Path of Exile’s global channels have had a glorious history of unhinged nonsense. A dev was even around to witness this one!

I believe the first one that was electric and roughly similar to today’s was installed there.

Hyperbolic bonus: Hyperbolica, a first-person walking simulator set in a universe with hyperbolic geometry. You do odd jobs and play games that explore the strangeness of this geometry. Also, there’s a slight digression to explore spherical geometry as well.

Moonlight Pulse (83 reviews)

Metroidvania with character-switching

This 2D platformer metroidvania has memorable characters and very cool worldbuilding. You switch between characters to match their abilities to the right situations. They live on a living, planet-sized creature and are fighting off the parasites that are slowly killing their creature-planet. You’ll swim through its blood vessels and explore its organs.

It’s not super long—I finished the story in 9 hours. It’s just about the right length to satisfy.

Taiji (906 reviews)

Nonlinear discovery-based puzzles

If you liked the puzzle design of The Witness, you’ll enjoy Taiji as more of that but with scenic pixel art.

Instead of a linear sequence of tutorials and puzzles, Taiji is open-ended. You can wander wherever you want, solve the puzzles you stumble upon, and ultimately discover this place’s secrets. Sometimes you find a puzzle that you don’t understand, so you’ll just have to leave it for later, when you’ve learned more puzzle mechanics. It’s like a metroidvania but gated by knowledge instead of abilities.

All the puzzles are built on grids of tiles that you can turn on or off. There are no tutorials; you have to figure out the puzzle mechanics on your own, hinted by environmental details.

Toodee and Topdee (559 reviews)

Puzzle platformer/block pushing hybrid

The 2d platforming world and top-down world have smashed together. You control one hero from each dimension, who share the same space in the levels. You switch between platformer and top-down modes and must get both characters to the goal. The boss levels are hard but very cool, combining action and puzzles.

Also features local 2-player co-op and a generous assist mode.

Big if true.

Good catch with the gravel texture! I didn’t notice it in the back. On the topic of textures, I know there was a complete but very subtle texture overhaul sometime after 1.0, but I can’t tell if this is before or after that change unless I reference the changed textures side by side.

This could have been Beta 1.8 and no one would have been able to tell.

Director of the game, Jonathan Rogers (who isn’t in this video), has outright cited Elden Ring as inspiration for the design of combat for Path of Exile 2, and this video reiterates that.

For devoted exiles, this promo doesn’t reveal anything new, but it is happening in front of a larger audience. I’m looking forward to more class reveals.

Nowadays? If you want to get a game in my face, it has to be via word of mouth or be blown in by the winds of Steam.

I took a look through my game library and these are the broad categories of how a game ended up there.

• Friends (though I tend to be the recommender for my friends)
  • Path of Exile, Cobalt Core
• I liked the demo at Steam Next Fest
  • Moonlight Pulse, Laika: Aged Through Blood, Cassette Beasts
• Announcement through a game I already like
  • Jackbox series, Slayers X, Vertigo 2
• YouTube channels
  • Game Maker’s Toolkit: Neon White, Toodee and Topdee, Assault Android Cactus
  • From other channels, but I don’t remember which: Gunfire Reborn, A Short Hike, Bug Fables
• Sheer luck
  • I found Corn Kidz 64 from a tile at the bottom of a Steam store page, before it was released
  • I found Hypnospace Outlaw from Steam’s discovery queue…
  • …and following through the music credits got me to Queenjazz’s Bandcamp site, where I found an OST for a different game, Grapple Dog!

YES I really need the sixth circle station in Manhattan thank you

Games I know of on Android:

• Ganz Schön Clever — Digital adaptation of a board game. It’s like bingo except you roll dice and there’s actual skill involved.
• Knotwords — Crosswords but instead of word clues, each region of the board indicates what letters appear there.
• Threes — 2048 was a ripoff of 1024, and 1024 was a ripoff of Threes. Threes is the OG.
• Sagrada — Digital adaptation of a board game. Build a stained glass window by rolling dice and placing them on your board in the right pattern.
• Simon Tatham’s Puzzles — Big compilation of various puzzle types.
• Handshakes (by Pet Pumpkin) — “Solo co-op” sokoban puzzle where you try to get two guys to shake hands.
• inbento — Assemble lunch boxes by sliding tiles around to match the reference picture.

So true

Yes, Maddy is trans. This is both from word of god and a hint in the background of a piece of art in-game.

Assault Android Cactus $4.99 (75% off, matching the all-time low)

Slick arcade-style twin-stick shooter with a pumpin’ soundtrack. Clear out arenas full of robots, build up combos, and go for a high score. A large roster of characters offer a wide variety of playstyles. There’s also 4-player local co-op.

Overcooked! 2 $6.24 (75% off, matching the all-time low)

Chaotic co-op cooking, local or online. Complete restaurant orders quickly in increasingly absurd scenarios. Cook in a haunted kitchen, above a mineshaft, in the middle of the highway, or on a burning hot air balloon that crashes into another restaurant! This is the kind of game that people joke will ruin friendships.

Gato Roboto $1.99 (75% off, matching the all-time low)

Polished metroidvania with great monochrome pixel art. You are a cat piloting a robot suit. It only lasts a few hours, but they’re hours well spent.

Tunic $14.99 (50% off, new all-time low)

A little guy in a green tunic picks up a sword and goes on an adventure, but the game is in an unknown language and you only have a few pages of the manual. It’s like a metroidvania but your progress is based on knowledge.

Inscryption $7.99 (60% off, new all-time low)

You find an old, abandoned video game and load it up. It’s an atmospheric, spooky card game, hiding layers of secrets for you to discover. The less you know before starting the game, the better your experience will be.