Amber City – 17 minutes beat two levels. This one was a kind of relaxing, kind of boring, ruined world bot thing who controls light to solve puzzles and restore areas. The main gimmick is guiding light which is expanded on to gathering light as well and even using robots. This one was solid enough but just kind of boring. The graphics and sound were decent enough, and the story was just kind of nonsense for now. Just good enough for a bundled game. 6.5/10
Auto Rogue - 68 minutes completed demo. This one is an auto battler with programming of skills similar to FF12’s gambit system. The graphics and music are old school and nice. The difficulty is quite hard on hard and the first boss is the first big challenge. You need to do so much damage before and after transformation, because it will kill you on transformation on the first attack. Some of the conditions seem too exact for my liking and it seems to be missing some that seem important such as when enemy hp is below or above thresholds. You have to put in exact numbers for everything in which I wish I could use percentiles like enemy above 70% health do this…etc… Overall very decent but missing something in my book. I would get it bundled, but I feel it’s missing a bit of something to be very recommended. 7/10
CloverPit – 113 completed demo. This one is a strange rogue lite slots game with a basic slots machine (lemons, cherries, bells, diamonds and 7s…eventually other things). You got a certain amount of time to reach a status to get the next threshold while getting artifacts with tickets that you can have a certain amount of. The key is to balance risking less pulls for more tickets (only smart if you really want a good artifact like more permanent spins). I lost this one quite a few times, the graphics and sound are neat. The slot stuff is really simple and the values for stuff are generally low so I recommend the artifacts that give permanent buffs to the payouts when things come up such as lemons. Overall, it’s a fine enough game I would get bundled although it’s nothing super ground breaking. 7.5/10
Cornerpond – 3 minutes. This game is one of those that sits in the right corner of your desktop and you fish and click on little circles to help catch them. I barely consider this a game and it wasn’t super relaxing. I’m not much into idle games, and this was very boring already. 5.5/10
Date Everything! – 37 minutes completed demo. I barely know what to say on this one. It’s a narrative game where you start a job and are immediately fired. On this games version of Discord an unknown person sends special specs to your house which allow to view and date anything in your house. There are over 100 dating objects that are voiced and supposedly have 3 endings each. The graphics of the characters are fine as is the voice. It’s a silly concept and has some collectibles and I’m not really sure but also dating game social elements like a Persona game. I really don’t know what to think, but it’s an alright time for these narrative games, although it’s a bit shallow and silly. I would probably get it bundled or on sale cheaply, but I’m not really sure it’s my style for narrative games. I usually prefer an overarching narrative and characters/events you can interact with. Still decently fun. 7/10
Dead as Disco - 22 minutes completed demo and tried infinite mode. This one is a rhythm-based beat em up similar but simpler than Sifu and Sleeping Dogs. The music is pretty good, the gameplay is basic but fun with lots of dodges, moves, attacks and takedowns. The music is solid enough and the graphics decent as well. The demo did crash twice, but it’s good enough. I would probably get it cheap enough, but it’s just another beat em up, although a fun and when not crashing functional one. Nothing amazing, but worth trying out. 7/10
Dicewood – 28 minutes completed demo. This one was a pretty cool dice rolling game where your dice are animals and they have abilities and rarities. As per rogue lite gaming you choose nodes like Slay the Spire, have relics like Slay the Spire and have 3 items you can use per turn similar to Slay the Spire. The RNG of rolling dice is interesting as are the manipulations you have with items/abilities of dice. The UI is kind of a mess sometimes especially when explaining (if there is any) of what targeting certain parts of enemies does. I think I figured it out but was never sure if I would stun an enemy or what. I like that you need to sacrifice good animals to heal at campsites and you get bones which are the currency for the game. It’s a bit unpolished but I had fun with it and would get it cheaper or bundled. 7.5/10
Dispatch – 25 minutes completed demo. This was a really fun adventure, dispatch simulation, super hero workplace more adult comedy type of game with excellent animation, excellent voice acting, decent enough UI, interesting characters, and a lot of pedigree some of the creators behind The Walking Dead and some other games like it. This was a really solid demo and while the writing is crude, it fits everything since our main character is a failed hero and those working with him are former villains working for this organization. Play the demo everyone, as this one feels awesome and will also release on consoles. Easy buy on release. 10/10
