Recently Reviewed Games

Showing the 100 most recent reviews. Each review is scored on my 4-point rating system.

Each game notes its:

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A tightly paced blend of action platformer and turn-based RPG. The powers, abilities, and equipment are varied and fun. The writing is goofy but not obnoxious. Characters are memorable. It rewards backtracking while not requiring it, which is a rarity in RPGs. High-interactivity turn-based battles never felt stale.

2024-12-02 Replay
13h 57m

Youlogic

🛑

Some good puzzle concepts. Lots of solutions require careful timing and precision, which are more frustrating than fun. Controls are ok but the UI is cumbersome to navigate. Virtual assistant is very weird.

2024-11-19 First Time
1h 18m

Had a lot of potential but didn't come together. Its gorgeous, hand-drawn art and murderer's row of voice talent were great. But, for a game all about music, none of the songs felt melodic or especially pleasant to listen to. I liked the dialogue writing and some heavy topics were handled with care. The story itself was ok and there are a lot of potential branches (and romance options), but the core mystery was quite underwhelming.

2024-11-19 First Time
6h 17m

A top-tier cyberpunk narrative wrapped in just enough interactivity. I loved the depth to the characters and the complex motivation behind everything they did. Actual gameplay is light - mostly reading. But you get a certain number of actions each day and what you roll affects what you can do and how fast things progress. It evoked the "choose your own adventure" vibe of tabletop RPGs in that regard. Everything gets too easy in the late game and I would have liked a little more variety in the way you used actions. Nevertheless, this definitely feels like a hidden gem.

2024-11-16 First Time
9h 20m

A fun take on a change-the-past puzzles. Individual puzzles were decent too, but not outstanding. A decent story with clumsy (translated?) writing. First half of the game was stronger than the second, though I did like seeing the cumulative effect of my changes on the villiage.

2024-11-13 First Time
2h 58m

A straightforward but fun platinum trophy. Good mix of easter eggs, challenges, collectables, and fun things.

2024-11-10 Platinum
2h 33m

Extremely charming concept, a small world of friends to explore, and some surprisingly compelling platforming and traversal mechanics make this way more fun than expected. It's nothing like Breath of the Wild in complexity, but it copies a lot of the other core bits to great effect.

2024-11-10 First Time
4h 35m

The art & gameplay are both great. It does a great job encouraging active positioning and strategic planning. UI is a little rough, but not enough to stop me enjoying my time with it.

2024-11-08 First Time
7h 39m

Fun concept (build your own luck) but the gameplay just felt bland. Chancing into the perfect set of jokers between rounds is fun, but the actual gameplay is a mix of "Play", "Discard", and a bunch of luck. Other deckbuilders have more interactivity where you get to choose targets and ordering, but making poker hands (even if some of them are super high scoring) got old fast. I had a couple of super long runs where everything came into place, but I also had a bunch of duds where I didn't get anywhere. I feel like the "bad" runs in other roguelikes are still fun, but the ones in Balatro were just drags.

2024-11-08 First Time
6h 3m

Gameplay was much improved over the first one, mostly due to improved enemy AI and level design. Everything flows cinematically and fluidly, which is nothing short of a technical marvel. Every melee attack has a contextual animation and the world reacts to your actions. The PS5 version's graphics are also probably the peak of the generation. The story is top-notch, as expected. Naughty Dog continues to push the boundaries of what possible in a narrative. At times, I did feel like playing the "novelization" of a TV show, so I'm excited to see what this looks like in the actual show. Overall it was probably too long and had some pacing inconsistencies, but I felt like it largely surpassed the original (despite my fondness for that first story).

2024-11-06 First Time
21h 25m

Has dialogue and emotional beats that punches way above its weight. Characters + art are cute and the story is decent if predictable. The gameplay is _only_ nonogram puzzles, which are fun but very one-note. I could have used... anything else. But I had a good time with it. It also had a great hint system which keeps you moving through the puzzles, which I appreciated.

2024-11-01 First Time
20h 33m

Combines great writing, a decent story, and open ended tactical puzzles into an absolute banger. Good ability variety and the ability to push characters (enemy and ally alike) leads to a ton of interesting approaches to completing objectives. Infinite rewinds encourage lots of experimentation making it extremely fun to play around with.

