Every new Wholesome Direct results in my game wishlist overflowing with cute and cozy games. Hovering around the top slots from the showcase’s 2024 edition is Squeakross: Home Squeak Home. (It helps that I love pet rats, having had two pairs in the past: Cow, Pig, Leigh, and Zoe.) The puzzle-solving and home-decorating game is about you, a little mouse,…
Tetris Forever is, in one sense, not really a collection of games for Tetris fans. The game library includes multiple different versions of Tetris, which is more like a Tetris spin-off than actual Tetris. There are also three different versions of Hatris, which is categorically not Tetris at all. There’s…
When Type-NOISE: Shonen Shojo was announced at Indie Live Expo 2024, it…
Solo developer Andre Gareis and publisher Dear Villagers have partnered together to…
I’m not sure how the initial launch of 7 Days to End with You slipped past me, but it did. The puzzle/visual novel game is all about language, and what does a games journalist love more than games and words? Very little. In a place where you don’t know the…
Read More
Self-described “cozy” games are all the rage right now. Often they’re life sims, sometimes other genres, but there is nothing quite like Riley & Rochelle. I’d describe it as cozy because it is an intimate look at two young lives, and it creates a swirling warmth sensation around you while…
Read More
Otoko Cross is basically a reskin of the Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire. There’s a Mahjong Solitaire grid there on the screen, and you match pieces to clear the board. Then, after a few rounds, you also see the character on the left-hand side of the screen change into something skimpier.…
Read More
A game… where you might learn something?!?! Perish the thought! That is what Chinatown Detective Agency is, though. It’s inspired by the classic Carmen Sandiago (the only game we were allowed to play on school computers when I was in primary school), and it’s a puzzle-based adventure game where the…
Read More
In the world of PC gaming, Steam is inundated with absolute trash that only fits the definition of “game” by the slimmest of margins, and relies entirely on nudity and/or sex to make a quick dollar. It looks like Nintendo has opened the floodgates for this too, and Hentai Uni…
Read More
Let’s get this out of the way from the outset: this is a Hatsune Miku game, and you all know how I feel about Hatsune Miku, so the score at the bottom of the review is going to be no surprise to you. It is what it is, so let’s…
Read More
Picture the scene, if you will. Socrates approaches the Lyceum, deep in thought. His disciples gather around him, and he poses this question: What’s a Greek Urn? The answer is, of course, about five drachmas an hour, and that’s a very old joke. Probably not quite as old as Socrates…
Read More