Absolutely excellent.

It’s a bunch of lovely ideas, each used just once, despite many being strong enough to be the basis of a game of their own. (The Snake puzzle especially.) I can’t wait to see what FLEB does next.

This is very deliberately not a true point-and-click adventure, so don’t go in expecting one. And be warned, this is a grim tale with unpleasant themes. It is, after all, a horror game. As you might expect, if you’ve played any of Navarro’s games before, the pixel art is impeccable. The writing is fantastic, too, and the hour-long experience – as ever – makes me crave a longer, more involved game from the creative team. However, these episodic bite-size games allow entirely different approaches, art styles, and themes, which is very welcome too.

This gobbled up a couple of hours of my life in a really enjoyable way.

I’m so, so impressed by Neoproxima. I desperately wish it had been properly script edited in English (hey, indies, hit me up – my rates are very reasonable!), because it’s a constant issue. But it’s testament to the quality of every other aspect that I still loved this game so very much. Especially the way it begins to mess with its own UI, to force you to ask questions about your experience as you play. Just excellent. This is a brilliant idea, brilliantly executed, and absolutely shouldn’t be overlooked.

It’s ridiculously cheap for a game of this size and complexity, and it’ll absorb you for many, many hours. If you, like me, wish Nintendo would just make another Link To The Past, then this is a must-buy. It completely understands the remit, and then delivers and delivers and delivers.

Mimic Search definitely feels like something that could become a very engaging longer game. There’s a lot of unrealised potential in the whole idea of the Mimic possibly being one of the few people in these woods, and that’s certainly not helped by the game’s one rather enormous flaw: it uses character models that don’t blink. Oops. I really like the idea of a game like this, with a larger forest to explore, more buildings, and a different NPC as the Mimic each time you play. Someone make me that, pronto.

Leap Year describes itself as a “clumsy platformer”, but don’t be fooled. Nor indeed put off. Developer Daniel Linssen is being mischievously modest, because beneath its clumsy presentation and opening gambits, this is anything but. It’s actually rather brilliant.

I cannot fathom why this is free. I even asked the developer, Daniel Carr, and he sort of shrugged and said he wants as many people as possible to be able to play it. So, take him up on this!

I’m assuming this is free because it’s so short, but I would very gladly have paid a few pounds for it. I can find nothing about the two developers, other than guessing that they’re Icelandic from their names. (Get in touch!) But clearly this could be developed into a longer game that people would be delighted to pay for. As it is, this freebie is a proper treat.

StormEdge is, therefore, refreshingly original in many respects, while familiar in its constituent parts. It’s also just a really good time. Failure doesn’t feel awful at all, especially given you return to the village with progress either way. It’s a lovely game for chipping away at improvements, and learning new approaches and finding preferred methods. That’s a pleasure, which is a good term to describe the entire game.

I am now absolutely fascinated to see what R_Games does next, to see if the scope can be expanded, and the ambition raised even further.

Daemonologie achieves so much more thanks to its brevity and its lack of an attempt to preach or proselytise. The horror is the horror, and it’s not a scary witch. That you have to be a part of that horror to experience it only makes it far more powerful.

It’s pretty, it all works very simply, and yet there’s a good amount of depth to the tactics. Sure, if you’re used to playing elaborately complicated turn-based RPG/strategy games, it’ll perhaps seem a little twee. But it’s not for you, so there.

It’s so very gratifying to spend a good long while learning about EMF scams and what a truly dreadful person is Russell Brand, then mousewheel scroll back out from the small section of the puzzle you’re working on to see the enormous painting coming to life. It’s also very fun that after completing certain sections, a pop-up appears referencing the proverb alluded to in the section.

With a bit of tweaking to difficulty, it’d be hard to fault Dungeon Clawler. It absolutely mimics a million games that came before it, but the combination of a unique mechanic and so many interesting innovations of its own within the format, means a game I figured would be just “that but with a claw machine” (which sounded good to me!) is actually something far more rounded, involving, and interesting in its own right. I just need to figure out how to stop playing.

The puzzles are great, there are hidden switches all over the walls, and it feels so comfortable to play. Yes, I miss ranged combat being a bigger feature (you get magic weapons, but in the first four levels there’s nary a sign of a bow or arrow). Health potions are perfectly distributed, forcing you to worry and skirt around on low health, but find one just in time, but I do miss being able to make my own. But this is so brilliant, such a solid, excellent example of the genre with its own sensibilities, ideas, and such brilliant movement, that I’m far more delighted that it exists at all than I’m bothered by anything missing.

