The strong visual aesthetic and tranquil atmosphere help elevate Pine: A Story of Loss, but the slow, repetitive pacing and simplistic gameplay limit the game’s appeal primarily to those who can draw from their own experiences to reflect more deeply on the emotional themes of moving on from heartbreak.

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.

Don’t let the bright cartoon world and cute animals fool you: Magret & FaceDeBouc, with its poop jokes, blood and snarky characters, is definitely not for children. But if you’re okay with that, and the occasional bug, it packs a twisty tale and some satisfyingly old-school puzzles into its brief runtime.

Path of Ra is a fun little ancient Egypt-themed tile-swapper that provides a decent challenge for puzzle fans looking for an atmospheric diversion, though a lackluster story that provides little more than a basic framework seems like a lost opportunity.

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.

Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale is a pleasant but undemanding little visual novel. Fans of Quest for Glory and Hero-U will enjoy spending time in the Coles’ universe again, but those who want the same kind of intricate gameplay might be disappointed.

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.

Using multiple personalities to examine everything can be entertaining until it becomes tiresome, so you’ll need to take your time if you hope to succeed in the Spanish point-and-click comic adventure Ramas’ Call: Twisted Timing.

The Curse of Grimsey Island brings some interesting ideas to the table but struggles to make the most of them, with a sci-fi murder mystery still sorely in need of refinement and better connection to the gameplay.

The stylish Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries will grab you at first but the pace quickly slows, as will your interest, feeling like a missed opportunity.

With its lack of relevant story progression until a rushed finale, MADievals won’t make a lasting impression, but its eccentric characters, plethora of anachronisms, and straight-up weirdness keep this fantasy medieval romp entertaining in the moment.

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.

It would be nice to focus solely on how the bleak setting is intriguing, the stealth missions often feel cool, and the characters are at least entertaining, if not quite appealing—but it’s tough to do that when Sunday Gold is simply overrun with punishing turn-based combat and related RPG-style skill mechanics, and the adventure side of this genre hybrid is consistently minimized.

It’s nice to finally have ASYLUM in our hands after so long, but while it has the makings of an interesting story at its center, the vast size and emptiness of its namesake hospital overwhelm everything else about it, and it never gets a handle on how to balance narrative and gameplay or to deliver the horror it promises.

WILL: Follow the Light’s ambitious mix of sailing, character drama and puzzle-based adventuring shows plenty of promise but often results in choppy pacing and rough implementation.

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.

While Unwording succeeds in creatively introducing the mental health concepts of cognitive distortions using wordplay, the surrounding game is simply too short and too shallow to make a lasting impact.

Don’t Nod’s visual novel Harmony is an awkwardly balanced mix of gorgeous but limited production values, clumsy choice mechanic, and an intriguing story whose best parts you never get to experience yourself.

While sporting an intriguing alternate timeline, a decent cast, and a variety of gameplay features, most players will find something to dislike in Dustborn, an epic action-adventure that fails to evoke excitement and sentiment over an excessively long playtime.

The gritty, realistic urban setting is stunning, but the story of The Safe Place is so drearily centered on poverty, crime and abuse that succeeding in cracking the more difficult inventory puzzles becomes more of a struggle than a pleasure just to progress and see more misery unfold.

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

There’s nothing about Edengate: The Edge of Life that’s inherently broken or neglected: the voiced dialogue is serviceable, the music fades into its atmospheric background, and navigating the town of Edengate works well enough despite having so little to do. It’s more a case of a game that desperately needed one of its core elements – be it story, puzzles, or creepy mood – to take charge and step into the foreground, putting a definitive stamp onto the overall experience. Instead, everything is accounted for but nothing makes any waves, so the game ultimately just fizzles out and fades away in a forgettable thud rather than a memorable bang.

It’s an okay survival horror game that doesn’t do enough to capitalize on the franchise’s appeal, so if you haven’t seen A Quiet Place and only played The Road Ahead, you’ll probably wonder what all the hoopla’s about.

Clearly meant as a love letter to VGA space adventures of yesteryear, the very short and simple Orbital Cargo Division may succeed more in making you fondly recall your time with those titles rather than giving you a new favorite to reminisce about.

Tape: Unveil the Memories is a creative indie adventure that does its best to appeal to suspense lovers whether they prefer stealth or story, but a middling narrative and inconsistent puzzles make it feel like more of a chore than a thrill.

NoseBound starts off as a graphically intriguing, gritty detective noir investigation, but quickly leads you by the hand on a linear and (currently) unpolished path towards a bewilderingly strange conclusion.

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.

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.