August 2026

I won this game on SG at the very end of July (thanks ChrisKutcher!), setting it up perfectly to play for August's PAGY event. It had been on my wishlist for a while, so it was a pretty exciting win.

I reviewed it over on Steam but here's the TL;DR version. Until Then is a very narrative and character focused game, that starts off very slowly and picks up the pace (and the stakes) as the game progresses. And the story itself is a beautiful mix of genres and themes. It is a mystery story, a classic coming of age tale, a love story, and a story of grief, love, and loss and how we endure. The characters initially come across as shallow and a bit unlikeable but the game explores both their hidden depths and their capacity for growth. The devs really have a beautiful tale to tell, wrapped up in a broader tale of sci-fi and mystery.

That being said, the rhythm mini-games were some of the worst gameplay I have ever experienced. I admit, I've never been great at rhythm games; I was never a DDR or Guitar Hero champion. But some of these were just painful. And to get the 100% you had to do them perfectly. I hated them all so much and eventually had to give up and come back after I completed the game to perfect them. So while I enjoyed my time with this game and readily recommend it, I'd also suggest giving it a pass if you are a strict completionist unless you also really enjoy rhythm mini-games.

This was the first Inkle game that I have ever played and I can see why people enjoy them. This particular game appealed to me because it was a language based puzzle game which I feel like aren't prevalent enough in the gaming industry. Again, I wrote a longer review on Steam but I'm feeling lazy so here's another TL;DR version.

Pros: The world Inkle created felt very deep, as if there were a ton of lore and societal nuance present that your character was just not interacting with. The language that they created was surprisingly well-developed; I really felt like I was learning to read it as the game progressed. All the characters felt fully realized even though the number of meaningful interactions you could have with them were fairly limited. The design of the various locations were also beautiful and varied, even with the fairly simplistic graphics.

Cons: The movement speed was incredibly slow. There were long, drawn-out sections where you character would just trudge along a screen. This was especially noticeable on NG+ and even on the original playthrough, when going to one of the hub areas. This was made worse when the player character was talking to their robot companion because the conversation would prevent interaction points from appearing on the screen. So if you tried to walk and talk, you could end up missing a ton of important clues. This led to me just standing in place waiting for dialogue to finish to make sure no interactables were present before moving on.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Heaven's Vault, I just wish it had been a bit shorter or the movement had been faster.

I labelled this as "SG Gift" because it wasn't technically a win but was a direct gift instead (thanks Chrisised!). Full disclosure: I love dystopian government worker simulation games and I consider the Beholder games one of the best iterations of the genre (sub-genre? whatever). "Conductor" is technically a spin-off of the main Beholder series but other than being somewhat shorter than the main entries, I found it just as robust a game as any of the main titles.

The basic premise is simple: you are a train conductor working for an evil authoritarian government under duress. You are expected to fulfill all the basic train conductor tasks (checking tickets, responding to passenger requests) while also being encouraged to act as a spy for the State, reporting any suspicious or illegal behavior. And, as always, there is a sinister bigger picture lurking in the background.

Most of the actual gameplay, however, comes from sneaking around and uncovering everyone's secrets and then trying to make moral--or not so moral-- decisions based on your imperfect understanding. All while also trying to earn yourself a happy ending in a world where happy endings are very hard to get. The new train setting adds a time pressure that wasn't necessarily non-existent in previous titles but was definitely less prevalent. On your first playthrough this can add a feeling of stressful pressure but once you become more familiar with the game, you'll realize that you have plenty of time to do everything that you need to do.

Overall, I'd say this was a very strong entry into the series and if you are a fan of the series or this style of game, it is well worth your time. Also, you can adopt a cat. He's very cute.

This game was…certainly something. I played it for Playtracker's special event and it was--fine? Everything was over-exaggerated to an almost cartoony degree: the accents, the personalities, the whole vibe. The gameplay was also a bit repetitive but since the game was so short it wasn't overly noticeable. It was a very easy 100%, I suppose, otherwise I don't have a whole lot to say about it. Not painful to get through but also not something that I'm going to remember in a couple of months either. Just generally "meh."