Part visual novel, part rhythm game, part interactive animated movie, Goodbye Volcano High taps into the sacred relationship between music and coming-of-age in ways that would be impossible in any other media format.
Can't sleep? Moon too bright? Want to eat it? It's a simple goal for a demon in the underworld, as you'll find in this gorgeous, extraordinary narrative adventure that just so happens to require skateboarding.
The second game from Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM, this text-heavy, dice-driven RPG is an exquisitely constructed take on consumerism, empire, nostalgia and beyond.
A must-play for anyone interested in narrative-driven games.
An enchanting, emotionally charged visual novel with a new take on deck-building and tarot divination.
Watcher, who worships her god the ALLMOTHER, must learn the language of resistance and uncover a thousand-year-old lie, in this intense and intimate narrative adventure.
Weaving Terry Pratchett, Terry Gilliam and more, Esoteric Ebb is a comedic D&D adventure where a waylaid Cleric is tasked with solving a crime, days before the world's first election.
Chinatown Detective Agency is a solid hardboiled detective adventure with a unique DIY approach to clue-solving-but it's most impressive as a cultural artefact.
It's hard to say how impressions of Dog Airport Game might have changed if we'd gotten the game outside of a pandemic, but it's a lovely comedic slice of a forgotten time when air travel was normal. Just with tons of weird dogs and puns.
In its quest to be the most meta game ever made, Alan Wake 2 becomes a spectacle about writers and writing that badly needs an editor.
Much of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is more of the same gruelling beauty - but a shift to explict storytelling and signposting means its essence as a living, evolving shared text is lost.
Hercule Poirot travels to Egypt, only to get sucked into the politics of someone else's bad romance, but on the bright side, there's a lot of murder.
From the developer of The Banished Vault, Amberspire is an equal-parts frustrating and intriguing eco city-builder set on a moon that was built as a mausoleum.
As someone with a lifelong soft spot for the medium-specific charm of video game glitches, Cyberpunk 2077's botched launch just ain't it. Even overlooking the rushed rollout, after an eternity of being bludgeoned in the face with hyperbole, running through 2077 feels like five different games stitched together into an entertaining, passably decent, generic behemoth.
Conway is a solid detective game that ticks a lot of the right boxes and fulfils standard sleuthing expectations. It leans well into the crotchety-old-protagonist stereotype which more often than not creates an interesting tension between Conway and his ensemble cast of neighbors, as well as with you as a player. It's not tremendously challenging in terms of hard solves, but it's more about the journey. You could do worse than spend 10 hours immersed in the small and all too human miseries of Dahlia View.
A dark-fantasy western RPG with a compelling world and an ambitious narrative, Weird West is undermined by awkward combat and micromanagement. Weird West's rotating multi-character perspective will be an acquired taste, but makes sense as a method of world-building. It's got room to grow, but right now, it's challenging to build momentum in the early game and to persevere through the mid-game.
A serviceable, sometimes-engaging official Star Trek version of Stellaris that makes sense for generic space war fans, but flounders when it comes to narrative logic and Trekkie authenticity.
Stray is the work of sly cat people, and it’s a triumph
This narrative-driven dice game from Cosmo D is packed full of his signature visual and musical motifs, and loosely picks up your pizzaiolo/secret agent journey from 2020's Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1.
Witty, observationalist writing and a hands-off approach to deduction elevate this excellent period murder-mystery to a singular work.