2026 April

It was both a short and long (?) month. Played some longer games, played some really short ones to tick off from my playlist.
Work goes okay, though some global events lead to additional workload; elections were scary upfront, kind of unbelievable afterwards, I still feel like I need an occasional reality check.

So in no particular order:

Chinatris

store page
It was an SG win from the lovely coleypollockfilet, where it was more of a tool to make me pick my own “win”, rather than Chinatris being a central piece. I gave it a try, as the description looked interesting - “Chinatris is a Tetris-like game about Chinese characters where different charactersfall[sic!] to create new ones.” It’s nothing like Tetris, you can’t learn characters because they fall too fast and you can’t read on the side, and you need basic knowledge of order of strokes to even understand how blocks combine. It fails as a Tetris, fails as a learning tool and it’s just frustrating to play.

DOGWALK

store page
“Explore a hand-crafted winter forest as a big adorable dog and a little kid in tow.” Free, simple, nice, and the whole game was made with photos of the IRL models of the boy, dog, trees, ground, etc. Not super special, but really nice and pleasant for half an hour.

Find Your Words

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Another free game that looked cute, interesting (and short). In the game you play as a nonverbal kid, who goes into a camp where he plays / helps out the other kids. The game’s mechanics is having a folder with pictures for people, locations, verbs, feelings and activities and you combine them. Ian happy. Pigeon mess hall. Obviously it’s not much of a challenge, but pleasantly tickles the part of my brain that’s about language learning. Plus you can try to beat the hide and seek champion, help out a little painter, have a treasure hunt… It’s more laid back and less adventurous than A Short Hike, but has the same lazy, warm summer vibe, that make you start “weird” little quests.

Cape Hideous

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Cape Hideous is quite hideous if you just take a short look at it, but it was such an interesting experience. There is no talking in the game. The story is told through your actions and cutscenes, and you find the story where you can go, it’s small and linear. But if you look at the rough surface, you’ll notice that every screen, every character in the game is unique and has little details to them. The game is rough because of the art style, but deliberate, designed and detailed. The “story” is short, and while so little happens with the ship, there are so many details that makes you think of the people, their role, their routine, etc. It’s just one hour and it’s a wonderful one hour

Plague Inc: Evolved

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Finally finished a run or two in Plague Inc: Evolved, an old-ass SG win from Princeofiowa. The game having too much RNG for my taste, and apparently also a smorgasbord of unfixed achievement issues… I didn’t enjoy it too much, but 9 years ago it seemed interesting. I appreciate the chance to try it out for free :)

Daemonologie

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A fantastic little indie horror that is uncomfortable, terrifying and horrifying at points. There is a witch in the little town, and you have to find them. You talk with everyone, and after they obviously fail to admit or give proper leads, you'll be a good little inquisitor and start torturing people. It's not not nice, and you may know how useful torture is to get out the truth (it really isn't). The dev knows, and uses it as a tool to combine with the oppressive graphics and the grimy looks to make everything both suspicious and miserable. At the game's beginning, ending, and as time progresses, nightly you get to see some absolutely wonderful stop motion art. All black and while, the design and sculpting is great, and there's some professional light works added to it. Check the trailer and if you like it, it will well worth the ~1.5€ price at the next sale.

Bulb Boy

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Yet another horror game, this one is a point and clicky one. It’s interesting, it’s well done, it made me highly uncomfortable multiple times, but it’s best played with the help of a guide, there’s some moon logic involved at some points. You can (and will) die many times, but there are checkpoints at every screen / room. It was free so you likely own it, it may worth playing at an autumn afternoon/night.

The Last Show of Mr. Chardish

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Snowball (Christmasy gift like thing) from Foxpile - as an actress, return to the theatre where your carrier started, and reminiscence about the past pieces of the eccentric Mr. Chardish. Collect paperwork and memorabilia in the threatre (one of them is being bugged and if you don’t know, you need to replay the whole game for its achievements…), and as individual “minigames” you take part and replay the theatre pieces. The robot play (Symmetry) was the best part narratively and gameplay-wise. And those were not created equal, they are different in quality regarding uniqueness, fun, how involved you are. The one that are made up by the worst possible rhyming script is torture, though I think they wanted it to be bad in-universe too? Still hurt to having to hear it. It’s a really pretty game, but its narrative is disjointed between the past (you have newspapers and taped interviews) and 5 shows, and the end throws a choice at you that makes me think even the writer(s) couldn’t really decide how to end the game. So they made you make a choice, but put a save point before it so it’s easy to change it if you don’t like. Pretty, but surprisingly directionless and unsure of itself.