Easy Delivery Co. – 5 minutes abandoned demo. I really didn’t like this one. Everything felt super clunky with the controller and it’s just a game where you pick up and deliver stuff in a lo-fi looking town. The atmosphere is chill but the controls with the Series X controller are awful. This is especially true of the UI which feels mouse driven and very clunk navigating with the controller (why can’t we have a normal looking menu). The delivery stuff feels like more steps than usual with clunky controls there too where you have to pick up stuff and drop it in your truck bed and close the back. Also, once you choose your job you get no navigators other than navigating to the job app again to see where you’re going. Just too clunky and I think Mascot Agency did this way better. 5.5/10
Escape the Mad Empire – 29 minutes completed one dungeon. This is an interesting feeling rogue type RPG where you control multiple party members like an RTS, fight enemies, cast spells, keep your team healthy and full/hydrated with a tactical pause for skills and looting. It’s one of those pick up and play games where you can do a dungeon and be OK. Everything does feel a little clunky at times especially movement. The action itself is alright enough and I like how doing things at base prepares for the dungeons. It’s kind of futuristic in base while being medieval fantasy so far in the dungeons. I think I’d get this cheaper or bundled, but I don’t play these types of games as often anymore. 7/10
Forestrike – 92 minutes completed demo. One of the hardest one screen kung fu timing-based action games I’ve played. The sounds and music are excellent. You get used to it and the main gimmick is foreshadowing a fight where you can fight it many times until you do a real fight and fight and hopefully do it as well as the foreshadow. You don’t need to foreshadow but it’s helpful for hard fights like bosses. Overall, it’s very hard but also very fun. I think it’s a good bundle game and one that would be good on sale as well. 7.5/10
Galaxy Highway – 31 minutes completed demo. This one is an arcade like game where you go around Asteroids style in a ship and shoot, dodge, use sub weapons/ultimates on a timer and complete objectives which are mainly go to an area, kill all enemies and go to the next till there are none left. It controls decent well with the Series X controller though some controls felt very slippery (the battle cruiser felt no fun to control). You can do upgrades to your base (permanent upgrades) and also to the sub/ultimate weapons you’re using. It’s a decent enough time but felt pretty repetitive already. This is easily a pick up and play type game as it gets old fairy quickly. I would only get it bundled, but it was better than expected. 6.5/10
Gnomes – 6 minutes. This is a pretty basic looking but decent playing gnome tower defense where you have to move gnomes around and plant stuff and build houses to get more money/unit space. This one was fun enough, but I’m not really into tower defense. I think this would be a solid enough one bundled. 6.5/10
Hand of Anima – 32 minutes completed first act demo. This is a very Slay the Spire inspired game including cards/energy/nodes in the exact same movement and characters with different cards/talents. The one thing that it innovates on is combining cards to make new cards that can be more powerful or just do different things. Also, once you combine enough cards you can activate your power and all combined cards will have more stats and maybe do more things. It’s simple, looks and sounds simple, but was easy to understand and fun enough. I think I would only get it bundled or cheaper, but I had fun with the demo. 7.5/10
Hell Clock – 12 minutes. This one is a not very fun kind of Hades like, Diablo like with action and using skills and on level ups you get skill level ups like Vampire Survivors. It’s a little frantic and the trinkets you collect a lot of are not very fun. It just felt super repetitive but had some good things in there. It’s an alpha demo, but I just wasn’t feeling the grind. 6/10
Hungry Horrors – 69 minutes niceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee completed demo. This one is a very strange rogue lite game where you have ingedients, recipes and the recipes are cooked and go to your graveyard. You have to feed horrors and if they like a dish, it creates a bonus and the horror craves some other type of dish (such as sour) according to the last dish. You got to keep chaining these till the horror’s stomach is full or they reach you (game over). You go around collecting recipes/dishes/ingredients/potions (one time use to do something like make a horror crave sour)/gold for shops. It’s a weird one and the last boss I chained hardcore. If a horror loves something they gain more chain bonuses, and if it detests something it purges all food (you will likely lose unless it’s an early battle action). Every horror likes different dishes. It’s weird but fun, and looks and sounds great. I’m not sure I love the loop as much as other games, but I would get it bundled for sure. 7/10
Illusion Box – 31 minutes. This is a weird puzzle game where you manipulate the environment to move around environments. It has a horror abandoned place vibe. It is kind of fun but very, very frustrating when you don’t know what to do. Hints would help a lot. I got stuck not finding one coin to activate a power station, but it’s decent. I would probably only get it bundled or very cheap. 7/10
