iOS, Android •
It’s December which means every site is obligated to start handing out awards, recognizing games that made a difference in the current year. 2017 is going to be a tough one, as there are a lot of great games that popped up on the App Store since January. Next week, we’ll be counting down our top 5 games of the year similar to how we did it last year. Everyone on the staff will give you their top five, so you don’t have to worry that you’ll only get my take, which has been scientifically proven to suck.
Now it’s your turn.
We’d also like to get all the readers involved as well. To do that, we’ll use the comments on this post as a nomination process. If there’s a game that released in 2017 that you feel was the top game of the year, nominate it. We’ll keep the nominations open through 12:01am on December 17. That will give me all day Sunday to put them together. Then, next week I’ll create a poll with all the nominees and we’ll have ourselves a proper vote, sans electoral college. I’ll announce the readers’ winner for GotY on Friday, December 22 when we reveal all the staff’s #1 games as well.
While I’ve told the writers that they aren’t bounded by platform, I think it would be easiest for the readers if we kept it to mobile games, lest the list get too long. That is, games for iOS and Android that have been released in 2017 are all fair game. If you already see your favorite game in the comments, there’s no need to restate it. This is just the nomination process, save your exuberance for the actual voting next week!
With that, the nomination process is open. Let’s see what you can come up with!
What’s that game I play all the time? Race for the Ages? Through the Galaxy? Hmm …
In all seriousness, I’d like to nominate Through the Ages.
Through the what? Not sure if that one’s going to show up on any of our GotY lists…
I did think about choosing a less obvious game, but one benefit of posting early in this thread is not having to spend energy thinking outside the box.
Exactly my thoughts… should I choose something obscure, just to buck the trend? Or just go with what’s gotten the most playtime on my iPad and is consistently a great experience - count me in for Through the Ages too.
Well TtA may be difficult to beat, but since it’s up there near the top, I’ll nominate Race for the Galaxy.
I’ve played a metric crapload of two games this year, 1775 and Hades’ Star. 1775 doesn’t deserve an award and HS is a ftp mmo which gives me FarmVille fuzzies. I’ll sit out the nominations this year.
I’ve played the crap out of Hades Star, as you’re aware… but for some reason I didn’t feel right nominating a f2p either.
Quite. I mean it’s well done, and all, and seemingly not evil, but yes, nominating it for GotY would feel somehow wrong.
If “spent the most time playing” is a reasonable metric for nomination, then mine is, I think, The Elder Scrolls: Legends.
TtA is it for me this year
So RfTG was already mentioned.
I’ll nominate Potion Explosion which I played a ton of this year. I liked this game much more that I would have thought. Hated the online play at the beginning, but it got so much better.
I’ll nominate A Planet of Mine, which I really like and don’t think requires money to enjoy. Some really good Choice of Games gamebooks came out this year as well, but I know they don’t get a lot of play by thee Stately Rabble. But as a side note, if I had to choose one of those, I’d pick The Superlatives as my fave of the year.
I so often spend my time playing previous year games like Death Road to Canada or Dream Quest. But for this year few seem more worthy of at least a nomination than Age of Rivals.
Age of Rivals was mentioned. Ticket to Earth, The Witness, and Card Thief are also contenders for me.
i nominate Terra Mystica.
Guild of Dungeoneering?
Was on the 2016 list. I suppose the expansion might qualify?
beside the usual suspects TTA + RftG, I would nominate 8 minutes empire, great fit for mobile and excellent digital implementation.
I suspect that the name of the GOTY winner can be found in the previous posts
It’s been a great year for new games but there’s a couple that I’d like to mention that I was really excited about, spent some time on and ultimatle6 have been a bit disappointing, looking at you Bushido: Warbands and Legendary DXP. Stormbound was a bit different and good fun - and hopefully won’t have too many of the Stately Players tut-tutting
Looking forward to the vote!
Ticket to Earth is a tough one. Once it finally got updated it was well worth the purchase. But for several months it was very pricey for very little actual game.
I was aiming for diversity… rtfg for me then
TTA is an easy choice for me. RFTG did well, but should be disqualified for opening their app landscape mode rotating right from portrait mode. This is the only app I’ve seen this on, so I’m going to call them upside-down…
Think it’s gotta be Card Thief for me, just judging by app usage over the last year. And because I think it’s a fantastically designed game.
Age of Rivals. Immediately clicked with this game and fell under it’s absorbing spell. A little genius of a game that packs in so much tactical play into a short gaming experience. (5-10 mins). Super replayability. Solid AI (if you haven’t already checked out the blog on the Roboto Games website, well worth a read).
And always fun.
Age of Rivals is easily in my Top 5 mobile games of All Time.
what? call me confused. is it an Android issue? on ipad there is no portrait mode and no rotation.
disqualified? for what?
i guess you must have been joking and so you got me.
Serious! All other landscape apps will open with the left side of the phone being the bottom of the screen. RftG opens with the right side of the phone as the bottom…
so a phone problem?
on my ipad it’s normal orientation like all other landscape apps.
It’s actually just a minor annoyance, and my poor explanation has blown it way out of proportion! It behaves the same on ipad if you are holding it in portrait mode when you start the app…
when starting the game with screen orientation locked, it always opens with “correct” orientation, even when holding the ipad “upside-down” or in portrait.
and yes, with screen orientation unlocked it goes to “wrong side” when opening it in portrait.
but i only need to turn my ipad as i like, and the game automatically flips to that position.
i never even noticed that, because i only play on ipad and open all games in landscape (portrait only games like Primal and Creature Quest switch to portrait automatically) and because screen lock is always enabled.
on a phone it’s the other way round of course: opening games in portrait.
Trireme Commander GOTY
I vote for Gorogoa.
RftG is my original iOS game GOTY. (Tied with Card Thief).
If we open this up to ports, I have a long laundry list I can’t even choose one (including Inside, The Witness, Oxenfree, forma.8, Kingdom: new lands).
And I have yet to start Fez.