2024-10-15 First Time
12h 43m

This DLC adds an exciting depth to an already strong base game. By exchanging power for additional challenge, the game becomes harder on lower difficulty levels, which I appreciated. Combining units adds great strategic depth, altering what cards I was willing to pick up. I didn’t care much for the added clan and I still think the game pushes you too hard into pre-determined archetypes, but I had a good time revisiting the Train anyway.

2024-10-04 DLC
16h 13m

The best part was the combat (eventually) and the worst part was everything else. Once you get a few abilities under your belt the combat really starts to click, but by then you're halfway through the game. Everything else the adventure felt underbaked. The world was large, empty, and lifeless. The equipment system was an afterthought, removing any interesting decision making from everything but the ability loadout. Characters are fine if forgettable, but the whole plot is joyless and overwrought. The marquee boss fights are certainly unique, but they're overly long and are more spectacle than substance. For a mainline FF title, it has remarkably little going for it.

2024-09-22 First Time
38h 30m

Game that tries hard to be cute and mostly nails it. Takes a lot of care to let you really _be_ a cat, doing as much or a little as you want. Gameplay mechanics are simplistic and there are more than a few bugs, but its charming supporting cast and cozy neighborhood make for a good time.

2024-08-25 First Time
3h 23m

Some interesting tactical gameplay buried under an abysmal Switch port. I liked that there were different factions and the campaign runs built up an army over time, but the fact that you could recruit from any pool meant you just had less synergy than if you were constrained to the one you picked. I liked the hex grid and each character having abilities, which helped keep battles fairly fresh. I have a feeling this would have eked out a 3 stars if I had played on Steam w/ a mouse, but I just couldn't keep playing using the controller interface.

2024-08-12 First Time
1h 39m

Stuffed to the gills with mechanics and mini-games, it's really hampered by its lack of focus. The core diving / selling / exploring / grinding gameplay is compelling, but gets bogged down by everything else that demands your attention. The art and music are good, the story meh, and the experience decent overall.

2024-08-10 First Time
17h 23m

Probably my favorite shovel knight campaign. Movement felt great and the heirlooms were each interesting. I also loved that the levels were so much shorter - it allowed them to try more things in a more focused space. The Joustus card game was a good addition, though its actual gameplay didn't grab me like I expected it to. Even so, roaming around and building a better deck to challenge people with was satisfying. Whole thing was a blast!

2024-08-04 First Time
6h 26m

Sort of an interesting little physics sim, but the physics are all floaty and gummy. Has sort of a goose game / katamari chaos charm, but lacks enough cohesion to make it particularly worthwhile. Some funny interactions, but not something I needed to spend more time with.

2024-08-03 First Time
0h 25m

Superb naval combat coupled to kludgy controls and a scattered story. I really loved sailing around with my buds and improving my ship. Assassinations were also a good time and there was decent mission variety. The stealth and combat mechanics were largely frustrating and the open world formula was tired. It could have used a little focus- there are a lot of competing systems. Exploration was fun but usually done without a satisfying payoff.

2024-08-02 First Time
21h 37m

Good music, decent writing, and a fun presentation unfortunately fail to prop up a lackluster combat system. it's neat in theory, but is too easy until it becomes crushingly hard (unless you do a lot of grinding). A lot of these concepts were probably revolutionary in 1994, but many don't translate well into the modern day. I ended up setting for a bad ending after an excruciatingly slow final boss that was more a waste of time than a challenge.

2024-07-21 First Time
17h 7m

Extremely intricate puzzles layered onto a world busting with explorable areas made this a most engaging adventure. Learning new mechanics kept the world from feeling too small and the odd atmosphere kept us engaged throughout. Ended up getting the platinum trophy (and the true ending) because we were having so much fun.

2024-07-12 First Time
14h 44m

A pretty tough game, but fair about its difficulty. Good boss variety and equipment options. It would get frustrating when I made dumb mistakes over and over. But, the feeling of finally beating a boss I had run up against many times was exhilarating. Death Count: 507 total: 101 deaths first island, 191 deaths second island, 111 deaths third island, 30 deaths against penultimate boss, 74 against final boss.