INAYAH - Life after Gods – 26 minutes completed demo. This one is a Metroidvania about a girl whose father is killed in front of her and she gets gauntlets and then later on being older she explores and has to visit the home area she doesn’t want to. The graphics in this one are pretty solid although the way everything moves and animates hurts my eyes a bit with slight blurriness and flickering in movement. I have pretty sensitive eyes though. The voice acting is very just kind of bland especially for the main character. The old man character was decent enough, but none of the other characters have been. The gameplay for fighting just feels really loose and not as polished. It doesn’t feel super floaty, but things don’t feel right either. I wasn’t digging this one too much and honestly was about to stop playing if the demo didn’t end after a first boss. To sum it up I didn’t like the combat or exploration much and the story was barely carrying it along. This just feels like one of those average games that ends up in a Fanatical bundle. 6/10
IZON. – 27 minutes completed demo. This one is a very clunky kind of Ico type game where you play a small creature and find a big machine creature and the machine creature can fight and the story is very anime where the big creature says it will protect the small one. The voice acting is excellent. The graphics are decent enough. It controls okay with the Series X controller, although movement feels very floaty. The game just doesn’t run very well. The action scenes are all slowdown plagued and the FPS is not consistent on my machine. The main jist of it all is to make sure you can beat creatures while protecting the super small creature. Only the small creature has a health bar. This one has a lot of heart although I’ve heard it’s short and it doesn’t run very well, but isn’t unplayable. Overall, I’d get it bundled or very cheap, but it’s missing polish in areas of playability. 7/10
Lost for Swords – 66 minutes finished one complete area with one class. This one is a very unique almost solitaire like dungeon crawling puzzle game where your deck is your weapons/armor/spells and they appear on a floor. You want to defeat as many enemies as possible to gain loot without taking damage. You get to add cards after some floors and some have keys/gems which allow for more choices and gems are currency in the game. Once you get through a few floors you get to use your keys to unlock choices like merchants, card upgraders, card burners (remove cards), random cards, and get more max health. It’s a simple game which isn’t crazy but is really fun as well. I didn’t like how the boss needed to be defeated 3 times powering up/getting more enemies each time, but it makes it challenging. The deck lasts the whole dungeon only. A really fun game that I need to watch out for in bundles/sales. 8.5/10
Maze Mice – 7 minutes lost on one run. This is a dead simple turn based everything moves when I move rogue lite Pac-man like game. You play a mouse getting little balls in a maze trying to get the bigger one to move to another eventually levelling up and using skills. These skills are on countdowns and hurt cats and other enemies. The enemies have a lot of health and it’s just like an arcade game and goes on and one with decent enough graphics, a little annoying music, and relatively basic gameplay. Nothing amazing or terrible here, but I’d only get it bundled. 6/10
METAL EDEN – 81 minutes abandoned after dying too much on mission 1. There was a small arena that I kept dying in and I gave up after about 6 tries. This one is an Arena exploration-based FPS where you have different guns and can take cores on a cooldown. This allows you to throw said core for area damage or eat it for a super melee attack that breaks armor and does a lot of damage. The graphics in this one are somewhat solid but get this very fuzzy feeling in action. It looks similar to Boltgun, but I don’t think it’s intentional. You take damage extremely quickly in this and you will be stuck in stupid little arenas with cooldown-based armor, health, and weapon drops in the arena. It’s a decent game with good voice acting and a cliché story, but it still was one. I would only get it bundled because it got frustrating fast and it doesn’t seem extremely optimized. 6.5/10
The Nameless: Slay Dragon – 46 minutes. This one is a game book turn based RPG with lots of skill checks, an okay enough story, lots of exploring, some okay combat, pretty basic graphics/animations, and a lot of min maxing. The translation is alright even though some dialogue/descriptions don’t read as well. I didn’t expect much and I kind of wish I had the full version as this seems like a great pick up and play choose your own adventure RPG. It says controller not supported, but the Series X controller worked perfectly okay enough. I would get it on sale or bundled. 7.5/10
Nubby's Number Factory – 39 minutes completed demo. This is ridiculously simple but also very fun rogue lite where you launch a nubby at numbers to pop them and get scores to pass the round. Every few rounds you get to buy items which help pop more balls. After a boss part you get a book that gives a passive that helps the items you have pop more things. There are rare items too that are very powerful. After every round like numbers merge and these keep getting bigger as they’re popped and merge more. This game looks very old school and has a lot of charm for such a simple premise. I liked this more than the other Peggle like rogue lite I rated recently (Ballionaire or something like that). This is worth getting on sale or bundled. Lots of fun. 8/10
