I took until April before I started playing this years games.

The Roottrees are Dead [External Link] was first notable release that I played. If you enjoy gathering clues and putting things together, you'll probably enjoy it. For people who have played Return of Obra Dinn, it might feel somewhat familiar.

If you like more of point and click adventure type of the game, there's The Drifter [External Link]. It's a mix of tense time limited sections and calmer traditional point and click stuff. Sadly I got preoccupied with something else, I have few chapters still left.

Tiny Bookshop [External Link] was bit of surprise. I found it from a bundle with another game I wanted, played the demo and I was hooked. Didn't know that I like running a bookshop, but the game has few things. Book sale lootbox thing where you roughly know what you might get. Selling of books is mostly automatic thing that happens in the background, but people come asking for book recommendations. That has you frantically browsing descriptions of real books and deciding if you actually have anything. There's small advantage if you have read the book yourself as then you know the suitability on bit more deeper level.

There's lot of other things going on, but those are not as cool as the actual bookshop things. But still they add some lore about people and places.

Lastly Ball x Pit [External Link] is fun mix of scrolling Arkanoid style block smashing with all kind of bonus things. And even town building on top of that which uses partly same mechanics.

Played few more games that are worthy of at least mention:

• Boltgun: Words of Vengeance [External Link]


• Spilled [External Link]


• Axe Ghost [External Link]


• Universe Horizon [External Link]


• World of Goo 2 [External Link] (Steam release was this year)


• DogWalk [External Link]


• Brutal John 2 [External Link]


• Is This Seat Taken? [External Link]


• Replicat [External Link]


• The Royal Writ [External Link]

Some of them don't have articles here, but list is so long that I don't have time right now to add longer descriptions.

As for Megabonk, I'm bit on the fence with it. It's quite a meme game with lot of jankines. But it does copy enough of the Vampire Survivors formula so I have already played it almost three hours. There's lot of things to unlock if you want to spend the time.

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Quoting: F.UltraNote that this is not the old Microprose from Sid Meier fame. This is an Australian individual that bought the rights to the Microprose logo in 2018. The last original Micropose studios closed shop in 1999 and the brand/ip have travelled through Spectrum HoloByte, Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames, Atari Interactive, Cybergun Group, Tommo and then finally to David Lagettie from Australia who AFAIK only bought the name and not the IP.

Out of curiosity, I did some digging and there are few things to add. It's bit more than just the name, "Wild Bill" Stealey joined the company unofficially to help out. Which maybe makes more sense as I think he was more the military simulator guy and Sid Meier is probably busy doing something for Firaxis anyway.

Also David has been buying all the IP that he has been able to buy. I can't list all the Microprose military simulations by name from memory, but there seems to be quite a few of them.

There's an article from several years ago [External Link] that opens up the situation lot more.

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Frame seems to provide meaningful upgrade to Index with the wireless. My tether is already quite tangled...

Though will probably wait for a review or two to see how it works in practice.

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did they forget to add content or something? I don't understand what is going on with this website there seems to be no actual data?

Works for me. Maybe they can't handle the load? Or maybe something else, but I don't know what would be as likely.

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Sorting by "Steam OS + Linux" just gets me a blank, black page now after the update. And the tile art no longer loads for that category button. Did they just remove it?

If they removed it, they didn't do it properly. Error code it throws is 500, which would indicate that the server is trying to do something, but the code crashes. For pages that truly don't exist, it just redirects to the store front page.

Maybe somebody pushed code to production that wasn't ready yet.

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I played the demo and, it have problems. Not only things feel generic, but it also have two major sins in a beat'em up game: you cannot grab a opponent and the strike's sound is very disappointing, like punching a pillow.

And looks like this is by design and they will not change it. Which is a shame, because it had the potential to be better than the TMNT game they released a couple years ago, but it is not.

I was wondering why people complain about not being able to grab. Played the demo again and found the answer. It's character specific.

Started with Wolverine and Venom. With both I was throwing opponents around all the time. Switched to Rocket Racoon and Captain America. Rocket Racoon throws a bomb instead of grabbing. Captain America throws a shield. I remember for earlier playing that She-Hulk is pretty much a wrestler and throws opponents around.

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Thaaaat... looks like Venom is a playable character!

Venom is actually in the demo if you want to try him out before the release.

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Still few more

Jackal [External Link]

Violent murder simulator. There seems to be plot of guy allying himself with god of death or something. Otherwise it's stylistic kill everybody in a level game. Kind of fun, though can get bit difficult at times.

There's a recent article.

Desktop Town [External Link]
Some kind of minimalistic city builder. Seems to be inspired other games that kind of sit on desktop while you do something else. Though at least in case actively playing can get boring as money generation is very slow. I'm not familiar enough with a genre to suggest something better other than the proper city builders.

Cosmotiles [External Link]
Terraform a planet tile at a time. Basically you buy land and then start laying hexagonal weird tetrominoes. Quite simple and gets boring pretty fast. Maybe play Dorfromantik instead.

The Séance of Blake Manor [External Link]
Bit more serious detective game from Darkside Detective games. Comicbook style graphics and first person view.

The deduction side is tried and true form a sentence thing, but there's hotel full of mysteries to solve. Only bit worrying thing is time limit. I have no idea how they have solved getting stuck if the time runs out. For other blunders autosaves seem to be a solution.

But there's always room for one more good mystery game, so it went to wishlist.

My Tiny Landscape [External Link]

This goes into same genre than Cosmotiles, but this one is more inspired by Terra Nil. You basically place different terrain tiles and try to maximize your combos. Not a bad game as such, but I got bit tired of it. Not as fast as with Cosmotiles though. Would have to check what Terra Nil does right to figure out what's missing.

