Arranger is funny, surprising, and builds a simple movement puzzle concept into complex, layered head-scratchers. It's a very charismatic puzzle game that won't outstay its welcome.
The Operator borrows a bunch of strong puzzle concepts and uses them to good and imaginative effect, but it throws in a few dud sections and its well-paced thriller story is sadly lacking in depth.
Flock flexes your curiosity to chase down strange and wonderful little animals. It can be a little repetitive, but it's full of freedom and playfulness and is a treat after a long day being a grown up.
Galacticare is a smashing space management sim in the Bullfrog tradition, with a great implicit and explicit sense of humour. It's not super challenging, but its levels are imaginative and fun.
Crow Country puts more emphasis on puzzles than the survival part of survival horror, but it's a well-observed love letter to the genre with great attention to detail all over the place. It's somehow equal parts charming and creepy.
A lovely looking game with a sweet, restrained story, Harold Halibut is funny and charming. It's also probably a bit too long for its own good.
A great premise with fun characters becomes a boring, empty wasteland in itself, as Sand Land makes adventures in customised tanks uninteresting and desperately repetitive.
Tales Of Kenzera has a sensitive story and is beautifully designed, with an intriguing world to explore - but some imprecision lets it down in the platforming and combat. It's still more than worth a go for players looking for something fresh.
Bore Blasters is a very well-designed destructive roguelite that takes good bits from a lot of games to create a dwarfish cathart-'em up where you explode mud and goblins
Despite some frustrations, Children Of The Sun is an intense shooter-puzzler with bags of style and originality.
Botany Manor is a beautiful, focused and entirely peaceful game that creates an oasis where you solve puzzles and marvel at the world. It's wonderful stuff.
Horizon Forbidden West is a great open world adventure, especially as a sequel, with all the slow motion dino hunts you loved last time but bigger, all the noble questing but nobler, and all the high stakes raised even higher.
Open Roads is a well-observed, empathetic story about families and secrets, wrapped up in some lovely art and with barnstorming voice acting performances at the heart of it. It's short but bittersweet.
Last Epoch is a worthy mid-point ARPG that has fun with its fantasy time travelling world, and makes crafting and building towards percentage point increases actually rewarding. Even fun!
Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a slick and colourful JRPG that knows what it thinks is cool. The combat is kind of weightless, but it's layered and fun - if you can be bothered to get to the bottom of it.
Don't Nod's new third-person goth-tragedy action-adventure RPG is full of swashbuckling ghost hunting, bound up in a story unironically about the power of love. Despite some repetition and busywork, it's a great time.
Turnip Boy Robs A Bank is my second favourite Turnip Boy game, but it leans into the lite in roguelite and has a lot of fun with it, even if it lacks a bit of focus.
A Highland Song is a beautiful snapshot of wild places and wild stories, but it stumbles a bit in the process of encouraging you to run into them.
Offering a new take on a classic tale of thrilling escape, American Arcadia has some rough edges but its sleek platforming and art reinforce its story beautifully. And what about those twists, folks!? Are you watching this live?
The Lord Of The Rings: Return to Moria is less frantic than other survival games, and your wins take longer, but despite some charming jank this is a very cosy adventure to take on with friends.