Book of Demons is a beautiful roguelite dungeon crawler with enemy variety and a plethora of interesting systems built upon a sheer lack of player-side input. A decent time waster, but difficult to recommend at launch prices.

This metroidvania has great 2D graphics, but is marred by an overplayed storyline, bland enemies, and serious bugs.

Though full of beautiful art and interesting lore, this point-and-click adventure is hindered by bugs, poor mechanics, and is in need of much more environmental interaction.

While a serviceable dungeon crawler, the lack of polish keeps Conglomerate 451 from being truly engaging.

A follow-up to Job Simulator that loses most of the humor that made that title so great.

Though the atmosphere is beautiful and the sound design is immersively eerie, plot holes and disturbingly accepted character choices greatly hinder this walking simulator.

When a game isn't visually appealing, nor long, and when its puzzles are as simple as clunky controls make them painful, then it better be good in terms of story. Bucket Detective is not. And the frustration from the lack of a good narrative is made all so much more frustrating by the fact that there is potential here in pockets, including some good humor, silly art, and cute music.

With deadly bugs that prevent key gameplay mechanics, zero replayability, and an astonishingly small amount of content (<30 minutes to complete), Beat the Game is a visual masterpiece more akin to a brief bad trip at a Tomorrowland than an actual game. If you’re into audio or music production and are looking for something that will let you develop and explore it in a different light, you will be disappointed. However, when it comes to cinematography, BtG is a high nine. With a bit more care and effort from solid game and sound designers, this novelty release could have been great. And if you need drugs to enjoy music, you’re doing it wrong.

With Sonic and Mario in the spotlight again, Bubsy takes another swipe at being a lovable mascot, but doesn’t succeed in capturing the same sentiment. Ultimately, Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back (Bubsy), the platforming game, arrives as the two-decades-too-late 5th entry in the series. Despite excellent controls, the title does not overcome some of its more pressing shortcomings, such as level design, resulting in a sub-par gaming experience.

WOUNDED is a visually striking and atmospheric indie title that needed better core mechanics.

Indie platformer The Free Ones currently struggles with the absence of simply too many game essentials to be forgiven. Its fast-paced grappling action does lend a touch of excitement to its otherwise stagnant gameplay, and its potential, while imprisoned now, could be unleashed with future developer updates.

While there are a few interesting concepts at play in Jon Shafer’s At the Gates, they frequently go underdeveloped, leading to a lackluster experience.

Solo is a meditative relationship questionnaire under the guise of an aesthetically-simple puzzler. Its desire to play the love doctor lends a unique flavor to its otherwise bland and hodgepodge puzzle gameplay, but it’s not enough to save it from its painful inability to let its hair down and stay awhile.

Though the narrative and moral questions presented are interesting, this horror game is marred by frustratingly tedious gameplay and lacking mechanics.

Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is a visually faithful recreation of the original Yume Nikki, but beyond that, it falls short. A slew of game-breaking bugs and unintuitive gameplay creates a disappointing experience not worth the asking price.

Suicide Guy caters to the underserved demographic of people who enjoy 3D puzzle platformers, except this serving is more of a home-cooked meal from Grandma’s house after she had gotten dementia. It’s made with love, and is good at certain parts, but in the end, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Graphics and level design can be clever at times, but are essentially ruined by the frustrating physics and collision, lack of any good music, repetitive sound effects, half-finished animations, and stale platforming. I want to love Suicide Guy, and I do, in a way -- I appreciate the effort that was made, but when I was done I felt unsatisfied and dead inside.

This entry in the Just Cause series has taken itself too seriously, sucking the fun out of what should be a blast.

Subject A-119 makes a strong showing with a variety of abilities, but the puzzles, through mechanical and logical limitations, quickly fatigue the player. Puzzle addicts might be tempted to explore this title but, overall, Subject A-119 mechanics are more confusing than the actual puzzles, ultimately leaving players underwhelmed.

The development team behind Alder’s Blood has clearly put a lot of thought into crafting a striking experience, and while the game has style and an engaging core gameplay loop, it’s also so shaky and unpolished we find it hard to recommend.

While fans of turn-based strategy might find some features to be enjoyable, long-time players of the Jagged Alliance series and strategy connoisseurs might feel shortchanged of the beloved gameplay of this genre.

Raiders of the Broken Planet just isn’t there yet. While an alpha build of the title showed promise, the title has much development ground to cover yet. Raiders of the Broken Planet isn’t half-baked: it barely got into the oven before players were encouraged to start eating the dough.

In its desire to stick to the original Fallout RPGs, ATOM RPG disregards the lessons CRPGs have learned in the intervening years. Fallen short of both its predecessors and contemporaries in the genre, ATOM RPG .

OVERKILL’s The Walking Dead does a decent job of immersing players into a universe of the undead, but lacks innovation and is ultimately brought to its knees by the overwhelming amount of bugs and lack of player-friendly systems.

Planet Ancyra Chronicles appears to be made by a team of developers who are each individually good at their jobs – the level design, the narrative design, and the score all have their moments. Unfortunately, it seems the team suffered from miscommunication, because this title’s individual parts struggle to fit together into a single, cohesive experience. Perhaps only the most persistent of players will be able to make it to the end of this otherwise interesting story.

Guilt Battle Arena capitalizes on the idea of a party night teeming with shouts of triumph and despair with its chaotic couch co-op gameplay. A fresh update helps to increase its overall playability, but the tiny title has a long uphill journey to make before it can more readily compete with similar smash-your-friends indies.

Bio Inc. Redemption presents us with a confused tone: part of it wants to be taken seriously as a realistic medical simulator, while other parts seem to be trying to get a cynical laugh with out-of-place gore and sound effects. Still, this title is well polished and the gameplay is interesting (save for the Achilles’ heel of a terrible point management mechanic that destroys the immersion and fun). Flaws in both balance and theme could have been overlooked if not for the inclusion of this one unfortunate element.

Dead Purge: Outbreak is not fun or innovative, borrowing too heavily from many superior titles. Ultimately, the title is a zombie itself: slow-moving, mindless, collapsing readily and often.

Daemon X Machina needs some work. Its mechanics are rough, its controls are unwieldy and confusing, and its story is difficult to follow. While it’s mildly entertaining to pilot a giant robot, there are other games that pull off the experience more effectively.