2024-06-25 First Time
16h 33m

I liked the concept and art style a lot, but it didn't land for me. I liked the way that characters aged and changed over time, which felt novel. Building their stories over time also felt good. Combat was mostly good, but each campaign started pretty slowly until you got abilities for your characters. The overworld ate up a lot of time without being especially compelling. The dialogue was inconsistent at best and was noticeably procedurally generated; that made it occasionally charming, but stilted more often than not. End-campaign combat was the highlight and there was decent depth, but it took a while to get there. There are only three classes which I think limits the diversity of the gameplay. It felt like we saw most of the possible archetypes in our time with the game. Note: I played the whole thing in 4 player multiplayer, had some rough edges. We played a couple campaigns, enough to feel like we had seen most of what the game had to offer.

2024-06-24 First Time
16h 2m

Had an interesting premise (tactics + tower defense) but fell short for me. Towers felt underpowered and unrewarding to use. Hero upgrades were ok, but the pool is pretty small so it all felt repetitive after a few runs. Metaprogression was also fairly uninteresting. Cool idea that didn't stick the landing.

2024-06-15 First Time
3h 36m

Charming concept. Decent if simple puzzles. Tacked on combat, but didn't really get in the way. They could have streamlined it a bit, but I liked the story a lot.

2024-06-12 First Time
5h 31m

A neat concept (audio-only game), but doesn't quite stick the landing. Combat is repetitive and audio design is surprisingly spartan for game that's literally only audio.

2024-06-10 First Time
0h 45m

Very cool presentation & tech. Creepy story that doesn't really resolve much, but is pretty gripping throughout.

2024-06-09 First Time
2h 0m

Extremely cool concept. There aren't many games that have real time command-typing as their core gameplay (and when they do, it's usually not under time pressure). I definitely felt like a hacker as I rushed to rotate the cameras, disable the lasers, and distract the guards. Story was good too- it did a lot with a little. Though I would have liked music/sound effects and some slight QoL improvements, this was awesome for what it was.

2024-06-09 First Time
1h 37m

This stretches the definition of "game"- it's more of a guided meditation with dialogue choices. Unfortunately, not something I'm looking for...

2024-06-09 First Time
0h 18m

Clever little puzzle game. No art, music, or story to speak of, but the puzzles are good and there's some neat space explored. Not a bad way to spend 2 hours.

2024-06-08 First Time
2h 20m

Some of the best turn based combat I've played in a while. I love the deckbuilding mechanics. The story and writing were fine, but they paved the way for some genuinely heartfelt character moments. Design wise, it's overstuffed - there are too many generic missions and too many resources / collectibles. The dressup aspect is fun though and like I said, the core gameplay awesome. They teased a sequel and I'm here for it.

2024-06-07 First Time
38h 5m

Cute art and music coupled to an ok story and lacking gameplay. Bits of it were certainly charming and it captured summer well, but didn't do it for me overall.

2024-06-02 First Time
3h 0m

A strong entrant in the monster collecting genre. Story was decent, if tropey. Gameplay was more modular than most Pokemon-like games, leading to a lot of deep strategy if you want to go looking for it. The fusion system is great and the fact that every combination exists is pretty mind blowing. The type chart is fairly advanced compared to Pokemon, requiring me to keep a reference open most of the time. The ragdoll physics are an interesting twist on its pixel art style. Decent exploration and menus that are less ergonomic than they should be. But, a fun play that kept me engaged throughout.

2024-05-18 First Time
17h 33m
RTS

Great tower variety and a system that really rewards and encourages experimentation (by being able to respec at any time for free). Your power level really ramps up as you get more skills and items. Enemy variety is generally interesting and forces you to think on your feet a bit rather than doing the same things every time. Great on iPad.

2024-05-13 First Time
22h 58m

Great art style, some decent platforming, pretty good exploration. Combat was mostly fun and abilities combined in interesting ways, but there was also plenty of frustrating moments where controls weren't as responsive as expected. Nevertheless, had a good time with it.

