Everything is a horse. Beneath the deliberately crude and memey aesthetic is a surprisingly legit breeding, racing and genetics sim with DNA mechanics far more intricate than they have any right to be. The whole thing rewards experimentation in ways that keep surprising you, and the physics-based racing is consistently hilarious. You will create abominations. You will race them. You will gamble until you’re broke and need to shovel shit for fifty bucks behind the track. Loved it.

Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel’s long-awaited tactics roguelite is here and it may very well prove to be their best work. It looks like a silly little cat game - and it is - but underneath is a staggeringly deep mix of Final Fantasy Tactics-style combat, roguelite progression, cat breeding genetics, life sim management and draft-based build crafting that just keeps opening up the further you go. Every run surfaces new synergies, new absurdity, new reasons to keep breeding nightmare cats. Wildly impressive, insanely moreish. It really feels like the culmination of what a couple of gamedesign nutters have been building towards.

Neva: Prologue is a prequel DLC telling the story of how Alba and the wolf cub first met, launching February 19. New enemies, mechanics and locations are promised. Neva was ‘fine’, so a tighter, more focused prologue could work.

Winnie’s Hole is a grotesque, inventive roguelite where you infect dear old Winnie from the inside out - literally. Part deckbuilder, part tetromino puzzler, it’s mechanically sharp and thematically cursed. It may have been a joke premise, but the systems have real teeth. Fantastic.

Cairn is a brutal, meditative climb up a mountain that is utterly indifferent to your suffering. Every hold is deliberate, every resource hard-won. Quiet, lonely, and sometimes euphoric - a true strand-type game: walk slow, suffer deeply, and search for meaning in the silence.

Shape of Dreams is a roguelite with MOBA-style combat, sharp progression, and dense buildcrafting. Characters shift drastically depending on your upgrades, and runs snowballs fast. It’s chaotic, stylish, and full of smart mechanical ideas.

A stylish, fast-paced incremental with satisfying feedback and great polish. Its upgrade tree is mostly linear and not all modes feel essential, but the main loop delivers short bursts of dopamine-maxing destruction. Not for deep strategists, but ideal if you want to switch off and watch numbers-go-up for a short while.

A compelling Papers, Please-style loop with a zombie twist. Mechanics ramp up fast, with layered tools and decisions, though some feel like a loose fit. It’s clever, tense and at times funny, but its pace and style won’t be for everyone.

This Ain’t Even Poker, Ya Joker is a vibrant, fast-paced idle, incremental kind-of-deckbuilder with punchy progression, stylish visuals, and a clever twist on poker mechanics. Lasting 5-8 hours, it’s a focused, satisfying experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome. The VFX/SFX and constant ‘number goes up’ feedback make it a true serotonin dispenser, and after only a short time with it, I finally understood pokies boomers.

Possessor(s) left me conflicted. Its art direction, soundtrack, and emotionally resonant story are all excellent, but the metroidvania fundamentals don’t always support them. Unclear maps, awkward traversal, and not-particularly-satisfying combat sequences weigh down an experience that otherwise shows a lot of care and ambition. Feels like had it had a bit more time, this could have been something great. Worth a look for fans of the genre (or studio) though!