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.

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.

Q-UP pretends to be a sweaty 4v4 ranked esport, but it’s really a pseudo-multiplayer incremental dressed in a sponsored competitive jersey. You build elaborate skill engines, then watch the coin flip and the satire unfold. The joke works, and so does the game. Brilliant.

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.

Skate Story is a moody, tightly-controlled skating experience that leans hard on atmosphere and flow. The skating feels weighty but precise, the premise and art is inspired, and the soundtrack does a huge amount of emotional lifting. Not a deep trick sandbox like Tony Hawk - more a short, vibey art piece that peaks in its linear flow sequences, and when everything clicks, it’s genuinely special.

Some may ask why the absurd incremental/clicker Tingus Goose exists at all - what is this? Who made this, and why? And yet, in its honking chaos and wilful grotesquery, the answer becomes self-evident. It rejects polish and restraint, favouring curiosity and excess instead. Creation becomes ritual, repetition becomes comfort, and the absurd reveals itself as essential. It’s fun. Honk.

Pocket Boss is a brisk, clever satire dressed up as data-fixing ‘puzzles’ (or probably more accurately WarioWare minigames). It’s short, funny, and sharply designed - over before it wears out its welcome at about 30-40min, but memorable in how it skewers corpo culture. Probably best played on phone.

CloverPit is unabashedly satanic slot-machine Balatro inside Buckshot Roulette - moody, stylish, and addictive. The spins, synergies and vibes hit hard - it’s intriguingly thrilling. Once you’ve cracked a few builds, the depth might run a bit thinner than its counterparts, but absolutely worth a play. It speaks to how strong the core is that I just want more.