A cute little indie cat game where a cat needs to return their owner by platforming and climbing with a stamina meter that must be upgraded before making the ascend. Typical of this tiny climbing games, progress is blocked by stamina and requires exploration that requires a little challenge. With its vibrant visuals, it has more of a cozy vibe roleplaying as a cat. I always like cosmetics as reward for exploration such as hats or emotes specially to get pet by humans easier. Although I would like some body or tail cosmetics if possible instead of just heads. My only issue with this game is just some jank with the climbing and easy out-of-bounds areas which is fine but noticeable.

As a cat person, an easy recommendation.

Playing as an content moderator on a capitalized oldschool internet fills me with dread on a fundamental level. Watching people adapt, learn, grow and connect with this janky technology is one the joys of this game, so seeing technical incompetence and hubris as well as capitalist interests (and some misogyny) impede or destroy relationships is heartbreaking. What is striking is really how it lands those emotional moments with sincerity and subtlety behind their grim reality specially nearing the last act. I must mention how memorable the various video, music, pets and effects the game has specially the monster catching and hot butter brand in bringing levity and charm. The story steps into various technical, political and social issues surrounding an emerging technology that I wish more games would tackle such as the lack of backwards compatibility which effectively deletes content similar which is still relevant in the current gaming industry. I am thankful the internet remains an open public good and this game reminds me of its grim alternative.

The other joy of this game is its slightly difficult puzzles with no hint system. No case is a simple page search but following breadcrumbs to hidden and private pages and software that feel rewarding to piece together. I do love the last act mechanic where each page has a new dimension that jives with its context and nostalgia in a way. What I love too is the moral ambiguity of the job itself whether to file a violation or detain a user specially how most of them are minors that perhaps need a guiding hand more than a ban hammer. This reason conflicts at times with less rewards in accessing more of the game's content such as pets and achievements which is a nice complication. I do urge players in avoid using a guide and take in the world that was created with passion and quirks.

My issues are few and the biggest one really is the artificial loading of pages for its immersion. It is cute early on but it feels more of an annoyance later on specially when the game offers a page speed booster program which comes with its own annoying ad popup window. The tradeoff between immersion and convenience here I feel was not really worth it. I was going to mention the lack of bookmarking but I late figured out every stamped pages can be viewed from the misleading lower left box next to the music player which conflicted with my expectation of a sidebar. Playing on a keyboard and mouse, I did not find any quick window switching shortcut like Alt+Tab available to bring windows to the foreground for some mechanics. One tedious mechanic in particular I wish had a browser button or program to check for hidden files instead having to manually type in a password everytime would be great. I do have a small peeve about the ending program as it feels out of place given the gravity of the situation although I do see how it loops back to the critical incident. As an indie game, some jank can be expected but overall the experience was pretty good.

I love this and would have been a game of its year.

Because of its genre and low poly aesthetic, I was eagerly awaiting this survival horror title and I was not disappointed. While it does not have limited inventory and saves, the execution and balance is good enough for that constant fight-or-flight decisions that I seek in this genre. The very interconnected map is quite nice and enhances that quality although it is not enough to make route planning a joy as it is easy to clear out key spaces. Although I do like how it handles backtracking by adding random spawns and specially traps which has cheekily caught me off guard several times that happily keeps me alert. I am happy though that juking enemies is fun specially with the movement boost here as a tank control player. After getting used to its aiming style, I think its gameplay experiences is paced and balanced nicely without overstaying its welcome.

For its accessibility, the finite hint system to indicate where to go is a good inclusion although it can be cheated with save scumming. Vending machines as resource dispensers when resources are low is intriguing. Having a backup ammo spot as well at the cost of backtracking. While I was not really able to test this as I was a veteran hoarder, I do like these ideas as it preserves intent and balance instead of having dynamic difficulty.

As for issues, the puzzles are okay but the bosses are mostly slow and disappointing without requiring much thought or strategy although credit that the player can escape them. The camera can be a bit jank when loading in as it clips or blocks the path forward which requires some manual intervention. Some puzzle inputs feel like it drops inputs due to the animation but not sure. Even if I do like the story and monster's origin, I am not sure the ending choice and context works as it feels devoid of meaning and nuance without the characters talking about it.

Overall, I do recommend this neat indie title for genre fans.

