From the dev behind Soma Spirits comes a delightful adventure as the plucky-yet-insecure Zosma gets himself into a heap of trouble and has to scale a gigantic tower with the help of a mysterious witch and an even more mysterious cat-slime. This RPG has a remarkable amount of thought put into its game mechanics to make knowledge of how to synergize your attacks pivotal to success in later battles. Very good stuff!
This is easily one of the highest end 2D live steel combat games on the market. You will feel like a badass samurai cutting people down, and more importantly, the game mechanics have been honed to such great effect that every play session introduces a new concept you'd never even considered. You can use the blood from your blade to blind your enemies, you can kick up fire in some situations, blocking and dodging gives new opportunities for strikes - there's never a dull moment with this game.
Steam | Nintendo e-Shop | Playstation | Xbox
| ESRB Rating: Everyone 
| Game Engine: LÖVE 
There's been a lot of talk about this game encouraging a lot of young people to gamble, which is amusing not only because of how many game devs had to get their start working for casinos and other gambling companies and how that informs their work, but also because of the nature of this game itself. This is not poker, this is the Calvinball version of poker. The concept is you have a selection of blinds to play through, with a set number of hands and discards to beat the blind with, and a standard 52 card deck to do it with. You earn chips based on the type of cards played, all basic stuff, right? Then you get the Joker cards which affect every hand you play in unique ways, and you have Tarot cards that alter your deck, Planet cards that alter the levels and multipliers of hands played, you have vouchers, foil cards, holographic, polychrome, celestial cards and they all alter the game to the point where Balatro becomes not a gambling simulator but an exercise in strategy and lateral thinking. You can absolutely play the game like standard poker and it works to a degree, but once you reach a point where a two pair is getting you more chips than a straight flush, you really do start to feel like a joker. I really cannot recommend this one enough, it's one of the first games to really scratch that itch that Zachtronics solitaire did.
| Game Engine: Unity 
Self-described as a cozy Souls-like, those that grew up with Beyond Oasis will feel right at home with Tails of Glimmervale! What started as an early demo called Project Rootbound, the team at Corebreak have found critical success as Tails of Glimmervale won Best Visual Design at the 2024 Norwegian Game Awards, and it's not hard to see why! You play Willow, an adventuring lynx who has come to Glimmervale seeking fame and fortune. But what will he truly find in this search that's leading him ever closer to a castle long forgotton to time?
Steam | itch.io | STOVE | STOVE (Demo Ver.)
| ESRB Rating: Teen 
| Game Engine: Unity
Another entry into the strangely evergreen genre of '2D platformers starring a violent rabbit with heavy artillery' - in this particular instance, you play the titular Telebbit, a victim of inhumane experimentation developing teleportation hardware, who has ended up with a CPU fused to their brain in a teleporting accident. The result of this fusion is a mascot platformer where the ecological messaging of this style of game is taken to its extreme as Telebbit swears bloody revenge on all of humanity upon escaping the subterranean dystopia known as the Overnation. Gameplay-wise, the teleporting aspect structures the levels like a linear set of puzzles that demand serious reflexes and focus - it's not so bad once you get the hang of it but it requires the kind of persistance you'd need for a playthrough of Super Meat Boy, to give an example. Your hub world is a place in the Overnation called The Square, which provides you with lore information about the world you've been thrust into in the form of a group of kids named Number 1 through 6 and the single outspoken character Number 7 who is dragged off to the level Nodian presumably to reenact Chapter 3 of 1984. The game is about 14 base levels with 7 boss battles each, with the addition of an Overheat mode that puts a hard >15 minute timer on each level, and a really good sountrack to tie the whole production together. Personally, I love it!
Developed by Knitting Games and having the poor luck of releasing just a month after Balatro, Bingle Bingle is very much a similar approach to a gambling game in which you turn the rules of roulette on their ear and add in new components to the situation - balls with strange powers, switching out pockets, levelling up chips and bets, all in the name of outmatching a score to beat in every round.
| Doom Mod: Single Level WAD 
This WAD kicks ASS. It may be a single level but it's so merticulously textured and designed, so thoughtfully paced and plotted that it feels like a full standalone episode! ORiginally created as part of Endoom's 2024 Mapping Contest, Slavius turns the common trappings of the Doom level into a deranged abandoned city block housing a dark and terrible secret. On top of this is the addition of the Auto Rifle. in place of the stock Chaingun, which handles beautifully. Can you find out what happened to this town and cult overrunning it?
