I knew that I would love Thirsty Suitors from the moment it was first unveiled. If I had to pick a moment where it clicked into place, it'd have to be when the protagonist, Jala, summoned her mother in battle. Early in the game, you encounter Sergio, Jala's third-grade ex, who has been working deceptively hard in her absence to ingratiate himself in her family and life. As you battle in a diner, Sergio becomes invulnerable to your "thirsty" skills, backing Jala into a corner. With no moves left, she conjures the one thing that can tear a person down in an instant: her own mother. A projection of her mother towers over the arena before slamming Sergio with a chappal. The psychic damage is done, he is emotionally scarred and vulnerable enough to be defeated in battle.

Venba, an entirely different genre of game, manages to cut even deeper at times. Between the preparation of traditional Tamil meals, the titular character Venba struggles to connect with her child, Kavin, in an entirely different culture. As he grows up, he begins to take on attitudes distinct from her own, challenging her and ultimately growing distant, especially as he goes off to college as a young man. Upon coming back to his childhood home, Kavin finds that he struggles to read the instructions of a recipe that Venba left behind--a recipe she prepared for him as a child--and begins feeling that distance on an entirely different level. What follows is confusion about how to proceed with the recipes, how to carry on as a person of two different worlds, about his own responsibility to his parents, and so on. It's a heartbreaking sequence that paves the way for an ending that's hopeful about the reconciliatory journey Kavin begins embarking on.

The brightest games of the year aren't necessarily the ones you've seen all over the place. Those games--behemoth titles whose productions and releases are a whole thing unto themselves--are no less an achievement than the ones I'm choosing to spotlight. But whereas those games refine and expand in ways familiar to gaming audiences, Thirsty Suitors, Venba and other titles like them break down cultural barriers that have long existed in gaming culture.