IndieLoot

S.O.N.A.R. - Submarine Operators Not Actually Ready: S.O.N.A.R.: grab your friends, man your stations, and try not to sink

2026-10-30T00:00:00Z

Picture a submarine movie where nobody actually read the manual. In S.O.N.A.R. - Submarine Operators Not Actually Ready, up to four crew members juggle nine stations, including sonar, periscope, diving, navigation, engineering and damage control, through combat runs, stealth slips past destroyers, convoy escorts and treasure hunts on the sea floor. The sub catches fire, springs a dozen leaks, and the only thing keeping you afloat is proximity voice chat and people yelling orders. You can also slap a crewmate who's panicking, which is very important.

The co-op chaos kicks in almost right away, and it's the kind of game where one bad call turns into a whole group meltdown in the best way. If Barotrauma in 3D or a cheap Hunt for Red October night with friends sounds good, this is it. It feels surprisingly polished for $8.49 (launch price, normally $9.99). There's a campaign with tons of missions, an open world mode, crew needs like food and rest to keep track of, piles of silly outfits, and Steam Deck Verified status. It comes from Abylight Barcelona, the team behind Citadelum and Super Hydorah, and two patches have already landed in its first two days.

The big catch is that, despite the official 1–6 player count, this is a 2+ player game. It's hectic with two and better with three or four, and solo is a tough sell. It's also a little buggy right now: the proximity mic filter can clip the start and end of sentences, which hurts in a game built on shouting at each other. Difficulty can feel randomly punishing, and the sub can feel underpowered once you move from campaign to open world. And it's only been out since Oct 29, so the fast-riser buzz comes from about half a day of tracking. It's early days.

Verdict: Cheap, loud, chaotic submarine co-op that's a blast with a crew of friends, but don't buy it to play solo.

A Place for Every Potion: water-sort puzzles, but make it a gothic apothecary

2026-10-30T00:00:00Z

Grandpa's auto-sorting spell backfired, every potion in the lab has unravelled into one giant colourful heap, and he's off to an alchemists' convention for a month. Your job is two puzzles at once. First you decant scrambled layers from bottle to bottle until each one runs a single pure colour (if you've ever played a water-sort mobile game, your hands already know this part). Then you carry each finished potion to its exact shelf. You can only levitate a few bottles at a time, so deciding what to hold is the whole game.

It's a more thoughtful kind of tidy-up game than most, more puzzle than shelving, and it's the kind of thing where one more potion quietly turns into a whole evening. There are no timers, no fail state, and it autosaves after every pour. A 24-node skill board gives you a wider hand and a longer reach (and you can switch skills off if you like your own way better), but it never plays for you. There's one finite lab of 4,160 potions with a real ending, plus New Game II and III, a colour-blind mode that actually helps, full controller support and full rebinding. And it costs $5.09 during launch.

Some caveats: the pouring controls can feel fiddly until they click, it's repetitive by design, and if you were hoping upgrades would eventually auto-sort for you, they won't. On AI: the solo dev, who made all the 3D art and code, disclosed using AI for some textures and the music. The music has already been swapped for human-made tracks, and the textures are being redone with a freelance artist, though not necessarily all of them by launch. Also, it only came out on Oct 28, so the fast-riser buzz is based on about half a day of tracking. It's very early.

Verdict: A cozy, brainy potion-sorter that gives tidy-up fans more to think about, and a steal at launch price.

My Beautiful Faraway, Please Don't Be Cruel To Me: My Beautiful Faraway: a quiet, aching little puzzle dream worth getting lost in

2026-10-29T00:00:00Z

You wake up somewhere half-remembered, a dreamlike nowhere full of strange people stuck in their own regrets, and the only way through is to wander, listen and piece things together. My Beautiful Faraway, Please Don't Be Cruel To Me is a melancholic first-person puzzle adventure from a solo dev. It's all walking, reading, talking and solving, with early-2000s visuals in a cozy 4:3 frame, seven characters with their own stories, 10+ puzzles and mini-games, and multiple endings to chase.

The puzzles are the real highlight. They're clever and satisfying, the kind that seem perfectly tuned to the way your brain works once they click. The atmosphere and the handcrafted soundtrack carry everything else. It looks spooky, but it isn't a horror game, with no jumpscares and nothing timed. It's just heavy, a story about death, loss and regret that's the kind you'll keep thinking about after the credits.

