My Steam Review - Consider leaving a thumbs up, it means a lot to me :)
It's hard to fault Little Inferno. It looks great, has awesome animations, menus are all polished, sound generally is really good, and the game has a very specific and well developed aesthetic style, which remains consistent all throughout the game. It's writing is mostly good, although it dives head first in a style of humor that might not appeal everyone, so it could be hit or miss.

And I get the kind of statement the game is trying to make, about consumerism, capitalism, lonely, environmental degradation, so on and so forth. But in trying too hard to make a statement, it starts to fail a bit as a game. I realized I was disengaging with the game when I started Alt-Tabbing to do other stuff while I waited my items to "ship". I actually like the gated progression of catalogs and items within catalogs, forcing you to experiment with everything and focus on combos, but the inflated prices and ever-rising shipping times start to become an annoyance really quickly, and that's where the game lost me. Also, some combos rely on English-centric puns and idioms, making them inacessible for ESL folks.

Overall, a game made by a competent team, but that misses its mark when it comes to gameplay and actually being enjoyable to play

My Steam Review - Consider leaving a thumbs up, it means a lot to me :)

Slick, groovy, fluid. I had low expectation about Lethal League, but this is one of the crispest multiplayer games I've played in the last few months. It's also the second SG Win I beat this month, thank you Mudkip! :)

First of all, it has style. The graphics are kind of low-res, the animations are simple, and while each character has very few voice lines and art, they are all memorable and have their own personality. The sountrack, sound effects and levels all contribute to that. They mostly play the same, but different hitboxes, specials, jump heights and shooting angles all end up differentiating the roster enough for you to pick favorites (mine being Candyman and Latch).

Now, the gameplay. It is so simple, yet requires so much skill, mastery, finesse, nuance, quick reflexes and strategic thinking to do well in this game. I lost count on how many times I fell to very easy baits from the enemy, only to deliver them the same. Or how many times I thought I was irredeemably lost to a speed ball, only to bunt or counter it straight to their faces. For such a simple system, it is so deep and provide so much fun in couch co-op sessions.

I can easily see why the devs went for a sequel - while all the basics are here and they proved they can make an incredibly fun and challenging multiplayer game, they had all the room to grow in terms of art, sound, and overall game mechanics. What's here is enough to make a good game that's fun to play for a long time, but I'm sure the sequel (which I won but haven't played yet) will be everything this one has, but more. Looking forward to it!

My Steam Review - Consider leaving a thumbs up, it means a lot to me :)

You know you're in trouble when you clip through the geometry a minute into the game, and from that point on, you're afraid of WALKING. On a WALKING simulator.

While I've played several of the most famous walking sims of the last few years, Dear Esther was the first that … was unremarkable in all ways. Beautiful, yes, but also unmemorable and uneventful.

If you're thinking of playing this game, my only recommendation would be to watch someone else play instead. You're practically missing nothing.

My Steam Review - Consider leaving a thumbs up, it means a lot to me :)

I had a blast playing Metal Unit. While the movement and combat can be janky at times (this is no Hollow Knight), it works enough to keep you entertained. The game rewards you for trying different weapon/accessory combos, meaning each run you probably will be running a different build, and you keep doing that pretty much until you beat the game. I definitely had favorite setups, but I ended up almost never using them because I was always trying out new stuff.

Difficulty wise, this is no walk in the park. Before I got upgrades/accessories that healed me after fights, I was struggling to reach bosses, and naturally died to them pretty quickly. Once I fixed that, I started reaching bosses more consistently, but they still pose a challenge. The roguelike element of randomized screens with monsters keep runs fresh, and there's enough meta-progression to keep you going if you die. The last gauntlet of bosses felt a bit easier than the rest, but still super fun to fight.

There is a plot, but it's all over the place and mostly a device for gameplay. I didn't love it, it was just meh.
If you're over the fence whether getting this game or not, but love 2D action games or metroidvanias, this could be a good fit. Definitely no sense of progression like traditional metroidvanias, but the roguelike elements keep it fresh and enjoyable. Also there's a free DLC for you to enjoy. Great work by the devs

My Steam Review - Consider leaving a thumbs up, it means a lot to me :)

Hmmmm, I was really over the fence about giving it a thumbs up or down, but then the last stretch of the game cemented the thumbs down for me.

Overall, Nairi is a game that is not terrible, but it'so so lackluster. A cross between a visual novel and a point-and-click adventure games, it has all the elements that makes a point-and-click game bad (tedious and unclear navigation, pixel hunting, slow dialogue) and none of what makes it good (charming animations, creative puzzles, witty lines). It's artstyle is not bad, but it's so static that it never rises beyond mediocre. It tries to pack a lot of lore, but the pacing is so off that you just don't care about the characters, and you can barely follow the plot. The puzzles are laughably easy for 90% of the game, and then in the last stretch, go completely off the difficulty rails and become arcane and obscure to solve.

