Like wafts of familiar scents, moments throughout Psychonauts evoke memories of both Double Fine and LucasArts’ highest highs. Many of Double Fine’s best known collaborators, from visual artists to voice talent, have pooled in. It makes a fine game, one about the atrophy of counter culture, how bonds make finer milestones than accomplishments, and how past failures do not negate future glories. Psychonauts 2 is a rare treasure, one that feels rarer and rarer as years go by, but clearly still possible with the proper gang of weirdos.

Disco Elysium blew my mind with its radically simple but deep approach to roleplaying. Its world and characterisation are brought to life by artistry and writing that are nothing short of astounding. Somehow, the stars aligned with absurd ambition, sheer fledgling talent and a decade of pen and paper storytelling in the Elysium universe to create something truly special. Is Disco Elysium the best RPG of all time? I can’t make that call. Is it the best game I’ve played all year? Absolutely.

Overall, Ori and the Will of the Wisps retains Blind Forest’s effortlessly satisfying platforming experience that defies a rage quit, while building on the central experience with a much larger map, richer combat experience, and more ways than ever to personalise your playstyle. Every grapple, slam, and triple jump builds on that unmatched flow of gently nudging you towards confidence, rewarding you when it’s there, and punishing the cocky. You’ll soon be flying through these gorgeous worlds with grace and style, and while it may look effortless on-screen, you’ll be concentrating damn hard on perfecting every move. That’s one of the best feelings in fluid platforming, and you can guarantee that Will of the Wisps oozes such sophistication.

Chicory flits through its hours of play with earnest, effortless charm that admittedly verges on saccharine at times—some of its townsfolk seem more like caricatures than actual personalities—but it has also helped me to appreciate the heights and mundanity of exploration, discovery and creation. It’s something I haven’t quite been able to for a while in games.

All in all, Slay the Spire is just a brilliant game. It opens its arms to you and holds you close to begin with, then pushes you away and practices throwing cards at you once you have found your footing. It really is a marvel of a genre mash-up and it is thoroughly deserving of your time. Just be prepared to start over and over again – it is a roguelike, after all.

Llaura McGee’s Ireland-based indie studio, Dreamfeel, is best known for 2014’s indie darling Curtain, a story of queer punks in an abusive relationship. Now with a full team of queer women and nonbinary devs (and music by 2 Mello), If Found… feels like the synergistic realization of all that its parts set out to do. It’s the rare game I would implore you to play without any question. The one that breaks the scale. I don’t care who you are or what games you usually like to play, play it. If not for the mechanical conceit, for the art, for the soundtrack, play it for me, because I want to share this story with so many others. That’s what a myth is, after all.

Cuphead’s crazy visuals are endlessly charming and its punishing difficulty ultimately satisfies. So give that boss one more go. Maybe this time you’ll score a knockout.

Originally an Apple Arcade exclusive, Mini Motorways is now available on Steam for aspiring city planners. If you’re ready to tear your hair out of your follicles over the algorithm’s decision to construct a house 10 million miles away from its destination, it may very well become one of your favourite time-wasters.

In the end, what Sunless Skies does do best is harness curiosity. I often found myself travelling to small hubs for specific quests, only to leave with a whole new set of stories, well beyond what I had expected. Each location is so lovingly crafted that even the darkest of places shines. With the combination of incredibly skilled and extensive writing and haunting and varied artwork, Sunless Skies has to be one of the most atmospheric game worlds I’ve ever played within.

It’s rare that a game fully explores the weight of choice and consequence, but it’s even rarer that a debut game does it so well. Lacuna is that game: an intricately crafted, perfectly paced and engrossing experience that places the story front and centre. Players will be on the edge of their seats, pouring over every detail and—quite literally—reflecting on the choices that led them there.

While the wonders of hiking around the beautiful world never really wear off, there are a lot of issues with how the game portrays women, how on the nose it is with some of its messaging, and there’s an overriding feeling of there being simply too many messages for one game. That all being said, the music is incredible, and it’s undeniably fascinating, even if it is marred by its story-telling failings.

It’s incredibly easy for people from a western audience (like myself) to dismiss most games from mainland Asia as mobile-based and profit-driven, ignoring the potential indie gems coming from a region rich in cultural history. If you’re after captivating, slow-paced horror with a brilliantly unique cultural perspective and a story surpassing many horror flicks out there, Devotion answers your prayers.

Desperados III is a worthy successor to the previous games in the series, and a welcome return to a genre I’d long thought dead and buried. Now, how about a new Commandos?

