Cool conceit for a puzzle game, and when it clicks it clicks really well… but only a few levels in, I already encountered what I’m pretty sure is a game-killing bug where a key I need to finish the level disappeared, and I don’t really feel like restarting the level, especially as the various manipulations of color-coded gems were already starting to overstay their welcome. Lots of potential, there’s a chance I’ll come back to it, but it just doesn’t feel as polished or tightly designed as it should.

Benedict Fox is one of the prettiest 2.5D side-scrollers I've played to date, and the genre hybrid of Metroidvania and adventure game in a Lovecraftian setting is undeniably intriguing, but even with the various changes made to rebalance the game with the Definitive Edition upgrade, its various constituent elements just don't cohere together very well. In particular, there's just far too little sense of flow or coherence to the world design; despite the more recent addition of (optional) quest markers to the game, I'm still not really sure how you're meant to figure out where to go next without relying on a walkthrough, leading me to drop the game after a few hours with it. As for the story, it plunks you down in the middle of a poorly-defined supernatural mystery with key elements of its backstory and worldbuilding woefully underexplained, in a way that feels less like deliberate mystery or in media res storytelling and more like a crucial cutscene or two was cut out. I admire Plot Twist's ambition, but unfortunately, Benedict Fox falls well short of its potential.

Played through the initial set of story levels to get to the credits and the "Your real journey is just beginning..." message. Don't think I'm going to bother logging in daily or otherwise engaging much with the F2P GaaS elements, but if you're a fan of Journey or any of the numerous games it inspired, it's still worth checking out (it's free, after all) just to see how it mixes Journey-esque levels with an MMO. The level design, story, and pacing are unsurprisingly not up to par with Journey or other top-tier games in that genre, but I had a number of nice online interactions (either passively, with messages left behind by other players, or by actively interacting with them; another player helped guide me through an obstacle-heavy chunk of one level) that add some interesting flavor to the experience. And even with the obvious graphical limitations resulting from Sky's mobile origins, the art direction is still quite nice to look at.

Short "peaceful, relaxing" indie 2D platformer with visuals that nicely combine hand-drawn 2D backgrounds with cel-shaded 3D models. Unfortunately, the level design isn't particularly interesting, and the platforming and general control feel awfully clunky, which becomes a bigger and bigger problem as timing-based elements take greater precedence further in; this isn't exactly Celeste, to be sure, but it's frustrating in ways I can't imagine the developers intended, and is more than enough to keep me from finishing this one. try it on deep discount, maybe

I would not have thought to ask the question "what if A Short Hike were about a child running around pretending to be Link in Breath of the Wild?", but I'm sure glad the developers of Lil Gator Game did. An unbelievably charming small-scale open-world exploration game with BOTW-inspired traversal mechanics (climbing on any surface with an upgradeable stamina meter, a glider, a shield you can surf downhill on), writing that's genuinely endearing in its depiction of childhood and growing up without coming across as overly affected, and an open world that's just the right size and density for it to be fun to explore without much in the way of navigational aids. The only reason I didn't give this a perfect rating is that I occasionally wished for more mechanically involving quest design (they usually don't involve much more than talking to one character or easily collecting/smashing a nearby item) or more bespoke platforming or puzzle challenges to make full use of the traversal toolset, but those are ultimately fairly minor complaints given how delightfully compact an experience the rest of the game is.

While Voyage might initially look like a cinematic platformer or a side-scrolling take on Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, it's really much more of a side-scrolling walking simulator, with minimal gameplay aside from some very simple puzzles. Very clearly a game where showing off the 2D art took precedence over everything else (there are a lot of sequences where there's nothing to do but walk very slowly past some gorgeous backdrops, and figuring out which objects you can interact with is quite a challenge without frequently using the "highlight interactables" button the devs thankfully had the sense to provide), but hey, it's quite short and pretty enough to be worth a couple hours if you're in the right frame of mind for that, provided you get it on sale.

the N64-inspired visuals have their charm, the basic movement and platforming feels solid, and any attempt to do a 3D third-person Metroidvania (still not a very common genre) has my attention, but once you progress past the tutorial areas and start getting into the open areas, it just gets more and more tedious to find your way around. Yes, an automap was recently patched in, but it's an incredibly bare-bones one that only shows what room you're currently in and which rooms you've visited previously, not your orientation/position within the room or any significant items/obstacles. I'm sure that memorizing room layouts or having to draw your own map appeals to some people, but it's definitely not for me; there's a reason that having a reasonably detailed automap has become a standard feature in this subgenre. Might come back to this if a better map system ever gets patched in, but otherwise, it's simply not my cup of tea.