I guess Nairi is a game that was made by clearly passionate people, but that lacked enough playtesting and polish on its systems. You can feel the passion and the drive from the creators, but they just missed the mark and made a game that is, at the best times, boring, and at the worst times, grating. The difficulty spike and the sudden ending (which killed the pacing) are the factors that ultimately made it from a weak recommendation to a soft "avoid-it" instead.

Also, what is the deal with the furries? I didn't detract points because of that, but man, that stuff is so weird and unnecessary on the grand scheme of things.

You have limited time in your life and there are many games that do everything that Nairi does, but much better. Go play one of them instead.

Steam Review - Consider liking it - it means a lot to me :)

Grindstone is a completely underrated gem. It has one of the best animations I've seen in a 2D game yet, with a distinctive artstyle that is so fluid and fresh. It's like watching Cartoon Network's golden age shows non-stop, and characters ooze personality and emotion on their reactions and expressions. The sound is crunchy and the gameplay is snappy, and even after dozens of hours with the game, it never ceases to be satisfying to chain a massive combo, seeing your enemies cower in fear, you smush through them with a ravenous hunger, and the crowd cheering your gratuitous display of violence (in particular once you pardon a slob and the kids cheer you on haahahah).

There's a semblance of a story going on, but it doesn't matter - the gameplay here is what carries everything else. It's an easy-to-pick, hard-to-master kind of game where situational awareness and gear loadout help you, but won't save you from a bad scenario, and you constantly need to balance creating props that allow you to combo (such as grindstones or enemy guts and drops) vs. making quick work at a level. There's such a massive amount of content here, from levels to worlds to side-dungeons to daily and weekly quests to 200 levels in the main path, it's wild. I was afraid of starting the game because I thought it would be too much, but now I see myself playing almost 2h every day just because it is that fun.

Seriously, this game is criminally underrated and underappreciated. For me it's on par with indie darlings such as Slay The Spire, Stardew Valley, and Hades. Buy it, play it, GRIND IT!

Steam Review - Consider liking it - it means a lot to me :)

Kind of …. meh. I tend to enjoy walking simulators, but I guess I prefer the ones where you don't feel completely alone. Such as Firewatch, where you always have a buddy talking to you and the world is open and expansive. Or Tacoma, where you're always surrounded by other characters. Gone Home reminded me more of Rachel Foster, which is kind of … not my favorite at all. The ambient is a bit oppressive, which I don't fully appreciate, and the game didn't run so well on my system, which surprises me given I can play RDR2 and The Last of Us remaster without an issue. Movement is quite sluggish.

It's a weak recommendation because of what it represents in the development of walking sims, but definitely not my favorite at it.

Metroidvania is probably my favorite genre, like ever, and I decided to kick off my backlog this year with all the Metroidvanias I've been sitting on while I wait for my January PAGYWOSG submissions to be approved.

Well, since Ghost 1.0 was on the list, and Mini Ghost exists, I figured this could be a good way to kill a day or two before being able to play my PAGYWOSG games.

While Mini Ghost was … fine … for most of its runtime, it has some poor design choices that are just too frustrating to cope with. In trying to emulate old games (in this case, from the MSX-era), the designer forgot he could keep the aesthetic but improve the gameplay. So yeah …. good luck spending half of your playtime exploring the world, and the other half running through the same screens again because you died in a boss and the only way of reaching it again is traversing the same old path you've been on since the beginning of the game. You don't want to provide good movement or defensive options? Fine, just don't flood my screen with unavoidable bullets, or enemies that stun-lock you in corners/in the air, above lava and with no mid-air control. Don't want to provide fast-track to a boss? Fine, just don't make a tortuous path that is three times as long as it needs to be and force me to navigate it.

It was a thumbs-up for 80% of my playtime, but the other 20% are so bad, so poor that I can't find myeslf recommending this game. Let's see if Ghost 1.0 delivers, although at this point I might just take it off my backlog and leave it in the pile of shame for some day.

Steam Review. Consider liking it - it means a lot to me :)

Tacoma was a wild experience - one of my favorite walking simulator so far, maybe second only to Firewatch. The detective kind of work involving rewinding and fast-forwarding recorded events is a lot of fun, the station is super beautiful and fun to explore, and there are decent puzzles involving physical objects and non-obvious connections and passwords. If we're being honest, all the puzzles are easy, but they are still fun to pursue.

I enjoyed my time in the station and wouldn't mind spending more time at such a gorgeous environment and with a great time-manipulation mechanic that should be more common in other games. And now, Happy 2025 folks!