Rahul Shirke
Wandersong is a game crafted with love, that depicts love, and that encourages you to love in turn. What better theme for a game about the power of music?
With its sombre mood, innovative narrative design, and deeply poetic writing, Kentucky Route Zero is one of the most unique and important games ever made.
The Silk Rose Murders offers an enchanting and intriguing adventure that is worthy of the Detective Di name.
Control is worth experiencing for its rollicking, ravaging action, as well as its stately visuals and ‘new weird’ vibe.
With its topical writing and interesting characters, Neo Cab is a compellingly-crafted science-fiction adventure that sparks important questions on where technology and society might be headed.
Untitled Goose Game is refreshingly original, and its penchant for nuisance taps into a vein of mischief that has never been approached with this kind of elegance.
It’s hard not to recommend Sayonara Wild Hearts, simply because it works so well as both an album and a video game. Step aside music videos, we’re doing music video games now.
Lair of the Clockwork God is an irresistibly funny and thoroughly rambunctious adventure that had me full of amusement and admiration. It’s made its mark in the hall of fame for comedy games.
Superliminal is a little more clinical and flat than it deserved to be, but it’s still a spectacular, perception-bending experience that everyone needs to try. It sparks joy, and that’s a lot in itself.
In making its protagonist less powerful than the other characters of his world, The Flower Collectors becomes more powerful as a video game.
If, like me, you have no qualms with breezy adventure puzzles and a bubbly narrative, Half Past Fate is a relentlessly sweet and adorable rom-com that charms the heart and soothes the mind.
Cloudpunk’s overall narrative is perhaps a little less saturated than its glittering city, but the game is held aloft by its memorable characters and meditative driving gameplay.
Like a work of Scandinavian wood carving, Röki is a finely-crafted, intricate adventure game that perfectly grasps the essence of puzzles, fairy tales, and family.
Necrobarista as a game embodies many of the qualities you find in the game’s characters. It’s brash, it’s snappy and clever, it’s also more than a little sly, but it’s got an unbreakable emotional core that you can’t forget. If this is the future of visual novels, then pour me another one.
With its fresh humour and intuitive puzzle-solving gameplay, Nine Witches is a compact and entertaining adventure game that will do nicely for fans of puzzle adventures and comedic games.
After all is said and done, Draugen feels like a beautifully-crafted, but unnecessary, prologue to whatever story lies ahead of it. It’s worth a spin, most of all for its short playtime and gorgeous presentation, but least of all for its actual mysteries.
Mosaic’s moving dioramas produce strong and memorable images of a dystopia that’s all too real. The gameplay, however, seems to miss the point.
Luna The Shadow Dust looks and sounds beautiful, and it’s a neat little adventure to have, so long as you can put up with some slow, trial-and-error puzzling.
In Other Waters is a game that knows full well who it’s for. Its relaxing style, UI-based gameplay, and descriptive biological writing all come together to instil a sense of adventure.
Evan’s Remains tells a gripping, amazingly convoluted tale interspersed by irresistible puzzle platforming that left me wanting a lot more than what I got.