Just to say that it came out during the perfect window is to ignore the changes Nintendo made in the series that helped build its fame: the presence of the share button on the Switch made it easy for gamers made to take screenshots and spread them on social media. media and a more streamlined friend code system made it easy to visit friends as well as strangers.
New horizons would still have sold well, even without a pandemic, but these new features made it more visible and made it easier for the faithful animal crossing to spread the word. And they have, with the game appearing the first month or so everywhere on social media, inspiring countless parodies, brand ads and finally a chat show with famous guests like Sting, Elijah Wood and T-Pain.
Another title that gained notoriety this year was Innersloth’s 2018 title, Between us. The two-year game exploded this summer for several reasons – not just the least, but the superficial resemblance to another popular title. Val guys. But it was also cheap to play at $ 5 (or less) for the computer version and free on the phone, and it was very easy to set up games with friends or strangers.
The relatively simple gameplay has made it a favorite with casual players, as it’s mostly just click-and-click, and the hardest part is the thinking games you play on your fellow crew members. I have met a few people who do not even care about the greater purpose of trying to insult the deceiver; they just enjoy being in space, doing their homework and watching the whole drama unfold. It’s a fun game to watch – as evidenced by the 430,000 people that representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar saw in October against several prominent streamers on Twitch.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout it was also one of those titles where players didn’t really care if they won, but in this case it was because the game was super hard to beat. Players were up against 59 other contestants in a series of physical game challenges that were often ridiculous and extraordinarily unpredictable – many hardcore players found the title’s fickle control a turnaround, but many more simply lost themselves in the madness. The ability to quickly jump back to defeat made each loss less tragedy, and thanks to spectator mode, it was another one of those games where it was fun to just hang around just to see how things ended up.
The social aspect of gaming has definitely come to the fore this year. Streaming has been a big part of the medium for the past few years, with people feeling an affinity for their favorite players and forming communities on YouTube, Twitch and Discord. But big multiplayer games also played their part, and many casual gamers did not turn to them as a way to enjoy the game themselves, but as a place where they could hang out with their friends.
Both Minecraft and Fortnite served as large meeting places in the past, but in 2020 there was a large increase Roblox players, an online platform where children can create their own spaces – and their own games – to play. The biggest draw was that it could be downloaded for free, which meant that any child who owned a device could jump in, and that parents just wanted to do it, as it was less violent than Fortnite and encouraged their child’s creativity. The game got enough closet space this year that Lil Nas X even held a virtual concert there last month, with his new single ‘Holiday’.
For adults, socializing in 2020 meant many virtual happy hours, which quickly became tiring. To try to give these events a little more structure, many people have invested in one or more of Jackbox’s Party Packs. Each package contains a number of games, such as trivia and drawing activities, that can be broadcast over a Zoom stream. Unlike many other titles, players do not have to own the game themselves or even a console: players participated via their phones and entered the session’s unique four-character code into a web browser. Jackbox even has a spectator mode that lets people vote on some of the rounds, even if they do not want to be a full player – the best in casual games.