Video games log 017 (A ghost called Gambette)
It's been a while oops \
castle idler
Half incremental/idler, half tower defense game
It was an alright game. There's a bit of strategic thinking with the unit placement, but I felt like the two genres weren't a good mix and were more at odds with each other than not? Still, I had a bit of fun with it.
Alchemist's Garden
Another incremental where you dig ingredients for your shop
Pretty cute! It's similar to Digseum, that I played in 2025, where you dig stuff up, and has similar upgrades as well. It wasn't a new kind of incremental for me, but it still had enough originality that I had fun with it! And the pixel art is cute, which is always a plus for me.
Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors
Deck building dungeon crawler
Boy was that game addictive! Really enjoyed it, there are quite a bunch of fun combos to discover (the coin meta is stupid powerful tho), and big numbers make monkey brain happy. There are enough customizations (between companions and arcanas, for a start) to make it interesting and not too repetitive, too.
The one small nitpick I could make is that a nice QOL would be about the deck when you have a lot of cards (not a crazy lot, but already just a lot), it's a bit of a mess sometimes to see what you have. Though there has been an update for that, where you can auto order by rank or type, so that's cool, but still not enough.
Trading Card Inspector
Grade cards for for the company making them! That company's a bit weird, though.
Loved playing the demo during a Steam Next Fest, so I got it when it came out! Pretty cool short-ish game if you like putting value given a set of rules, with some modifiers along the way. The corpo humor mixed with absurd situations worked pretty well for me, and the little story behind the main gameplay was enough for me to keep being interested in it. The art and customization are pretty damn nice!
Lost Wiki: Kozlovka
Investigate weird disparitions in a peculiar town through wikia-like articles
I love text-based detective games, so this one was perfect for me! Not too long, and with a good story. The overall art style of the game - sepia, monochromatic tone pixel art - serves it well, too. Do recommend!
Cat Mail Co.
You're the new mailcat, organize mails and packages!
Cute and chill! And it can be played in coop, too! Really liked how the game lets you manage your own organisation how you want, it's always cool to come up with a system that works for you in this kind of games.
As a tip that might be useful, once I got the soulmate packages I ended up using the extra stickers to easily identify them. If the package only had a heart, I knew I hadn't found its counterpart yet. Otherwise I'd just have to look for the other package who had a heart + the same sticker next to it.
this game will end in 205 clicks.
Really short visual novel?
This free game takes about 10 minutes to play but is pretty fun! Since it's so short, I'm not gonna spoils anything, the whole thing was a clever little story. Made by insertdisc5, who also made In Stars and Time (which is still a game I have to play but I know I will love). Please take the time to check it out! And then look at the rest of that dev's games.
Piece by Piece
Puzzle platformer with jigsaws!
Bought this one alongside another game called by the same name; the funny story behind it is that they both got out the same day, so the devs decided to make a bundle together. Cute!
The game is really good! If you like puzzle games I definitely recommend it. The jigsaw gameplay is pretty good and there are enough new little mechanics like portals or flipping piece that the game stays fresh. The added last levels where multiple mechanics are available make a nice challenge. It's not too hard but it feels rewarding when you finally find the way to the door at the end of a level.
Creature Kitchen
Prepare food for critters living around the house!
An absolute delight, my kokoro was full of love at the end of this little game. The creatures are great, the puzzles not very complicated but still fun and the food mechanics work pretty well. One of my fave games I played this year so far!
Also I played it in french and the creatures' name added kind of a countryside feel even more to the game, it was perfect.
Loddlenaut
Clean an ocean laded with waste and garbage, and help the local animal to populate it again
It's a really cute cleaning game, with creature rehabilitation/breeding. Pretty chill game, you just have to be careful with oxygen levels at first. The map in itself is gorgeous, and the points of interest to clean are different enough to make them interesting. I'm not gonna lie but the last clean up you do before finishing the game made me sad to leave the game ahah