There is plenty of fun to be had with Hammerting. The aesthetic is delightful, and when everything works as intended, time joyfully slips away. However, the aforementioned issues frequently rear their ugly heads and immediately halt the enjoyment as you’re forced to try and work around it. Despite the full release status, it still feels like Hammerting is in Early Access since it lacks the polish of some of its peers.

Instead of having a cast of lovable or unlovable animals to play as you get faceless soldiers in a divided America. None of these units ever really seem to feel anything, and as a result, neither will you. It’s just a bit barren comparatively. It’s also very hard to shake the feeling that this is a testing ground for ideas they’d like to use in the sequel to Mutant Year Zero (Mutwont Year Zero), which explains the cheaper price tag but makes it feel a little more noncommittal as well. It’s still fun, and the battles are still good, but it has a really hard time getting its hooks into you and dragging you through the story.

The hitboxes are atrocious, the game is janky, laggy, and messy, and it’s all just way too derivative to be enjoyable. I really wanted to like Hellpoint, as I want to like all games, but especially soulslikes, but it’s just not going to happen.

198X is aesthetically pleasing. Its bright, accomplished pixel-art and synth-fueled music capture its desired tone perfectly. But if that’s all that 198X is, I’m not sure it’s worth anyone’s time. Even if you are interested in a pretty but empty 80s nostalgia drip, I’d suggest looking elsewhere; there are plenty of options.

Neurodeck is a fascinating card game that explores an often ignored aspect of gaming – our psyche, and in an interesting and fun manner. I would have liked to see more of a storyline as opposed to the raw card game, and phobias would have been more interesting if linked to personal character emotions, but overall the game is fun, well thought out and unique. Deal with that how you like, but cards on the table, the game is aces. (It isn’t; it’s pretty good. But who can resist a good card pun?)

The Suicide of Rachel Foster is an interesting game. There are many ways to approach and critique it that will reveal myriad facets to it, and this is but one observation of narrative discourse. Within this subgenre, it stands on the shoulders of giants or at the very least tall minotaurs. But it doesn’t quite deliver the all-encompassing experience it might hope to.

Even though I don’t see myself swapping out my go-to “rainy day” games like Stardew Valley or Moonlighter for Moonglow Bay anytime soon, I’m also not ready to say that I definitely won’t. The amount of progress that the game made in just a week and a single patch has given me nothing but hope for its future, and it’s a game I’ll be keeping an eye on in the weeks to come. Moonglow Bay also supports local coop, and while I’ll always support anything that allows me to play with friends, the game feels like an almost personal experience that I didn’t ever feel the urge to invite someone to share with me. So with that, I’ll leave you with my closing thoughts of Moonglow Bay: Not bad, cod be better.

Ultimately, Jon Shafer’s At the Gates is a deep, interesting and gorgeous barbarian-‘em-up for about three-quarters of its runtime, with the quality of the experience varying hugely from there. With time invested to learn the game’s systems, there’s fun to be had in taking the various unlockable tribes to victory. It’s definitely rough around the edges, and there are a few features I’d happily trim, but if you enjoyed Jon’s previous work then the spark that kept me awake all night when Civ V launched is definitely still alive. I hope future updates can fill in a few of the gaps.

Override 2: Super Mech League is a great sequel, and by removing Mech City Brawl’s more tedious elements, Modus Games have created a thoroughly enjoyable 3D brawler. With more refined gameplay, improved performance, and a great roster of mechs, this isn’t a simple rehash of the original. Though Leagues can be repetitive in solo play and it holds infrequent performance issues, there lies a fun multiplayer experience here for Kaiju fans that comes highly recommended.

While The Flower Collectors doesn’t reinvent or radically reenvision detective fiction, and the plot never twists in very shocking or particularly exciting ways, it’s a sophisticatedly told, cosy murder mystery. In these times, that’s exactly the kind of entertainment I need to get through the day.

The Blackout Club isn’t really a horror game. Essentially, it’s a non-lethal stealth game with horror elements. Co-operative and antagonistic multiplayer elements keep it from getting stale too quickly, although the true measure of its longevity lies in content updates post-launch. Eventually, the game will need more locations, enemy types and objectives. Greater focus on co-op would be a huge bonus, too.

SkateBIRD is a beautiful and heartwarming game, and it’s something that will stay with me for years to come.