| Game Engine: RPG Maker 
Translating literally to 'Upland' and generally referring to Upper Hungary, Felvidek is a fascinating entry in the world of RPG Maker games not only in it's art direction but writing as well. Created by Vlado Ganaj and Jozef Pavelka, with the English translation by Stanislav Kužila, Felvidek is the story of an alcoholic knight named Pavol who, at odds with the lord of his manor and his wife, finds himself embroiled in strange and eldritch doings in 15th century Slovakia. The dialogue is deliciously in line with the tone of the story and it's hard to not get invested in the plight of this manor and the calamity beset upon them.
| Game Engine: Unreal 
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
You have suffered a personal betrayal and find yourself in a cage waiting God knows what fate, and only through sheer luck do you manage to escape...but this will prove to be the beginning of your suffering. Coming to us from solo dev Zakroutil and based heavily on the systems in Disco Elysium, BlightFog is a furry post-apocalyptic story in which your decisions, no matter how heroic or cowardly, are gradually inching you on a path of self-destruction, desperate for food and resources on a bike that may or may not be sentient. It is a remarkable piece of art!
; Argentina (cobcris) 
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A | Game Engine: Flash 
Don't you just hate a bland breakfast? It's the most important meal of the day, y'know? You wanna start it off right! Luckily there's Los Toatadores to save the day! You play a piece of toast riding in their trusty toaster steed, jumping by popping out of the mechanism and shooting outlaw beans with your six-gun. Clear out the cereal boxes and shoot the targets in your way so you can get the sugar rush you're looking for!
After its unexplained closure nearly a decade ago, an urban explorer we only know by the screen handle 'eEnsign' goes to investigate and learn the shocking truth of what could cause a Disney-level theme park to shutter its doors. The love and attention to detail in this game is evident as even cursory glances around the park reveal a level of internal disconcent and anti-ergonomic design processes that causes the park to fail long before the horror began. Your constant companion is Rambley Raccoon as he leads you around meeting his 'friends' and trying desperately to dress up the nightmare the two of you are currently in.
Over/Under is a simple numbers game - you're either over or you're under. But there's an interesting undercurrent of powerlessness in the player of a game like this, the realization that the rules of probability are not on your side. Tim Oxton mines this undercurrent for massive horror potential in FLATHEAD, as you have to continually guess correctly over or under at a deranged slot machine to get 'cells' to escape from your confinement. On either side of you are what appear to be people (what used to be people?) that are your sole companions in this dark journey as you are gradually stalked by an unknown enemy looking to make you bet your life...
A delightful casual arcade game by Noah and Nat King in which you shoot pool on a square playing board, but with the end goal of matching similar colored balls together to make larger balls and increase your score! The game ends when you have >= 75 balls on the board, and the idea is to get as many balls matched together to increase your score before you get to that point. It starts off reasonably easy but as the balls get larger and take up more of the square, the more you'll need some real strategic pool shots to get two like-balls to connect. The balls increase in size and change both facial expression and color from across the color spectrum, leading to the coveted Pink Ball, the biggest the ball can get. It's a very relaxing title and a lot of fun!
It's a common trope in these types of stories for the person piloting a mech or other highly advanced machine to encounter a sassy but helpful AI buddy cop along for the ride. It's not so common for said AI to be a literal Aztec deity. You are Jack Copter, who after a series of mishaps ends up behind the controls of the Megacopter - a nigh-unstoppable combat helicopter powered by the soul of the goddess Ītzpāpalōtl! The story gets stranger from there, as you fight a burgeoning pizza empire run by reptilian forces. As you might tell from the screenshots, the game has a sense of humor closely related to games like Total Carnage and with the sensibilities of material like Exosquad. Gameplay-wise, the allusions to heli games like Desert Strike are unavoidable, but there's plenty of arcade stylings to give the player a lot of options for playing around enemies. Your primary targets are going to be Reploid ground troops, most of whom are pushovers, but more than a few surprise enemies are going to make any confidence on the battlefield hard to come by. Most levels revolve around collecting/shooting targets on the map, and locating ways to improve your radar can mean life or death. It's good stuff!
