Hades 2 came out yaaay!! Man 2025, what a year for Big indie releases.
And I'm happy to report that this one's also another banger!

Supergiant managed to improve in almost every way from the original, adding in more systems to keep things interesting and allow for more fun builds for your runs.
That, and even gave us the option for 2 roguelites in one, essentially. It's called hades 2 cause there be 2 hades games in there.

Really, I don't know what more to say on this one. It's a fantastic roguelite game with MANY ways to tailor a run to a fun romp where you destroy everything in front of you. Great art, great music, it's just a great game in all!
If you liked Hades 1 you're gonna like this one.

Honestly the only place I feel like this one fell short in comparison was the story. In a roguelite like this you can't have a definite end, cause, well, the player might want to keep doing runs! There's gotta be a reason for things to stay the same. And Hades 1 for me managed that perfectly even while telling a pretty compelling story. In comparison, Hades 2 feels much more haphazard and messy in how things turn out.
But... that's mostly it on the negatives. Even the challenges I thought I'd never complete on this one ended up doable with time and patience, cause damnit I just wanted to play more, and I kinda still do.

SILKSONG IS REEEEEAAAAAL
And it's a pretty great game, it turns out.
Great soundtrack, great gameplay, fun story... really, it's a game of excess, since there's so much of it.

...And honestly that's both to the game's benefit and to its detriment.

There's enough here that by the end I was feeling myself fall into the "Alright lets get this over with" mentality, starting to get slightly fed up with the game. And, in actuality, that's something I felt at several points in my playthrough, cause, of course...
This game's Hard.
As I'm sure you've heard by now.

More than once I got to a new area, struggled to get through it, or through a boss, couldn't (seemingly) explore anywhere else, and felt myself get mad at the game.
And then, magically, I got through, or got a new ability, and I loved the game again.

Cause yeah, there's a lot to love!! The movement and combat are fluid, the world is gorgeous, the story (although nothing fantastic) is great, and a massive improvement from Hollow Knight in terms of clarity of what's going on, imo.
And I don't want to give off the wrong impression here: THIS IS A GOOD GAME. PLAY IT. It's just frustrating to want to like something you know is good but have that thing stop you from doing so time and again.

I genuinely think the biggest problem with this game is in fact its difficulty. More specifically, it's difficulty curve, cause it sucks. It starts steep and doesn't let up, which is a problem mainly in the early game when your options are so limited.
That was so much a problem that the devs even updated the game just a few weeks from launch to nerf early bosses and most hazards!! (I of course beat them before the update cause I'm a #PROGAMER uwu)
What surprises me is how they didn't notice the issue earlier honestly. And, imo, these nerfs aren't enough, cause there're still many, MANY, difficulty frustrations in the game even after the early game.
And of course they mostly boil down to...

Two hits of damage.

Starting from the early to mid game, pretty much every boss will deal two damage with any one hit. And sure, two damage is understandable when a massive ant hits you with its club three time Hornet's size. But lightly grazing a stationary foe making you loose 2 life? Or being barely hit by a small projectile?
It gets frustrating fast, and imo takes part of the fun in exploring the world away. Wow, I found a mask shard, meaning I got +1 HP! Sadly since the boss I'm stuck on gives 2 damage my effective HP against it is exactly the same.
It doesn't help either that at times the game basically locks you in a cage with its saves, meaning you can't even explore to get better gear to help you get through the current predicament, which takes away a lot of the fun of a metroidvania for me.

And, againg, it's frustrating, cause, again, this game is fantastic.

The boss designs, the environment, the soundtrack, it's so good!!

And even the difficulty by the end is more a boon than a detriment! By the time I reached the last part of the game even when I got stuck in a boss I was starting more to look forward to the challenge than to despair in repeated attempts, and it always felt exhilarating to beat them finally.
If anything, it was a great way to prove my ability.

So... yes. Silksong is finally here. And its real good, but massively frustratingly difficult, and frustratingly good even with how difficult it can be.

Another info game, this time about uncovering the people and relationships in a specific famous family's family tree.
In this one you use essentially a mock version of 90's internet to sleuth around, the lack of social media being a great excuse for some family members being veeery elusive to track down!