A souls-like where the shield is the armor and sometimes the weapon where managing shell durability and switching on-the-fly is important delivers a fresh twist on the combat. Also, it is not a stamina-based combat and still works with its intended difficulty although neutral dodge spamming and successive hammer hits can be somewhat questionable. Since I am parry inclined player, parries on block release is interesting as rapid parries are not viable and leaning more on a defensive style. In terms of difficulty, this is on the easier side with a more lenient parry window, omnidirectional block, and few delay based attacks. For its build variety, it has a two adaptation (spell) and three stowaway (ring) slots paired with each shell providing their own spell. Although, I think the equipment effects can be more meaningful to allow for different approaches. For an indie game, this has a surprisingly good amount of content with bosses, levels and optional paths although perhaps a bit much. With its vibrant visuals, this feels like a good souls-like entry that it not very demanding.

As for its narrative, the story is good enough alongside its political themes of spiral namely from the marine life deifying human trash and repeating the same conditions that led to their demise. Shells being broken and replaced is an apt mechanical metaphor. In this light, the ending is a solid conclusion despite the last section not really paced well. The main protagonist is interesting in that they are timid, naive and is practically a NEET thrust into fighting the mess capitalism has made. I love the point where a character says that losing the main protagonist's shell was possibly a good thing in that it opened their eyes to the growing issues of their society in that this shell can no longer provide them a sense of normalcy and thus their quest is flawed. It is a shame that this was not fully explored but what is there still works despite not being a fan of the humor and characters.

One remarkable thing is a good assist options for struggling players. From less damage, better dodge/parry timings, game speed reduction and outright a gun to skip enemies/bosses in one shot, this is a good set of modifiers although a percentage slider or description to what some of them does would be nice. I was tempted to remove pitfall damage because of the high enemy knockback and the lack of air recovery which is a constant frustration. Not a knock against games that do not have them, just want to see its acceptance for this genre that has a unhealthy discourse around it and this game is a good example of it.

What holds this back is some annoyances with the combat system. Firstly, the lock-on camera feels bad specially with multiple enemies or objects outside the camera. It locks on to sometimes incorrect or irrelevant targets far away instead of the closest threat. Since I set my field-of-view high, I can understand some clipping with the camera but it sucks when going through or fighting in small interior spaces such as milk cartons. Another is the input buffer executing past moves after an animation. For example, after executing a parry attack; it still executes a normal attack instead of moving which feels disconnected with player intent. Some attacks whether blocked or dodged pushes the character high up in the air which could be funny but not good and hopefully fixed soon. Lastly, attacking enemies above or below such as with ledges, floating enemies and the cursed giant crabs feel inconsistent to hit. While I do have other issues like enemies walking or dodging themselves off the edge, I occasionally felt annoyed fighting enemies.

As for other issues, it has significant frame drops when crossing certain areas which can be understandable as an open world; however, some of those points are near hostile enemies or hazards that I just stood still until it stopped loading to avoid taking unnecessary damage. The level design is strange with collisions and holes that make traversal and platforming annoying at times. For example, the wooden planks and wire meshes with some random gaps to fall in which feels unnecessarily punishing. While the content is above and beyond, it feels slightly too much where the lack of variety felt the game was dragging or not paced well. After finishing the game, I am happy to have played it but sadly did not want to replay the game for mastery.

Overall, this is value for money and recommended for fans and beginners alike.

What surprisingly fun and sweet indie gem in using nostalgia to reconnect siblings drifting apart. While it is a small game with a small starting area, it opens up to a larger island that is fun to explore and navigate with its movement tools. Finding friends to create a game town across the island is very charming with their childish dialogue and humor without overstaying its welcome as well as a more meaningful sign of progress. While the message is not the friends made along the way, its ending lands in a mature and sincere way which I love to look for in stories.

Besides its simplicity, the movement is very fun with how the items are implemented. Sliding, jumping, gliding, slide hoping, all this makes it feel nice to explore. It also has an interesting discrete stamina system which allows for climbing or air jumping that can combo into its other systems. Since this is a small scale adventure game, do not expect difficulty or mechanical challenge. My only minor issue with the game is the lack of a map even a static one to avoid retreading old areas although there is some joy in this. As a completionist, I welcome the post-game items to help with completion and want to see more games support it.

Also, I appreciate the subtext of queer identity with how the name is contextualized. Never is the protagonist gendered nor are the cosmetics which I think is intentional (although this approach does make it easier to write dialogue and implement equipment.) One main friend is suggested to have a seemingly gay friend which helps my case. Little things like this make me happy.

