A streamlined Pokémon collection and combat game. Take your team of up to three Pokémon on “expeditions” where they automatically walk around, encounter other Pokémon, and automatically fight them in real time. Your only direct control is that you can manually trigger their abilities (which then have cooldowns before they can be used again), but you can’t target them, so you might as well just put them on auto. Successful expeditions result in experience gains and two types of item drops - Power Stones, which are basically equipment for Pokémon that boost stats or improve abilities, and cooking ingredients. Cooking is how you recruit new Pokémon via themed recipes - use a lot of blue ingredients if you want to recruit a blue Pokémon, for example.

An action RPG with a branching story and time travel gimmick. As dashing swordsman (well, swordsfox) Reynardo, attempt to lead the Rebellion to victory against the once-benevolent-but-now-mad Emperor. Make four plot-forking choices and fight through waves of imperial raven soldiers to accomplish your objectives - maybe you’re saving an old friend who’s in trouble with the Empire and claims to have a brilliant scheme for winning the war, or maybe you’re working to unearth a legendary superweapon that could instantly turn the tide of battle. The choices create twenty-four different stories, though some are quite similar. Each story ends in failure, but can reveal one of four truths before sending you back in time to the first decision point. Once you have all four truths, new options become available that allow you to use what you know to finally achieve success.

An atmospheric and exploration-heavy puzzle platformer superficially similar to games like ICO, Journey, and ABZÛ. Play as a nameless boy who wakes up on an island with no explanation, explore a handful of varied and beautiful environments, complete platforming challenges and solve puzzles to progress. There’s no dialog and much of the storytelling is vague or ambiguous.

A Musou game set in a crossover Dragon Quest world, featuring some original characters as well as some fan favorites from previous games. There’s a lot to like here for fans of Musou action and Dragon Quest flavor, though some pacing issues, an overreliance on defense/escort missions, and a complete lack of multiplayer hold the game back.

A first-person physics-based puzzle game in which you manipulate designated cubes in the environment to create platforms, barriers, springboards, and more in order to solve a series of puzzle rooms. In many ways, it’s an expanded and refined followup to Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut, though not all the changes are improvements. Where Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut is a solid puzzler elevated by its story, Q.U.B.E. 2 is just a solid puzzler.

The fourth in a series of budget-priced downloadable Picross games for the 3DS.

There are 105 standard Picross puzzles up to 20x15 in size (making this the first game in the series to include puzzles above 15x15) and 45 Mega Picross puzzles up to 15x15 in size, bringing the total up to the familiar 150. And that’s if you don’t have save data from earlier PICROSS e games - each one you do have data for unlocks five bonus Mega Picross puzzles, for a total of fifteen. And on top of all that, there are two Micross puzzles.

A simple puzzle game in which you must paint each numbered grid square in contiguous paths that can’t cross each other or move from a higher number to a lower one. Some grids are filled with a single number and have a single starting point, meaning you simply have to find the path that touches each square once; others have multiple starting points and ranges of numbers from one to nine, meaning you must find a way to draw several paths that touch each square in the right order.

A block-manipulation puzzle platformer mixed with a relationship personality quiz. Navigate a series of islands by moving blocks to create platforms and bridges and reach totems, each of which asks you a question about love’s role in your life. The goal seems to be to create an atmosphere conducive to introspection and prompt you to reflect on your thoughts and feelings about love. The game is a couple of hours long and at the end the totems give you a summary of how you answered and what it says about you.

A 3D collectathon platformer. The structure is hub-and-spokes, with an explorable hub area and a series of three zones each containing three levels that can be played in any order, plus one special level at the end. Each of the regular levels has a variety of collectibles to find and tasks to perform, and once you’ve completed enough in each of the three levels you unlock the zone boss fight granting access to the next zone. There are some repeated tasks - every level has a time trial and a couple of tasks involving a few different kinds of collectible. There are also a variety of unique tasks, including standard platforming challenges and such but also a number of one-shot mechanics that keep things fresh but are often a bit unpolished.

An open-world game with an emphasis on movement and explosive destruction. Play as Rico Rodriguez (no relation) and liberate the fictional Mediterranean island nation of Medici from oppressive dictator Di Ravello - mostly by blowing things up.

The structure is fairly standard for an open world game. There’s a chain of twenty-odd story missions that need to be done mostly in order, and many more settlements to “liberate” at your own pace. These vary widely in size and include towns, guard posts, and military bases, but liberating them is always a matter of destroying Di Ravello’s military assets and propaganda. Liberating settlements grants access to side challenges that test your skills with specific mechanics, such as vehicle races or racking up destruction with a particular weapon. Several kinds of random encounters can occur as well, tasking you with saving rebels or otherwise helping the cause, sometimes rewarding restock points for consumables. There are many collectibles to find, and liberating all settlements in a given province will mark them on your map. The setting of Medici is also varied and beautiful. I often found myself pausing to admire the scenery and take a screenshot - the game desperately needs a photo mode.