In all I enjoyed this game! These info games are always a puzzle waiting to be solved, and I've yet to find one that truly stumped me, which, as someone who gets real salty real quick, I appreciate heheheh.
Not that this game's easy, of course. Some Roottree family members live away from the spotlight, so finding who they married or what their maiden name may be can be pretty tough.
Sadly though, that doesn't mean the means of finding out info is particularly... interesting. Most of the game amounts to reading summaries of web results (the game doesn't let you properly visit websites, sadly) and hoping you get enough info from one of these summaries to lead you into the next book or article or term you should research.
Still, even if there's not much variety in what you're doing in the gameplay, its still engaging. There's a lot of intrigue in who's who and figuring out if someone was using a stage name or if someone later remarried, etc.

The game doens't tell a particularly gripping narrative but it still has a great relaxed atmosphere that really fits with the type of detective work you're doing. I wouldn't say its a masterpiece but its definitely a fun time!

...is deltarune still an indie game? Even with the size of its audience and backing of major companies like nintendo??
I'm gonna say Yes. Yes it is.

Anyway, chapters 3 and 4 are here! Deltarune uh... about a month ago! And what chapters they were.
Both were really fun!! As expected! The music phenomenal, the gameplay varied and engaging, the writing fun... pretty much the quality I expected.
And don't get me wrong, I did really enjoy these chapters!! ...but since the positive is kind of the standard I expected, there's not much to say there.
I will say though, that the highlight of these chapters for me was the Hammer of Justice fight. It felt like the perfect balance of frustrating and fun, and the narrative and music in that fight were both beyond lovely.

Now, uh... with the positives out of the way and the understanding that I did really enjoy these chapters:
....man did these chapters feel... light. Not really in content or even really 'lore-wise', but there were just, to me, too few answers given, even to unimportant questions, for the amount of time we're waiting.
And I get that there's still 3 chapters to go, but we're ending chapter 4 with pretty much the same understanding of things as we had previously. Sure, now we've actually seen the knight, but we're not really any closer to understanding them. The same goes for Kris. We know they're 'the cage'. Wowza. But what does that mean and what's the actual deal with them having a Soul.
I do feel a bit childish saying these things, ngl, since it can be boiled down to "I don't want to wait for answers!!!!", and I do understand that the more buildup the better the feeling of satisfaction at the payoff. But to me it just feels a bit unsatisfying to wait 4 years, already building up excitement and hype, and then not having too much pay off for the main mysteries of the game.
It made these chapters, especially chapter 3, feel to me a tad like filler. Fun filler, mind you, filler that I enjoyed playing quite a bit, but filler nonetheless.

Who knows though, maybe chapter 5 will come and be like homestuck act 5 and turn the whole story on its head! Here's hoping it doesn't release too long into 2026.

Kaizen Game Work's second game!! As a massive Paradise Killer fan, I was veeery excited for this game just from its announcement. And honestly I was surprised at how both alike and different Promise Mascot Agency is from Paradise Killer.

For the good, this game shows once more a mastery of 'vibes'. The story told is about a failed yakuza member trying to redeem himself and his family, and to do that he goes to a remote japanese town to revitalize a failing mascot business (mascots being all real in this world). It feels like an 80s anime or a japanese drama, and that extends fully to all other aspects of the game. The game's world feels just like what you'd expect for an older, remote japanese town, the soundtrack doesn't take you out of that vibe and there's even an overlay option that gives the game that slight VHS blur/chromatic aberration that's common to that era.
The gameplay itself is mostly exploring the town of Kazo Machi just by driving around, and in that sense it resembles a collectathon: there are movement upgrades, office upgrades, hero cards, fishing spots, mascots and new characters to find by just exploring. And thanks to nailing the atmosphere of the world, even just going around finding things and progressing through the plot feels... comfortable. I woldn't call this game cozy necessarily but it's definitely an enjoyable, not stressful experience.

