This was the year I finally introduced video games to my children, so it’s hard to pick anything for my Game of the Year other than Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the first game we ever played through together.

• Good thing it also happens to be terrific.

Kirby games are candy. They’re colorful, easy adventures, primarily made for kids, though plenty of adults like me can spot great game design regardless of the wrapper.

• The games are structured as batches of levels to romp through, using Kirby’s signature ability to swallow his enemies and appropriate their abilities to throw fireballs, swing hammers and so on.
• The widely marketed twist in Forgotten Land is that Kirby can also inhale cars, staircases, vending machines and other large objects to his additional advantage.
• The better highlight is the sequel’s more intangible upgrade in level design. Forgotten Land’s varied and surprise-packed levels are some of the most fun virtual obstacle courses I’ve jumped through this side of a Super Mario game.

But it’s not just the game. It was my 5-year-old twins and the time we spent getting into games this summer.

• Before Kirby, we tried a Mario game (too hard and competitive). We tried Animal Crossing (easier to control, but frustrating in how it limits second and third players). We tried Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker (surprisingly well-received).
• Then we tried Kirby and the other games drifted away.
• Forgotten Land supports two players at a time, so we took turns, first dad and one of them, then both of them as I watched.

The game isn’t all that educational in a traditional sense — we’ve practiced more reading in some Zelda games we’ve played since then.

• But as we played, we started talking more about sharing, patience, having a goal in sight and trusting that with enough effort and time, we just might make it there.

Our favorite small touch: Sure, you can upgrade Kirby so that he hurls tornadoes and ice skates through enemies — but we were delighted to discover a more surprising power-up. Late in the game, we found a way to arm Kirby with a bed that he can produce at any time, even mid-battle, to take a refreshing nap.

• A truly great power, we all agreed.

I played a lot of games this year though didn't finish as many as hoped. Here are some standouts of games I played enough to recommend.

• Best game about numbers going up that’s not as mindless as it first appears: Orb of Creation (PC).
• Best puzzle game: Patrick's Parabox (PC).
• Best game that has converted this single-player-focused gamer into someone who now daydreams about new strategies to use in a multiplayer game: Marvel Snap (Mobile, PC).
• Best controls: Neon White (PC, PlayStation, Switch).
• Best game about a job that doesn’t exist, in this case about disassembling massive spaceships with a laser cutter and a grapple beam: Hardspace: Shipbreaker (PC, PS5, Xbox Series).
• Best game to go into unspoiled: Immortality (PC, Xbox, Mobile via Netflix).
• Best game about exploring the real world, but you’re really tiny: Tinykin (PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch).
• Best game to read this year, thanks to its lovely text descriptions of a futuristic New Orleans and the mother and daughter making their way through it: Norco (PC, PlayStation, Xbox).
• Best game I should definitely not play more of if I want to get anything else done: Vampire Survivors (PC, Xbox, mobile).
• Best games that didn’t fit above and that I cannot wait to play more of: God of War Ragnarök, Elden Ring, Card Shark, Citizen Sleeper, Pentiment, Horizon: Forbidden West, Signalis, Plague Tale: Requiem and Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

I asked readers last week to name their favorite games and give me a sentence to back it up.

• Responses include the expected (Horizon Forbidden West), the surprising (McPixel 3) and several games that you loved in 2022, even if they were released further back.

A sampling:

• Elden Ring — Charles writes: “It’s literally the best single-player RPG of all time — so beautiful, so challenging, so in-depth, not tedious, wonderful gameplay.”
• Marvel Snap — Allison writes: “Marvel Snap took everything I loved about playing Magic: The Gathering as a teenager and packed it into a game I can play in five-minute increments as an adult who sometimes only has five minutes of free time each day.”
• The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles — Ilaria writes: “Playing a Japanese rookie lawyer trying to solve an international mystery and find his place in the world, all the while fighting against racism and classism in a steampunk-like Victorian England with the aid of a flamboyant Sherlock Holmes? Definitely my jam.”
• Tunic — Andrew writes: “The late-game reveals were absolutely stunning and I’m still thinking about that gorgeous old-school manual.”
• MLB The Show 22 — Michael K. writes: “It’s not the greatest sports game ever made, but my 9-year-old son is getting into gaming, loves baseball, and has become obsessed with this game. It makes my 42-year-old heart swell whenever he asks me for an ‘epic rematch’ (that he generally wins now) to avenge his first loss.”
• Metroid Dread — Michael B. writes: “Fast, difficult, well-controlled, paced well and the last game my mom gave me before passing away this spring. Thirty-plus years of her giving me games since we had our NES, most are gone, this one will stay with me.”

😲 Epic will pay $520 million to settle lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission involving children’s privacy and unwanted charges for in-game items in Fortnite.

• The FTC criticized Epic for making it too easy for users, especially unsupervised kids, to overspend. In one of its suits, the FTC said after Epic reduced the visibility of an “undo” purchase option, the company found a 35% decline in such cancellations.

🤔 Riot Games is asking a court to nix its League of Legends sponsorship deal with collapsed crypto exchange FTX, saying any association with it is harming its reputation, according to court documents spotted by crypto researcher Molly White.

🎮 The Embracer Group, in a new financial prospectus, acknowledged a negative hit on its company’s reputation following the investment it received in June from Saudi-owned Savvy Gaming.

🧠 Doom co-creator and legendary programmer John Carmack has left his role as consulting CTO at Meta, saying it ends his decade of work in virtual reality. His new focus: AI.

↩️ Activision Blizzard president and COO Daniel Alegre is leaving the publisher to run Web3 company Yuga Labs.

☹️ Author J.K. Rowling mocked a gamer who called on players to avoid buying the upcoming Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy due to Rowling’s anti-trans comments, Forbes reports.

👀 The Game Awards in Los Angeles this month were watched by 103 million viewers across 30 digital platforms, organizers announced. The show does not air on TV but is widely viewed on livestreaming platforms.

⚽️ EA has accurately predicted the winner of the last four World Cups, VGC reports.