As a story, My Beautiful Paper Smile is an 8, maybe even a 9 out of 10, especially if you’re patient enough to put up with a tale which is mostly revealed and cliffhangers disguised as a moving plot. But there are long stretches where the story takes a back seat for you to wander, and while the aesthetic is good, the game isn’t open-world and looking the part isn’t enough to carry it. My Beautiful Paper Smile is an ideal Let’s Play game, in that it’s probably much more fun watching someone else play than it is to do it yourself. One for the horror enthusiasts, but I don’t see it reaching across the aisles.

Unfortunately, despite an interesting story, a good chance to learn some new folklore, and some solid combat, it just doesn’t reach as high or hit as hard as I’d like it to. This is a good game if you’re looking for something short, but it’s not going to change your world.

Try as it might to nestle its way into the recesses of my mind, Etherborn may end up being a fleeting memory – a pleasant experience but one which will hang on the forefront of your mind, only to be quickly scuppered by something with a bit more of body.

Accompanying the hideous inventory and tedious combat systems is the unforgiveable control scheme, which can’t be remapped at all. Overall, it feels like each of these are intentional choices to help solidify the ‘90s horror vibe it goes for, but just because something is purposely bad doesn’t actually make it good. Game design has progressed a lot in two decades, and Daymare is at odds with what it wants to achieve.

Ultimately, the only flaw was the sensation of wanting more of The Sundew. While its length can feel underwhelming, it is still an achievement since it’s developed by one person, which is even more admirable after seeing the quality of the final product. The fact that the game left me craving for more adventures like this speaks volumes of the developer’s dedication, as well as a testament to the beautifully presented cyberpunk adventure of The Sundew.

These puzzles are challenging but invigorating. The short of it is this: you’ll need to push specific objects around, which will cast a shadow on the wall for her shadowy figure to traverse through. That said, everything else about the game is not as memorable—from its overwrought music to its clunky visuals. In My Shadow veers between sheer monotony and needless melodrama. Which makes it difficult to stomach.

Rise of Industry will scratch an itch for the enterprising industry builders, the spreadsheet-clutching efficiency aficionados and the capitalist megalomaniacs. But if you’re not strongly of that persuasion – myself included – it’s still satisfying to see your business empire and distribution network expand, cities thrive and balance book increase. Or, you know, heartbreaking when that doesn’t happen.

Overall, Dangerous Driving is focused. The developer has set out to make a spiritual successor to the arcade games of the past and, to that end, it can be nothing but a resounding success. While there could have been more ambition and left-field, crazier tracks, there aren’t many qualms to be had with its simple design. Dangerous Driving is gaming fast food, but the good kind.

After several hours of playing Ooblets, I remain sincerely stunned by the level of attention to detail and how well polished this game looks, with an amount of content that is surprisingly large for an Early Access game. I’m curious and eager to witness where this fresh and cheerful experience will go next, and I really hope to get to meet more Ooblets along the road. [Early Access Score = 90]

You start out with a sword, for instance, that allows you to turn into a fairy and briefly fly while the sword remains anchored. Press the button again and the sword zips back to you in a straight line, cutting through whatever is in the way. As Mable beats various bosses, like a giant spider and rock monster, she gets their powers, which all work in a similar way. It’s creative and distinct, and also frequently frustrating as hell.

Perhaps the biggest twist to Don’t Forget Me—and this is not a spoiler—is that despite all the chatter about memories, the game isn’t explicitly about them. Instead, it’s a tale centered around navigating the ambiguities of being human.

I love bad games. But The Good Life doesn’t fall into this category of bad-fun, it’s simply too much of a mess. Did anyone say no to anything in the course of refining the core concept of this game? Probably not. Is it even fun? I still don’t know because even after 8 to 10 hours, I feel stuck between a begrudging sense of sunk-cost fallacy and possible Stockholm syndrome as someone who also once faced ruinous debt and an unwanted move. Honestly, there’s no such thing as a good life unless you have paws, eat garbage and can pee freely in public, but you don’t need to play this game to know that.

Overall Tales of the Neon Sea looks (and sounds) good and packs a considerable amount of playtime, but the lack of an original take on the genre and the truly annoying puzzles blocking progress can’t be ignored, as the latter takes away much of the atmosphere and immersion.

There are a few great ideas in this game to take Darkest Dungeon’s format and improve upon it but instead, Mistover flounders in its wake, trying desperately to grasp at a market which will find it lacklustre.

