You leave this stylish, compact and clever game feeling relieved to be free, but then an hour later as you sit at your computer answering endless work emails or grinding in some identikit live-service fantasy game, you have to ask yourself – am I really?

There’s no story to discover, no complex rules to learn; just instant, appealing fun. It’s fun you’ll have already experienced if you’re a Mario fan, but with enough novelty and unexpected twists to prevent it from feeling over-familiar. And for those new to Mario – kids just ageing into video games, friends or family members tempted into a multiplayer session – this is a wonderful introduction to the fizzy creativity and attention to detail that has made Mario a family staple for nearly 30 years.

Is this a realistic insight into property ownership and management? Probably not. But it yields a good time nonetheless, and one that obeying the property ladder advice of cutting out avocado toast might actually help you to afford.

Viewfinder is magical, then, but also short-lived. Even with the optional puzzles, you can easily finish the whole thing over two or three evenings, and it never quite capitalises on the promise of the camera, the promise of getting lost inside picture after picture after picture. Each level is bespoke, tiny; although the very final sequence, a timed dash through puzzle after puzzle, hints at a grander potential. I’m left dazzled by the possibilities, but ultimately wanting more.

Eiyuden Chronicle stands as a monument to his singular design sensibilities, and a testament to the power of a determined community, both within the game’s fiction, and by its very existence.

Experiences such as this don’t come along very often: Mr Coo pulls from disparate influences that other games haven’t already done to death, and bobs along on a dream logic that makes sense while you play and then evaporates immediately after. Why did stealing a coin from that one-eyed lady end up giving you a sword to slay a many-eyed crocodile? And how did you end up inside that egg with an unborn chick? It matters not. They are vivid memories now, the kind your brain will randomly turn over, decades down the line when you are trying to get to sleep.

Lego Batman 2: DC Heroes isn't groundbreaking but it is consistently fun, and while it might not take top honours for best Batman game of all time (that belt is still held by Batman: Arkham City), it's easily the best Lego game we've seen in years.

Angry Birds 2 looks great, from the level backdrops through to the little touches: pigs quivering as you prepare to launch a new bird, and then zooming out of the screen towards you as nearby objects explode.

The city is so exquisitely designed, in fact, that it overshadows the rest of the game. Which is remarkable when your next destination is the Pyramids of Giza. Here The Great Circle shifts into a more traditional open-world mode, less intricate and holistic, with more siloed locations and objectives. That said, it does afford greater room to experiment with Indy’s abilities.

Sakuna is more than the sum of its parts. Individually each element is just a bit lacking: the exploration is limited, the pacing a little tedious, the combat doesn’t quite have the depth of a true action-brawler and even the farming proves repetitive. But just as sunlight, fertiliser, water and toil together produce a bountiful harvest, all of this game’s elements come together to make something hearty and unexpected.

The Evil Within will give survival horror purists a rare contemporary pleasure fix. But be warned: if you prize smooth, silky action above all else, it will drive you insane.

Few game franchises have ever gripped like this one, and its symbiosis with the real sport remains rather staggering. For those who recall the heady days of Championship Manager, but who became alienated by the increasing complexity of its Football Manager replacement, FM 2016 represents an opportunity to come back. Your loved ones and work mates, however, may regret it.

At its core, Rugby Challenge is what rugby fans have been waiting for; this is a game made by rugby fans for rugby fans. RWC 2011 is a decent, knockaround sports game but genuine rugby fans will find Rugby Challenge a far more worthwhile investment.

Halo 4 is brilliant. If you've never played an entry in this series, this is as good a place to start as any and if you're a fan, rejoice; with 343 Industries Halo is in safe hands.

With air-dashes, balletic pirouettes and the ability to curl yourself into a ball for a teammate to hurl, this is a long throw from the official sport that hopes, one day, to enter the Olympics. Games are just as taut and competitive, however, with lots of scope for showboating. No competitive online game in 2021 can be merely a competitive online game, however, and, like Fortnite et al, Knockout City has an entire superstructure of unlockable items and progress meters, with an eye to turning the game into an enduring entertainment platform. Whether or not it hits that elusive target, beneath the capitalist carapace this is wonderful game-making.

DiRT Showdown isn't going to change the world – it's a frothy, tongue-in-cheek driving game with pretensions towards nothing beyond providing entertainment. But it does that in spades, with considerable technical accomplishment.

A new story in the world that they love, but one in which they’re participating, not just watching – which isn’t afraid to raise some sensitive issues around topics such as friendship. Roll on episode two.

Titanfall is a sort of masterpiece, so confident in itself and its identity, yet so reverent in its art direction to the science fiction visions of artists such as Shōji Kawamori, Kunio Okawara, Syd Mead and Chris Foss. You will play for hours, get tired, think you're done, and switch it off, but then it nags at you – you're only a few hundred XP from levelling up – a new weapon awaits, a new type of scope for that assault rifle, a new Burn Card perhaps, and you go back.

Part chic toy, part interactive museum exhibit, part broadsheet mind-teaser, Rytmos is a sophisticated proposition (the puzzles soon scale in complexity, sometimes lacing around more than one side of the cube at a time), at once tactile and mystical.

Designed by Amanda Warner, who has collaborated on interactive projects for the WHO and the Gates Foundation, Influence, Inc feels like fiction, but it’s based on hard research and includes a bibliography of works such as Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani. Your work soon becomes overwhelming (the interface struggles to communicate the minutiae of your projects as they grow in complexity), but this is a mesmerising window into the murky world made famous by Cambridge Analytica, and inhabited by countless others all working for clandestine clients, towards clandestine ends.

But if it feels challenging, the fact that Witcher 2 is fiendishly hard from the outset is half its appeal.

Stacking is right up there with the likes of Braid and Limbo as an absolute must-download.

This kind of bubble-popping was brilliant fun in the Bust-a-Move and Puzzle Bobble games, and King has done a much better job second time round in translating it to modern touchscreens. No squinting required.

The Horizon offshoot has unshackled the Forza franchise, letting it run free into the wild, and this new adventure ensures that we don’t take that freedom for granted. Everything is bigger and better, everything is designed to make damn well sure that we’re having fun.

This is an unmissable, sugary treat, bursting with kaleidoscopic entertainment, and is available for £15.99 on Steam and free via PlayStation Now. It’s a perfect entry point to battle royale games for those who are intrigued by their structure but put off by their violent undertones. And even though you can’t play against your family, you can all gather around the TV and enjoy the hilarity of 60 bean-shaped critters trying to simultaneously cram themselves through a narrow doorway, or across a rotating platform. It is lovely to see a game like this – so aware of its own silliness and so aware that it is exactly what we need right now.

What the game loses by not having had a Rare/Nintendo-sized QA department to smooth its rough edges it compensates for with a princely pile of ideas, and a lovely control scheme that only improves with elaboration.

It’s a game you can complete, and when you do, you’ll want to start playing again immediately, perhaps bumping up the difficulty level or increasing the map size. That’s exactly the same kind of replayability spark that Civilization had all those years ago.

It’s a simple statement that’s both endearing and heartbreaking. It hints at the thousand real-life moments of grief and joy that served as inspiration for this game. That emotional weight shines through, making Rime a thoroughly rewarding experience.