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These two packs are a study in how much a single level can matter. The Star Wars Pack is six good jobs and a Positive rating. The Adventure Time Pack is four good jobs, one terrible one, and a Mixed rating. The content quality gap between them is much smaller than those ratings suggest — but the Tree House exterior is bad enough that people finish the pack annoyed rather than satisfied, and that’s what ends up in the review box. Star Wars Pack — buy it. At $9.99 it’s the strongest thing FuturLab has made in this franchise, it’s forgiving enough to stay relaxing, and the Original Trilogy locations are lovingly done. Multiple players recommend it even to non-Star-Wars fans, and that’s the right call. The missing music is a genuine shame and the textures on the vehicles could be better, but neither undermines the pack. Adventure Time Pack — wait for a sale. If you love Adventure Time or you want the visual change of pace, it’s genuinely worth having around $6. The first four jobs are fine and the art style is a real palate cleanser. Just know the last one is a grind, and if you’re playing solo, budget your patience accordingly. It’s currently 15% off, which is close to the price this should be. And FuturLab — the community is asking for music, Speedrun and Water Limit modes back from PowerWash 1, and a fix for that achievement. Also several people would like a Star Trek pack, and honestly, they’ve earned the right to ask.
Escape the rat race and build your dream farm on a barren planet in this charming indie sim that nails the cozy agrarian fantasy. That’s the TBB Curator blurb, and it captures what Farlands does well — this is a warm, pretty, personality-rich farming sim with a space hook that genuinely earns its place rather than sitting on top as a theme. The honest caveat is the one the community keeps circling: Farlands is very good and not yet distinctive. It borrows well, it executes competently across a lot of systems, and it hasn’t quite found the one thing that makes it unmistakably itself. The guidance gaps and the early-game space tedium are real friction. But the people who criticise this game most thoughtfully are doing it from 13 hours in and still logging back on, which tells you what you need to know about the loop. For $17.99, with two years of delivered Early Access behind it and a completed roadmap, this is an easy recommendation for farming sim fans who want the formula with something new attached. If you loved Stardew and wondered what it’d feel like with a spaceship, this is that game, and it’s made by people who clearly love the genre.
Denshattack! is a stylish adrenaline rush that nails the blend of trick-based action and cyberpunk aesthetics in ways most games can’t touch. That’s the TBB Curator blurb, and for once it might be underselling it. This is one of the most confidently weird, mechanically sharp, visually loud games of 2026, and the fact that it’s a trick game about trains is the least interesting thing about it once you’re actually playing. Undercoders took a premise that reads as a joke and built something with real technical depth underneath it. The controls are excellent. The skill ceiling is enormous. The presentation is gorgeous. The bosses are completely unhinged in the best way. The story and characters are better than they had any obligation to be. It runs at 200fps on modest hardware and 60 locked on a Steam Deck. It’s twenty dollars. The boss jank is real and the story runtime is on the shorter side — but this is a score-attack arcade game, and judging it on story length is like judging Tony Hawk on its narrative. The content is in the mastery, and there’s a mountain of it. If the trailer looks exciting to you, buy it. That’s the whole recommendation. Almost nobody who’s played this game has come away anything less than delighted, and the ones who list complaints are listing them from the other side of forty hours of medal-chasing.
Moss: The Forgotten Relic weaves enchanting storytelling with satisfying action, creating an indie gem that genuinely tugs at your heartstrings. That’s the TBB Curator blurb and it holds — but the more precise framing is this: Moss was a VR masterpiece, and The Forgotten Relic is a very good flatscreen adaptation of a VR masterpiece. Those are different things, and which one you’re getting depends entirely on what you’re bringing to it. If you’ve never played Moss and don’t own VR: buy this. Two acclaimed games, all the DLC, twenty dollars, a mouse you will absolutely become emotionally attached to, and one of the most distinctive presentations in the medium. Use a controller. Pet the mouse. If you’ve never played Moss and do own VR: play it in VR. This version is good and that version is extraordinary. If you’ve played Moss in VR and are considering this: you’ll enjoy revisiting it, the bubble controls on the right stick are a genuine improvement over motion controls, and Book II being bundled in is worth it on its own. Just know going in that you’re returning to a world you used to be able to sit inside.