RUINER

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Moving forwards on the “style over substance, and I’ll get beaten for saying this” wagon, the next one is RUINER. Twin-stick shooter / brawler, highly stylish cyberpunk world.
I just feel like its gimmicks got old. The glitchy “somebody is talking to you inside your brain” pictures from the prologue stay for the whole game. The gameplay is entering a killbox, killing everyone there, then running to the next killbox while opening a chest or two on the go to get more xp. Literally rinse and repeat. And as you may guess from the screenshots, most of the locations is either dark, or red, the bullets are generally vibrant and melee attacks are wide and you guessed right, have a big red animation to them. It was generally hard to see even myself in some fights. A C.A.T. collecting side content seems to be buggy and/or you can close yourself out of it, the bounty hunting is done automatically so there’s one less reason for even having a world outside of the combat, and if you ever read, played or watched a cyberpunk media then you’ll roll your eyes at the main story. I guess there’s replayability in score-maxing and speedrunning, but other than that RUINER is more of a stylish, but repetitive and unoriginal game.

ANNO: Mutationem

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BEAUTIFUL art, fantastic worldbuilding, side quests have no connection to much of the worldbuilding or your quest, weird “go there, then go there” first half of the main quest with barely any combat, and the second half of the main quest jumps the shark - it is 80% combat and 20% “who the fuck are they and what’s going on”. There’s literally a cutscene, where at [LOCATION] C and G talking about S (There’s also a Castor, but they are not C, why would they) and you have no idea where, when it is, and who any of these people are. But they are cooooooooool.
A game that starts out an investigation ends up an anime-inspired (sub-par) spectatle fighter where the game shows “cool” scenes to you, as a player, unknown characters monologue to eachother, and there’s a doctor cybermonkey in a labcoat that doesn’t get addressed in any way. Most of the story is in random computer terminals in the second half of the game, that you can read between fighting enemies constantly, using the same 2-3 attacks at most.
There’s more on Steam in my review, I had to write this chaos out of my head: review on Steam

Metro 2033 Redux

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We’re at the final finished game, can you believe it?
I tend to mistakenly set up a Stockhold-syndrome-like relationship between games and myself, trying for achievements, while also taking the game too seriously (I tend to immerse myself too much) so I’m scared, don’t want to be touched by that scary-ass mutant, and I’m looking around for keys and notes. This was the trend with Metro 2033 too, so thinking back I like the game a lot more than I liked while playing. I read the book, knew what to expect, but tbh I was not ready for the supersmall FOV and some of the choices. I tried to make sense of it on DIscord, it’s weird. It’s like everything is too close to the protagonist, Artyom. He opens doors while pushing his face to the door. Every document is read so closely that he either can’t see past 20 cm, or the game was designed to be played from afar. I could read most of these things from metres afar. Idk, it’s just one of those things that made me feel that there’s something unconsciously deeply wrong with the presentation, but that doesn’t seem to be a universal experience.

Games I started but haven’t finished in the month:
Door Kickers
Jet Set Radio
It Is Ticking
Double Kick Heroes

9 new games if I counted it properly

• 3 from bundles I already bought, three free, one gift)
• 1 SG win - Shelldiver from DancingXmas
• 1 bought (Pizza Frenzy, 0.99€ :) )
  11 games fewer in backlog

2026 March

A Cat & His Boy

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Game-boy styled, basically a children’s game. Easy to follow story, small map, it’s perfect for gamers starting out, or people who want to reminiscence about the good old days. Was nice until it lasted, but not really an oustanding game because of its own limitations (length, graphics, music), despite being made with lots of care. Was an SG win from Gelweo.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

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Finished the story, still collecting energy to carry on with postgame stuff. Workload and a recent sickness made it difficult. Also as it often happens with the end of a big RPG, it’s really hard to find one’s place, and return to the game (or go on to a new one). Was an SG win from xxxka.

Firewatch

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Really nice almost-walking-sim game, with actual gameplay, and great pacing. There is backstory, there are actual, real time events, there are dialogues, and there’s a reason for doing the rounds. Nice music, beautiful environments. Not an action game by any definition, but it was really nice to play it on the Deck.

Legends of Savvarah: Children of the Sun

store page
Interesting visual novel in a “world” that’s ripe for unreliable narrators and sensitive topics - Rich and plentiful empire in the middle of nowhere; godlike ruler who’s both hated and loved, depending on who you ask; questionable history and vilified outsiders; and a race created to serve, in war as soldiers or as house-slaves. Many achievements for repeated runs and choices, different endings through narrative web and choices. The dev has multiple games in the universe that are supposed to have referential connections maximum, and are standalones. While VN is not my favourite genre at all, the worldbuilding was compelling and got a lot more interesting as I played further - I may look out for the other games too.
Was an SG win from Ateszmadman.

PowerWash Simulator Shrek DLC, Wallace and Gromit DLC

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It’s a good way to pass time with my GF, while we listen to a podcast. Not even I’m convinced that Powerwash Simulator is a “good game”, but it’s really good to pass time, if one’s looking for doing that.

Activated games: 3 (of which 2 is SG wins)

bought:

Powerwash Sim DLC x2 - finished
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader pack for Voidfarer and Deluxe content (That OST!)
Bought Core Keeper + Smalland for GF as well for future multiplayer
Bought 5 games for 3€ at Build your own Spring Bundle (2026), which is a big questionable, as I haven’t activated anything yet. But Cape Hideous and The Space-Eating Croc looked interesting and short to balance out the purchase for me quite fast. Eventually they’ll :)

2026 February

TLDR: finished American Theft 80s, played Expedition 33 and Deep Rock Galactic.