2024-05-06 First Time
10h 0m

Extremely cool concept. It plays out like a heist, where everything is planned, cased, and adjusted. The different time slots do a good job making each of the 4 levels feel distinct and each is built with the signature level of Arkane detail. There's not a ton of gear or weapons, but it leaves space to experiment without penalty. The characters and story are good. While one could argue it holds your hand too much, I think too little direction would also be frustrating. So at least this way, you have the opportunity to see all they've built. They also knocked it out of the park with the visual and architectural style, so I'm glad I was able to spend more time with it.

2024-04-28 First Time
16h 0m

Charming and surprisingly intricate little exploration game where you steal your way across the country. The writing carries a decent story and the 90s vibe grounds the world nicely.

2024-04-24 First Time
4h 20m

Pleasant little puzzle game. Fun to explore the manor and piece together the clues about how each plant is grown. On the simpler side, but generally enjoyable for its short runtime.

2024-04-19 First Time
3h 27m

I was slow to warm up to it, but I absolutely adored the dang thing. It's maybe the perfect podcasting game to play and zone out too. I used to think that was bad, but being able to have just enough gameplay to be engaging while not needing to worry about dying or any stats was sort of great. Some levels were more frustrating than others, but I generally enjoyed the variety.

2024-04-19 First Time
38h 0m

(this is specifically for the 1-player campaign, World of Light) Bits of this are very neat - there's a fair amount of customization you can do with your chosen character and leveling up the spirits is sort of fun. Unfortunately, a lot of the abilities are pretty underwhelming and a few spirits outclass the rest. Plus, the gameplay is just a lot of Smash. That's what you're here for, but the variation in rules between matches doesn't ultimately change up that much; you're just trying to knock them off the platform. Also, the story (such that it is) feels pretty lazy- there are about 3 unvoiced cutscenes and that's it. I get that most people aren't here to play this and the overall game itself is extremely polished, but the campaign felt underbaked. I got the true ending, which gets props for an extra cool couple of fights at the end. The bosses throughout were actually pretty unique, so props for that.

2024-04-18 First Time
13h 54m

Loved the art direction and tolerated the gameplay. There were some puzzles, but mostly simple running and jumping. There's some implied story, but it didn't do much for me. The art and music are great though, taking much inspiration from INSIDE and Journey. It's relaxing enough, but not altogether unique.

2024-04-03 First Time
4h 58m

Pentiment

🤝

An enthralling tale of a man's place in a small town and the murders that happen there. But it's not about the mystery, really. More about the people and their lives. It's great to learn about everyone and see how your choices impact the story of this village. It's a bit slow at times, but it's cool to see the scope of it all.

2024-03-27 First Time
17h 42m
RTS

An interesting concept whose execution screams "budgetary problems". The story is paced terribly with no sense of direction and hardly any arc. The characters are all joyless and mostly generic. Gameplay is interesting at first, but never goes anywhere; there aren't enough abilities to keep things fresh. It's also the same few enemies and environments the whole game, which gets pretty stale.

2024-03-24 First Time
21h 34m

The Left Behind DLC distills the main game's gameplay into a tight 1.5 hour package. The story greatness is still there and its reduced padding and smaller environment make for a satisfying stay.

2024-03-09 DLC
1h 30m

While the environments look ok, the fox doesn't control well and the dialogue is pretty poorly written. It attempts to pull at heartstrings, but is more frustrating than compelling.

2024-03-09 First Time
0h 45m

Short but sweet walking simulator. Exploring the house is cool and it's neat how the story unfolds at your own pace. There's not really much gameplay, but it's a contained enough game that it didn't bother me.

2024-03-09 First Time
1h 15m

DK Adventure DLC. Great example of a DLC that does more with less. The lack of character choices streamlined everything without getting bogged down. Puzzles were neat and battles were varied. Great extension of a proven formula.

2024-03-08 DLC
5h 0m
RTS

Fun game, if a little repetitive. Getting deep into number-go-up systems isn't usually what I go for, so I liked its simplified approach (it's usually easy to see how goods flow and what workers are doing). Meeting objectives was satisfying and the high-tension moments were engaging. But, the upgrades are mostly about tweaking production numbers, so they didn't feel super noticeable or rewarding. There's also no story/campaign. So while it's infinitely replayable, I feel like I had my fun with it and don't need to keep going (despite how many metagame upgrades I left unlocked).

