Lost Words: Beyond The Page is an example of storytelling that can only exist through the medium of games, and a testament to the artistry of play. Its powerful writing, eye-watering design, and incredibly truthful narrative are held up by simple intuitive gameplay that immerses you in its story. While it’s not a challenging experience, Lost Words pulls you into an emotional journey that will linger long after the ending credits. This is the kind of game that makes me excited to play games, even if they leave me in tears.
I absolutely loved my time with In Other Waters. I’m itching to dive back in and fully complete Ellery’s taxonomy logs, and I can’t wait to grab the companion book for more worldbuilding and lore. Despite a few mechanical flaws, I highly recommend In Other Waters for anyone looking to immerse themselves in an alien world for a few hours.
Fitness Boxing 2... presents a finely tuned and engaging workout regimen with clear goals and excellent feedback on progress. With its cast of annoyingly optimistic virtual instructors to spur you on through intense, demanding, and varied exercises, as well as a wealth of unlockables to inspire the budding achievement hunter, Fitness Boxing 2 provides a high quality niche experience that’ll have you jabbing, weaving, and blocking like a sweaty Rocky Balboa.
An incredibly exhilarating and playful experience, Speed Limit is a love letter to the action-packed blockbusters of decades past. It blasts you through its quick campaign at lightning speed and will leave you with your heart pounding, your palms soaked, and a massive cheeky smile across your face. Though it could be a bit kinder to players unfamiliar with arcade-style difficulty and some of its levels aren’t as bombastic as others, Speed Limit is still a sweet and short neo-retro explosion of fun. Fans of the arcade-era and folks looking for something fast-paced and unique will find a lot to love here.
For any queer person who loves dogs, millennial who loves dogs, or actual dog masquerading as a human, Best Friend Forever is a wholesome, cathartic experience.
Going Under takes some of the most frustrating trappings of late capitalism and turns them into literal dungeons. It’s a funny, acid-spirited take on the organisational failures of tech startup culture that doesn’t pull its punches. Between whacking baddies with a giant stapler and trading useless cryptocoins for powerups, there’s rarely a dull moment on the floors of these office hellscapes. While playing for long periods exposes some of Going Under’s repetitive elements, there’s more than enough fun here to recommend this action-packed rogue-lite to any dungeon-crawler fan with a LinkedIn profile.
Unto The End is a beautiful and brutal journey that has clearly been crafted with a lot of heart. It presents an unapologetically skill-based combat experience with wordless narrative in a savage, hostile world. While its gameplay outside combat can be a little clunky and its high difficulty restricts its appeal to players with lots of patience and coordination, those looking for a unique and challenging 2D adventure will be well satisfied with Unto The End.
Those with a desire for escapism and a healthy amount of patience will find a solid few hours of rewarding narrative here – if you’re after something with a bit more wanderlust and a bit less “dying alone and unloved”, you might want to look elsewhere.
From its relatively insignificant main time-travel gimmick to its almost-right controls, there’s not a whole lot going on that we haven’t seen before in a more polished fashion. If you’re itching for some hardcore platforming action and can look past its flaws, you’ll find a rough gem in YesterMorrow’s visually stunning world – just don’t go in expecting another Celeste.
As much as I wanted to love Sword of the Necromancer (particularly after getting further into the story) it’s held back by so many annoyances that I didn’t have an amazing time playing through it. There are definitely some cool ideas, and the enemy design in particular is excellent, but issues with its core gameplay keep it from being the fun little experience I was hoping for.