It took a while for Shape of Dreams to grow on me. I was initially interested because it looked like a well-made rogue-like (and i love those), with a good art-style, and the lure of different character play-styles - and to be clear, all of those things are still there

What turned me off right away was the controller support. It is there, and it's competent, but this is clearly a game made for mouse & keyboard first. The little things give it away, like how focus moves through the various menus, or how left & right sticks fight over the direction of some abilities. To be fair, there does seem to be some good thought put into the controller layout itself, which is appreciated - making sure you don't need to take your thumbs off the sticks to fire abilities is a good one

Obviously not an issue if you intend to use KBM, and if you do, you'll find a MOBA-style control scheme - right-click & left-click for move & attack, Q-W-E-R for abilities, etc etc - and in fact, "PvE MOBA" feels like the best description of Shape of Dreams' core. It's probably meant to be played in co-op for that reason (i didn't), and so the playable characters fill different roles in the squad - tank, damage, support - but i tried them all out for a fair bit of time, and they all work fine on their own

Speaking of characters, they do in fact have a nice breadth of play-styles here. Some are more unique than others, and they could probably get even more freaky with it given some time, but changing between characters gives a good mindset refresh between runs, which is exactly what you need. Character development is pretty great too, with upgrade trees specific to each, as well as a shared pool, which is useful to give a leg-up to the toons you use less

Once i'd played a bunch of runs, and progressed things a decent amount, things started to click. I got into the zone of cycling cooldowns, dodging enemy attacks, and pushing forward. It's definitely more of a gameplay - rather than narrative - driven game, so if you aren't playing with friends, it becomes a podcast game, and.. now that i think about it, perhaps that tells you what was needed for me to enjoy this one properly

I had a good time with The Gunk. It's a pretty short game (not a bad thing), and felt a little rushed near the end, but is well-designed and lovely to look at - and not too bad sound-wise

The genre is a bit tricky to nail down, even though it'll feel familiar as a blanket to most players. 3D puzzle-platformer, with a splash of combat ? I want to say action-adventure, but that feels like it could mean anything.. In any case, you'll be jumping around exploring, solving light environmental puzzles and occasionally beating back some aggressive individuals

Most of the "puzzling" involves vacuuming up the eponymous gunk with your robot arm. You need to do this to progress, but it also has the convenient effect of restoring the environment's lush greenery. Since it's an alien planet, i kept waiting for the reveal that the evil-looking black-and-red slimy-textured stuff was "good-and-natural" actually, but i guess they wanted to keep it simple (or maybe that twist is the simple one? hmm…)

For narrative; you and your buddies have stumbled upon this previously-unknown planet, and are scouting it for something to make you rich - space age prospectors basically - and through exploring you find that the gross gunk stuff came from a previous society's overuse of the planet's natural energy. So there's a basic environmental message in there, which is nice, at least. It does feel like it undercuts the gravity of the planet's (near) ecological collapse, if a single person with a robot arm can vacuum up all the consequences without any cost at all, but hey, gameplay concessions

Still a good time though, and ran quite well for how good it looks. Also, interesting to see that this comes from the SteamWorld studio

I like the simplicity of 3D platformers - run and jump around collecting shiny things, and maybe whack or jump on some bad guys - and A Hat in Time nails the fundamentals. Controls are tight and responsive, and visual design is mechanically clear, while still being expressive

Having such a solid foundation allows it to branch out easily with additional or tweaked mechanics in each world and level. And honestly, the breadth of creativity across the whole game - both in theme and gameplay - is genuinely astounding. The music in particular, was sometimes way better than it needed to be (those time rift levels, man)

In some ways, A Hat in Time is exactly what you'd expect from a cute 3D platformer, but also manages to be fresh and surprising in many other ways, which was a real joy to experience

Greak: Memories of Azur is a pretty straightforward game. A 2D platformer base, with some puzzle-ish elements, and light combat mixed in - a design so classic it's almost traditional

The twist here is that you control multiple characters (well, you start with one, and then build up to three), using the unique characteristics of each to progress forward. You can switch between them at will, but there are also neat commands for grouping them together to control as one unit

It reminded me a lot of World to the West, which had a different camera perspective, but used a similar system to try tell a sort-of twisting narrative tale from multiple characters' viewpoints - or at least that's maybe what it was trying to do, but i'm not sure if it was altogether successful. An interesting idea for an interactive story though…

As for Greak's plot; at the start i expected it to be the classic grand fantasy tale, but i was surprised to find that it was relatively grounded, with the main characters focused on quite modest goals. Could just be a bit unfinished - or even sequel-bait - as it does end on a bit of a "new lands"-type stinger

Anyway, an alright time, although a bit shorter than expected from online data

Toem is a short, cute game about going on a trip to see a sight, and taking pictures along the way. Lots of little quests to do, and funny characters to meet along the way

So many little touches of care, but a few that i particularly liked: in-game music is entirely controllable by a "hikelady" in your inventory, that you find tapes for; and completing quests gives you a literal stamp on a completion card, which is really satisfying in a very tactile way.

Short game, short review, but good fun

Inscryption is a pretty tasty blend of rogue-like deck-builder set inside an escape room cabin, with a vibe so thick it pushes back on you a bit.
The card game and escape room are both fairly simple, but they do interact and feed into each other pretty well, with some fun surprises. Both clearly want to push you forward, giving you tools and upgrades to keep you moving to the end

And the end is.. not the end, because it's just the first act. After that, things get a bit weird(er), and i'm not sure how many people will be fully on board. I've played Dan Mullins previous games and he clearly likes the "haunted media" trope, and i do too, so i enjoyed seeing where it went and the tricks it played, but i'm guessing a lot of people would prefer more of the self-contained, dark-ish vibe, simple but curious gameplay of Act 1

And for those people, they made the Kaycee's Mod update, where you can play Act 1 over and over on increasing difficulties. I've played it some, and got enough from it that i can call the whole thing beaten, but i personally don't think there's enough mechanical meat on those bones to keep chewing, in a manner of speaking

Overall though, very much enjoyed my playtime here, and looking forward to the Pony Island sequel

Now this is why we play video-games. Beautiful art, excellent music, lovely storytelling, and gameplay that's unique but still tight and well executed.
You'd expect as much from Supergiant, but Pyre exists as the kind of middle-child of their output - not talked about as much, or recommended, so here i am to say it should be put on equal footing with Bastion and Transistor, at least (i haven't played Hades (yet))

Art and music, and general presentation is gorgeous, as i've said, and frankly there's not much more to say. Character and narrative writing are similarly great, but the particular twist that the winning team of each league will set a chosen member free, messes up your brain's game plan in such a delicious way - or at least it did mine

Because you want to win, right? And the characters in the game do too. So awesome, there you go, your prize is to have to say goodbye to someone for the rest of the game. And you know that keeping anyone back because they're your best player, or because you like having them around would be unfair

The fact that it's written like a sports anime, where you get to know all your rivals, and they each have a distinct characterisation, adds to that whole mess. You start considering mercy, because some of them feel about as deserving of freedom as any one of your team - some others definitely shouldn't go free, and circling back to these characters again and again is great fun

And i think that's the message in the end maybe; no matter your decisions, win or lose, you'll make stories with the people left behind. And maybe we'll hear some news from the ones who went ahead. Lovely, lovely, gorgeous game