2024-03-03 First Time
11h 2m

An unparalleled story held back by dated and repetitive gameplay. One minute you're exploring love and loss with fully realized characters and the next, you're killing 6 generic dudes in yet another clearing full of chest-high walls. The stealth is clunky, the puzzles are generic, and the story is better told than maybe any other game, ever. It was a great candidate for a TV adaptation because they could focus on what make the game great: the story. The gameplay moments that are directly serving the story bring immersion that only games can provide, and it gets credit for that. Violence hits different when you're enacting it with your own controller, something the show couldn't capture in the same way. It also has great zombies- clickers go down in history as an all-time creepy enemy. But, lackluster collectibles and pacing problems (the first half of the game is _slow_) left me wanting overall. There's this gorgeous, atmospheric world wrapping a lot of generic 3rd person shooting that doesn't do it justice. It's ultimately worth playing, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone for just watching the show instead; it elevates the narrative without any of the filler.

2024-03-03 Replay
12h 0m

This DLC was a fun way to get more of the same fun I had in the base game, but it doesn't tread any super new ground. A few more of every type of thing (enemy, collectible, etc) but nothing vital.

2024-02-20 DLC
10h 22m

Great games demand great parody. It's got some fun puzzles in its own right, but manages to be laugh-out-loud hilarious in its own right. Is the perfect length and was a blast top to bottom.

2024-02-19 First Time
1h 6m

Superb puzzle game. Loved learning languages based on context clues and pictograms. The sections combined and overlapped well. The overall message was good and the story went fun places. Managed to say a lot without any dialogue. Had some unnecessary stealth sections, but they didn't bog it down too much. Deservedly in the conversation w/ Obra Dinn and Golden Idol.

2024-02-17 First Time
8h 35m

Though hailed as both one of the best modern platformers and a very hard game, I think this lives up to neither title. The platforming wasn't very compelling, the collectibles useless, the difficulty was sporadic (but mostly not bad) and the bosses were miserable. The game feels unfocused and uninspired. I simply don't understand the praise it gets. Each world had ~1 level I thought was neat and fun. The rest were mostly exercises in pointless frustration.

2024-02-16 First Time
8h 0m

Extremely charming, but with more of a mental health focus than expected. Puzzles were good and coloring the world is a fun mechanic. Controls occasionally frustrating, but a fun outing overall.

2024-02-11 First Time
9h 23m

Great puzzles and controls. Really fun way to stretch and explore the "split brain" concept. Only a few levels _really_ made use of that, but they were hard and it would have been tiring to do more. Pretty good difficulty overall and a great collection of mechanics.

2024-02-10 First Time
2h 8m

Cute little game about adapting a battlefield to your needs. Clearly a gamejam-style game and it's not something I'll probably come back to a lot, but it's a cool concept and I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

2024-02-09 First Time
0h 21m

Played New Game+ for the true ending, which was great. Fun to explore more characters and I was pleasantly surprised at how much variation there was in choices. Battles didn't get old, and while the late-game economy was a little unbalanced, the game remained fun throughout.

2024-02-04 Replay
26h 25m
RTS

Pretty fun! I don't love the amount of micro it requires, but the customizable tower loadouts and upgrades are improved from previous games. Story is cute and there's lots of little easter eggs to find.

2024-01-30 First Time
7h 54m

Short and sweet game about art and love. It's a little heavier than its art and presentation let on, but it's fun to click around.

