Mullet Madjack is plain fantastic. It looks gorgeous, feels amazing, and is a sublime boomer shooter with an aesthetic we don’t usually see in the genre. If you have even the smallest interest in boomer shooters and like the 90s anime aesthetic, this one is worth getting. I recommend downloading the demo on Steam Deck and enabling gyro controls to see how you find the controls though as that’s the only aspect that might not work for everyone.

Despite its difficulty in explaining its complex systems, Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society is a fantastic RPG that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys the genre. Its systems are immensely satisfying to learn, its labyrinth floors a treat to explore, its encounters challenging and interesting, and the story is outstanding. It is, to an extent, a game that gives back the more you put in, but the patient player will find a bounty of rewards here for their efforts.

It's a clever puzzle game that suits the platform very well, offering a straight-forward interface and a relatively smooth mastery curve.

While the lack of voice acting is something that really disappointed me with how good other aspects are, I still recommend The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story to anyone looking for a quality action RPG with great music and lovely pixel art. As someone who loves Moonlighter, I hope Digital Sun keeps delivering on games like it and The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story going forward.

While there isn't a whole lot there for people outside of character grinding in Don't Grind (ha), I'm confident that a lot of people are going to fall in love with it, and decide to pull the trigger on the relatively reasonable IAP asking price. Potential future updates can only bring it up from there.

A slick, mellow game that rewards both your time and your skill. It won't appeal to everyone, but it can (and should) reach a larger audience than the average racing game.

Squeenix could've very easily released Arkanoid vs Space Invaders as a freemium game, loaded with ads and coins to buy. They likely would've made tons more money too. Arkanoid vs Space Invaders is a fantastic refresher of what arcade style iOS games used to be like it, and I'm more than happy to celebrate that.

I’m genuinely surprised at the jump in production values and quality from the second game to OPUS: Echo of Starsong – Full Bloom Edition. If you enjoy memorable stories and great music, this is essential. Even with the few technical issues and downgrades compared to the PC version, OPUS: Echo of Starsong – Full Bloom Edition is superb on Switch and one of my favorite games on the system this year. OPUS: Echo of Starsong joins 13 Sentinels and Triangle Strategy as the top tier Switch games of 2022 and I hope it eventually makes the jump to iOS in the future alongside a nice Nintendo Switch physical release.

If you enjoy RPGs, this game's for you; if you enjoy platforming, this game's for you; if you like spending hours on the couch exploring a well-made world, this game's for you; if, instead, you enjoy short bursts of platforming and exploring, this game's still for you because of its checkpoint and save system.

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is immediately one of the nicest surprises of the year, and a superb platformer collectathon game. It oozes 90s charm with its unique characters, excellent music, and hard to put down gameplay. Steam Deck OLED owners should consider this for how the colors pop on the screen as well.

Kathy Rain is quite the fascinating romp through the point-and-click adventure genre. It won't particularly challenge you, by design, but the story, theme, and performances are all quite splendid. This is quite the compelling game, and knowing that there's the Wadjet Eye connection makes me want to finally dive into the Blackwell series at some point just to get more of this style of game, because I need more Kathy Rain someday.

Minishoot’ Adventures also has a few difficulty options including the ability to auto-aim, have slower enemies and enemy bullets, with separate options for game speed, invincibility, and infinite energy if you’d like to have a completely relaxed experience. Barring some elements of the aesthetic that are quite forgettable, Minishoot’ Adventures is awesome from start to finish. If you enjoy twin-stick shooters and older top-down Zelda games, this one is worth your time right now.

If you're coming into the series fresh right now, I think I would probably recommend Battle of the Bulge ahead of this game. If you enjoy that game's mechanics and are looking for a different scenario, Desert Fox is more than worth your time and money.

If you skipped Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch, the new mobile and Steam ports are the way to go. While the mobile version lacking controller support is disappointing, it is still a game I see myself playing regularly with its improvements over switch and fantastic core gameplay loop. Having all the DLC included means you will have enough content to last you even longer. If you do value controller support in a game like this, the Steam Deck is the way to go. Hopefully we see Square Enix keep bringing more Dragon Quest games to mobile in the future. Right now, the iOS version of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is easily one of the best mobile releases of the year.