A few rough edges: some puzzles get a bit obtuse (keep a notepad nearby), the first chapter's design is the weakest stretch, and there's a bug where a progress flag can go missing. Expect about 3 hours for a first run and 6+ to see everything. One heads-up on themes: it deals with death, suicide, abuse, substance use and prostitution, all handled through the story rather than shown or played out, so go in knowing it's a heavy one.

Verdict: A gentle-on-the-hands, heavy-on-the-heart puzzle adventure, and a small gem for a quiet, reflective evening.

Outcast Tales: Darkest Dungeon, but your heroes are idiots and it's free

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

Picture a post-apocalyptic tactics roguelite where the real enemy is your own party. Outcast Tales hands you a crew of flawed heroes who all think they're in charge, and you mix classes and personalities (a Preacher Mercenary isn't an Antihero Mercenary) before sending them to fight robots, mutants and raiders. Along the way they might become best friends, fall in love or end up at each other's throats. Streamers can even let Twitch chat vote on decisions.

The turn-based combat will feel familiar to Darkest Dungeon fans but is much easier to pick up, and planning a team between runs is half the fun. It's funny, well polished and packed with content, and it's completely free with no microtransactions and no pay-to-win. Plenty of people were ready to pay for it.

The small print: it only came out on Oct 26, so it's literally a couple of days old and early impressions could still change. RNG sometimes decides a fight, difficulty scaling is a little uneven, it's simpler than Darkest Dungeon (some people find the combat repetitive), and pets die very quickly.

Verdict: A funny, polished tactics roguelite that costs nothing. Just remember it's brand new.

Big Dig: an incremental game that actually has something to say

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

Mayor Dog is building a highway across the Animal Republic, and all those pesky historical artifacts have to go, so you start digging. Big Dig is a short incremental game where you unearth everything from tennis balls to dinosaurs, upgrade your tools, hire helpers, get an excavator and grow a museum to show off your finds. It has no endless prestige loops and no time-gated idling, just a complete story with an actual ending.

That story is the surprise. It's charming and funny, with sly commentary on government and animal rights built right into your progression, and the upgrade loop feels great while it lasts. The whole thing has the energy of a really high-effort Flash game, which is a big compliment.

It's short by design, around 3 to 4 hours, which is about one afternoon and enough to collect every achievement. Some people will think that's a bit short for $5.99. The third act also drags a little: upgrades run out before the dig requirements stop rising, so you'll end up sitting on lots of unused skill points. Beyond a second ending, there's not much reason to replay.

Verdict: A cozy, funny incremental you can finish in one afternoon, with more heart than the genre usually has.

Doomed Otaku: $5,000, 14 days and one very online disaster

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

Jin Da-yeon is a broke, anxious idol-game superfan who blew a group order's money on herself, and now she has 14 days to come up with $5,000. Your days split between a grey real world, where you manage an apartment, rummage around a suspicious village and work shifts at a logistics center, and a bright, noisy internet where you date idols, settle petty fan drama and farm game gold for cash. Social Points limit how often a shut-in can face the outside, so every day takes some planning.

It's funny and heartfelt, with moments that are properly unsettling, and it's the kind of game that sneaks up on you emotionally. The mini-games, judgment choices and time management mesh surprisingly well for a visual novel, and the cast is memorable (Kitae is a fan favourite). If Omori's mix of quirky and dark worked for you, you'll probably like this. With over 20 endings and lots of secrets, it's easy to sink 15+ hours into replays. Go in as blind as you can.

There were a few launch bumps, like missing control remapping, thin sound effects at first, and an ending-related bug, but the solo dev has been patching fast. Sound effects and Steam Deck UI fixes are already in. Be ready for some psychological horror under all the cute.

Verdict: A sharp, strange, surprisingly touching dark comedy that rewards replays. Play it blind.

Legion Was Here: build a fake face, then bluff for your life

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

You're Legion, a spy who can change his face, and every job means becoming someone's husband, brother or son convincingly enough not to get caught. First you pore over a dossier (yes, even the chocolate bar wrapper matters) and rebuild the right face in the operating room. Then you walk into the conversation and hope you studied. It's basically cramming for an exam and then sitting it, only funnier and with more danger.

If you loved Golden Idol or Obra Dinn, this scratches that itch while doing its own strange thing. The deductions are logical and fair, just hard enough to frustrate you in a good way. It's all wrapped in dark humor, odd art and a great soundtrack, and stay for the end-credits music video. It feels handmade, like one person's very specific brain, because it is: a solo-dev project.