Tools Up! has a ton of potential. It just needs a bit of tweaking and user-friendliness, but still offers a solidly absurd cooperative multiplayer experience. The game is frustrating and hilarious in nearly equal measure, which has a certain appeal for these kinds of shared experiences. Just, you know, maybe not with the children.

The often severe frame drops and occasional bugs that led me to restart a level aren’t that big of an issue, and they can be always be fixed after launch. But the specific tone around the game, and the message it leaves as it neglects to listen to the learned lessons in the past few years from similar experiences in the indie sphere, can’t be solved with a patch.

In a world drenched in ash after a volcanic cataclysm, the Squad’s long and treacherous journey may have dashed most of their hopes for survival, let alone of achieving their goal of finding a new home. Ashwalkers led me to identify with the arduousness of its quest–a sadly drab journey overly invested in its destination, with more interesting moments spread out like notable landmarks. This sparsity left me wanting for more to grapple with here and now, rather than the promise of unlocking it later. The latter, it seems, feels like a gambit that doesn’t pay off.

The plot is meant to feel uplifting as hope is, literally, restored and trauma overcome. But it all feels too downbeat and too open to interpretation to make sense. What for some might be an intriguing journey of discovery was for me a baffling, meaningless grind.

Sheltered is a game with some good ideas. The customisation options are fantastic, and the gameplay loop itself is enjoyable. It’s a shame it’s tarnished by horrible RNG and a general feeling of pointlessness. If you really want to struggle against the world there are better games out there that do the same thing, but better.

There’s a lot to discover in Summer Catchers, but I feel like the PC version is the worst way to do so. If you’re considering buying this on a tablet or phone, add a point or two to the review score.

The game as a whole feels a little sparse. What there is to do is fun, but it loses its sheen rather rapidly as you discover there’s little point in replaying the missions. Of course, it’s in Early Access, so this is likely to change, but it’s still kind of annoying. A good shout if you want to get in at the ground level of something that’ll be fun in a few months, but waiting a few months is perfectly understandable too. [Early Access Score = 70]

Fight Crab certainly holds an appealing concept but, like many good ideas, gets let down by in the execution. Multiplayer is easily its strongest component and arming yourselves with a ludicrous weapon to floor opponents has a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the quest to become Supreme Crab gets bogged down in repetition, not made easier by janky controls. There’s an enjoyable game at FC’s core but ultimately, its best experienced in small doses.

Given the setup – clueless white scientist comes to terms with the consequences of her groundbreaking research – The Complex is a particularly vanilla flavour of dystopia that fails to inspire. These are uncomfortable tropes we’ve seen before, especially when it comes to expendable minorities and the guilt-ridden white people fretting over them. Even without the COVID-19 pandemic living rent-free in our brains, The Complex – despite its noble efforts – ends up feeling rather flat.

Despite Sheltered 2’s attempts to pander to this crowd, it largely fails to bring any new ideas to the table. Its mindless interactivity with its post-apocalyptic world, combined with an obtuse crafting system, has resulted in a game that is more annoying than tantalising.

Ultimately, I cannot recommend Freakpocalypse to anyone who isn’t an established Cyanide & Happiness fan. This isn’t the sort of point-and-click adventure that bridges gameplay issues with an engaging story, since it relies on crude humour to see it through. If you enjoy C&H, this will be right up your street, but it does nothing to court players that aren’t part of the existing fanbase. I wouldn’t call this a bad game; it’s just a very average one, and there are much better alternatives out there for point-and-click fans.

A decent little game, tightly designed with some laughs along the way, as well as offering really good audio and visual design. However, it does fall down under more prolonged scrutiny, with undercooked world-building and a tendency to push you towards grinding out money by means of repetition meaning that some may lose interest before reaching the finale.

Windbound is a lovely little adventure game in a beautiful world. You don’t always have to kill things, and you can generally be a little more relaxed as you journey from island to island and watch the wildlife. It’s not perfect, but I enjoyed my time in the world, and the emotional ride constantly swaying between immensely chilled out and “god d*mn it I died” was one I found quite fun.

Separation isn’t likely to garner a lot of attention. It’s not flashy and is definitely indie (developer Recluse Industries is really just one guy), but there’s a distinct appeal to a game where the whole point is to soak up a moody, solitary, and evocative atmosphere. There’s no explanation or tutorial to sit through, the game just starts with a simple message and lets the player figure things out on their own. It’s not a bad way to spend a few hours, but probably not a game that will linger on your hard drive either.