Overall, this is very much recommended.

This is a pretty cool short indie platformer with the unique mechanic of air drilling like a bullet. It is a bit too fast for me to control with the camera which I lament not being to enjoy it as much because of motion sickness. With 4 levels, 1 boss and 1 secret ending, I hope the level mods address the lack of content or time trials to elevate its value and provide an avenue of challenge aside from speed running the base game. Beyond the mechanics, the vibes and quirky setting does add to its charm such as the vampires and anomalies.

I can recommend this game and hope the developers make a more expansive successor to it.

Convoluted, overambitious and tedious, this is a modern example why the old style of adventure games died. Difficult and obscure puzzles were not the point of this genre, but its story and charm through its setting, characters and mechanics. Above all though, it is missing a third or last act to conclude its plot threads which is both a mercy to the players for not wasting more time and to the game for not having to explain its eugenics plot. The celebrity voices were probably a mistake as they were not given many roles or lines to express themselves aside from being more expensive.

I just felt betrayed by this game trying to aim for nostalgia in the negative direction. As an adventure game fan, I cannot recommend this in good faith.

As a fan of stop-animation, it pains me to say this game is a narrative and gameplay mess. Beyond its aesthetic, the interactions and movements are noticeably slow that impact backtracking and pacing significantly. This game has an unnecessary amount of backtracking due to the lack of fast travel, slow area transitions and repetitive fetch quest design which greatly impacts the pacing and character moments. I do wonder if this had fast travel then it would have been better as a visual novel to focus on its story than awkward traversal

Strange enough, I think this game added some strange sequences and mechanics to justify its aesthetic. First, it has follow the NPC segments that prevents sprinting but they tend to go way ahead because running is disabled making it a slower experience. Perhaps an auto-walk feature would alleviate this or take control away altogether as a cutscene. Second, it has a timed response mechanic that is used only once but makes players needlessly require attention on succeeding dialogue. Third, the mini-games and interactions are not really interesting like the rock scanning or flight sequences near the end of the game being more interactive videos. No strong puzzles or mechanics, I wonder why include them at all if they brought down the experience.

Being foremost an adventure game, I feel the story fails to be truly engaging or meaningful from its setting, character and theme. Fundamentally, I feel it lacks strong dialogue and character moments to make players more invested in their plight and developments. It specially feels missing during the numerous montage sequences where it could have been great moments but I feel were made understandibly due to budget constraints. Most of the plot threads also resolve weakly or poorly. Specially with the countdown pressure since the player has no direct control over it and how it closes out. Even the decision in the end, just feels so bland at the end of it all.

To be fair, let me mention what I did like. The letters were really nice despite the backtracking. I like the setting where capitalism still exist where money does not make sense anymore contrasted by how aliens live on a communal or non-capitalist system which is a political theme that I want to see more of. No major romantic subplot for the protagonist is appreciated. The notebook drawings are charming as a task reward. It is not much but there is something to love about it.

Do understand I wanted to like this game with its creative risk and effort here but I just cannot recommend due to its numerous shortcomings.

This is an okay short narrative game where the player finds out the disappearance of an AI that ushered a utopian era. The narrative is centered around this mystery and I think it was not intellectually or mechanically engaging. While the ending choice is a bit of a cliche, I did not feel it was explored well. Rather, the quirky interactions between the AI personalities is the strongest aspect of this game.

The gameplay suffers a bit with several context-based interactions that require waiting for audio to finish and most of them are not interesting to do. No strong puzzles or mechanics either to add variety and the inclusion of puzzle skips makes me sad. Since the narrative is not as strong, the lack of other supporting mechanics or systems makes this a weaker experience.

On a side note, I am disappointed that it uses Catholic concepts and centered around humanity given its cosmic scale feels lacking in a bit of narrative creativity. AI being somewhat gendered is okay but I was really disappointed it did not have non-binary representation. It ruined my immersion a bit where an AI controlling the masses is based on a heteronormative structure. This section is my preference so take this with a grain of salt.

This is an okay title but I do not have any strong reason to recommend it either.

As a lover of puzzle mansions, this game is right up my alley as well as its vibrant art style that highlights the personality of each plant. The puzzle joy comes from figuring out how to bloom each plant with their own solutions. Sadly though, I did find the experience somewhat lackluster where the puzzles are a bit on the easier side and some unnecessary backtracking since clues cannot be reviewed in a menu having to walk all the way back to where it was. I did like the lack of puzzle hints in favor of grouping clues together to verify if the player has enough information to solve the puzzle except one BS scale puzzle. Of course, this may be the intended easier difficulty given its soothing art style. That said, the inclusion of misogyny as an antagonistic pressure works given its time period and driving force to complete and publish the book for recognition. It would have been nice if the protagonist was voiced or showed some character to be actually invested in the goal aside from completion.