An open-source space sim and a spiritual successor to the Escape Velocity series featuring exploration, trading, and combat. The game is under active development and a lot more content is planned. It’s in a very playable state already, but certain aspects lack polish and it’s a good idea to consult the manual before playing for too long.

A short Twine game in which you play as a character living with depression and experience a series of vignettes which apparently take place over several months. After reading through a scene you are given a list of options and choose how to respond to the situation. Your choices affect your mental state and your mental state affects your choices - some options are displayed but unselectable if you aren’t in a condition to act on them. There are some similarities to Alter Ego, but with a much smaller scope. Your character and life situation are not customizable and the focus is squarely on depression.

An interactive horror movie starring a group of teens who think it’s a great idea to return to a remote mountain cabin on the anniversary of the night an ill-advised prank led to two of their friends disappearing and presumably dying in the nearby woods. What could go wrong?

The player controls each teen in turn through conversation, exploration, and action sequences. Similar to Quantic Dream games, there are dialog options, choices made by performing actions in the world, and contextual controls meant to resemble the character’s actions - but the controls stick to a handful of defined idioms (the most clever and nerve-wracking of which is holding the controller completely still when the character is trying to hide) which makes the prompts easier to parse but leaves them feeling a bit more like traditional QTEs.

A level-based auto-runner starring Sonic and friends. Tap to jump, double-jump, and triple-jump/fly/forward-smash depending who you’re playing as. Collect rings, defeat enemies, and avoid obstacles while your character races forward to the end of the level. To pass the level, you must complete at least one of its three goals, which are generally about collecting a certain number of rings or defeating a certain number of enemies, sometimes as a specific character. Some levels loop a few times and some loop infinitely until you achieve a goal; otherwise you either pass or fail when you reach the end. On top of this are some Dr. Eggman boss fights and bonus stages where you can rack up tons of rings.

Nintendo’s first mobile app, Miitomo is more social toy than game. It has a few modes - customizing your Mii, providing answers to various open-ended questions (ranging from “What are you doing this weekend?” to “What’s something you’ve lost that you’ve never been able to find?” and everything beyond and in between) which your friends can view and comment on, creating “Miifotos” by posing Miis, speech balloons, and other items against whatever background image you like, and getting new clothing and accessories for your Mii either via in-app currency or the Pachinko-like “Miitomo Drop” minigame.

A first-person puzzle game in which you manipulate designated cubes in the environment to create platforms, barriers, springboards, and more in order to solve a series of puzzle rooms in a stark, sterile, and modular-looking environment. More mechanics are introduced over time and the puzzles become more complex and allow for new applications.

A sequel to Balloon Fight that takes the “Balloon Trip” concept and expands it into a full platformer. Play as Alice, a girl who can fly just like a Balloon Fighter with her two balloons. Taking damage will pop first one balloon, leaving you with less lift, and then the second, leaving you unable to fly - but you can still run and jump and if you land on solid ground you can inflate new balloons. You can even manually let go of your balloons at any time, which is sometimes useful to take alternate paths. Navigate eight autoscrolling levels collecting balloons for points, avoiding hazards, and defeating enemies (including boss fights at the end of even-numbered levels) to save your little brother. There is also a two-player mode in which you compete to collect balloons, and Balloon Fight’s Balloon Trip mode is also copied over essentially unaltered.

An action game similar enough to Joust that today it would be called a clone, though there are some changes to the formula and everything is wrapped in a more kid-friendly and arguably more-readable aesthetic. Gameplay still consists of flying fighters in a single-screen arena who battle by bumping into each other with the higher-altitude combatant being the victor, but this time instead of bird-mounted knights the characters are humans held aloft by balloons. Combat doesn’t directly kill the enemy, but pops their balloon. Enemies have only one balloon while player characters have two, which grants players an additional hit point as only one balloon is popped at a time.

An action game in which bird-mounted knights fly around and battle in a single-screen arena. Controls are simple - the only buttons are left, right, and flap - though the physics take some getting used to. Fighting is accomplished just by colliding with another knight, with the victor being the one who’s higher up. Enemy knights drop eggs when defeated which must be collected quickly or they will hatch into new knights. Defeat waves of knights while avoiding the few stage hazards (mostly the lava at the bottom) to rack up points.

Two short (about 20 minutes each) goofy FMV choose-your-own-adventure games where you must help Awkward Steve navigate mildly-difficult social situations.

In the first game, A STRANGER COMES CALLING, the doorbell rings while Steve isn’t expecting any visitors. Your goal is to reduce Steve’s anxiety to the point where he is willing to answer the door. You can choose between a variety of activities, some of which will help Steve relax and some of which will backfire and make him more anxious. Most of the appeal comes from just how silly or surreal Steve’s antics are as he navigates awkward versions of everyday tasks. You can unfortunately reach dead-ends that essentially force you to restart, but you can double-click to skip scenes you’ve already seen and quickly get back to new choices. It’s short enough that the novelty doesn’t outstay its welcome and the ending does not disappoint.