Gentle and sincere, this slice-of-life sim offers slow magic and heartfelt moments. A peaceful village full of curious stories and quiet mysteries. A warm hug in game form. That’s the TBB Curator blurb and it’s true — but the more useful summary is the one the community keeps writing without quite saying it out loud: Tales of Seikyu has a long list of problems and none of them stopped anyone from playing eighty hours. That’s the review. The charm carries it. The characters carry it. The yokai forms and the island and the seasons and the slow accumulation of a home you actually made carry it. The marriage content is thin, the skills are hollow, the ruins map is genuinely bad, and the performance is worse than it should be — and you will still lose an entire weekend to this game and be glad about it. The post-1.0 roadmap changes the calculus. ACE Entertainment is actively targeting the exact gaps players are naming — romance interactions, a kids system, more customisation, ongoing optimisation. The Shrine of Love update already landed. If you’re a cozy farming sim fan, buy it now; the foundation is excellent and it’s only getting better. If you’re on the fence and want the romance and endgame content filled out first, wait a few months and you’ll likely get a better game for the same money.
Moldwasher is a delightfully quirky arcade experience that nails the cozy cleaning fantasy with satisfying spray mechanics and charming presentation. That’s the TBB Curator blurb, and every word of it is accurate. Rubel Games built a game about cleaning mold off a giant kitchen with a piece of sushi, and they did it with such evident care and craft that players are finishing it in a single sitting and immediately recommending it to anyone within range. The spray mechanic is the kind of mechanically simple thing that somehow never stops feeling good. The pixel art is genuinely beautiful. The music is correctly identified by the community as one of the game’s best features. The tools are inventive, the levels are smart, and the hideout gives you a reason to keep collecting beyond the cleaning itself. The QoL gaps — no hidden collectible tracking, the slow pickaxe, a couple of minor bugs — are real but none of them undermine what the game fundamentally is. If cleaning games are your genre, this is one of the best the indie scene has produced. If you’ve never played a cleaning game but the concept appeals even slightly, Moldwasher is an excellent entry point. Play with the spray toggle on.
This haunting WWI survival game strips away combat glory to expose war’s true horror through the eyes of three desperate soldiers. That’s the TBB Curator blurb — and the word “desperate” is doing work the community reviewers might replace with “determined” or “courageous” or “funny, right up until they’re not.” The Caribou Trail is one of those games where the brevity is the point. It gives you exactly as much time with these men as you need to care about them, and then it shows you what history did with them. $9.99 for a three-to-four hour narrative experience will always be a conversation about value frameworks. For players who see a short game as a short film — a contained artistic experience that doesn’t owe you duration — this is an easy recommendation. For history enthusiasts, WWI readers, or anyone from Newfoundland or the broader Atlantic Canadian community, it’s essential. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment deserves the representation. The Caribou Trail gives it to them with evident love. Also recommended by the developers’ first game — Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina) — if you want more from Unreliable Narrators.
The House of Da Vinci is one of the most consistently crafted puzzle series in indie gaming. Blue Brain Games found a formula in 2017 — mechanical Renaissance puzzles, atmospheric historical settings, a clever past-viewing device — and refined it across four entries without losing what made it work. Da Vinci 2 is the high point and the best entry point after the original. The trilogy tells a complete story. The VR entry is the best way to experience the series if you have the hardware. The full series is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys escape room-style puzzle games, point-and-click adventure, or historical settings. Play them in order. Start with the original. Don’t skip the second.
Take your favorite NBA stars to streetball courts worldwide in this fast-paced 3v3 experience that nails arcade basketball fun. That’s the TBB Curator blurb and it’s accurate about what the game is at its best — but the “nails it” framing needs the launch caveat attached. NBA THE RUN has the visual identity, the licensed talent, the rollback netcode, and the defensive design to be the arcade basketball game the genre has been missing. It does not currently have the offline content, tutorial, keybind support, or camera options its price point should include. The community consensus aligns with that tension: people who went in with the right expectations — competitive online 3v3 arcade basketball with friends — are largely having a great time. People who went in expecting NBA Street, solo content, or a game that fully explains itself on day one are bouncing off. Both reactions are fair given what launched. If you have people to play with and can live with the current rough edges while the roadmap plays out, NBA THE RUN is worth the money. The Summer Heat Season update is already confirmed, and the bones here are good enough that a few solid content updates could meaningfully shift the recommendation. At $29.99, it’s a conditional buy now and potentially an easier one later.