itch.io | Gamejolt | Mario Fan Games Galaxy
| Game Engine: Unity | Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
This is a very fun game in which you surf along the ocean on the magic carpet from Super Mario World 2, attempting to stay on the carpet for as long as possible before wiping out! The levels in Journey Mode are 1000 meters long and are made up of a series of obstacles to overcome without hitting the end of the screen or losing all health. Unlike other infinite runners like Flappy Bird, this one is very generous with second chance mechanics like the use of shields from Sonic 3 to help in tight situations. About 500 meters into a level there is an enemy who stays on the screen and acts as a extra push-and-pull factor to punish sloppy play. Every couple of levels there's an additional boss battle to really put you through your paces! There's lots of extra costumes to collect as well as an online leaderboard! It's excellent!
| Game Engine: Unity
Here we have a Metroidvania coming to us from Gami Studio! You are a Deviator, a creature with a face like a loading screen and one of many who were created by the Originator to dispel 'twisted spirits' from the living world. In all honesty, the comparisions to Hollow Knight aren't made in jest, this is very much a version of Hollow Knight, though not an outright copy as you might think. Tonally, Deviator is more hopeful and playful with the material it's working from. Mechanically, however, the game is nearly identical - that said, the game heavily emphasizes a parry mechanic in which attacks are deflected and immediately parried. Bottom line? If you liked Hollow Knight, you'll like Deviator!
| Game Engine: LÖVE | Part of the Intravenous series (2nd of 2)
It would be gauche of me to introduce this game without letting you know that this game's story was written by Roman after the tragic loss of his father Vladimir to Covid, and as such, should be considered as an act of reverence first and foremost. You are a hitman named Sean, a young buck who plays by a fairly strict moral code, which ensnares him in a massive political conspiracy after one fateful hit. This sequel is a remarkable step up from the first game, as Roman has instituted a lot of crucial QOL changes like gun modification and levelling systems. There are ENORMOUS ways to modify any gun you acquire to suit your playstyle, from attachments specifically complimenting night vision to magazines built for quick reaction time. He has alsointroduced levels that factor in civilian targets and certain levels in which non-combatants can actually make your life harder, thereby working into the main premise of the game's plot in a beautiful way as you have to rationalize whether to choke out a bystander or suck it up and work around their patrol paths. This sequel also introduces the implementation of rescue missions, where the decision to pacify or kill affects your opportunities to effectively exfiltrate, as the person you're escorting can't go the same routes that you can. This sequel is a true masterwork, I can't recommend it enough!
| Game Engine: GameMaker | Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
As a last-ditch effort to stop physpace from being overrun by bitspace entities, you are an AI that has been programmed to combat the hoard! All you have to do is one last stress test to see if you can survive a simulated attack for 1000 seconds! Colorfire Redux is a difficult twin stick shooter that is deceptively simple in design and function. You get no powerups or upgrades in between runs - all you get is eight-directional movement and a single projectile, and it's up to you to make it work. Making things more difficult is the variation of different enemy types. Every run starts with Baddies coming after you from all directions, simple enough, but after 25 seconds anything can happen. I have to admit I'm pretty terrible at this game, maybe you'll have better luck!
Picture this: you awake from a medically induced coma to your new life on a new planet! Less than twenty-four hours later, you're shoving a used hypodermic needle the length of your forearm into the face of a gang member, and he's STILL coming after you. Welcome to CORPUS EDAX, an imsim in the vein of Deus Ex by solo dev Luis G. Bento, which is such a massive accomplishment that the game would belong on the recommended page even if it wasn't a blast to play, though it very much is! The game is listed as a Melee RPG and it lives up to that title as being the first cyberpunk game I've ever played without a single gun involved - everyone's slugging it out with their fists, bricks, mops, and whatever they can get their hands on. The game also uses a homebrew variant of GURPS called AGNIS - Allure, Grit, Nerd, Intuition, and Strength - and a set of seven skills that all modify gameplay. Upgrading Stealth lets you creep up on people more effectively, Combat improves your fighting ability, et cetera. There's also modifiers that allow you to hack and pick locks more easily, both of which have unique mini-game sections for doing both! Once you get acclimated to the setting and how the gameplay works, the story becomes a bit of a linear gauntlet as you push a violent campaign through a laundry list of corrupt leaders all the way to the top like Joan d'Arc. But who are you really working for? Who's this man in your dreams giving you instructions? What will be the ultimate fate for the planet known as Corpus Edax?
| Game Engine: Unity
From the moment the game starts, Wrong Organ lets you know they're not pulling any punches with Mouthwashing. The story of the doomed Tulpar vessel is going to be a hard one to swallow, but the game is so lovingly crafted and attentive to the finer details that would normally be lost in the shuffle of a concept like this. The sheer absurdity of the situation couples with the mounting dread and antipathy bubbling under the surface of the crew that the nightmare that ensues makes for a delightfully unpleasant experience!
