A fifteen-minute or so 2D platformer that makes heavy use of option restriction and then extensively berates the player for playing the game in the only way available.

Like some other games, it deliberately invokes common game tropes and then subverts the player’s expectations of them. In this case, the gimmick is that the player character doesn’t want you to play the game. He’s happy hanging out in his castle until the player forces him outside onto an adventure he doesn’t want. Things escalate when the player starts killing innocent creatures that just happen to be in the way, and it gets worse from there.

A visual novel with adventure game elements. You play as a teenage boy who can reach back in time to certain key moments and change history - but it soon becomes clear you’re not the only one who can alter the past. You must manipulate time to save your friends and family members from various disasters while learning who is meddling with your own history and why.

A cute and relaxed adventure game casting the player as a young boy in a Tokyo suburb in the 1970s. You mostly run around and interact with the local children and adults. The kids actually act like kids, and it’s easy to get swept up the games and stories that are so important to them. Adults humor the children and while they clearly have their own grown-up concerns, to you and your friends these are inscrutable and unimportant.

A twin-stick shooter roguelike that casts you as a robot shooting up other robots in procedurally-generated caverns with touches of dark comedy.

The moment-to-moment gameplay feels good and there’s an interesting variety of enemies and weapons. The visibility mechanics, which hide enemies if you don’t have line of sight on them, make for exciting surprises. The tension never really lets up except at the end of each level (which I found exhausting) and aspects of the player training are weak (at the end of each level you choose one of three doors to go through, differentiated by icons that are supposed to tell you what to expect from the next level, but I never understood what they all meant).

A free-to-play match-3 RPG. The core of the gameplay is turn-based combat where you queue up as many matches as you can and then execute them simultaneously to power your attacks. Between fights there are a number of complex progression mechanics to become stronger that rely on some deliberate slowdowns, such as the spoils of combat only gradually turning into money and combat itself consuming a slow-recharge stamina meter. You can speed up progress by spending the premium currency, but there’s no way to permanently remove the stamina mechanic or other slowdowns.

A puzzle platformer based around the “switch” mechanic. Each level features blocks that can move between the foreground and the background. By hitting the switch button, the player can toggle the position of all such blocks in the level simultaneously. The player must use this ability - along with standard running, jumping, and shooting - to navigate the level, avoid hazards, and defeat enemies. In each level, the player character must round up five endangered civilians and then reach the exit.

A puzzle platformer based around the “switch” mechanic. Each level features blocks that can move between the foreground and the background. By hitting the switch button, the player can toggle the position of all such blocks in the level simultaneously. The player must use this ability - along with standard running, jumping, and shooting - to navigate the level, avoid hazards, and defeat enemies. In each level, the player character must round up five escaped convicts and then reach the exit.

The third of three games using a puzzle system somewhere between Minesweeper and Picross. Puzzles are presented on a hex grid with numeric clues that allow the player to deduce which cells must be colored in and which must be blanked out. The clues are a mix of Picross-like ones giving information about the cells in a row or column and Minesweeper-like ones giving information about the cells near another cell, but in both cases there’s some extra variation and complexity mixed in.

The second of three games using a puzzle system somewhere between Minesweeper and Picross. Puzzles are presented on a hex grid with numeric clues that allow the player to deduce which cells must be colored in and which must be blanked out. The clues are a mix of Picross-like ones giving information about the cells in a row or column and Minesweeper-like ones giving information about the cells near another cell, but in both cases there’s some extra variation and complexity mixed in.

The first of three games using a puzzle system somewhere between Minesweeper and Picross. Puzzles are presented on a hex grid with numeric clues that allow the player to deduce which cells must be colored in and which must be blanked out. The clues are a mix of Picross-like ones giving information about the cells in a row or column and Minesweeper-like ones giving information about the cells near another cell, but in both cases there’s some extra variation and complexity mixed in.