NUSNUR – 21 minutes. This feels like an edgy 2D platformer with turn-based battles with Undertale like dodging. Most of this gameplay was a story about some girl with white eyes and a lot of edge and anime like dialogue that honestly wasn’t that interesting to me. In between that was a little exploring and one turn-based battle. Just a bit too edgy and too cliché that I was getting bored very quickly. The graphics were good enough, but I was tapping out. 6/10
Out of Sight – 14 minutes completed demo. This is a very creepy horror game likely similar to Little Nightmares (I haven’t played it yet) where you play a blind girl who can now see through her teddy. You are in some creepy house creeping around carrying around your teddy to see where you sometimes have to place it down and do things since you can’t just put it down anywhere. It had great voice acting and looked good and controlled well with the Series X controller. I’ve heard it’s a bit short, but I think there is a solid horror game here. I would likely only get it bundled since horror games aren’t my forte, but it seems high quality. 8/10
Preserve – 5 minutes abandoned demo. This is an almost board game like video game where you make like habitats of land, water and give it different fauna and wildlife. It was alright and controlled alright with the mouse and keyboard, but it really wasn’t for me at all. Just a bit too open ended, as I find these sim games only really for me if they lead to some objectives and this one just had score thresholds. Only would get this one bundled. 6.5/10
Prisoners of Ulag'Bol: A Dungeon Crawling Deckbuilder – 21 minutes lost first run. This is a kind of not so amazing looking deck builder similar to slay the spire. The text is hard to read and honestly you have to double click to use things which makes everything feel clunky. The gameplay is OK enough, but it didn’t have anything here over other similar games. Just basic feeling and left me wanting something a little more in depth. 5.5/10
Psychotic Bathtub – 5 minutes got 2 endings. Really way too deep 4 me about some vampire or something in a bloody bathtub who is having mental issues and taking pills. I know it is probably saying a bunch but the rubber ducky became a father and then Jesus and hallucinations and I flooded a bathtub and I just wanted to get out of this game. The graphics are OK enough, and the sounds can be pretty horrible and screeching (one of the endings had some bad stuff coming from my speakers). Not for me at all, and I would only get in the cheapest bundle. 5.5/10
The Puzzle Maker: Cebba’s Odyssey – 16 minutes completed about 11 puzzles. This is a really unique feeling grid-based puzzle game where you have units who each have 2 abilities (movement and a unique one). The key is to usually get rid of all enemies and your units can each use their ability once in a puzzle so you have to use them together to be the only ones standing. There are a lot of quirks such as holes needing to be filled, being able to attack your own units to get some more movement and the abilities themselves such as monks being able to refresh fully another character. I liked this one a decent amount with its good graphics, okay music and sound and just general laid-back puzzle nature of it all. I would get this one bundled or on a heavier discount. It did feel very unique. 7.5/10
Rogue Inferno – 11 minutes. Really didn’t like this turn based samurai using cards and stances to beat enemies and avoid attacks or block them. I didn’t even know you can move with the keyboard for 1 energy, but I figured it out. The UI is a mess and doesn’t feel clean. It can be hard to predict some enemy moves. It just didn’t feel very fun although the graphics were alright enough. 5.5/10
The Royal Writ – 12 minutes lost 3 runs. I didn’t like this one at all other than the graphics. This one has a king who is trying to take down people who are against him and you have this strange and not intuitive card based moving one turn at a time while blue cards deal damage and red cards provide multipliers. You also get royal seals which alter cards to be better or can get gold. There are nodes like Slay the Spire, and I just couldn’t get into it and barely got the battle system. Just not for me at all, but it feels slightly higher quality. 6/10
Rustwing – 8 minutes. Another flop for me with another rogue lite Asteroids like twin stick shooter with horrible controls and you do missions like destroying marked enemies and getting cargo and such. I didn’t like this one at all and it was very hard to not get hit by bullets. It felt very unpolished as well although the structure of stuff seemed good enough. 5/10
Savara – 20 minutes lost 2 runs. This one is a Hades like that feels extremely unpolished especially in the controls and the tells of enemies. It is very, very hard to tell when they attack to be able to dodge and then attack them. This is trying to be more like Monster Hunter with enemies with higher HP pools and parts can break off. Nothing is really explained well and upgrades seemed expensive. I wasn’t enjoying this at all with the way the action felt. The graphics looked OK for the most part. 5/10
Sephiria – 6 minutes. Another from the developers of Dungreed. I really didn’t like this much with the attacks and blocks feeling floaty. You go around and moved with wasd and swing your sword and block with your shield and dash like other games. You can perfect block with enemy tells and it just didn’t do much for me. I’m sure it gets better later, but I was already not enjoying the battle system much. 6.5/10