SWAPMEAT is the kind of game that gets exponentially more fun as the player count goes up. Highly recommended with friends, recommended with caveats solo, and one of the more distinctive games released in the genre this year.
Rise of the Tomb Raider remains an excellent game — one of the defining action-adventures of the previous decade, with Challenge Tombs that rival the best in the genre and a Siberian setting that still holds up visually and atmospherically. The 20 Year Celebration is the complete package: every mode, every outfit, every piece of DLC included at launch with no upselling. The Switch 2 port recommendation comes down to your situation. If you’re a Nintendo-primary player who hasn’t played ROTTR, $29.99 for the complete definitive edition of this game is money well spent — it’s a decade-old game that earns that price. If you own it on PC and regularly take advantage of Steam sales, the portability argument needs to carry a lot of weight to justify a repurchase. And if you’ve never played any of the Tomb Raider survivor trilogy, this is a fine place to play the middle entry — though starting with the 2013 reboot first is still the recommended sequence. Aspyr continues to make Tomb Raider accessible to new audiences on new hardware, and that’s a good thing for the franchise. Rise of the Tomb Raider on Switch 2 is the right game, on the right hardware, at a price that makes sense for the right buyer.
Astroneer’s cooperative exploration perfectly captures the thrill of discovering alien worlds with friends while managing limited time before departure. That’s the TBB Curator blurb, and it holds up — STARSEEKER’s best moments are genuinely difficult to find anywhere else. The specific texture of working with strangers using only emotes and map markers to carry something heavy up a cliff, or to coordinate a multi-person objective without shared language, is something the game earns and that players are reporting as legitimately memorable. The Mixed score reflects real problems — the progression is slow, the comparison to Astroneer’s more expressive crafting loop is unflattering, and the $29.99 price point is steep for a game in this state. But it also reflects expectation mismatches that aren’t the game’s fault. STARSEEKER isn’t trying to be Astroneer 2. It’s trying to be something different: a cooperative, timed, mission-driven exploration game that happens to be set in the Astroneer universe and built by the same team. The Early Access roadmap is substantial and the studio has a proven track record of delivering on community-driven development. If the progression curve is addressed, the co-op foundations here are strong enough to build something genuinely special on. As of launch, it’s a good game with a great co-op experience that’s hobbled by pacing problems and price sensitivity. Worth watching — and worth buying if you have friends to play it with and patience for a studio improving it in real time.
The Gate Must Stand brilliantly blends tower defense strategy with frantic action combat, demanding you balance real-time hacking with tactical base building against endless demon waves. That’s the TBB Curator blurb, and it’s accurate — this is exactly what the game is trying to do, and when the relic synergies click and the follower combinations start working together, it delivers on that promise in a way that earns genuine enthusiasm from the players who stick with it long enough to find it. The caveats are real though. The grind is too steep. The hero balance has visible gaps. The UI has been improved but still has rough edges that will turn away players who don’t have the patience to look past them. And at $9.99, the game is priced at the top of what its current state can comfortably justify — most of the community’s positive reviewers are recommending the free demo first as a calibration tool, and that’s genuinely good advice. If the demo’s jank is tolerable, the game underneath it is worth your time. If it isn’t, no amount of relic synergy will change that. What tips the needle toward a recommendation is the developer. Senmu Studio is patching bugs the day they’re reported, has already shipped a substantial UI overhaul, and has a roadmap with specific commitments — online co-op, more heroes and maps, endless mode, higher difficulty, increased progression rewards. If they execute, The Gate Must Stand in six months could be an easy recommendation. Right now it’s a conditional one: play the demo, and if you can see the game it’s trying to become, the $9.99 price tag is a reasonable bet on that future.