This is really brilliant! This is a game deserving of widespread attention of the sorts Draknek & Friends receive for theirs. It deserves to be in their midst, rubbing shoulders with Hempuli Oy and Stephen Lavelle. I think you, a person who is good at this sort of game, are going to properly love this.

But gosh, there’s so much effort. On top of the 40 levels, there’s a daily challenge level, plus Steam Workshop support so you can create new challenges for other players, or download those others have made. And the levels offer so much variety, adding new twists deep into the game to keep it always interesting. It’s a really fantastic game, and it’s so far gone completely under the radar. Given it’s under $15, it’s well worth a try, and then yell at everyone else to do the same.

This game is such a total delight. It’s warm, meaningful, and packed with whimsy. (Toby III, Holmes’ new pet dog, can talk, although of course no humans can understand him. A stuffed bear in the background of one small scene can be talked to, too, for a lovely little extra.) Exploring the love between Holmes and Watson could have been so clumsy, but not a foot is put wrong, the result so heartwarming and truthful...I don’t know how this game came to exist, nor how it has gone so completely under the radar. This is, improbably, primarily the work of one person–Helen Greetham. She has written, programmed and drawn the entire game, and I think legitimately added to the Holmesian canon in a way so much of the post-copyright contributions fail to achieve. This is my perfect ending to the tales of Holmes and Watson, and I’m so delighted to have played it.

If you’re reading and you work on a gaming site, trust me, this is great, you’re going to love it. And everyone else, you’re going to love it too!

Keep things in perspective: this obviously isn’t No Man’s Sky. It’s a small indie game with a far more limited scope, and a far greater desire to tell you an interesting tale. (There’s a very generous demo, too.) But it’s such a massive achievement, the aesthetic is wonderful (including excellent music), and it entirely entwined me in its compelling loops. Loved it.

Clearly it’s your call if you want to spend a tenner on a game that I’ve enjoyed with all manner of qualifications. But I genuinely believe the game is getting better as players feed back the issues, and despite the narrative bumpiness, I love these sorts of entry-level WYSIWYG hacking sims. I also love that Dunke put so much work into this, even if some more is needed.

I’m thrilled with Nurikabe World, and I’m so delighted I went back through my Wishlist to rediscover it. It introduces all the complexity of this logic puzzle with smart design, alerting you to specific rules or useful techniques across its first few dozen levels, but reaching a difficulty that is rewarding for long-time aficionados. And it’s so pretty! I really can’t stress enough how pretty it is.

I’m so impressed with Cipher Zero, and how much extra work has gone into every tiny element of its presentation, let alone the brilliance of the puzzle design. It’s so rewarding to figure out what a new symbol means, and then to solve ever more complex puzzles as it re-introduces old rules into the new. There are an extraordinary 373 levels in total, and I’m just a fraction through that right now. And, honestly, I’d just gotten completely stuck–I’m so pleased I can scrub that video and figure out progression now.

It makes me so happy that games this smart and unique get made. Which other Lovecraft-meets-70s horror game set in betwixt-war Italy have you played recently? And Beyond Booleans has more to come, with The Tragic Loss of M. Slazak due some time soon.

This sense of dreadfulness is taken further by how absolutely nothing else in the game is OK, either. Stewie doesn’t exactly stand out in this company, the motel’s guests barely any better, while the local area is broken, falling apart, and riddled with abandoned horrors. It’s all so bleak, so hopeless. The chief cop is corrupt running a protection racket, there’s a dead body in the local diner’s freezer, the rivers are all filthy and poisoned… But you’re using the vinegar on the rusty lever to release the potatoes! It’s an adventure game! Sure, the falling potatoes were meant to be the means of killing a prisoner, but everyone involved seems to have died before anyone got around to it, the prisoner included. But it’s a fun game with puzzles!

This is a fantastic piece of work, and a satisfying experience in its own right. There’s a solid couple of hours of game here, that I’d have been happy to have paid for (although perhaps then more annoyed by the lack of resolution), that honestly should be all any indie publisher needs to throw money. And for us, it’s a fascinating experience, unlike anything else I’ve played.