Recent reviews by Sorting Algorithms

These are basically glorified flashcards, $15 is ridiculous.

I've never played a game where identifying and categorizing the races of people was this central to the gameplay as it is in Obra Dinn.

Requires too much interaction to work as a background idle game, but is too inert and simple to make actively playing it compelling. There aren't many unlocks so instead the game is built around beating the game over and over with a different unlock toggled each time.

Aesthetically this looks like if Celestial Seasonings made an edutainment game about kabbalah, but if you like simple puzzles this is a fun time. Not a fan of the traversal-based ones but there are so many the ones you do like will have plenty.

Easily one of the best survival/crafting games ever made. It does have the typical early access issues of the endgame being terrible and a bunch of vestigial systems cluttering up the place, but overall it's so tremendous you just want to play through all over again instead of quitting.

CliffyB leaving Epic when Fortnite was in development only to wind up helming a shameless knockoff of Fortnite has to be one of gaming's great self-owns.

The mouse-based, UI-free interface takes a bit to get used to. But it's worth it, because this is basically a good, authored version of No Man's Sky where you "only" have six vast planets to explore and exploit with no combat and minimal environmental hazards. Being able to dynamically tunnel to the mantel of a planet in real time, setting up an automated farm to power my generators, turning a tractor into a dirt harvester to feed my centrifuge, there are so many fun pure experiences. Just be aware this is definitely the type of game you play while listening to podcasts if you're playing solo.

Graveyard Keeper is presented as a dark Stardew-like but it lacks the basic daily rhythm that holds games like that together. The passage of time is functionally meaningless, there are only days of the week no seasons or calendar. There are only a few characters and the writing is so first draft that the local celebrity is named Ms Charm and your graveyard ghost is named Yorick. The tone is a mess, your talking donkey wants to unionize and then you participate in a witch burning and sell human meat as food. Characters constantly reference a big city and there's even a route to it in your town, but the game just kills you if you try to go. The zombie automation is very slipshod and still requires a lot of finessing. This is a boring and frustrating experience that looks like something it isn't.

Also there isn't a single non-white person in the entire game. Given that we now know the CEO of Lazy Bear is a Grummz fan it's hard not to read that as sinister.

As someone with a background in education, the way that this game is designed so you intuit the rules of the various puzzles without any written instructions or guides can be breathtaking at times. Jonathan Blow is a terrible person but he made a fantastic game here, The Witness isn't any more opaque or pretentious than Myst it just quotes real world texts instead of fictional ones.

"we firmly believe in the power of community-informed development"
-Hinterland Studio's store page for the early access sequel to this game

"We’ve heard that some of you don’t like it.
I like it, I believe in it, and it fits into my future plans. Don’t expect a “redux”.
-Hinterland's CEO throwing a temper tantrum about negative reviews of this game

Not giving me confidence in the sequel!