Once again, the year that was 2019 was a showcase for the scene that rolled out hit after hit with nary a break to catch your breath between each release. Here’s a look at the best indie games of 2019.

There’s an old saying that the journey is better than the destination, and I can’t think of a better example of video games to prove the old adage right. As a medium that allows for a beginning, many sidequest middles and an ending, video games have the power to create incredibly satisfying journeys that’ll last for many an hour before the end credits finally roll. Here’s a look then, at the best adventures of the year.

Here’s a look at the very best in strategy games, that got us using our noodles and clicking more than ever throughout 2019.

Art direction is the foundation of any game, the blueprint for how it’ll look and perform. These games then, are 2019’s greatest eyeball-popping slobberknockers whose every frame deserves a showcase exhibition in the Louvre.

There’s no other game like Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, even if it does lose the plot when it celebrates the art of stories and the power that they possess.

Fisticuffs! Glorious competition, settled on a stage between two individuals who are ready to put everything on the line to see who’s the best. In many ways, fighting games are the essence of competition boiled to its purest form and unleashed with all manner of face-melting techniques that favour the skilled. 2019 may not have been bursting at the seams with fighting games, but what entries there were in this cult favourite genre were some of the best excuses ever to throw down a gauntlet and pick a fight online.

You could argue that every video game is an action, and you’d be right! For this award though, we’re looking at those games whose inherent activity that you have agency over is just so gosh dang good that you can ignore everything else about it. The games whose ability to rock you like a hurricane more than makes up for a silly story, occasional glitches or even a lack of ambition.

With an industry that’s obsessed with getting the most bang for buck with any new game, few live service games truly manage to rise above the obvious cash-grab trap and find themselves settling into a groove of establishing a community and then toiling away to create new content on a consistent schedule. That’s not to say that one such game doesn’t exist.