The catch is length. It's about 3 to 4 hours and 6 cases, and you'll probably wish there were more. The later missions lean more on quiz-style interrogation and lose a bit of the early absurdity, you may want to keep your own notes on the side, and the English gets a little clunky in spots.

Verdict: One clever, funny, very original evening of spycraft. Short, but it doesn't waste a minute.

Echo Weaver: the upgrades were in your head all along

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

Echo Weaver is a time-loop metroidvania with a twist on the usual formula: you start with every power you'll ever have, and you just don't know how to use them yet. Each loop teaches you a little more about your alien glaive, a new shortcut or a smarter route, until you can string together one perfect run. There's barely any combat and no bosses. It's all movement, platforming and that lovely moment when something finally makes sense.

It belongs on the same shelf as Outer Wilds, Tunic and Animal Well. The world is beautiful, the level design keeps tempting you to poke around, and sequence-breaking is wide open if you're the type to try. It comes from Moonlight Kids (The Wild at Heart), and the team has been patching fast since launch, smoothing out hard sections and adding a high-contrast mode.

It's not flawless. The early dialogue can be a bit cringe, and there were launch bugs like getting stuck in terrain or falling out of bounds. Forced resets and time consumables can feel stressful, it's more guided than Outer Wilds, and you can't skip cutscenes you've already watched. Even so, the core idea is strong enough to carry all of that.

Verdict: A gorgeous, brainy metroidvania built on knowledge instead of combat, and Outer Wilds fans should take note.

Deleted Wiki: tidy up 10,324 items, end up with feelings

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

Somebody nuked every item page on a 2007 fan wiki for an old MMO, and congratulations, you're the new Moderator. That's Deleted Wiki: Clean Up the Lost Files, a 2D incremental sorting game where you drag 10,324 lost items back into their categories, folders and rows, then buy userscripts that do more and more of the drudgery for you. It's smooth and soothing, and since it's all 2D, there's no running around a 3D map.

The sneaky part is the story. It plays out on your talk page through wiki news, guild drama and some messages you won't see coming, and it's the kind of thing that leaves a surprising number of people misty-eyed at the end. If you remember fan wikis, forums and MMO guilds from the early 2000s, the nostalgia hits hard. And at $3.99 it feels like it should cost more.

Fair warning: it's on the short side, somewhere around 2 to 14 hours depending on how you play. It's mostly sorting plus reading, so if you skip story text, you'll miss the whole point. It's a mouse-only game, so don't count on a controller, though text resizing arrived in a patch.

Verdict: Cheap, cozy and quietly moving. Sorting has never been this emotional.

Dicevaders: roll the dice, invade the Earth, actually outthink the RNG

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

Of all the games trying to be the next Balatro, Dicevaders is one with real personality. You're leading an alien invasion from the StarVaders universe: draft units off a dice row, reroll with Chrono, nudge the dice with budge, line up pairs and triples, and watch your score go off while legendary pilots try to ruin your day. Each commander plays very differently, so no two runs feel the same.

The best thing about it is how rarely luck decides a run. Leveling relics and an HP buffer cushion bad rolls, and the game rewards changing plans midway and building wide instead of piling everything onto one synergy. It's also really polished, with juicy effects, great music and a UI that shows you exactly how things interact. Expect to lose evenings to it, since 15 to 60 hours isn't unusual.

A few warnings: the art style can take a minute to grow on you, and it's less obvious than Balatro at first, so the fun builds up gradually. A couple of strategies (swarmers, for example) are strong enough to win almost every time, which will either delight you or bore you.

Verdict: A deeper, more tactical dice roguelike for anyone who's tired of Balatro clones.

Dog in the Machine: Into the Breach, but a very good boy

2026-10-28T00:00:00Z

Your AutoDog needs to escape a dystopian mecha-city and find its humans again, and the way out runs through small grids stuffed with conveyor belts, buttons, explosive obstacles and reactive robots. It's telegraph-and-push tactics in the Into the Breach mold, but more playful, with lots more environmental chaos to turn into domino-style chain reactions.

The star feature is the unlimited rewind with real-time previews: you can try a move, see exactly how it plays out, undo it and try again until the combo is just right. Getting punished for experimenting simply isn't a thing here. After each fight your dog learns a new Trick, and you can fuse two Tricks into a new one. There are 8 breeds that play very differently (yes, a boxing poodle), all in colourful, quirky art.

