journey: i played journey for the first time in 2021 and then i played it like 19 more times. the first time i heard about the way the game worked it made me cry, and then i didn't get around to playing it for a long time and then i finally did. :)
putt putt goes to the zoo: it's just good
animal crossing new horizons: i got a switch pretty late so by the time i was playing new horizons, most of my friends had stopped except for like 4 of them, who either also got the game late or just really loved it a lot. every time my friends and i play together we do a little show and tell of outfits and new things we made. i made a wand outfit called "freshly hatched james bond" where i put on a suit top, a diaper, and a cracked egg hat. playing new horizons was also the first time i got to play an animal crossing game with my brother since we shared a town on the gamecube version :)
imessenger pool: i'm pretty good at it
stardew valley: ok i think i first played stardew valley in 2020 and got pretty obsessive about it until i got to certain cutscenes and then i basically stopped playing. then in 2021, i started playing it once a week with two of my friends, on a remote co-op farm. it's been very fun. they do stuff to make the farm actually run, and i am there almost exclusively to pull my little pranks on them and to talk about krobus.
stardew valley, but specifically when my friends in the co-op game announce that they're gonna date a specific character and then i race to pierre's, buy a bouquet, and like a minute later a text-box pops up saying "violet is now dating [whoever they were planning to date]" and my friends start screaming: funny every time, really good bit, my loved ones do not trust me anymore
stardew valley, but specifically when i try to hide drum blocks and flute blocks in my friends' houses in places where they won't see them but they will hear them: my house is surrounded by drum blocks and flute blocks now, a hell of my own creation
stardew valley, but specifically when my brother played with us too and we kept stealing furniture from each other and trying to block exits in each other's houses: fun new application of annoying sibling behavior but nothing our friends haven't seen before
jackbox's job job: some of the sentences my friends have made with this game will be rattling around in my brain for years to come
stardust tartarus: when you feel gender envy for an angry little mech pilot your friend drew....... the characters are so good, the music is so good, the dialogue is so good
telling my friends i just saw a really good french movie called "mon beau-père, mes parents et moi" that talks about family dynamics in a really interesting way and then waiting for them to google it: loooove this game
hide and peek: i think the concept and the controls of this game are literally brilliant, truly outstanding to me, jonny does it again
reunion: so beautiful, so dreamlike, so nightmarish!
gris: makes me wanna cry
minecraft: i'd never actually played minecraft til this year. the friend i play with made a beautiful cathedral, i kill fish with my bare hands
messing around with recipes: i will combine three different recipes to make one item and it will normally turn out pretty ok. get me on the leaderboard for this
surrogate: fascinating and pretty world to explore, really interesting set-up and tone
the series finale of supernatural: looove showing this to my friends who are spn fans. i am not a spn fan but several of my loved ones are so i have watched a decent amount as a result and have generally been cursed with a lot of knowledge about it. the phrase "well well well if it isn't dean fucking supernatural" rings in my mind like a beautiful bell at the top of every hour.
gift game: i literally think about this all the time and have tried to describe it to friends who don't really do games but who i think would be interested in thinking about this as analogous to art scenes and art forms they are involved in
like every submission i've looked at from both the speculation and manifesto jams: i think about a lot of them like all the time
gartic phone: prompt.... "the thing (among us reference)" // response.... a drawing of a heart and the words "gay love"
figuring out if the person i'm talking to is bored of hearing me discuss the differences between fullmetal alchemist and fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood yet: a difficult game, but worth it when it goes well. i think fma is more compelling than fma:b and i think the differences in tone between the two are really interesting.
frog: the fucking. easter eggs in frog. obsessed with frog. internet's hottest new hangout spot!
answering social app profile prompts: i quite simply treat this like a game of quiplash; primary goal is to be able to screenshot my profile, send it to a friend, and have them laugh at me
cloudspotting: i think about the part about being mist a lot
[ABSOLUTE TOP GOTY ALERT!!!!!]
when i'm sitting in the front passenger seat of a car and somebody is sitting behind me and i put my hands over the back of my headrest and just sort of set them there palms out, facing the person behind me, and then they inevitably start hitting my hands and we make a game out of it: number one goty every year, hasn't really been playable for a few years but timeless so it's still goty
these aren't all games that came out in 2021. also, i linked to all smaller games but i don't think anybody needs me to link to like. animal crossing and jackbox or the bigger indies.