Chilling, thought-provoking, and decidedly human, Heart of the House is an excellent piece of interactive fiction. If you have any appreciation for choice-based narratives at all, you'll probably enjoy this one. It doesn't play around much with the conventional mechanics of the genre, but what it creates within them is about as much as anyone could ask for.

It’s a no-brainer purchase if you’ve liked any of Brough’s previous games, of course. But if that’s you, then you’ve probably already bought it, haven’t you? If, however, you bounced off one of his games before for any reason other than the art, you might want to give this one a glance. There’s a concerted effort here to try to reach out to a slightly different set of tastes, and if you give it a chance to get its claws into you, you may end up finding this to be the gateway to a brighter, Broughier world. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Loop Hero is as hard to put down as the finest of idle games, but with enough meat on its bones to make it feel like your input actually matters. It’s the kind of game that has something to offer no matter how much or how little time you have to throw at it, and one that will likely keep you coming back now and then to play again. While it isn’t the most challenging of affairs, it’s certainly engaging and full of enough surprises to keep your interest over the long haul.

AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative may not be the unexpected surprise that the first game was, but it lives up to the impressive bar of quality set by its predecessor in a way few games of its genre manage to. This Switch version has a few technical issues, but nothing that should keep you from enjoying the game here if this is where you want to play it.

Wargroove 2 is a very safe sequel, but I can’t really disagree with that approach given how good the original game was. With a robust new story to play featuring three campaigns, an interesting new roguelite mode, and a few new features and additions here and there, this game might be preaching to the choir but it’s hitting all the points they like. I’m not sure I’d be up for a third game that follows the formula as closely as this one does, but for now I’m more than satisfied with another heaping helping of that Wargroove good stuff.

SwapQuest is a perfect example of a game with a simple premise that is executed so well and includes so many complementary layers that it becomes an experience far beyond that premise.

There might be an end somewhere in sight, a time where the grind outweighs the entertainment, but the hours of fun to be had in the meantime are well worth the initial purchase. Don't miss this one.

I’ll admit that I came into Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition a bit cynical, but it really did win me over in the end. The game’s presentation and modes are very well-built towards the end of funneling the player back into trying to better their best times, and it can even help improve your skills at the included games. I wish there was a little bit more meat on the bone, but the live modes are going to keep me coming back to this game for a while. Those without any interest in time-attacking won’t have their minds changed, but otherwise I would call this release a champ.

If you’ve enjoyed inkle’s other games like 80 Days, Heaven’s Vault, or Overboard!, you’ll find plenty to like in Steve Jackson’s Sorcery!. The way the developer transformed these already-memorable gamebooks into bigger, more interactive adventures is nothing short of amazing, and you’ll find plenty of reasons to replay them again and again. The games have made an excellent conversion to the Switch, and the price is very fair for how much is here. RPG fans will also want to take note, as the games have considerable chops in that regard as well. A great port of an outstanding series.

In sum, Solar Settlers offers diverse card sets for a variety of races to colonise new solar systems. While this requires careful thought and strategy in expert mode, it tends to be rather easy outside of it, despite its ranking system. While I enjoyed playing the game as a whole, I found the best experience was in choosing a random race and playing on expert, although that resulted in quite a few losses. While it does have flaws, they are few and easily overlooked. Solar Settlers is an easy recommendation, and one I make whole-heartedly.

Although it would be nice to earn rewards more often, the core mechanics stand up on their own, and this is one runner I'll be keeping on my device for quite a while.

Jurassic Go might not be as memorable in say, 15 years, but it's a unique game that has a lot of heart. Instead of creating new IPs they may as well just go with this one again for their next creation.

If you have any soft spot in your heart for wacky racing around household locations, you need to check this game out.

Meg’s Monster is a fantastic narrative experience. While it’s not the most mechanically rich RPG around, it’s not really trying to be. It’s here to tell a story, and it does so wonderfully. The characters are memorable, the plot is engaging, the presentation is sublime, and it’s on the whole just a hard thing to dislike at all. I haven’t been on an emotional roller coaster like this one in a while, and I’d handily recommend it to anyone looking for a touching story to play.