Platform: Nintendo Switch
If you love when a game tells you nothing, has exploration, puzzles and secrets - all your Christmases have come at once with Animal Well. Its intricate art and wordless storytelling make for a unique and immersive atmosphere. The puzzles are varied and rewarding. Crafting and sustaining this level of intrigue in a metroidvania without combat is an impressive feat. Above all, Animal Well is full of surprises, and the fact that it was all created by one person is remarkable.
Cute! Duck Detective is a delightful and tightly designed deduction game that won’t have you sweating over a scrawly notepad like Golden Idol or Obra Dinn, but I think that’s the point. There’s one case made up of charming and funny characters, everything is voiced, the art and music are terrific. If you’re into detective games, you’ll finish it in a few hours and have a great time… quacking the case.
It’s always a real treat to hear from Nintendo in this context, and at GDC 2024, developers of ToTK spoke about crafting an enriched Hyrule via emergent gameplay in an entirely physics-driven world, and advanced sound design. Technical Director Takuhiro Dohta, Lead Physics Programmer Takahiro Takayama, and Lead Sound Engineer Junya Osada share their design approaches and hurdles their teams overcame during development - absolute legends. In true Nintendo style, even the presentation itself is fun. Hugely insightful and wildly impressive. Watch it here.
Simple but creative and clever, The Exit 8 is essentially a first person spot-the-difference game elevated by excellent graphics and tense atmosphere. One can beat it in under half an hour, and 100% it in not much longer, which feels about right. Best to go in blind, and let the loop immerse you. Cool game.
Balatro absolutely rules. And this is coming from someone with abject disdain of poker… Traditional poker hands are your basic tools, but that’s about as far as the connection goes. The rest of Balatro is a wickedly clever, psychedelic, insta-classic roguelike through which you’ll devise cunning ways to break the game. Cards and modifiers are tightly designed, crisply defined and delightfully synergistic. Again, Balatro just rules. Play it.
Epic continues to push the Fortnite-as-a-platform strat. Understandably not as deep as LEGO Fortnite, but a fun little racing game with a big emphasis on drifting and obstacles reminiscent of Mario Kart, and wild courses à la Trackmania. Be prepared to feel like Schumacher as you first place Bronze and Silver ranks only to be met with your first decent human opponents and summarily crushed. Fun though!
What I thought would be a quick, relatively low-effort brand collaboration turns out to be a remarkably fleshed out exploration/building/survival game with an incredible level of polish. A bit of Minecraft, a tiny bit of Animal Crossing, and even rolling in combat - sooo, we’re a soulslike now? Fun game, and the fact that Epic remade over 1,200 skins to suit the LEGO-verse is crazy in itself.
Somehow, two years after it was first released, a silly little watermelon game captures the streamer zeitgeist. It’s simple but addictive, and for whatever reason is just as enjoyable to watch (or at least have on in the background) as it is to play. It’s also way cheaper than an actual watermelon, so give it a go.
The hint is in the name: this game (and Nintendo when they’re in this form) is indeed a wonder. Constantly surprising, funny, delightful, and endlessly creative. The best 2D Mario has been in a long time. Vibrant and refreshed, but still underpinned by decades of perfecting tight controls and a seemingly endless supply of not just ideas, but the talent to execute them. Love.