Some very pretty and impressive visual production values can’t disguise the fact that Neon Blood’s narrative and gameplay feel far too anemic.

Thief’s Shelter pulls you into a beautifully eerie mansion to investigate a strange, supernatural mystery full of fun puzzles, yet its limited freedom of exploration to solve the case yourself can be a bit frustrating.

After years of incremental improvements, the final release of SpaceVenture is a fairly entertaining experience tailored especially for Space Quest fans that’s still plagued by a significant number of unfortunate caveats.

The second short standalone game in the BrokenLore series, Don't Watch has some merit with its dive into the fears and threats facing a young social recluse, and there's promise in its varied gameplay mechanics. It’s a shame, then, that it’s too inconsistent in almost every way for a truly impactful, worthwhile experience.

Caravan SandWitch is a calm, atmospheric journey that’s pleasant to play, but held back by repetitive tasks and a lack of momentum.

The follow-up to NAIRI: Tower of Shirin is too self-referential to make waves with anyone not already familiar with the series, but longtime fans will find more of what made them just that in Rising Tide: adorable talking animals, a ton of dialogue, cozy point-and-clicking, and a jarring cliffhanger that leaves room for the next game.

Its premise is as easy to connect with as its charming presentation, but Aarik and the Ruined Kingdom never quite capitalizes on its potential, choosing instead to walk the path of a rather simple and woefully short puzzler aimed at casual or younger gamers.

Despite its obvious surface similarities, don’t go into Letters of War expecting an emotion-wrecking Valiant Hearts-like experience, but rather a simple hero story and WWII history lesson wrapped up in unfortunately repetitive gameplay.

Cantaloupe Chronicle is too uneven to make the front page news, but there is some relaxing fun to be had with chasing news stories and overcoming small-town inventory obstacles.

CARIMARA: Beneath the forlorn limbs is an attention-grabbing introduction to a strange and original fantasy world that features an engaging spin on the detective genre, but our time there is so brief that it’s hard to come away fully satisfied.

Fun enough while it lasts, Confidential Killings gets in and out a bit too quickly with its tightly paced plot and lack of much challenge, all wrapped up in the glitz and glam of 1970s Hollywood.

The Last Case of John Morley transitions from a film-noir mystery into a psychological horror that reveals just how fragile the human psyche is, prioritizing atmosphere over detective work in its short run time.

LOW has enough surprising moments and weighty themes to warrant experiencing this BrokenLore debut, but an array of minor irritants leave plenty of room for improvement in what will hopefully become a more regularly rewarding franchise.

It’s not as open-ended as other narrative RPGs and lacks a believable ending, but Rue Valley has an appealing graphic novel aesthetic and engagingly human time-looping story that avoids becoming too repetitive or frustrating each time it resets.

After two stellar Golden Idol Investigations spinoff DLC chapters, The Age of Restraint falters a bit under the weight of its complicated conspiracies, though it still manages to mostly deliver the goods. If only it wasn't so blisteringly hard to deduce its secrets.

The Empty Desk is a supernatural whodunit with components of conspiracy theories made into an average game with some serious shortcomings.

The Supper: New Blood has the right recipe for a darkly delicious cartoon adventure, though repetition and limited gameplay opportunities work against its sinister premise, and its campy but fun B-horror shocks elicit diminishing returns long before its last course.

In telling its tragic story against a striking (and swampy) Louisiana backdrop, Intrigue at Oakhaven delivers the short atmospheric experience it promises, but structurally the adventure feels less like playing a well-rounded game than it does listening to a two-chapter novel with a brief intermission to bang out some familiar puzzles.

While not flashy or revolutionary, with the occasional questionable narrative choice, Casebook 1899: The Leipzig Murders offers exactly what it says on the tin: a solidly entertaining collection of murder mysteries designed specifically with lovers of good ol’ classic point-and-clicking in mind.

Within its subset of casual adventures, True Fear: Forsaken Souls stands out due to its stalwart dedication to delivering peak camp-horror charm. Its story gets a bit wobbly, but after a long delay, the final part of the trilogy largely succeeds in giving some closure at last.

Though pretty and painless, The Adventures of Zomboy is so brief and bare-bones that it can neither be called a reimagining of the free Flash original nor a sendup of the zombie genre, despite its potentially interesting premise.

Centum is full of memorably horrific imagery and atmosphere, but enjoying them means putting up with uneven writing, poor design choices, and a truckload of obscurity for obscurity’s sake.

Beautiful, unexpectedly emotional, but frequently frustrating, Simon the Sorcerer is back in an intriguing if uneven series prequel reboot.

Necrophosis creates startling scenes of cosmic horror and meshes existentialism with religion, yet repetitive item hunting and a lack of sustainable tension dilute the potentially potent core of the experience.

Hello Stranger has solid FMV production values and fun performances, but it feels like a short and forgettable Creepshow episode with a thin story that just doesn’t merit the tedium of more than a single replay.

While charming in delivering a somewhat heartwarming story, Petit Island is ultimately rather dull in its delivery, with boring implementations of activities like fishing and bug catching. In essence, it’s an uninspired effort in a familiar game style that others have done in much more interesting ways.

Fans of Firewatch are likely to enjoy this similarly designed walking simulator set in the northern wilderness, though Arctic Awakening’s story fails to bring enough tension or wonderment to match its acclaimed predecessor.

Gloomy Eyes is a dark but lovely fairy tale, revived from its previous VR-exclusive short film form and given new life with a welcome if fairly shallow layer of gameplay.