Celeste is challenging, smart and exceedingly well designed. Its movement is some of the most satisfying ever in a platformer. The great soundtrack supports a surprisingly fresh exploration of mental health, which has traditionally proved difficult in videogames.

From the maker (one person) of Papers, Please comes this brilliant shortish deduction whodunnit with terrific music, great voice acting and uniquely cool art direction. An awesome understated gem of 2018.

Artifact was as rewarding as it was deep. RNG was handled well, and over large sample sizes played little part in outcome. Monetisation was misunderstood IMO, and - very sadly - basically rendered the game dead on arrival.

Classic couch co-op beat-‘em-up in the vein of Castle Crashers, with added RPG elements. Funny, cute and at times quite challenging. Would love if there were more games like Full Metal Furies.

A charming and engaging swan song from Runic games. Beautiful stylised art direction paint engaging environments and interesting puzzles.

A respectable idea (‘shooter souls’), but ultimately falls very short, feeling very derivative, clunky, repetitive and… just not very fun.

More of the same from the quality reboot trilogy. Unsurprisingly, this one steps up the visuals and adds a couple of mechanics, but is likely the weakest as far as plot goes. Still a good game though.

Almost overwhelmingly opaque and seemingly esoteric, but delivered in an intriguing package that invites more playtime if only to figure out what the hell is going on.

As far as Steam releases go, Dead Cells is GOTY 2018. Absolutely the most buttery smooth controls amongst its ilk, amazing music, challenging mechanics and immense innate replayability.

A masterpiece and one of, if not the best Game Boy releases. Way back when Pokémon was still fresh and everything involved was delightful and fun. I chose Squirtle.