Complaints are hard to come by. Chain reactions can occasionally be tricky to predict, but rewind covers that. Keep in mind it's sitting at 100% on just 53 reviews, so that perfect score is a small sample and could slip. There's no official controller support either, so on Steam Deck you'll want mouse or touch. It runs on Linux through Proton.

Verdict: A clever, low-stress tactics roguelite that almost nobody's playing yet. Go give that dog some attention.

Doggy Don't Care: Untitled Goose Game, but a very naughty pug

2026-10-01T00:00:00Z

Ever wondered what your dog gets up to when you leave? Doggy Don't Care has the answer: absolute chaos. You play Charlie, a mischievous pug left home alone, and your mission is to cause as much adorable mayhem as possible across four colorful levels. Drag a trail of toilet paper around, step in oil and leave paw prints all over the car, knock over every vase and pillow, and earn Mischievous Badges from your feathered friends for each bit of naughtiness. Yes, you can pee on things. It's that kind of game.

It's genuinely funny, and each badge is a little puzzle about finding the right way to misbehave. There's a closet full of pawjama costumes (giraffe, unicorn, even a cat!), some sweet dream sequences, and a second playthrough for picking up missed badges. Families are having a great time with it, kids included, and it's Steam Deck Verified.

The catch is length. You'll see the credits in about 3 to 5 hours and 100% it in roughly 5 to 6, so it's a brief visit. Some badges are a bit obtuse (though the solo developer has already added easier hints), the music can get repetitive, and a couple of folks found the mischief more 'go here, do the thing' than creative.

Verdict: A short, giggly dose of doggy destruction that's perfect with a partner or the kids.

Otterly Lost: be a little otter, carry a little rock, find your way home

2026-09-30T00:00:00Z

Sometimes you just want to be an otter. Otterly Lost puts you in the paws of Otto, a sea otter swept far from home, and lets you swim through kelp forests and hidden caves, glide over sunny shores and climb rocky canyons on the way back, with your favorite rock always by your side. You'll help a turtle, a frog with big singing dreams and plenty of other critters, smash obstacles with your trusty rock, and upgrade your swimming, jumping, climbing and gliding as you go.

This is cozy with a capital C: no health bar, no enemies, no pressure, just a pretty open world crammed with collectibles, light puzzles and an extremely silly wardrobe of hats and accessories. It's a tiny holiday in game form, and a week in, almost nobody has a bad word to say about it.

Know what you're buying, though. It's short, about 4 to 6 hours to mop up every achievement, and it's not remotely challenging. Swimming gets a little janky in shallow water, the map is awkward on a controller, and a few of the background otters are more mannequin than character. It's also only a week old, so the fast-rising buzz is launch-week buzz.

Verdict: A short, sweet, zero-stress otter adventure. Perfect for a rainy afternoon and a warm drink.

Chomp Garden: a pocket-sized puzzler where the plants bite back

2026-09-30T00:00:00Z

You're a tiny glowing lamp, your pup has run off into a garden full of deceptively cute plants, and those plants really want to eat you. That's Chomp Garden. Chomp Plants grow toward your light, Thief Plants shy away from it, and Hidey Bushes can hide your glow, so every room becomes a puzzle about steering greenery around with light.

It's elegant stuff. The rules are simple, the levels ramp up nicely, and there are clever ideas tucked into nearly every screen, plus optional puzzles that get properly tricky for anyone who wants more bite. There are little secrets hidden throughout the garden, and there's full controller support if you'd rather play from the couch.

The obvious catch is size: it's built as a one-to-two-hour experience, and even with the optional stuff, most people wrap it up in an evening. The developer squashed a couple of rare undo and softlock bugs in launch week, so it's in good shape, though Linux folks are out of luck for now.

Verdict: A short, clever, beautifully scoped puzzle snack. One delightful evening, no filler.

Draco and the Seven Scales: Link's Awakening, but make it pirates

2026-09-25T00:00:00Z

Yo ho, Zelda fans. Draco and the Seven Scales is a crunchy Game Boy-style top-down adventure where you play a pirate captain out to save his greatest treasure, which means seven dungeons, more than 15 items, fishing, a kraken's dodgy bargain, and a soundtrack stuffed with sea shanties. Bosses include a Great Macaw and your rival Captain Henny, so the tone is exactly as fun as it sounds.