Solarpunk brilliantly blends survival crafting with exploration across stunning floating islands, making it absolutely worth your time solo or with friends. It is a focused, honest, genuinely pleasant experience for the audience it’s built for — the kind of game you play for two hours on a rainy evening and lose track of time in. The 20-hour content window and limited island variety are real shortcomings for players expecting more scope, and the launch bugs are a genuine friction point that patches are steadily addressing. For cozy survival crafting fans who want clean energy aesthetics, an airship, quiet pigs digging for truffles, and a little drone with an adorable face bringing them resources — this is exactly the game they’ve been looking for.
Dark Scrolls brilliantly blends bullet-hell intensity with platforming prowess, delivering a roguelite experience that’s genuinely challenging and packed with personality. The Mixed score at launch is honest about the problems — zero onboarding, run-ending bugs, balance inconsistency, visual clutter — but it undersells what the game is when those problems don’t get in the way. The perk combo system is original and satisfying. The character roster has real depth. Co-op is an excellent use of $7.99. doinksoft clearly has interesting ideas here, and if they address the onboarding and stability issues in post-launch patches, this could shift to a clear recommendation without caveats. Right now it’s a conditional one: buy it if you’re comfortable learning a system by doing, especially if you have someone to play with.
Fatekeeper’s handcrafted world and blend of sword combat with meaningful spell choices create an engaging first-person RPG worth exploring. As an Early Access game it is genuinely short, rough in its physics and progression balance, and demanding on hardware. As a statement of intent from a 13-person studio, it is extraordinary. The community’s consistent reaction — “this is what Dark Messiah should have had a sequel to” — captures something real about what Paraglacial has achieved in this foundation. At $9.99 with a confirmed roadmap to 15 hours of content, the ask is low enough that the calculus is clear for fans of first-person melee RPGs: buy it early, play what’s there, and watch what it becomes. The full version could be genuinely great. This one is already promising.
Alkimia Interactive has crafted a faithful remake that captures what made the original a genre-defining masterpiece: a genuinely reactive world that respects player freedom. Gothic 1 Remake is flawed in specific, addressable ways — the combat plateau, magic balance, lockpicking frustration, compressed endgame — but none of those flaws undercut what the game fundamentally achieves. The Colony breathes. The world doesn’t care about you until you make it. And walking through the New Camp cavern for the first time, watching your eyes adjust to the darkness and the glow of the huts, remains one of the most transportive moments 2026 has offered. For fans of the original, this is the homecoming they deserved. For new players, this is the best possible introduction to one of the most distinctive RPGs ever built.
Brace yourself for an adrenaline-fueled joyride through Japan’s stunning vistas in a car enthusiast’s dream playground. Overwhelming variety and stunning realism await. Forza Horizon 6 is the best open-world racing game available right now — a franchise peak for the Horizon series that delivers on the Japan setting with a map that rewards every hour you put into exploration, Touge Battles that add genuine racing depth, and a multiplayer ecosystem that is chaotically alive in exactly the way the franchise has always done best. The monetisation structure is a legitimate grievance and the franchise formula hasn’t fundamentally evolved — but when the formula is this well-executed in this setting, those criticisms feel like footnotes rather than dealbreakers. The cars feel great, Japan looks extraordinary, and online is BowieKnife99 dependent.
Tavern Talk Stories: Dreamwalker charms with its cozy D&D-inspired setting and engaging drink-mixing mechanic that actually impacts the narrative. As a prequel and as a standalone visual novel, it is a confident, emotionally generous piece of work that treats its characters with uncommon care and asks its players to do the same. The weaknesses — softened player agency, a rushed ending, bugged achievements — are real but they are not the experience. The experience is 13 hours in a warm seaside tavern with eight people whose stories are worth knowing, wrapped in a soundtrack that players are wishlisting before the credits roll. That is what this game does, and it does it very well.
Uncover shady secrets and quirky humor in this card inspection sim. Delve into a world of mystery and intrigue, all while appraising the “coolest” TCG cards. Trading Card Inspector is one of the most confidently crafted small games of the year — a modest concept executed with genuine care across every element, from its inspection mechanics to its writing to its soundtrack to its card art. It is the kind of game that earns the “Papers Please-’em-up” label without just being a reskin of the formula, because Daydream Gallery has built a fictional universe worth visiting and a protagonist worth rooting for. At $4.89 introductory price, the barrier to entry is essentially nothing. Plarbo would want you to try it.