Answering an advertisement in a magazine from someone looking for a pen pal, you start corresponding with Aya Fumino, a girl your age from Shimane. Both of you hit it off pretty well as there are a lot of similarities, both in high school preparing for college and having similar interests. However, during your final year and just before graduation, you send your 10th letter, and she never responds back. Hurt, but thinking nothing much of it, you continue your life and work at a design firm for 11 years, when suddenly you get a response with no return address from Aya. Reading the letters unsettling contents, you go to Shimane to find her but many people would rather leave that past deeply buried.
“The 10 letters will take us through seven pasts and one lie. The truth that awaits is a sad one.”

Root Letter is a very fun murder mystery and suspense visual novel that takes 12+ hours to complete, there are 5 endings you can achieve depending on your responses to Aya’s letters throughout the chapters. Playing through the game once lets you skip chapters so don’t worry about seeing all the endings. Aside from your character, all the npc’s are voiced. I really loved all the art this game has to offer, backgrounds and scenes are strangely plentiful and high quality, the entire game is gorgeous.

The only negatives I have to say is that this VN can get difficult in “Investigation mode” but there is a fully detailed and generous guide that guides you through it or areas you might get stuck in. Chapters 8 and 9 drag on a bit and I would not recommend playing through this VN in one day. A lot of the actions “four-eyes” makes doesn’t make a ton of sense and it’s never explained. Some of the routes are gag routes (aliens/ghosts) so I would glance at the guide to do those ones last, if at all.

TL;DR – cute penpal goes MIA and you suddenly get a weird letter 11 years later so you go look for her, depending on your responses it can get weird. 5 endings, gorgeous art, voice acting, lots of fun!

Look for felines and colorful balls of yarn on a cold winter night. 20 levels, 20 Islands to explore, and 2+ hours to complete. Open windows, look under pots, peek inside boxes to discover them all and move on to the next area.

While Hidden Paws is a very cute game, it’s also easy to get motion sickness due to the camera movement. If you are prone to motion sickness but still interested in playing Hidden Paws, take it slow and do a few levels at a time.

Play as Kimchi! A brave housecat to an elderly man with dementia who has had his precious memento containing lingering memories stolen by a crow. Track it down, retrieve the locket, and return it to its rightful owner so you both can go back home.

The Purring Quest is a heartwarming and really fun 2D platforming adventure featuring cats! With 5+ hours of content, explore 5 levels, collect fish, rescue cats from their cages and discover the hidden boss behind the scenes! There are various simple puzzles, mini-bosses and a few mini-games to check out. All the cats in the game excluding Kimchi are disabled cats based off real life cats and a portion of the games sales go to various animal welfare charities! With a nice soundtrack and a purrfect ending, The Purring Quest is an easy recommendation from me!

Conspiracy theory time:
Kimchi is a wandering immortal time god. When Kimchi gets adopted vs when Elsa dies aged 32, (1972-2004) Kimchi is estimated to have been adopted in 1997 if every time skip is one year. Kimchi would have been 7 when Elsa died, and 14 when the game officially starts, however the husband ages very rapidly after Elsa’s death. When people get married, they are typically around the same or similar age, so he would be about 46. He does develop dementia and you can develop it in your 30’s 40’s so this supports my theory. However, Kimchi still looks incredibly young for a cat and has not changed in 13 years. If Kimchi is 14 years, she is absolutely considered elderly as a cat’s lifespan is more or less 16 years old. FURTHERMORE, every cat in the game is based off a real-life cat, EXCEPT KIMCHI. (Source: the developers “Cool stuff that you didn’t know” guide part 1.) Also, this is a 2D platforming game and despite their estimated age they are still very much athletic and healthy. This would also explain why the hidden boss is after Kimchi and follows them throughout the 5 levels.

Play as the CEO of Smash Security, otherwise known nationally as “The Creator,” someone who has consistently made the best Artificial Intelligences the world has ever seen. Smash Security is a special company that uses these AI’s to create a sort of antivirus software to protect modern civilian computers from harm. Today however, your own computers have been hacked by Smash Securities own AI that passed away in the incident years ago, Weedy. Find the hacker, defeat Program X, and uncover more secrets that should never have been buried.

Unhack 2 is a kinetic novel that takes 2+ hours to complete with no choices and 10 optional minigames. You do not need to play Unhack 1 to understand this. While I’m hesitantly recommending it because the puzzles were fun and the art and sprites are incredibly well made, I didn’t particularly enjoy the convoluted story or it’s ending aside from the midway twist. If you did enjoy the first game, definitely give this a shot though.

Play as Claire, a small bird from a big city taking a break on the islands of Hawk Peak Provincial Park with her aunt. Not used to the outdoors but needing cellphone reception to answer an expected phone call, Claire takes the advice of her aunt to take a short hike to Hawk Peak.

A Short Hike is an incredibly cute and cozy 3-6 hour 3D pixilated game, although you have the option to turn it off in the settings. Fly around, fish and swim, take boat rides, go treasure hunting, water flowers, collect shells, play stick volleyball and race with the locals, find lost items, explore the smaller islands and make a bunch of friends! You can do as much or as little as you would like to, you don’t even need to interact with anyone to “beat” the game. Other than a short flying tutorial and wanting to reach Hawk Peak, you are not given any further directions. There are 20 golden feathers to collect, (this is optional) which increase your stamina and let you fly longer and let’s you flap more to reach bigger heights, and Silver feathers, which gives you significantly more air per flap and lets you climb faster. It’s odd describing a game as cozy and comfortable, but that’s exactly what A Short Hike is. A very warm experience.

Warning: Death, violence, war atrocities, blood and gore.

Play as Velour Two-Six, a previous child suicide bomber turned experimental soldier who developed a fantasy-like skill to “cut” things without using a tool and create knives from thin air. Thrown into a holy war she doesn’t believe in against an enemy she has no grudge with, Velour’s only want is to survive and see tomorrow. With the world soon ending due to the 12 calamities, survive, fight, kill, and maybe, finally, learn the reason why all this is happening in the first place.

Fallstreak: Requiem for my Homeland is a gruesome sci-fi fantasy KN that takes 1+ hours to complete. I absolutely loved Velour and the entire story, the ending in particular shocked me so much it made my spine shiver! The art and backgrounds were rather stunning and Fallstreak’s only drawback is it's short playtime. I sincerely wish this was a LN or 8+ hours long. An amazing read!