To wrap up the year, we asked a few mobilegamer.biz readers to pick their personal game of the year, regardless of platform or release date.
Here are the first ten – more to come throughout the week.
FunPlus chief business officer Chris Petrovic:
The game I have spent the most time playing in 2022 is Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells. Not only is it a great casual game that is immersive and authentic in its representation of the Wizarding World, but it holds a spot near and dear to my heart as I was fortunate enough to work on this game when I was at Zynga.
Phantom Gamelabs CEO Sonja Ängeslevä:
Cult of the Lamb by Massive Monster. This game is a fantastic indie production. It has humour, creative design choices, original style and gameplay depth. And it shows that great games are created all around the world.
Sandsoft head of marketing Ratko Bozovic:
I’ve rediscovered Oculus Rift in the past year. There are plenty of misses in terms of the titles available, but some hits too. What got me hooked to Eleven Table Tennis was the ability to have a realistic match while chatting with friends who are thousands of miles away. On top of that, there was a complete lack of toxicity while playing and communicating with random players; something you don’t see too often in the online gaming communities. On the technical side, the game does a great job of replicating the real table tennis feeling, the physics are just amazing. The only flaw of the game is that it definitely doesn’t elevate your real-world skills (unless you train like crazy). In other words, a godly VR tennis player will remain a noob in the real world. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Dirtybit chief marketing officer Anette Staloy:
I’ve been real busy merging things in Merge Mansion this year. I feel very productive completing tasks, and I enjoy balancing energy, room in my storage and planning long term for what my upcoming deliverables are.
Kinetix co-founder & CTO Henri Mirande:
My favourite game in 2022 is RAFT. It is a simple yet great survival game to play with friends. I loved how easy it was to get into the story and the multiple adventures and quests built around this simple storyline of waking up on a raft surrounded by sharks with no food nor water and trying to survive. I love browsing platforms like Steam and the app stores to find gems like this one built by a small but very smart gaming studio. You cannot get bored with collaborative games like this one!
Ex-Blizzard, ex-Bitkraft Naavik podcast host Alexandra Takei:
Cliché at this point, but Marvel Snap. I remember sitting in Building 3, absolutely crushed that Team 5 folks like Hamilton Chu and Ben Brode were leaving Blizzard, but as a major TCG enthusiast, I was excited for what these guys would whip up in the lab. Marvel Snap absolutely does not disappoint and hats off to Second Dinner for getting me to crack high double digit hours on a mobile game (note: I cheat sometimes and play on Steam). Locations and lane play bring a novel take to TCGs, simultaneous turns erase the ‘boring parts’ (waiting your turn) and speed up gameplay, and it has the perfect balance of random zaniness and precision play that one would expect from some of the best in the business. Turn 1 Snap or go home!
Lava Labs founder and CEO Kaya Tilev:
Even though it is a relatively old game, our go-to game in 2022 is still The Battle of Polytopia on mobile. It provides an insane amount of replay value, with no two game sessions feeling the same. The recent release on Switch means a new audience gets an opportunity to play.
Game Economist Consulting boss Phillip Black:
Modern mobile game development is so much about managing product risk and strategically placing design bets. Marvel Snap spits in the face of all that and rewrites the CCG playbook. When Ben Brode mentioned that Snap represents everything he knows about card games, he meant it; Snap is a magnum opus. Two hundred hours of gameplay later, Snap captured my heart, mind and wallet.
Black Block CEO Robin Squire:
And the winner of the 2022 Game of the Year is Rust. It’s always Rust!
Raptor PR founder and managing director Rana Rahman:
My GOTY is Stray. What’s not to love? Cats, a beautifully realised dystopian future world and charming robots! It’s refreshing to see a new IP pounce onto our screens, in a prolonged age of excessive sequels and risk averse projects. I’ve been able to enjoy it wherever I am in the world thanks to the Steam Deck version.