Liberated is a peculiar game. While it explores some interesting concepts around surveillance, people’s privacy and how societies react to terrorism, I’m not sure any of its ideas are helped by being a video game. If anything, it has an adverse effect, actively drawing away from the team’s artistic skills and world-building.

It’s easy to see what Ary is aiming for. The ambition is certainly there, but the execution is off. Way off. At best it’s a clunky mess. At worst it’s broken and near-unplayable. It’s clear Ary was in need of a few more seasons of development before release.

While Skellboy is pretty rough ‘n’ ready, it’s still generally playable, and its charm manages to shine through. The writing is playful and doesn’t take itself seriously at all, giving the experience a shot of personality. For a monster of a game formed from a mass of ill-fitting parts, they at least didn’t forget the heart.

The progression difficulty leaves a little to be desired, but when you see an enemy churn out a whole screen of projectiles—and know that if you stand just so, you’ll be able to dodge everything without moving—it all clicks into place. For players who are hooked on achieving that feeling of mastery, Godstrike is going to be a surefire win, with challenges and arena modes offering deeper layers to mine. In short, Godstrike is a wonderful, accessible paean to a niche genre.

Overall, Warlander is a lot of fun, and the combat system really is unlike anything else you’re likely to have played. While it doesn’t always shine in each individual fight, it does a good job of escalating as you play through it, and the difficulty curve straddles the line between forgiving and “oh lord why is this happening to me” very well. It’s certainly worth your attention if you’re looking for something visceral to sink your teeth into, and it’ll treat you well if you’re willing to master the nuances of the combat system too.

If you’re not averse to a bit of grinding, there’s plenty of fun to be eked out of Space Crew’s enjoyable core gameplay loop. Its main flaw remains the somewhat lacklustre beginning.

Dialogue is poor, cliched and uninteresting, so after an hour or so the only thing really pulling you through is the cool black and white, hand-drawn aesthetic, and the excellent soundtrack. The gameplay does a lot to make up for the shortcoming of the overall package, and it’s fun to jump into for quick sessions, but with each death and each mindless conversation with one-dimensional characters, it gets harder to find reasons to keep going.

Leaving home, getting married, moving to the city, coming home and finding out that your home isn’t the place it used to be—all of these are part and parcel of growing up. Sid, living on his own and with a published novel under his belt, might expect to be largely done with that process, but Forgotten Fields’ greatest insight is that growing up isn’t such a simple thing. It’s not a linear process with clear rites of passage; I’m not sure that it ever really was.

RICO offers a very enjoyable, stress-relieving experience where players can live the adrenaline rush of busting down doors to take out drug cartel members. If you can get over the fact that at any second your death means you lose all your progress, there is much to enjoy, with every playthrough unique due to procedural generation. Grab your shotgun and let’s go.

Its one massive redeeming feature is its soundtrack, an orchestral theme that elevates the whole experience and almost saves the whole thing. It’s worth checking out for its sound work alone, but perhaps not at full price.

It’s just a shame that the execution of everything here leaves a lot to be desired. The performance of the game is significantly less than ideal, with there being far too many loading screens that go on for far too long. There’s also the occasional visual glitch and broken frame rate to help you feel like your TV might be broken. It’s a collection of cool concepts, but it’s not anywhere near as polished as it could be.

Ultimately, The Church in the Darkness rewards players with a fascinating and original cult setting, but the provided method for navigating and interacting with that setting is entirely uninteresting. For some, it may be worth trudging through an uninviting cult compound to understand their experiences and culture; for me, I wish I’d stayed far away.

I anticipated a touching, engrossing tale of a heartbreaking and folkloric haunt. What I got was a bog-standard, overly conservative horror game mired by mechanics more ancient than the game’s late 1800’s setting. Like the lifeless meatbags which stalk its murky hallways, Maid of Sker is best avoided.

Dark humour is used liberally throughout Little Misfortune’s exploration of bleak themes. Half of the time, you don’t know whether to laugh or recoil in horror. Either way, it’s easy to become absorbed in the plight of our little heroine. It’s pretty short for the price of admission and arguably a little too much of a cinch to play, but a loveably weird tale all the same.