The hook is that you swap between exploring on foot and sailing your ship, and the puzzles are built around both, and your ship's cannons get upgrades too. That land-and-sea idea keeps getting remixed dungeon after dungeon, and the pixel art adds colorful twists to the classic green-screen look. A week after launch, it's still sitting on a flawless thumbs-up streak, and people who've rolled credits are finishing it in roughly 11 to 17 hours.

Caveats are mild. It's retro to the bone, so if the old Game Boy look leaves you cold, this won't convert you. Genre vets will find the challenge fair rather than brutal. Launch week brought a quick run of softlock and controller fixes, and it's Windows-only for now.

Verdict: A polished, shanty-powered 2D Zelda-like with a genuinely fresh ship-and-shore twist. Hoist the sails.

Driving Rogue: Balatro brain, street-racer heart

2026-09-24T00:00:00Z

Here's a pitch that shouldn't work: an arcade street racer that's also a deckbuilding roguelite. Driving Rogue has you weaving through traffic in a shifting city, chaining drifts, near misses and impossible gaps to keep your combo alive, then picking modifier cards and upgrades between races to build a run around stuff like Nitro and Ghost. Beat rival Rogues and you get to drive off in their cars, each with its own handling.

And it does work, gloriously. The driving is easy to pick up and hard to master, and the 'one more run' pull is very real. Some folks have already 100%'d it a week after launch and keep going. There are Redline leaderboards to climb, online co-op with friends, the option to load your own music playlists, and a Steam Deck Verified badge that makes it a great commute game.

A few dents in the bodywork: not everyone loves the UI, the look of the cars or every track on the soundtrack (that's what the custom playlists are for). There are only a handful of city districts so far, and some find runs get repetitive. If you want online co-op, bring your own crew rather than hoping for strangers. Oh, and it's only a week old, so the hype is fresh.

Verdict: The most original racer of the season: snappy drifting plus addictive roguelite builds. Strap in.

Pop! Pachinko: city pop, neon and very bouncy balls

2026-09-24T00:00:00Z

Finally, a pachinko game that actually feels like pachinko. Pop! Pachinko wraps the real thing in roguelite clothes: collect enchanted balls and charms, stack synergies like elemental effects and chain reactions, and watch a single drop turn into a screen-filling cascade of points. All of it comes bathed in neon arcade lights with a dreamy city-pop soundtrack, and you can collect a shelf full of weird little Chibi Pops on the side.

Runs last 20 to 30 minutes, which makes it dangerously easy to queue up just one more. It's equal parts chill and strategic, with enough luck to keep things spicy and enough choices to make your build feel like yours. It's Steam Deck Verified, too. And no, there's no real-money gambling anywhere in it, just fake points and very real dopamine.

Heads-ups: the rules take a round or two to click. It leans on physics and luck, so if you hate RNG, you'll feel it. It's Windows-only, and there are lots of flashing lights (thankfully, you can tone the effects down in the settings). A patch at the end of launch week already added five new boards, so the developers clearly aren't sitting still.

Verdict: The pachinko roguelite you've been waiting for: breezy, stylish and seriously hard to put down.

Cloudscrapers: stack it high, keep it cozy, mind the lightning

2026-09-21T00:00:00Z

Cloudscrapers asks one very simple question: how tall can you build? You're the guild's newest hire, armed with a handful of basic pieces and a limited pile of resources, and your job is to stack your way up into a hand-painted fantasy sky, where building smart earns you the materials to keep climbing. When a tower tops out, you spend what you've earned on permanent upgrades and new tools, then go again a little higher. It has a bit of Dorfromantik's calm, just pointed straight up, plus a light roguelite loop and that Tetris-y joy of slotting a piece exactly where it belongs.

It's dangerously easy to pick up and surprisingly hard to put down. Placing blocks mindlessly won't get you far, so planning a few floors ahead really pays off, but there's no timer breathing down your neck. The art and the soothing soundtrack are gorgeous, and the story mode has a little mystery that unfolds as you climb, involving ancient relics, the sky's strangest secrets and, somehow, cats. After that, there are challenge and endless modes to chew on, and each tower ends with a sped-up replay of it going up, which is ridiculously satisfying. It's Steam Deck Verified, plays happily on a controller, and has a mode that tones down background movement for motion-sensitive folks. All of it comes from a two-person team that has clearly sweated the details.

