Developer: Ann Arbor District Library
Publisher: Ann Arbor District Library
Year: 2025

With the Ann Arbor District Library Summer Game basically nearing the end for this year, I feel very comfortable saying this is my Game of the Year. If you don’t know, the Summer Game is a yearly event organized by the Ann Arbor District Library where you can enter codes for points, usually scattered around the city and various branches of the library, along with logging your reading and participating in events and online games on the library’s website. You can then redeem the points for prizes. NPR recently did a very good article about the history of the Summer Game and goes into more detail on what the Summer Game is.

I’ve mentioned the Summer Game on here a few times before but with this being the first time I actually participated in it, I cannot get over what an incredible experience it has been. My kids and I had so much fun finding codes around the city and it encouraged them to read more. You can’t beat that! It also encouraged me to go to more library events, which I always have a great time at. I guess it’s a little bit of a cheat to say that something like this is better than Video Games, but technically the website does have video games that I played for points so I will count it. A previous year I considered the Pikmin mobile game to be my GOTY, not because it’s an amazing and well designed game, but it helped me learn about paths I could walk on near my house and when something improves my life that much, it kinda wins by default. Maybe I just need more edutainment games as an adult.