Chowdown Kitty [External Link]
Match 3 game about feeding cats. Special feature is that each cat has their favorite food. Actual gameplay is solid enough, but all the extra fluff gets into the way. Playing next level requires at least four clicks.

Nice touch however is that all the grades sound like you did good. For example worst grade D is Delicious. But game is bunch of almosts, though I can see maybe somebody enjoying this anyway.

Pancito Merge [External Link]
If Dogpile was Suika roguelite, this one is more traditional. It's about Mexican cousisine and the special feature is that you can sell random things that you have already placed. So if something that can't be easily merged is at the bottom, you probably can sell it at some point. I didn't notice that you can rotate the pieces and music gets bit repetitive. But still has lot of charm.

Maybe only reason why this is not getting into my wishlist is that I'm not totally convinced about their roadmap. There's promise of new bakeries, but if they're more of the same, the game doesn't have much longevity.

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Few More

Truckful [External Link]
There's recent article about this one.

If you don't feel like reading it, it's kind of roadtrip simulator with physics based cargo and some horror elements. Takes a moment to figure out what logic the controls follow and get them into muscle memory. Plays bit like side scroller due to the camera angle. Which people complain about.

Kind of has charm, but I'm not sure if I would have patience for it, unless the story gets more interesting later in the game.

Adorable Adventures [External Link]

Play as a boar. Nice narration and sense of smell is integrated nicely into the game. Bit on the cozier side, though you can race a bit. Downside is that there are some places where you can fall through level and the game has no handling for that at all. So remember to save when you make progress.

Bit odd one out in the cozy genre due the graphical fidelity and system requirements. But it does look pretty.

Winnie's Hole [External Link]
There's also recent article about this one.

If you don't want to read more detailed description from the article, it's kind of body horror deck builder with Tetris like elements. You play as virus inside Winnie the Pooh, which explains why the story deviates quite lot from the children books.

I guess it's fun enough. Could see myself playing it if I wouldn't have anything else to play. Which is very unlikely to happen.

Effulgence RPG [External Link]
There's recent article about this.

The user interface is confusing at first. But at least the ASCII art is is gorgeus. The actual gameplay is RPG battles with some resource management.

Got mildly frustrated and didn't feel like playing all the way through. I guess the resource management part felt bit unfair, but that could have been skill issue.

Lifted [External Link]
There's recent article about this one. Certainly cinematic puzzle platformer describes this one nicely. It's aiming for Indiana Jones vibe, though none of the main characters are directly lifted from it. Platforming requires some precision. Though there's some difficulty settings and one of the settings makes platforming easier. I guess with default settings, it can be bit confusing where you need to go, especially towards end of the demo. The final action piece doesn't feel as snappy as it could be.

Goes into almost wishlist territory. But still maybe if I have a cinematic platformer itch...

Dogpile [External Link]
There's also recent https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/10/merge-dogs-to-make-bigger-dogs-in-the-roguelike-deckbuilder-dogpile/ about this one. This one is basically roguelite Suika clone and market is not flooded with those...

If you have missed whole Suika craze, it's basically game with you merge balls to make bigger balls with added difficulty of balls bouncing around. Of course in Dogpile balls are replaced by dogs. But as it's rogue-lite, there's all kinds of upgrade systems and a shop.

Even when I'm not exactly a dog person, it's fun. Once you figure out what to do, the demo is actually winnable. Interesting to see if they make things more difficult in the final game. At least if they add more things, getting just the right synergies will be less likely.

Have to see how this develops. As cat person, I'm bit hesitant to add it my wishlist, but it is tempting.

Dream Garden [External Link]
It's one of those cozy build a diorama games. You can modify terrain and add items.

I can see somebody else playing this, but I know from experience that games like this don't hold my attention long.

Game About Feeding A Black Hole [External Link]
Incremental game about feeding asteroids to a black hole. Once you actually make some progress in the upgrades, things get lot more satisfying.

Maybe if it's cheap enough, though few surprise twists could be good, otherwise it gets too repetitive.

Megabonk [External Link]
This one has recent article. Just had to try why it's so popular. And I can see why. While it's heavily inspired by Vampire Survivors, kind of deranged humor and 3D makes it it's own thing. Some of the enemies are quite bonkers.

Wishlist material.

Also small In The Black [External Link] update. The tutorial mission shows how hard it is to hit to a moving target. Luckily the second ship has missiles. Certainly requires some practice, but I'm not sure how much plot there's going to be. I guess I'll have to keep trying it some more.

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Few more today

Earth Must Die [External Link]

There's recent article about this. But just in case you missed it, it's traditional point & click adventure. It goes bit into adult humor territory as gore and sex, though in quite cartoony way. Puzzles in the demo are on the easier side. Kind of almost wishlist territory.

In The Black [External Link]
Basically it's space combat simulator with newtonian physics simulation. Tutorials didn't lean on that properly, but at least acceleration was covered in detail. Though I already know from Rings of Saturn that speed kills...

Maybe I'll try more of it later. My rest of the evening went to the next one...

Powerwash Simulator 2 [External Link]
Haven't played the first one. If you have missed the game entirely, it's more or less what it says in the title. The second one has apparently more content and multi stage levels among other things. Small annoyances come from hard to reach places, but ultimately there's nothing that crouching and jumping can't solve.

Once you get bit of routine into things, your mind might start wander somewhere else while the grime slowly vanishes.

This one actually goes into the wishlist. Especially if the price is not too steep, could buy it right away when it releases.

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