The catches: it's short. The story wraps up in roughly 3 to 4 hours and 100% takes around 7, though the extra modes stretch things out. The story itself is pretty light. There are no difficulty settings, so if the later towers get too tough, you can't turn it down, and a rough set of starting quests can knock a run sideways. A sandbox mode for just building would be lovely, but it isn't here. Windows only.

Verdict: A gorgeous, bite-sized tower-stacking puzzler that's cozy on the surface and clever underneath. Short, but very sweet.

Garden Ink: a coloring book that grows creatures

2026-09-17T00:00:00Z

Garden Ink starts you off with a blank page and a simple idea: merge things, see what happens. Combine decorations to discover more than 150 combinations, many hiding cute little creatures or secrets, then grab your palette and paint the whole garden however you like. Tiny minigames and puzzles pop up along the way to unlock new colors and decorations.

It's absurdly charming. The hand-painted art, the playful sounds and the gentle soundtrack all work together to make 'just one quick session' turn into two hours without you noticing. The whole world is basically your personal coloring book, and it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

To be clear, there's no real challenge or story here, so if you need goals, look elsewhere. The start can feel a bit overwhelming until it clicks, the tutorial pop-up can cover part of the screen, and click too fast while merging and your items just plop down side by side. Minor stuff for a game this relaxing.

Verdict: A hand-painted cozy sandbox that's pure serotonin. Ideal for unwinding, less so for goal-chasers.

Forsworn: break the game, slay the gods, bring friends

2026-09-17T00:00:00Z

Forsworn is a turn-based tactics roguelite all about stacking ridiculous party synergies until your heroes can take down gods. Pick from 6 heroes with 3 subclasses each, dig through 150+ items and 200+ abilities that evolve as you upgrade them, and theorycraft your way to broken combos. Die, and resurrection kicks off the next run, with scaling difficulty layers and enemy modifiers waiting to keep things spicy.

The co-op is the secret weapon. Up to three people play at once with simultaneous turns, so battles stay quick instead of turning into a waiting room. Think Stolen Realm meets Slay the Spire, or Baldur's Gate 3 with all the talking and camping cut out. The depth is real, and some folks have already sunk dozens of hours in during the first week. It also runs natively on Linux.

It's rough around the edges, though. The graphics are plain, performance can be shaky (handhelds especially), and some fights feel badly balanced, with endless reinforcements and bosses that seem built to wipe you. Meta progression does a lot of heavy lifting, and right now it can feel more like an Early Access build than a finished 1.0. The solo developer is shipping fixes and quality-of-life patches almost daily, which is very encouraging.

Verdict: Deep, crunchy co-op tactics with huge build potential. Come for the combos, forgive the jank.

Cat Me If You Can: hidden cats, but make it fancy

2026-09-15T00:00:00Z

Hidden-cat games are their own cozy little genre now, and Cat Me If You Can might be the swankiest one yet. You wander black-and-white, comic-style 3D worlds, from Ancient Egypt to modern Japan to medieval castles, hunting for cleverly concealed kitties, snapping their photos and watching color flood back into the scene. There are 9 handcrafted levels across 3 worlds, over 725 cats and more than 50 quests and puzzles, and some cats hide behind riddles, locked doors or contraptions.

The charm is in the details. Every cat you photograph has a name, you can pin your favorite shots in an album, and yes, you can pet them (most of them, anyway). There are cats working medieval jobs and cats reimagined as creatures from Japanese folklore, and the whole thing is deeply relaxing, with just enough puzzle to keep your brain switched on.

The catch: it isn't cheap for the genre, and some feel it gets repetitive after a level or two, so if you're on the fence, it's fine to wait. Expect around 10 to 15 hours if you don't lean on hints, though some breeze through faster. One unlucky person hit a freeze right at the first photo, so keep the refund window in mind if your PC is fussy. Windows only.

Verdict: The deluxe hidden-cat game: named, pettable kitties in gorgeous ink-drawn worlds. Pricey, but purr-fectly cozy.

Isle of Reveries: the Game Boy Color Zelda-like you didn't know you were waiting for

2026-09-11T00:00:00Z

If Link's Awakening and the Oracle games live rent-free in your head, clear your weekend. Isle of Reveries puts you in the talons of Lief, an owl on a pilgrimage to a floating island where wishes supposedly come true, and then hands you six puzzlebox dungeons that each have their own theme, gimmick and key item. The star trick is your fairy companion, who can copy objects and spawn them somewhere else, which turns every room into a little 'wait, what if I...' moment.