2024-01-24 First Time
1h 45m

I have such conflicted feelings about this one. On the one hand, the graphics and music are nearly peerless. There are some genuinely touching story moments, many good ones, and a few duds. The pixel environments are intricate, there's a lot of enemy variety, and the character design is cool. The basics of combat are good and the Mario RPG-style hit for bonus damage/block keeps me engaged. The lock system adds variety to battles, even if sometimes they don't seem totally possible. BUT. The gameplay part of this game doesn't feel well thought out. I don't mind it being simplified- a more streamlined approach was one of my favorite things about Triangle Strategy. But IMO this game strips out the wrong things. There's an equipment system, but weapons and armor just have numbers that go up. There are rings which provide a little strategic diversity, but there are a few that are strictly better than everything. The only collectables are food (for healing items) and rainbow conch's (which provide some bonuses, mostly for other side quests). It's a shame, since that makes exploration less compelling than it could be. Each gameplay system seems shallow and disparate in a way that's not satisfying. Worst of all, it's a game that doesn't respect your time. Lengthy ability animations aren't skippable, there's a _lot_ of pointless backtracking, and the boss fights are WAY too long (the final boss took me nearly a full hour and it only had 4 different moves). I feel like the developers were inspired by classic JRPGs, but learned all the wrong lessons from them. The overall package is decent but definitely tries your patience.

2024-01-22 First Time
31h 32m

Played both DLC packs and they were good fun. Hard riddles, but fair. Good story color to the original game.

2024-01-20 DLC
4h 59m

Best one yet. Gameplay feels fluid, powerups are fun and offer a lot of customizability. Levels are still tough, but it finally feels like we have enough tools to really tackle them well. It also has the best story of any of them so far, building effective backstory to the rest of the games.

2024-01-09 First Time
4h 29m

Puzzles are very hit-or-miss, but the art, story, and music are fun. All things told, it's aged surprisingly well.

2024-01-04 Replay
8h 34m

Fun, plant-based puzzle game. There's a branching story that's surprisingly engaging. Plant identification gets a little repetitive after a while, but there's enough different identification angles and other puzzles that it stays fun.

2023-12-23 First Time
5h 30m

This is a very faithful remake of a classic 2D game I've never played. Though the graphics are nice, the game suffers from an aged simplicity. Not that every game needs to have all the bells and whistles of a modern RPG, but this one felt a little _too_ stripped down. I liked that gear choices were straightforward and abilities were interesting enough. But, the game got off to an _incredibly_ slow start - the first 5 hours, depending on your character selection, you have no abilities at all; just light attack and heavy attack. It's great if you want to mindlessly wander around and whack things, but left something to be desired. The game opens up after the first class change and brings a little more strategic depth. Mostly it was just fun to turn my brain off during a personally busy month, but not something that'll stick with me.

2023-12-20 First Time
16h 14m

Best described as "4 player Slay the Spire", there was a lot to like about Across the Obelisk. The 4 character classes and variety of perks and skills mean there's a lot of customization and replayability. Building a deck is always fun and there's a lot of card variety. Multiplayer works well and the tiebreaker mechanic on split votes was a ton of fun. But, for a game we played as much as we did, there wasn't as much variety as I would have liked. The maps always have the same layout (though the events on each node are random) and the end-map bosses are always identical. I would have liked to see more variety in regular enemies, too. The UI is decent but the descriptions on effects was sometimes lacking, making it hard to understand exactly what was going to happen (tough for a card game). Ultimately it was a great choice for my gaming group and I'm glad we played it.

2023-12-20 First Time
70h 7m

Climbing as a core mechanic felt quite good. It was fun looking for handholds and swinging to reach something new. The story being all text as fine and the collectibles left something to be desired. Also, for being a platformer, there was remarkably little ability to fall off things. It's pretty and zen though, which is a nice change of pace. Great sense of scale, too.

2023-12-14 First Time
5h 9m

Finity

🛑

Fun little puzzle game. Ultimately felt pretty hard for the amount of enjoyment it brought. Haptics and design were great, as was the concept. Just didn't love it

2023-12-10 First Time
4h 16m

Neat little game. I liked the idea of combining exploration and inventory into one system. Plus, being able to cache and improve recipes was fun. The controller support was pretty good, but the game got pretty repetitive and tedious. Fun idea, but I didn't want to play much more of it.