* Due to ongoing events pertaining to card companies like Visa being influenced by the "activist" group Collective Shout, the Itch page that originally had the game's files for sale has since changed to a hyperlink to the game's Steam page. The link will be left as-is with the hope that the original access to this material will return, but any future updates will happen as I become aware of them. | Game Engine: Godot 
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
akabos is the game about a dog who hates squares and rectangles, and needs you to pet him to rid the world of them! Toss away any reservations you might have about clicker games - this one has a lot of personality and surprises waiting for you! If you give it the time it needs, it goes from an absurdist nightmare to a heartfelt message at the end that personally blew me away! It's a real delight!
We've got a delightful gardening sim this time! You play the new gardener meant to look after the estate. What happened to the old gardener? Don't worry about it! Use your trusty shears to trim the grass and the hedges, and see if you can't get your watering can and trowel back to spruce up the place. You'll come across polaroids across town to help you solve certain puzzles relating to your living situation, and if you want to sleep soundly with a job well done, it's imperative to be on the lookout for them! A lovely game with just enough menace and mystery to keep things lively!
The Sniper Killer is on the loose! The tale of Sniper Killer plays out a week after the events of Henry Hoare's previous game Bloodwash and plays out from the perspective of muiltple protagionists. The two main player characters are the Sniper Killer himself, and Officer Comardy. You get an in-depth portrait of both men as they struggle under the weight of their responsiblities, and a dark force looming over them both. Splattering people's heads creates a satisfying spray of eyes and teeth in a comedic fashion, and as your skills mount, so do your target requirements, and some problems require real out of the box solutions. You should give this one a shot!
| Game Engine: SHMUP Creator 
The air is thick with insect life, and this bear's going to get their honey by any means necessary! A tate shump by Yoshida Hiroaki (吉田博昭) of Studio Codori and the studio's first game on Steam, Bear Shooter provides a modest challenge to players with five levels of shooting through waves of giant bugs! The patterns themselves are a bit scattershot and most enemies go down in one hit, with some notable exceptions. One specific enemy type that's likely to give you trouble is the bat, who moves slow and takes a lot of hits but also gives smaller and more dangerous enemies to punish uncautious playing. The bosses themselves are straightforward to beat, usually requiring micro-dodging to deal with effectively. I had a good time with this, and I believe you will too!
| Game Engine: Unity | Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
Brought to us by xena-spectrale and Spawn Kill Studios, DEMON COMPASS is a wonderful game about fighting through trauma and the ways in which success in that fight comes with a heavy price. You play as three separate individuals within the ongoing PROVOKER story universe, whose connecting thread is that they all come into possession the DEMON COMPASS. The compass itself is an ornate figure with the vague appearance of a dream catcher within its center, working as both a flashlight and a means of self-defense. The narrative/design comparisons to Silent Hill are unavoidable, but the game is also heavily influenced thematically by works like Devil May Cry. Play through the story campaigns, and maybe play around in Exploration mode to sight-see the world map! I really liked this one!
| Game Engine: Unity | Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
Hannah and Sammy are having a Beast Dungeon session, when Sammy the DM gets an idea - what if the battle system was mixed with DigiBubble Beat DX's gameplay loop? And so we haveBubbleBeast DigiDungeon, a game in which Ha'na of Hemiquaver seeks to conquer the Beast Dungeon! The game works like a match-4 game in which the mass of bubbles occupying the center of the screen are affected by inertia and the speed of your shots. The goal is to keep the bubbles out of the danger zone until the level's song is over. Keeping bubbles in the danger zone for too long will make you restart the level. Each bubble is color coded with a cooresponding shape while also being named after flavor types. It's very cute and very fun!
| Game Engine: GameMaker
The devil is jealous of Dynamite Anton's pigmentation, and sends an army of malevolent moles to steal his Spirits and coax him into a fight! As you may well have guessed, ANTONBLAST looks and plays like a cartoon - but what a cartoon! Playing as either Dynamite Anton or Dynamite Annie, you'll get to tear through countless enemies and turn Satan's abode into your own personal rage room! The moveset takes some getting used to, but your mobility is excellent once you figure out how to string together speed boosts. You also have a variety of power-up versions comparible to the ones in the Wario Land series, but far more destructive. Twelve levels and seven bosses await you before fighting old Scratch himself!
