Lately, exhaustion has been the name of the game. My energy for larger scale games and projects has collapsed a good bit, so instead, I’ve been gravitating towards games on the shorter or nonlinear variety, things to check in on every once and a while, and pick up and play type titles.

1. Pixross by Kenney

A play on picross, Picross is a classic for short visual puzzles and needed a few minutes to just fiddle. Each board offers a cute pixel image for you to uncover, and I never really feel the urge to burn through puzzles at a rapid pace. With over 170 puzzles, different challenges, effects and unlockable to go through, it’s a nice game for pulling myself out of a digital haze if I’ve been stuck in the same place for some time.

2. Garden Galaxy by Anneka Tran

Another game that joins us in the paced and relaxing categories but brings on a designers and idle game twist. Ironically, I think fans of the Minecraft game mode Skyblock would get this quite the kick out of this game. Starting on a floating grassy platform, you earn coins from little garden creatures, and slowly unlock ground, water, decor, and various style sets for you to discover. What I love about this game is the ways the creatures gather when you’re away, and the sheer number of materials and configurations means that each island gets to be an unique experience that feels really peaceful to assemble. The soft graphics, the sounds, everything comes together for an experience you make, I found my playtime with it especially meditative as I’d come up with design areas and slowly build to my goals.

3. KittyToy by Rakqoi

A precious game inspired by Neko Atsume, You take care of and adopt cats, slowly earning kitty coin to purchase things for the creatures and decorate your home. Nothing about the game is particularly new in concept, but it executes everything quite well, with some fun mechanics for petting and giving your cats affection, playing and bouncing with toys, and bizarre and adorable names.

Being able to adopt cats with a collar meant that I could keep some of my favorites, like Stardust in this case, but not every cat stays forever, and we got a lot of strange and silly visitors, which you can keep track of in game!

4. Passion Paradox by Denparin

A recommended title from Kishux, Passion Paradox is a visual novel, focused on a flushed, awkward and impassioned Mia, and her love for a piece of history, the story and the sacrifice one woman faced in the 1600s.

This is a fairly short visual novel, with not much decision making involved, just you are being led through Mia’s world. A dissatisfied museum worker, her heart lies on a pot depicting Sybil Godwin, and her brain lies within the story of her death.

A culmination of small scale social and material dissatisfaction for one modern woman, getting something she dreamed, and giving herself to this dedication. This has some of the classic tropes and niceties of the genre, so if a cosmic dedication to a woman that goes beyond time interests you. You can even play it in browser.

Since this is a shorter romp, and you can read it, I encourage you to play the game (and check the content warnings before proceeding.)

All in all, this hasn’t been a huge time period of gaming for me, but these are some of the highlights, beyond the games I come back to. Let me know if you’ve checked any of these games out, or if you have suggestions for more games I can play and review! Comments are appreciated <3.