2023-12-01 First Time
3h 29m

On paper, I should have loved this game. It's routinely hailed as one of the best games in my favorite genre and it's a remaster with a bunch of QoL features. But dang it if it wasn't a total slog! There's a huge amount of backtracking in the levels (there are 50+ story battles but only ~20 maps). You can't mix and match skills between classes, so there's not a lot of theory crafting - it's mostly "pick the best 4 skills for a given class". There's also a distinct difference between unique units and generics (the former are much stronger). You get so many generics that it's never really worth training anyone else. And, there are still some glaring QoL misses, despite the progress there. There's a ton of characters and classes to find, but much of it is locked away behind long, grindy sidequests. I'm sure that's fun for some people, but I wasn't into it. The story is long, but not especially impactful. While there are lots of branches in the narrative, I don't feel like all the branches add much; they just dilute what little story there is. At its core, the gameplay is pretty fun, if a little slow to start. Rewinding time is a great feature that I wish more SRPGs had. But, the games that learned from it and came after it are much better.

2023-11-29 First Time
47h 21m

A lovely end to an extremely cute trilogy. Tied it up perfectly, no notes.

2023-11-17 First Time
2h 49m

Similarly charming with marginally more gameplay this time around (but not really). Still a fun world and story though.

2023-11-15 First Time
1h 25m

What it lacks it gameplay, it makes up for in charm!

2023-11-13 First Time
1h 14m

Cocoon

🤝

Ethereal little puzzle game. I loved the seamlessness and otherworldliness of the environment. Was also nice to have a game from this dev that wasn't so gross or death-focused. The recursion was a good mechanic and it did a good job respecting your time. Lovely little experience!

2023-11-12 First Time
4h 39m

Interesting and dense story, if overly complex. I like the intermingling of the plots, but it does make it a little hard to follow. Combat provides a good respite and is simplistic without being boring. There's great QoL features for the visual novel part and gorgeous art, as always. It's an ambitious game, but it sticks the landing.

2023-11-08 First Time
29h 21m

Neat concept, but gameplay didn't keep me hooked (pun intended). I liked the progression well enough, but the shooting was tiresome and there wasn't enough variation in the fishing. But, it's a cute concept!

2023-11-06 First Time
1h 37m

INSIDE

🥉

While this game doesn't explain anything more than its predecessor, I liked the setting much more. Instead of being in a black-and-white zone, you're in a series of industrial buildings that really give the game an eerie sense of place. The controls feel better and the puzzles are better balanced (if a bit easier). It also goes places I didn't expect, which feels like a rarity these days. I enjoyed it a lot for what it was.

2023-10-26 First Time
3h 0m

More style than substance, but nice art and music. There were some minor puzzles and story about mental health that didn't really go anywhere, but it wasn't an unpleasant hour.

2023-10-25 First Time
1h 8m

Great little platformer with a very distinct art style. There was ostensibly some story happening, but it was the kind where I'll need to search "Limbo story explained" afterwards. Some neat puzzle mechanics. It didn't quite do it for me, but I enjoyed my time with it.

2023-10-23 First Time
2h 47m

An interesting concept, but the gameplay itself left something to be desired. I liked the vibe of the text-based exploration, but it was more frustrating than fun. The story was interesting enough, and told interestingly, certainly.

2023-10-23 First Time
1h 50m

A well-made metroidvania. On the whole, the movement felt really good and you could fluidly zoom around the map once you got moving. Combat was pretty fun, if a little simplistic. The EMMI mechanic was fine, but didn't feel like it added a lot. I liked all the powerups, but it almost felt like there were too many relative to the amount of time you got to use them. Also, the story felt shoehorned in. But, I enjoyed coming back to it and exploring, plus it didn't overstay its welcome.

2023-10-22 First Time
10h 15m

Quite fun and good for short bursts of games. Great controls which make playing on mobile very natural. Difficulty was inconsistent and basically all of the special events are bad, but it makes for a satisfying play (especially once they smooth out the curves)

2023-10-21 First Time
14h 24m

fascinating game. Fun gameplay, kept it fresh throughout. I'm not totally sure I followed the story, but I loved its layers and my total inability to guess what was coming next. The whole thing came together very well. Extremely unique game.

2023-10-13 First Time
9h 48m

A bittersweet story about family, food, and culture. Nice little 1-sitting game, and surprisingly touching.

