all of it tackled so well and intelligently, but it’s also still fantasy.
Highly recommend everyone to revisit this one, it feels like not many games since Wolf have tackled such themes at such a level since it, outside of smaller not WB-licensed property indie games. It’s on Steam, download it on your Steam Deck, pick it up between things you are playing, I promise it's worth re-visiting or playing for the first time.
Cool Moment - Minnmax Spotlight on Panic
Of the many projects I’m blessed to have some involvement with, Playdate is one of the closest to my heart. I have a lot of emotions and feelings tied to that little yellow device and the people who made it. So it was an absolute delight to work with the fine folks at Minnmax, Ben Hansen and Kelsey Lewin, to bring them to Panic’s office to go over some of the history behind Playdate and the people who decided to make it.
As you can imagine, Ben and Kelsey are very nice and cool, so I was glad they also thought Playdate is nice and cool. Give it a watch, I promise this is not just me shilling my work, I think it’s neat and you get to see some strange Nintendo history at the start
Stellar Games/Games-Adjacent Coverage - My Perfect Console, Uwe Bowll
If you could make your own video game console that only had five pre-existing games on it, what would they be and what would you call your fancy piece of hardware? That is the whole set-up for Simon Parkin’s excellent podcast My Perfect Console, and if you are not familiar with it boy howdy do you have some, capital-C, Content to enjoy.
If you ever were wondering what makes some of your favourite game creators or games media folks tick - why they decided to spend so much of their limited time on this planet thinking about games - this is the podcast for you.
While this conversation is more Boll talking about the games his movies are based on, rather than, “Here is a list of games that mean a lot to me”, it’s still incredibly fascinating to hear where the man has been coming from all these years. The saga of how Alone in the Dark went down is especially interesting!
That’s all the fun things I have to share with y’all. I really hope the new year brings a strong positive wind to guide our industry, I know we all need it. I still love video games and the people who make them, I still think the Giant Bomb couch is an institution, and I still want to be here.
Take care!
