Grow: Song of the Evertree is for anyone who loves a sandbox sim adventure game. There isn’t much from the genre that Grow doesn’t include. It’s visually pretty, technically sound, and engaging throughout. With many environments to manage, craft and build as well as places to explore and make your own. You will be happily lost within the many worlds grow invites you into.
Pumpkin Jack might not add anything ground-breaking to the genre, but it’s an adventure platformer that tastes like home. Reminiscent of old school games such as Medieval, Spyro the Dragon, and Bugs Bunny: Lost In Time, it’s a joyful experience with a wide variety of game play. Albeit a bit clunky with controls and combat, the humour, dialogue and character capturing that Halloween spirit exceeds those trivial irks.
Jackbox’s formula always remains consistent with hits, favourites and some skippable entries. Jackbox Party Pack 8 is no different. Although it’s not the strongest pack of 5 in the collection, this game still brings a wide variety of party games that can cater to almost any gathering.
In My Shadow has all the fundamentals of a puzzle game, but feels lack-luster when up against its rival puzzle platformers that have been released this year. Despite housing an engaging story, with a unique premise and lots of levels, it just feels mundane, tedious and repetitive to play, especially with its punishing difficulty curve.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl doesn’t bring anything new to the table, instead offering a certainly competent if not hugely exciting brawler with a confusing roster of characters cynically chopped up seemingly for future monetisation and very little to actually fight for in terms of unlockables for the fans. The fundamentals are here, and the Sports modes are terrific fun, but there isn’t much else to get too excited about when the content included is this lacking.
A Juggler’s Tale is a short but very sweet atmospheric 3D puzzle side scroller. With a unique dynamic of controlling a marionette, puzzles become more thoughtful. The game is visually stunning and has a wonderful gaming experience. Intense at times with a wicked twist, the only downside is it’s short run time. Easily recommended to fans of Little Nightmares, or Puzzle side scrollers in general.
Staxel provides a fun, zen farming and life simulator that replicates the visuals of Minecraft, and the premise of Stardew Valley. There is much to uncover and it could be everyone’s new favourite farm to milk cows, grow crops and build abodes, whilst making friends along the way.
Bus Simulator 21 allows you to experience the day in the life of a bus driver managing their own company. Create routes, receive pay days, scold ticket dodgers and be on time. The game comes with a clunky and overwhelming interface and little tutorial, but if you shift past this, Bus Simulator 21 could invite a satisfying ride.
Curious Expedition 2 is more of an interactive board game of level one D&D. A game that balances roguelike tactics, RPG, and procedural storytelling well. A delightful top down surprise with a great depth to explore, do and encounter, that’s if RNG is on your side! If not, it’s into the lion’s den you go. Although slightly repetitive visually, you will likely not get the same story twice.
If you can get through the crashes and technical hitches, Necrobarista: Final Pour suits the Switch well. It is a beautiful appealing visual novel about one last night before death takes you to pass on. You don’t play the game, you watch the story unfold. The characters are individual with clear meaning within the story. The story has an interesting concept that could be taken in any direction.
Pile Up! Box by Box is a 1-4 co op platform game. It can be played solo or with friends with four worlds to explore. This game is a fun entertaining friendly game that I would recommend to anyone who likes co-op or is new to co-op. It has a few quality of life issues, such as a lack of a map, and the jump button not quite being up to par when crucial, but has lots to do for it’s short run time that can still pack a good night in gaming.
Overall, Button City has more depth than I anticipated and the replayability is high if you fall in love with the mini games. Main story can be completed in under 6 hours, but there is more fun to be had after with the mini arcade games, and finishing side quests. The story is touching and has a really emotive meaning behind it. The characters are designed well, and are utterly charming and I can imagine some good merch coming out from their cute faces. The music is a bop, the art style is charismatic but there are a few hitches along the way. Movement speed can slow your game down a lot. There are a few technical bumps, but I would recommend for anyone who wants to free flow through an adventure narrative of Fennel and his Friends.
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is a relaxing, explorative crafting adventure game. The game invites decompressing and immersion into the fun Island of Gemea. If you’re here for cute animals, luscious environments and exploration, building farms, crafting ingredients and structures, then this is the game for you. The main story feels as if it ends a bit abruptly and the fast travel component is not ideal. However, with lots to do and lots to see you shouldn’t get bored quickly.
Omno is an atmospheric, adventure puzzle game that certainly gives similar games in its genre a run for their money. It’s Charming, vibrant and with stunning design. The story lacks slightly, and would benefit from more direction, however gameplay is diverse with many ways to play. If you love games like Journey, it will be hard not to fall in love with Omno.
Out of Line is a 2D side scrolling platformer puzzle game. The game is gorgeous, and just enough challenging that you won’t rage quit. Join San on this cute adventure to help him escape a terrifying factory. The art style is beautiful, the mechanics are extremely smooth and sound. For those who like relaxing short games, the gameplay runs at around 2-3 hours, and for what it it is, you are getting a lovely evening of gameplay that won’t make you feel panicked or pressured to race to the end. The only thing you may come away with is more questions than answers when it comes to the story. A lack of context plays a role in this, and it does not get clearer. However, each player may have their own answer to what the story held.
Mythic Ocean is a choice based visual story game. With 3-5 hours per run, you build relationships with Gods in order to choose which God can create a new world. It is up to you how the world plays out based on your choice of interactions with each God. It is not a game that punishes you with any danger, and brings a relaxing explorative tone to the player – but it is a hands off experience. Sometimes this is at its own detriment, with no cues or indications of what to do at times which can lead the player swimming in circles. This game is short and sweet, but does try to make the most of a lot of potential it has.
Overboard is a 2D puzzle murder mystery, and is infectiously intriguing with a quirky art style. If you love murder mysteries and choice based games, you will have a lot of fun with this short snapshot version of one suiting it’s release on Switch and IOS/Android. Your patience may run short replaying 35 minute sections from the beginning however.
Lydia is an interactive story telling point and click, the story of a young girl surrounded by substance abuse. The game is short, and from that, the scenes of the narrative can blur and become confusing in which message it is trying to convey. Visually pleasing, and delivers a good atmospheric dark tone, but difficult to recommend for ‘fun’. However, this is an important game in the awareness of substance abuse.
Bake ‘n Switch is a multiplayer couch co-op which strangely works better as a solo journey. Adorable yet mighty, it can not be denied this game has a lot of content with 100 levels under its belt. However, this game comes with frustrating mechanics that let the party vibe elements feel lackluster. It does not hold up against the party favourites such as Overcooked or Jackbox.