2023-10-05 First Time
1h 17m

Fun art and stories. But ultimately, the difficulty was inconsistent. Puzzles were either too simple to too hard with little in-between. Fun for a couple of evenings though. Also I'm extremely curious about how the execution engine works behind the scenes.

2023-10-03 First Time
2h 0m

Odd little story, with nice art and music. Narration was also good (and AI generated!). It's only a part 1, so we're excited to see where the rest of the story goes.

2023-08-20 First Time
1h 43m

Tinykin

🥈

Extremely charming platformer. Plays a lot like Pikmin-lite, but simplified in all the right ways. The animations and sound design are extremely cute and the NPC dialogue is a lot of fun. Each world is great to explore and they pulled the "pea-sized-person in a house" vibe off incredibly well. The only thing that fell flat was the story, which tries to be much deeper and serious than it needs to be. Luckily, it doesn't get it the way of anything and can be safely ignored. What a delightful time!

2023-08-19 First Time
5h 41m

Very stylistic. Super weird, but the gameplay is engaging. Good music. Sense of scale gets very cool, especially in the late game. Occasional bugginess held it back, but it's a quick fun time.

2023-08-16 First Time
4h 0m

It's a well-tread concept implemented snappily, but forgettably. There's a lot of named enemies, but they don't seem to be different in significant ways. Gameplay got pretty same-y over time. That said, I liked the writing a lot and there was more level variety than I expected (there's a lot of environments vs things like Hotline Miami which is mostly same-y houses). So there's things there, but I didn't stick with it.

2023-08-15 First Time
1h 24m

Fun re-tread of the base game. Occasionally frustrating, but it nails the style of those older platformers in a fun and fairly charming way.

2023-08-06 First Time
5h 42m

The controls are great (especially for a mobile game) and the actual gameplay is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, a lot of progression is balanced around being able to pay to win, so playing it on apple arcade, some things were just prohibitively expensive. Also, the dynamic difficulty, while good, made it less rewarding to have top-tier players (because the defenses got good to match your success). Once I realized that was happening, I had less fun with it. But, I played it a ton and it's a great way to spend 5 minutes.

2023-08-02 First Time
15h 27m

TOEM

🤝
🥇

Great little follow-up to the base game. Fun to explore and do new little quests. Retreads what the original did, but it fit right in.

2023-07-29 DLC
1h 35m

There's a lot going on here. I can see that it's built on the bones of a great game, but I feel like a lot of that was lost in the remake. There are very lucid sections where everything is great, but they're few and far between with abysmal pacing. The is cool but doesn't make a ton of sense (having limited knowledge of the original). Combat is fun and customizing ability loadouts is good. It just sort of felt all over the place. Graphics and music were top tier though!

2023-07-27 First Time
29h 46m

Neat puzzle game. I liked the asymmetry, but some puzzles were hard to do on a controller and there were noticeable bugs. But, there were some very neat sections and I'm glad we played.

2023-07-21 First Time
6h 50m

Prey

🛑

I liked the idea of mooncrash, but I think it wanted me to have a different kind of fun than I was having. I wanted to see the stories and it wanted to randomzie my runs and make that harder. Plus, the characters didn't feel all that different from each other, so it mostly felt repetitive and frustrating. Definitely an interesting idea though, and I'm curious what they do with Deathloop.

2023-07-19 DLC
7h 55m

A little janky, but very fun. Good puzzles, charming enough story (such that it is). Did the DLC too, which were fun but not necessary.

2023-07-06 First Time
9h 18m

Causality

🛑

I enjoyed the concept and the UI is pretty good, but it wasn't quite engaging enough to hold my attention. Finished 2/4 worlds (and no bonus puzzles)

2023-06-24 First Time
1h 0m

Very charming puzzle game. Definitely mind bending, especially towards the end. Completed 161/364 puzzles, which is impressive. Game felt smooth and engaging throughout, and introduced new mechanics well.

2023-06-23 First Time
5h 31m

Great combat and team building. Exploration was decent. It was a little overwhelming having full skill trees for everyone, but certainly lead to a lot of depth and ability to customize. Story was decent. I liked that there's advanced game modes too.

2023-06-19 First Time
18h 54m

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