Deep Rock Galactic

(store page)
has it’s long-awaited Season 6 update, so the game returned to the selection for a good while.

I "continued on" with Expedition 33

store page
a lot (89 hours) , but got to a point in the endgame when it just took so much energy, effort and planning to find an angle towards progress (other than to go back grinding) that I set the game aside for a while. Both the game and I needed some time to breathe.
The game is stunning. I could play it completely blind, only seen a few pictures, and not even trailers, and it’s an amazing expeditionrience with its story, design, music and overall world and tone. Though the “criticism” about it being super parry / dodge focused is 100% valid. If you don’t like it, there’s an accessibility option to skip it.
So, it just feels good to having developed the ability to balance playing a game, and taking a break from it. I’m sure it helps with my long-term appreciation.
Also, I was so afraid that I’ll get motion sickness from the fast camera changes in the game. None of that happened!

American Theft 80s

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Is a somewhat clunky thieving simulator, that’s just so full of charm and things to do. Anything linked to stamina sucks, the driving is a method of transportation (including the stolen goods) so don’t expect a GTA-like complex experience. The game’s focus is on handcrafted locations, NPC schedules, and playing around them, stealing stuff, selling it, and progressing through a story. A story, that honestly kind of sucks, but eases you into the game and the mechanics nicely, without overwhelming you with options and tools.
I really enjoyed my time with it (including a sandbox mode which has the goal of ~break into a lot of houses, be clever).
The 73% review rate is in the “good, but with obvious poblems” , but it’s 90% off currently, and I absolutely recommend getting it if: you’re interested in playing a car burglar while yeeting out TVs from the 2nd floor, then following it as there’s no fall damage, and random shenanigans like that. The mechanics are relatively abusable :) But if stealth is not your poison, just skip it, it’s faaaaaaaaaaaaar from a must-have title.

Activated an old key (that turned out to be working) for Poker Night at the Inventory (2010 Original Version), and Augment Anthem for beta testing.
Bought the Fanatical charity bundle, but haven’t activated anything from it (yet), nor from HB monthlies (yet).

2026 January

Finished games - 9:

• The Last Show of Mr. Chardish: Act I
  Prologue to The Last Show of Mr. Chardish, which was a Christmas gift / Secret Santa snowball. Running around solving light puzzles while reliving the past.
• SturmFront - The Mutant War: Übel Edition
  Standardish, not really outstanding arcade shooter. The worldbuilding found in notes is leagues more interesting than the game itself.
• Quell
  I still have two Quell games, I may drop them from the backlog. 60ish levels of “slipping on ice” puzzles, with barely any new mechanics given. It’s pure puzzling in the worst sense for me. Not fun to play, not fun to solve, and even if there are guides around, why would I waste my time with it? (Also the games mention something narrative to go with the puzzle, haven’t found any of it)
• Showing Tonight: Mindhunters Incident
  Old, not well done hidden object game. Low poly objects, moon logic puzzles, and just boring “rotate the item into the silhouette” puzzles.
• Alpha Polaris : A Horror Adventure Game
  While obviously works better with a guide for ease of play, Alpha Polaris definitely has charm in writing and characters, and an interesting story. I enjoyed my time with it.
• Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut
  Anything to be said is spoilery basically, you have to kill the Princess. There is 131 achievements. There is much that can be done in this choose your own adventure-type of game, as you may know. Got to an ending, definitely want to chip away at least some of the others.
• West of Loathing
  Minimalist looking game with insane amounts of puns, wordplay, references, jokes and absurdity. The world is slightly crazy, but the worldbuilding, story and RPG systems are all coherent and well made. Pretty simple and approachable, really well done game.
• Vampire’s Fall: Origins
  Another Secret Santa snowball. As we discussed, not a bad game for ~2€, lots of content. Tbh, not too good content. Includes a DLC/Expansion, it got so stretched out and repetitive that I decided I had my game finished with the main story.
• Double Cross
  Yet another Secret Santa snowball. I wasn’t really fond of it to be honest. There are so many more platformers that are more accurate, where random inputs don’t vanish… the story is nothing special, the levels has a strong “premade” vibe to them, using tilesets and not always working them together too well. Difficulty was relatively mild, but same later levels are as much harder, as they would belong in a completely different game. (Still not too hard, but laid-back easy game turns into “lean forward and stop talking to concentrate” type of a deal.

Bought / activated games: I have an active HB Monthly subscription (prepaid for a year+, so it doesn’t count as purchasing), eventually I’ll activate a game or two from the January bundle, but otherwise I plan to minimalise the buying habit.

• Double Cross was a gift on January 1st
• Won Absolum
• Activated Dordogne
• Activated Along the Edge - was free on Steam.

So spent 0€, activated 4 games, finished 9.