Simply put, Monster Train is really good. It’s fun, there are a nigh-on-infinite number of things you can change and mess around with for each run, and it’s difficult, but not soul-crushingly so. It’s got a nice look to it, some very good music, and the card-customisation and cloning is an excellent idea. I’m really looking forward to seeing more people with their hands on it, and I think Monster Train deserves to be huge.

On the whole I’m incredibly impressed with Wildermyth. While I was skeptical at first about whether its procedurally-generated narrative events and choices would allow for cohesive character development, its stories are so well-written, funny, and relatable that it’s hard not to be invested in the lives of your motley crew of heroes. Wildermyth is the kind of game that moves seamlessly between heroes making bad jokes one second and reflecting on the nature of existence the next. This tapestry of moments feels appropriate in a game about what it means to be human, both in terms of battling against mortality and the end of the world, but also in the quiet moments of beauty that life is filled with.

We have finally lived through the full release of Risk of Rain 2. With the full release comes a new character, who is excellent, and a true final level, final boss, and an ending. On top of that, we get even more excellent music from Chris Christodoulou. It cements Risk of Rain 2 as one of the best roguelikes of all time, and certainly one of the best co-op roguelikes too. There are a couple of things I was hoping to see with the full release, like more skills for the other survivors, but I’m sure they’ll arrive somewhere down the line. As it stands, if you’ve not played Risk of Rain 2, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

If you’re already a fan of this type of game, then you’ve likely already been sold on Wasteland 3, and with good reason. But if you haven’t delved into an RPG of this size before it might be the perfect place to start. It’s a much more action-focused experience than some of its contemporaries, with a combat system that’s developed enough to carry the game even without the arresting narrative and its inviting pliability. Despite a couple of minor irritations, Wasteland 3 is the very definition of a game you can get lost in.

Anyone less discerning with their revolutionary tales might think I’m being harsh. And perhaps I shouldn’t expect so much from a game that named its city of corporate excess Byzantium. But when The Outer Worlds attempts to play with ideas like the logical conclusion of America’s market empire in 2019, I get to be disappointed when the endeavor falls short.

It must be pretty obvious by now that I love this game. I love the effort that went into it and the expansive scope of its contents. I love how easy the gameplay is to grasp and how complex its plot becomes. I love the surprises and mysteries, and how each character is so full of soul. History buffs will have hours of spotting little details and accuracies, and fans of a good old-fashioned mystery will be kept up all night by the perplexing curse that has befallen this town.

Action sequences aren’t all just a case of spraying and praying either, a lot of the game looks like that, but you need to approach things in a more considered matter if you want to actually survive. There’s a constant cycle of fun decisions to make in your weapon choices, movement options, and tactical decisions, and they all elevate Huntdown far above many other run and gunners.

What Cuddle Monster Games has achieved is a glowing reminder of the merits of repetition. By basing its game around a patch of simple-yet-perfected mechanics and the human need to try again, the studio has created a lovely little throwback. Above all, Hell is Other Demons is a testament. A testament to how far polished mechanics can take a game, a testament to the depths of the bullet hell genre, and a testament to the virtues of dusting yourself off and giving it another go.

Overall, Phoenotopia: Awakening is a triumphant PC port that thoroughly polished its flaws and comes out shining. Chock full of charm and wonder, it’s a delight for any pixel art platformer enthusiast looking for a new adventure to throw themselves into and while away the hours with.

It’s a decent port of a great game, that knows that the best way to succeed in capitalism is not only to shaft the vulnerable, but to shaft them with a smile.

While there are niggles to the experience, from relatively frequent frame rate drops at the start of each cycle and the AI occasionally getting confused to the game outright crashing (which is naturally quite frustrating), these issues seem like the aftermath of Early Access. With the game having a decent swell of community support and the developers just as keen to keep improving, Oxygen Not Included appears to be going onwards and upwards – or whatever direction you fancy, really.

Aside from the fact that you could legitimately play it forever, it also happens to have a plethora of ways to incentivise you to play as every single character, complete every dungeon, and keep playing in NG+ 200 if you can stick with it that long. If you like roguelikes, you need to play this, and you need to play it now.

Manifold Garden isn’t a particularly challenging puzzle experience, but it’s an awe-inspiring and memorable one. I can’t recommend it enough.

Overall, Heavenly Bodies is a triumphant puzzle game. Its setting and premise are novel and excellently executed. The games succinct 5-7 playtime allows the game to not overstay its welcome and the excellent theming gives sensibility to what would otherwise be wholly nonsensical mechanics. Heavenly Bodies is a welcome addition to an already vibrant indie puzzle scene.

Eventually repetition can start to set in and at this point I recommend quitting while you’re ahead. But at its measly asking price, a few hours of hilarious antics make Reventure a no-brainer of an impulse buy.