| Game Engine: Unreal | Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
Coming to us from solo developer Jakkit Matapitukul and financed by a second-hand electronics business called Chit Services, BECOME THE DEVIL is a slow burn style of horror story, with story beats that will be recognizable for anyone familiar with Resident Evil. The saving system is split into three chapters, and only allows any other saves in the same session. While this can be seen as a source of agitation, it also forces the player to stay with the game for long enough to understand what it's putting out, and is similar to the save systems in Henry Hoare's work. The story unfolds as a student film crew interviewing resort owners on a documentary gone wrong, but the game itself is about the thirst for revenge and how it harms the spirit. It's very ambitious, and while there is a over-reliance on backtracking and key hunting, you can tell the amount of work that went into crafting the scenario and the goal of having the player rely on their own mental map of the area to avoid getting lost. The AI can be escaped with relative ease, which is reasonable for the style of game this is with slim options for self-defense and the use of lockers to hide from enemies a la Outlast. The final battle is a puzzle boss with multiple enemies and 6 fuses to collect in a mammoth complex. To put it plainly, I wasn't good enough at the game to see its conclusion, but I cannot deny I enjoyed my time with BECOME THE DEVIL!
| Game Engine: Unity
It's the Spanish Civil War! With the Republicans and Nationalists at each other's throats, the only reigning sentiment is a profound mistrust of democracy to resolve Spain's immense issues - and so Only Lead Can Stop Them! As you might have guessed, this isn't exactly a deep expose into the many different moving parts following the attemped coup by the Spanish government in 1936. It is, however, a delightful throwback title by Warcry Interactive, perfect for anyone wanting to scratch that early Castle Wolfenstein itch! You play as one of two Republican loyalists, Miliciano or Miliciana, and blast your way through Nationalists forces and religious fanatics alike! You shoot quite a few more dogs than I would like, but that's par for the course when dealing with jackboots. The episodes have 9 main levels and one secret level each. Episode One has you reuniting with a captured commandant deep within enemy territory, Episode Two has you leading the charge against enemy forces to kill an enemy commander known only as El Gordo, and Episode Three has you infiltrating an island outpost! The game is fairly leinent on putting the player through challenges, even on Extreme difficulty - you're neck deep in Episode 1 before they even use a monster closet on you. You have a plethora of weapons at your disposal to deal with enemies, with the Chaingun being the most obvious throwback to the bullet dumpster from Wolfenstein, but you'll generally be switching back and forth between the SMG for stunlocking and the Rifle for sniping far-away enemies. In addition to your arsenal is the ability to pick up luxury items and Communist literature to build up a Conviction meter, which acts as the game's equivalant to Quad Damage when activated. This one's pretty good!
| Net Revenue: Freeware N/A
The animator known as LumpyTouch has made something of a career out of turning IPs of all kinds into anachronistic cosmic body horror in the style of older game graphics, so a satirical R-Type fangame of an extended Garfield universe fits their output like a glove. You play Starbuckle, a loose cannon pilot who's been brought in to defend Earth from Gorestar, a planet-devouring monster. Gorestar's allies are the offshoots of itself called Gore-Types, and your ship is made from reverse-engineered Gore-Type DNA called Gar-Type D. The game itself is short but striking - four levels all punctuated with a boss with two phases - with an attention to the flow of a hori shump that warrants its recommendation here. Most enemies are stationary objects with a specific projectile shot, and most of your damage will be from hitting walls and other obstacles. The game realizes this and gives you an invaluable tool in which you teleport to another part of the screen and instantly release a blast of eight shots. You have four different shot types, Normal which is a standard battery of forward shots; Macaroni which is a higher damage version of Normal shaped like a macaroni noodle; Ravioli which is an exploding shot designed to hit from a distance but not as useful up close; and Spaghetti, a tri-shot laser that bounces around in tight spaces and hitting enemies you couldn't hit otherwise. You also have a circle of options you can only get from a certain enemy, with the powerup name OD (get it?). On top of everything else, the game ALSO has variable game over screens depending on what level/boss you died to. The only main sticking point is that there is no pause menu, and hitting Escape on the game closes it out entirely, which is highly frustrating. Despite this, this game is wonderful, very much worth your time!