Overall, can recommend this game although I would have liked a more challenging experience.

What a short and simple psychological horror game that uses aging for its body horror. Case in point, the first scene of the game starts with the exploitation of the protagonist's body dealing a blow to their well-being. Surprisingly, the narrative holds well given its twist and I do appreciate a sincere ending for this genre. I do disagree with the epilogue though.

As for its mechanics and gameplay, it is quite lacking in both puzzles and horror. The puzzles can be unclear in their intent as well as monotonous to some degree where a sprint option would have helped to reduce this friction although I would have this over the monster rooms. Horror is subjective but I did find it weak in terms of its impact but not visuals. Perhaps I needed more scenes of body horror and maybe impact the protagonist during the fantasy sequences like flesh falling off and turning into enemies. For a positive point, I do like seeing more rhythm mini-games and the hide-and-seek mini-game is surprisingly fun. Overall though, this is the only reason why I think the game is brought down despite its small scale.

Still, its creativity and effort makes this an short indie gem worthy of attention.

I do love clunky mechanical objects where operating them for a long period endears the player to them; however, this and the evocative music and landscape is what the game really only has. Movement is unnecessary slow, puzzles are trivial, no strong resource management difficulty, I struggle to find positive points. As with experience or mood based games, the motivation and story is rather unclear perhaps not well thought out. Given its mechanics and world, I cannot understand what it is trying to say assuming how it ends or its desolate state. The game does have some heart to it but not recommend.

An unique puzzle game where the player must investigate a murder scene or diorama . As a puzzle genre fan, I strangely did not vibe with this as it feels less detective work and more fill in the blank. It has its merits of surprises such as false leads but I did not get that aha factor that I look for. Perhaps it was not that difficult or did not feel I truly solved it on my own. For the story though, I do not truly think this is a mystery but more like a series of events with the idol as a key object. The twist though was okay but I did not like how it required guesswork in the last level to figure out the first part. This is still an indie gem worthy of recommendation and do play it with a mouse rather than a controller.

As a set of free five short horror game, it is a good product unified by their unique visual style, working under pressure and unknown mechanisms to create tense experiences. I like the drill game the most for being more mechanical and the battleship game for its (attempted) message. Each taking around ten to twenty minutes, this whole set can be done in one sitting and an hour or two.

That being said, I feel the main game launching another game does not really add that much value and may be better of as a free bundle of individual games. I believe the appeal is replicating the old console or PC game covers with descriptions in the back along the feel or texture of CDs which is fine. Since each game is standalone, this game launcher does not provide a unifying context aside from the feel or nostalgia. I am not looking for meta secrets within the launcher but rather a perspective to see each game as a whole even if some may occur within the same universe.

For a casual playthrough, I think each one provides their own unique experience. My criticism of each is perhaps how its twist or subversions are very surface level which is also fine for its scale but I feel it misses its deeper meaning. For example in the drill game, what lies beyond the wall justifies the prison-like treatment all for that subversion on protagonist agency. Another is the battleship game, war is more complicated than winning or losing much more so their politics or reasons if it is a war metaphor. Perhaps this is unfair criticism if it is mainly for their unsettling tone and horror rather than considered meanings, still their ambiguity and obscurity do encourage that closer look which disappoints me.

Overall though I still do recommend this set for a casual experience from a budding developer. My only caveat are some flashing lights and a lack of field-of-view slider where I experienced motion sickness while playing through it.

This is a very short and sweet visual novel . What I really appreciate are resisting the temptations to violate privacy for a health relationship. On the other hand, I am conflicted with how the game rewards a completionist behavior with achievements and insights. I do think that some of the choices to get completion seem to move an internal relationship meter but observing the actual result seem contradictory so I had to resort to a guide. Still, the best ending for me does still reward that restraint as tricky as it can be. The secret message though I feel is unnecessary as it sours the positive meaning it is going for. Lastly, the rotoscope animations are really nice which is above and beyond for a small product.

Overall, an unique and good experience given its indie scale along with that is my recommendation. Also, the developer is asexual which makes this creation much more intriguing.