Along with the exploration, this game has some management aspects too, with you managing mascots going on jobs so that they make money for you to not only progress the plot but also upgrade the town and your offices, which leads to more jobs and more money. For this part of the game specifically, you have around 20 mascots to find and recruit, and, much like all the other characters in this game, they're a pretty fun bunch! Since the game sets the story in a "town of strays", most of them are leftovers or weirdos or has beens, but all of them have a little side plot to follow as you progress their 'Life Satisfaction', and I liked pretty much all of them by the end (Though some were more memorable than others. I love you Salary-Nyan).

Sadly though this business management part of the game falls a touch flat, and that ties into what I felt was the biggest issue with the game. Around 15-20h in you'll likely have seen most of the interesting stuff the game has to offer, and things start feeling like busy work. Luckily that doesn't emcompass much more than the last few hours of the game in my opinion, but it does feel like the game ran out of steam, and that's doubly so for the management sim aspect, since money stops being a real worry much earlier.
Not that you'll be able to buy everything early on. But I personally never felt the threat of a money game over looming, which is not necessarily bad, in fact it does help the laid back feel of the game, but it does go against some of the narrative tension, and thus the management aspect ends up feeling a bit hollow, even if it's still a core part of the game.

Funnily enough, thats a similar problem that I had with Paradise Killer, but I'm also happy to report that Promise Mascot Agency does have a much better ending sequence narrative wise, even if it did drag on a bit.

In all I did find my time with this game quite enjoyable!! Fun world to explore, fun vibes, fun characters, its pretty much all I wanted from another Kaizen Game Works game!

Information games really are such an amazing genre. Honestly, I think it's probably one of the best video game genres out there, as it showcases how games can, as interactive media, tell stories in a way unique to the medium.
And so!! Type Help!

Play this game.

No, really, play this game! It's a fantastic information game, it's free AND it's playable in-browser!

Among other information games (that I know of at least) the gameplay is most akin to Her Story, having you search for specific files using a very basic computer interface, but the story itself veers pretty far from that.
I won't detail much of it since its a short game and figuring things out is great part of the fun, but it's a pretty gripping mystery with lots of the trappings of the genre: an isolated mansion, a decently big cast... it's all there, and it's written pretty well!
I was genuinely surprised at how many little 'tricks' the dev left in for the player to figure out, little insignificant details that have you going "Ah!!" when you figure them out. Not all of them are related to the main mystery, of course, but things still flow in a way that even when you're stuck you'll still be figuring something out.
There were a couple of moments where I felt genuinely lost though, I can't deny. And, annoying as it was to have to rely on trial and error, the game's mechanics make it not as frustrating as it could be.

The final resolution to everything was very inventive too! I... honestly am not sure I liked it much as a conclusion to a mystery. But it's something that definitely sticks with you, even if its not as well explored as I personally wish it was, AND. It's definitely something that could only really be achieved with this level of intrigue by being told to you, the player, the way that it is.

This game's just.... lovely. Really, a lovely experience all the way through!
I'd played the dev's last game Islets before and liked it well enough, a fun if a touch unpolished little metroidvania, but!! You could feel the care that was put into the game.
I'm happy to say that the same level of care and attention is felt in Crypt Custodian!!

Crypt is a top down metroidvania, which surprisingly isn't that common of a genre. There aren't thaaat many movement upgrades to find, which is not really what you usually see in indie metroidvanias I've found. But the upgrades that are there, while simple, still make the experience interesting the whole way through.
The combat's fun too! A touch frantic and mashy maybe, but I wasn't expecting a deep system from this. It's a pretty fun mix of top down action and shmup dodging, and it delivered more than enough for the experience.

I think the highlight here are the vibes and the story. Crypt Custodian has you playing as a recently deceased cat that's locked outside "The Palace" (aka he's stuck in the bad afterlife) and tasked to being essentially a janitor. Through the game you're meeting other ghosts and making friends, finding out a bit of their lives, some happy some very sad, but it's never too much, and the game never lets the mood get too dour.
Honestly I think this might be a pretty decent game to play when you're down. It gives you the thoughts of the people you love still looking out for you even when the situations are tough, and even when they're too far away to be phisically present. It's not necessarily a 'happy' game, but its for sure a comforting game.