There’s a lot to love when it comes to Griefhelm and whilst that initial difficulty will be off-putting to some, I recommend you persevere. Whilst combat doesn’t hold a huge amount of depth, the variety in gameplay modes was appreciated and it features some challenging 2D combat, nice aesthetics and enjoyable multiplayer. The inability to save campaign progress is frustrating, but overall, the game took me by surprise, and I very much recommend it.

I came to Orangeblood almost determined to like it. It had everything, seemingly. Gorgeous 90’s inspired art design, the promise of a funky soundtrack, JRPG style but in a more modern setting… I was so ready to fall in love. It’s only two weeks into 2020 and I’m going back to being jaded and miserable and its this game’s fault.

Decent production value and acting are all this has going for it. Even so, Bloodshore is one of many projects that don’t ever have to be interactive, and unfortunately, it won’t be the last of its kind.

Most of Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood feels like a game entering early access, and every element would benefit from more time and more polish. Too shallow for World of Darkness fans, too simple for ARPG aficionados, and too much tedious exploration filler for button mashers, it’s hard to recommend this one, especially for the asking price.

The game is cute, funny and genuinely satisfying once you start to put two and two together, combining items and solving puzzles to push the story forward. But the writing really suffers here. It would have been much more enjoyable if dialogue lines weren’t so annoying and expositional. Characters constantly say exactly what they’re doing, and they do it multiple times in a row. The game loses a lot of its comedic charm because it never trusts the player to understand what’s happening, even when it’s extremely straight-forward.

Old Gods Rising is unsettling. It does a wonderful job of making you uneasy, constantly convincing you you’re being watched by someone or something, which the story is happy to suggest. If you want a game with a story which has multiple twists, an ambiguous ending, a nice sense of creepiness (without playing a horror game) and a fun, small insight into ancient civilisations and the gods they worshipped, Old Gods Rising maybe for you. Although, I’d wait for it to be a bit more stable if I were you.

The stronger elements such as combat, art direction, and sound design are held back by the technical issues, odd design decisions and weak narrative, taking itself far too seriously when – if simplified – this could be a truly fun turn-based combat game.

Building off of the XCOM style of strategy, you get to decide how you move and act or react as you’re fighting it out. While the strategy can be fun, it’s all a bit sluggish, and that can make each fight feel as though it takes an eternity. On top of that, it’s visually just a bit early 2000s, with the colour brown seemingly being the inspiration for everything. It’s not a bad game, but it’s not a good one really either.

A historical video game prioritises and engages with contemporary agency and understanding of the past over the historical document. The Amazing American Circus is not even a historical document, but a media text taking the form of a video game.

Overall, Swag and Sorcery is a great game. There are a few kinks along the way, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously and offers some truly fun gameplay. It’s definitely worth your time and money.

Table Manners is a joyful if simplistic, parody of modern dating. To its credit, while I never fell in love with Table Manners, I can’t stop considering places it might go from where it is now. What if other dates like movie theatres or walks in the park were similarly simulated with outrageous physics? What if hookups were simulated in this way? Table Manners is a lovely romp. My main complaint is that I couldn’t leave a tip for the waitstaff who cleaned the tables left in my wake.

Generation Zero is more or less what I expected from a big game studio doing its own indie project – a rough-but-unique mix of open-world game features. I love that it asks players to actually pay attention to its world instead of keeping them distracted with constant waypoint markers. And the tactical combat system really works, hitting an interesting middle ground between mainstream and hardcore.

The lure of Rune II is largely in its atmosphere and Nordic themes. Norse mythology is a great setting for a game, packed with dense lore and fascinating stories and characters. Human Head clearly had a love for the subject matter and that does shine through here, making it worth a look for like-minded gamers. If you can find a small group of other players, it’s also a lot more fun to play cooperatively. Whether that’s enough to overcome the numerous flaws is up to you.

There are aspects of Brotherhood United which are promising, but at this point, it’s an experience which feels unpolished. I had the game crash on me as well as several sections where the background music just wasn’t there. Overall, it just feels like a game I could have stumbled upon on Miniclip back in 2003, and it wouldn’t have felt out of place, nor would it have stuck in my mind.

Vane simply doesn’t live up to those games it so achingly apes. It lacks the clearly defined objective and unique aesthetic of Journey; the emotional attachment of The Last Guardian; the intriguing ambiguity of Inside; the charm of Rime. Instead, Vane feels clunky and pretentious, any sense of wonderment outweighed by unnecessary frustration, sluggishness and a lack of clarity.

