Earlier this month, Itch.io sold a videogame bundle to raise money for racial justice and equality, with proceeds going to the NAACP Legal Defence and Educational Fund, and the Community Bail Fund. The amazing thing about this bundle is it included more than 1,700 games and projects - for a minimum $5 donation - a total bargain and no-brainer! But with so many games available, it can be hard to know where to begin. This post includes some of the gems I’ve found so far in the bundle.

It looks like I forgot to make a post at the end of 2018 but regardless, let’s pick up here! Rather than the conventional top 5 or 10 list, I decided to just pick out games based on the various ways that they brightened up my year. I also like to try and include a couple of (potentially) lesser-known picks that may not be on the obvious GOTY lists. Happy New Year, and I hope you enjoy the list!

I love spooky and eerie things all year round, but Halloween is an especially great excuse to get in the mood with some creepy games. I’m not good with jump scares in games though, so you won’t find Silent Hill or Resident Evil on this list, instead I wanted to recommend some spooky but perhaps less well-known picks.

I played a lot of videogames in 2017, and many of them didn’t come out in 2017, but for now these are my top 5 games that actually came out last year. Before we start, I’ll give an honourable mention to the Nintendo Switch - my partner and I both picked one up late in the year and we both fell in love with Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild and Mario vs. Rabbids to name a few Nintendo exclusives. Nintendo have really done great this year with Switch releases, but I’m not going to talk about those games just because I think it’s fairly wide knowledge how well they’ve done and how popular they are, and so I’d rather focus on some (maybe) lesser-known games. So, here goes!