The dungeons are the main event: twisty, clever, the whole dungeon is the puzzle kind of design that 2D Zelda fans crave. Add a catchy soundtrack, a cast of charming characters who move into a township you build up as you go, and two co-op stages you can tackle with a friend locally or over Remote Play Together. A week in, people are already sinking around 20 hours into it, so it's not a snack.

Fair warnings: the overworld is the weak spot. It's narrow and maze-like, getting from A to B can be a slog, and some folks bounce off the jump and the fiddly hitboxes. The good news is the developer is patching almost daily and has already sprinkled in extra warp points, signposts and shortcuts. If retro presentation and a game that doesn't hold your hand aren't your thing, this won't change your mind.

Verdict: A big, brainy love letter to the handheld Zeldas with standout dungeons; just pack some patience for the overworld.

Monk Took Book: library science, but haunted

2026-09-10T00:00:00Z

Every morning, new books with odd little symbols arrive at the greatest monastic library of the Dark Ages. Your job is to shelve them however you like and then remember where you put them, because at night the Scribes come asking for specific tomes. Monk Took Book is basically a memory and organizing game in a cozy-creepy medieval abbey, and it's playable solo or with up to three fellow monks.

The loop is wonderfully satisfying. Invent your own filing system, earn Blessings to spend on perks and new shelves, and fend off vermin, spirits and other beasts with daggers, crossbows or a holy cross after dark. Books can catch fire, get doused with buckets, or be hurled across the room, so things get chaotic fast. Fans of Wilmot's Warehouse will feel right at home, and couples and friend groups are having a blast with it in co-op, complete with proximity voice chat. Hate the monster bits? You can dial enemies down or switch them off, and there's an arachnophobia mode too.

Small print: controller support is only partial, and it's Windows-only. The night rush can get a little frantic if you just want to tidy in peace, though that's what the difficulty sliders are for. The two-person team behind it has been patching quickly through the first week.

Verdict: A charming, funny co-op organizing game. Grab a friend and a quill and start shelving.

Next Reign: Kingdom: one field today, a whole kingdom tomorrow

2026-09-10T00:00:00Z

Next Reign: Kingdom starts with a single field and slowly snowballs into a bustling medieval realm. Gather resources, train workers, build industries, craft goods, automate production chains, then send formations of troops (five unit types, each with tiers) into tactical auto-battles. It's an incremental at heart, but instead of making one number bigger, it keeps unlocking new systems that feed into each other, all in cozy old-school pixel art.

That 'just one more upgrade' feeling hits hard, especially after your first prestige, when things really pick up speed. There's a lot here, too: over a dozen interlocking systems, 100+ prestige upgrades, and about 20 hours of progression. The team has been super responsive, even reaching out to people who hit bugs and fixing them within days. It also runs on Linux.

Patience required. The start is slow, the systems and combat aren't always well explained, and the UI text can be tiny. Launch week brought complaints about stingy storage caps, which the devs reworked in the first few days. A later mechanic called prosperity can turn into a frustrating grind, and if you don't love menus, this is basically a very pretty spreadsheet.

Verdict: A meaty, surprisingly deep kingdom incremental with that perfect one-more-upgrade pull. Idle fans, this one's for you.

Asterika: Phantom Rose Refrain dodges to the beat

2026-09-09T00:00:00Z

Forget falling notes. In Asterika, you move around a 6x6 grid on the beat while bullet patterns rain down, so it plays like a rhythm game and a bullet hell had a very demanding baby. It comes from makaroll, maker of the Phantom Rose games, and it brings that lovely art along, plus an illustrated story mode told in page-by-page prose following Klare, a Soul Rose Engineer caught between a Phantom Hunter and a mysterious thief.

The music and charts are the stars: catchy piano and electronic tracks, patterns that turn chaos into a perfect combo once you learn them, and nightmare-level charts for masochists. A Rank mode lets you see where you stand globally, there's a built-in beatmap editor for making and sharing your own stages, and plenty of options help you dial in the difficulty. If Crypt of the NecroDancer is your jam, this scratches a similar itch.

It's hard, and it means it. Launch week brought frame drops and a memory leak that hit the toughest charts hardest, but a patch a few days in tackled the leak and performance. Some still find the accuracy and hold notes a bit off, and the tracklist is on the lean side for now. Controller support is partial, and it runs on Windows and Mac.

Verdict: A gorgeous, punishing rhythm bullet hell with killer music. Bring your reflexes.