Shroom and Gloom – 36 minutes lost on a run. This one is a strange deck builder rogue lite game where you are in first person mode and move down caves to beat some strange creatures. You have cards for combat and for before combat leading to a lot of customization. It’s strange but it works. The graphics, atmosphere and sounds are excellent. What doesn’t feel as good is the strange view when selecting cards and interacting with things. It is a bit loose feeling and gives a little bit of strange movement, but it’s not horrible. I liked this one enough to want it bundled or cheaper, but it’s still a bit unpolished. I did like the emphasis on eating over defending sometimes. It felt very challenging in combat after the early ones. 7.5/10
Sixtar Gate: STARGAZER – 6 minutes complete tutorial and one full song. This one is a spinoff of some other rhythm game and has nice graphics, a pretty typical anime story with a girl playing music and being hungry a lot. The actual rhythm game is simple in a way it’s 4 buttons only, but it feels a bit loose with the rhythm making it harder for me to hit notes in time. I did just ok around 77% on, and it all just felt alright. It’s cool it has a story no matter how superfluous it is. 6.5/10
Sorcerer’s Servant – 18 minutes finished demo. This one is a strange slot machine rogue lite fantasy game where you choose symbols that add to stats and when they match next to each other they give extra XP, and if you have enough matching next to each other they evolve and give you a permanent equipment of stats. It’s kind of mindless and interesting at the same time. I think you just mainly stack some magic, some attack and other stuff like healing/defense, and try not to get too many mixed up although the magic/attacks add on to each other, but you want them to evolve. I thought this was just very average overall and would likely only get it bundled. It was almost an idle like game IMHO. 6.5/10
Space Grunts – 15 minutes and retired. This one is a kind of boring dungeon crawler like game where you go around very clunkily with the Series X controller shooting with 3 different weapons playing as a class occasionally finding some loot (generally ammo). This was just very basic and boring. Every floor felt the same where you enter rooms and you shoot stuff and collect ammo mainly. The music and graphics were just alright as well. I believe this a mobile port and feels basic enough to be it. Since it’s turn based, I didn’t figure out if there was a way to stay still and pass a turn to get enemies to move. Overall, I didn’t like this game much. Just a bit too basic and repetitive for me. 5.5/10
Sunny Trails – 8 minutes completed demo. This is a cute RPG about gods that were captured at a party by little demons. The characters seem to be goddesses themselves and the art, sound and voice are nice. The combat is similar to a Mario RPG type where timing helps gets some more damage. It’s pretty simple and felt pretty cozy. Nothing too amazing, but nothing bad either. 7/10
To a T – 34 minutes completed demo. This one is a quirky new game from the Katamari Damacy creator and it feels like it. The main thing is you play a teen who is literally in the shape of a T (like a T pose). You control the teen uncomfortably from this pose to do simple things, go to school, there is some bullies making fun of the T and lots of quirky characters and original songs. I’m not really the type for these games anymore unless they’re bundled. It is cute and has nice graphics and okay enough controls, but it’s not really for me. It’s supposedly short as well, but I could see it getting bundled in the future. I think some of the mini activities took too long such as washing his face and eating the cereal. 7/10
UNBEATABLE – 26 minutes abandoned demo. Good graphics, interesting 2 button gameplay for a rhythm game with a really wonky story to start. It was a whole lot of info dump and wasn’t super interesting if I’m being honest. I do like that the band is kind of misfits, but the way it was told wasn’t super clean. The graphics are cool and the music seems neat though. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, but I didn’t like the story mode much at least. 7/10
Undermine 2 – 64 minutes lost a few runs. This feels exactly like the original Undermine, so I’m guessing this is more of an incremental sequel than one that will do anything crazy. I did most of what I could do in Undermine, so this isn’t a bad thing. What I’ve noticed not playing in so long is that the jump is very floaty (can’t be damaged in air though) and the pick has a pretty bad range. It’s still very clean, fun, good graphics and sound, and solid enough. I do hope they tighten up the difficulty a tad as it’s a little hard to avoid bullets right now. 8/10
A Webbing Journey – 10 minutes. This is one of those simulator type games in this case you play a spider who has to complete tasks. It works okay well with the Series X controller and makes me feel a little icked out because of spiders, but it’s alright. Not my type of game at all, but it could be fun bundled. 6.5/10
White Knuckle – 14 minutes. This is a first-person climbing game. It seems responsive and all but it lost me when I had to do my own spikes climbing up a wall. The control scheme is a bit weird for momentum, but it’s interesting. I can see this being a speed running fun game, but it was just irritating me just a bit. Not bad at all, but not for me. 7/10
me running...