Riot: Civil Unrest is strange and unique, with a strong social conscience. The material covered here is important and highly relevant to our times, lending a decidedly edutainment feel to the game as a whole. So, while the game certainly won’t appeal to everyone, its original premise and gameplay make it worth checking out.

Element Space has the potential to offer a genuinely fun experience in the sci-fi genre, which is something that is wonderful to see, but not all that common. The issues presented by its poor performance and the less-than-stellar implementation of many of the mechanics result in something that is often far more frustrating than fun. It’s a huge shame because the world and the characters really did pull me in, but the bugs and crashes kept booting me back out again. Hopefully, the studio can keep these kinds of complaints in mind when developing a potential sequel. If they can improve the quality of life as well as iron out the technical issues, it’s sure to be a far more enticing game.

Board games are great because you can play through time and time again and experience something a little different each time. At least, that’s normally how it is. Arkham Horror: Mother’s Embrace is inspired by the Arkham Horror board game series, but it doesn’t match it in any real way. It’s a bit of a shame, but it’s all a bit too short and a bit too basic most of the time.

Devil’s Hunt is a game with obvious flaws, many of which players might excuse for a chance to tear the head off a hulking demon lord or throw unholy lances through the grotesque, glowing body of an angel. There are many more who will watch the trailer on Steam or YouTube and decide the ‘80s metal album aesthetic and combo-happy combat are worth stomaching a story with an infuriating number of dropped threads and unanswered questions. But none of it is worth a writing team that seems to believe rape can be used and excused on the altar of motivating their male protagonist.

The concept seemed safe enough, but by making the lore so vague, the dialogue and RPG elements so weak, and the combat too clumsy, Paranoia hasn’t lived up to expectations. With a name so blunt you’d be expecting to feel chills, to be looking over your shoulder, to thrive for triumph over an oppressive system that you fundamentally disagree with. Paranoia does none of this, and instead offers up a diluted, animated version of their table-top success. There’s a joke in there somewhere regarding board games/bored games, but so powerful is the ennui I’ll let you figure that one out for yourselves.

Away: Journey To The Unexpected is a game with charming moments, but they aren’t enough to save a dull experience. The highlights are the interactions with your family, but those are at the beginning, then the end of the game. Even the end boss is incredibly easy. It’s an interesting idea, but it feels like a massive letdown in a game that is full of them. The end boss of letdowns, I guess. The only thing I can say in favour of Away is that you should take its advice: stay away.

Warparty is decidedly hit and miss. If you want a quirky RTS game with plenty of classic overtones, while still having a quirky personality of its own, this is it (warts and all). Hopefully, the game can get patched to improve the rough spots and controls. As it stands at release, Warparty is frequently frustrating more often than it’s fun.

The mannequin-like orgies, hefty focus on vaginal doors, and character designs that look like questionable 50 Shades cosplayers, however, can’t cover up the fact that what the game is really about (or should have been) is finding all the intriguingly bizarre dildos spread throughout the game’s wonky world.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is not a broken game, nor is it ugly or offensive. But it is joyless. It feels cold, like a corporate cash grab, and suffers from a fundamental misunderstanding of its target audience. There are interesting elements and attractive qualities, but the game overall fails to deliver much of anything to anyone in particular.

The story itself is told through comic book panels that do inject a bit of colour and personality into the game, but it’s not enough. This is soulless, empty and unpolished – a total whiteout. In old Norse ‘fimbul’ translates as mighty or great. But this particular Fimbul is anything but.

In theory, Waking sounds like a fascinating project, with the game showing hints of delivering a highly tailored, personal and transformative experience. But what begins as an exercise for intimate self-reflection wound up becoming an increasingly detached experience for the player. By putting them into the game in the most literal sense, Waking fell short when it was unable to capture all the nuances of its impossible protagonist: yourself. While I admire the boldness of its vision, I simply couldn’t connect with the extent of its execution.

The game doesn’t really have any unique ideas or ways to build upon this genre. That would be fine if the ones they did have were executed well, but this sadly isn’t the case. The monotony pervades every aspect of this game. And that’s a shame. You can see certain parts of the game trying to make an impression, but they inevitably falter. However, was there any real hope for an engaging experience if everything was executed well?

I suspect Of Bird and Cage works best as an album first, and maybe a speed runner video as a distant second. Perhaps by the end Gritta escapes her prison and finds the support she needs to reclaim the light of her life in one of the possible endings, but given the oppressively deep hole she starts in, I’m not convinced that the game believes she deserves it. Though she most certainly does.

It wouldn’t be fair to Mechajammer not to acknowledge everything it tries to do and bring to the table, but in a world where I’m spoiled for choice when it comes to roleplaying games, mediocre just doesn’t cut it. In its current state, mediocre is the best that Mechajammer can hope to be. On paper, Mechajmmer has everything it needs to be a sleeper hit, but in reality, the only thing it’s hitting is the very bottom of my Steam library, where games I don’t finish go to be forgotten.

Eternity: The Last Unicorn’s one redeeming quality doesn’t do much redeeming, though. The game still has some major issues, first of which is simple—it’s not fun to play. Nostalgia is a feeling video games and entertainment have been profiting off increasingly within the last few years, which is great when the end products are well-executed. But instead of pulling inspiration from the Nintendo 64 era of gaming, Void Studios just made a game that belongs in it.

With its numerous glitches and flaws, Broken Porcelain instead becomes a superfluity of horror game tropes; its cheap jump scares, laboured stealth encounters, and confusing plot now an unfortunate fixture of what used to be a promising survival horror series.

An unpredictable experience which keeps you guessing as it plays around with the simulator genre it’s found itself wedged in.

In spite of its fun premise, there’s an overall aspect of the game being underbaked which is hard to get away from.

While the actual setting and storyline could do with a bit of colour (particularly the characters), if you want a decent strategy game to fill the emptiness between Christmas and New Years, Ancient Frontier: Steel Shadows may be the thing for you.

Whatever your experience with 2D platformers, KLAUS does a great job of introducing you to the genre then subverting your expectations. It’s not the hardest platformer on the market, but it’s one that leaves a great impression — as well as a few new ideas for others to build on.

Bombfest is a decent, well-presented, local multiplayer game which will sit well in circuit alongside the likes of Samurai Gunn, Super Treasure Adventure and Gang Beasts. Its greatest lack is content, which massively reduces the session time of the game when others are available.

Most of the choices here are pulled from games that have come before it, so it ends up feeling like a mish-mash of good choices other developers have made. The visual style, though still fine-looking, feels uninspired and, again, recycled from other games from equally equipped developers. That said, the game isn’t much of an investment, so if you’re looking for something solid but not revolutionary, this could be the game for you.

Making your way through unexplored bunkers and encountering new alien species is just as fun as it sounds, and finding secret areas within each level adds another layer of intrigue. Zombotron does occasionally feel like just another 2D platformer and nothing else, but if that’s the kind of game you’re looking for, then it checks all the boxes.

The thing is, difficult or no, FSX is still really good fun. I have a feeling this is the sort of game you could return to week after week, learning its intricacies and formulating the best possible strategy for success. I’d like to see a few changes made, a few quality of life additions, but it’s hard not to recommend a game that’s this much fun and looks this good to boot. I suspect that the brilliantly named developer, Turbo Pelvis 3000, will be one to keep an eye on in the future.

Ultimately, Moonrise Fall is a quaint journey of exploration and supernatural oddities. The central mystery is simple but effective, providing enough incentive to keep going while underscoring the whole affair with a persistent layer of tragedy and an evocative spirituality. Following along with the journal and locating the inhabitants of the forest is rewarding and engaging, and you might even find more to uncover if you dig a little deeper.

Overcrowd is extremely fast-paced, even considering the fact that you can play it at normal speed and pause it whenever you want. It’s all about split-second decision making and prioritizing. Sometimes there are multiple issues that need to be addressed, but not enough people on staff to take care of them. It’s all about looking into what needs attention the most and going down the list from there, and that can be tough to grasp on your first, second or even fifteenth try.

As is, SpaceEngine is a robust and fun toy chest for anyone even slightly interested in astronomy.

Still, for those happy to get their asses handed to them, Chippy is a rock-solid shooter with a great gimmick. And over the coming months, the devs have promised new content and a level editor, which should really extend its lifespan – should you even make it past the first few levels.

If you love off-the-wall experiences, Baobabs Mausoleum may be right up your street. If you haven’t played episode one yet then start there, but if you’ve already been inducted into the crazy world of Flamingo’s Creek, rest assured that episode two is just as weird, but longer and meatier.