Chuzzle is an extremely ok puzzle game. It's a match 3 style game where you drag rows to complete sets of colored chuzzles. You can identify moves that will cause combos when chuzzles of different colors fall into place, but in this case it feels like those matches are very incidental and reliant on the game spawning the right colors of chuzzle. Its not unenjoyable to make these combos, but rounds can go on for so long that the gameplay loop becomes a bit tiresome. My first run of Chuzzle lasted for 80 minutes, and admittedly I'm not the fastest player but by the end of that 80 minutes I was very ready for things to be over. I think part of the issue is that I don't find its loss condition to be very compelling. It's the same loss condition that Bejeweled uses, where a game is over once you can't make any more moves. It makes sense, and in Bejeweled it's easier to end up in a no move situation, but its not exactly a loss condition that has a lot of tension. It doesn't have the slowly encroaching doom of something like Tetris of Zuma. Chuzzle does gradually lock up your chuzzles, preventing you from moving certain rows and columns. That does add some tension back to the game, but it's a threat that can be worked around by making certain matches.

Overall, I think Chuzzle its fine, as in its not unenjoyable. It has some fun twists on this style of game, and some of its ideas are pretty neat. It's worth a play if you are into puzzle games if you can get it cheap.

Babbdi is a beautiful expression about the beauty and tragedy of decay. Everyone in this game feels stuck. An old lady struggles with her groceries, clearly overencumbered. She never moves. The architecture itself is her enemy. Everyone here is stuck, and it impacts everyone differently, and everyone copes in their own way.

The architectural stylings of Babbdi are spectacular. This game nails the aura of brutalism, with its towering concrete structures that feel imposing. Its a projection of power, not in opulence, but in raw geometric forms. Personally, I love brutalist architecture because I never entirely know how it makes me feel. I can't flatly say it's pleasant, nor can I say that its entirely dislikable, and thus I am constantly navigating my own thoughts on this artistic style that fill me with awe and dread and amazement and sadness. Babbdi is perhaps the greatest expression of brutalism ever put into a video game. Because I am fascinated by brutalism, the world of Babbdi speaks powerfully to me. The city feels huge, but not repetitive. Every corner of this place feels like its own thing, which is remarkable when you consider how much of this world is made out of concrete.

Part of why these spaces feel so memorable is the game's item system. You can only carry one item at a time, and while there are useful movement items you can find, you can only carry one at a time. I found myself swapping to new equipment all the time, and each one opened up new opportunities to traverse these spaces in their own way. It makes the joys of exploration so satisfying, because you want to find all of the cool movement items, and once you get some powerful tech, you have a greater ability to explore the intriguing nooks and crannies that caught your attention before you could reach them.

Babbdi is a game about hope, longing, struggle, and the price of these things, and I highly encourage playing this game.

The most interesting things about Escaton are easy to miss. There are some interesting environmental details to pick up on that aren't immediately obvious, like how each of the figures you find is also represented in a painting inside the mansion, or how the painting by the lake changes after the horses rise from the water, reflecting the new state of the lake.

The sound design is also really good. The most unsettling moments in this game are carried by the audio, which genuinely got under my skin at points. It really helps carry the game's atmosphere.

If you want a vibe, this is an alright game to check out. The actual plot left me a bit confused. I think I follow what happened, but I am not entirely sure what it means, or what I as the player am supposed to take away from it. Pretty much all of the dialogue in the game is spoken in riddles about philosophy and existence, and that sort of writing can work pretty well in concert in a larger work, but for a short game like this I find there isn't quite enough to contextualize it. I didn't really get the writing, and even now its hard for me to remember the proverbs. I still enjoyed the game, though I think its strongest as a mood piece, or as an exploration in level design. Its worth looking into if you can snag it on sale.

Codenames is a fun game that really emphasizes lateral thinkers who can make unique connections between words, and risk takers who trust their team to put the pieces together. There's a lot of really interesting social play where you not only need to think of clues that connect many words, but also that your teammates would understand, and that also avoid drawing undesirable connections.

One of the arguable downsides of Codenames when compared to other multiplayer games is that you can't really do much actual communicating with the other players. The codemasters can't talk because anything they say could be seen as a clue, and often you don't want to talk when it isn't your turn as the guesser because you don't want to give ideas to your opponents. So, on the sociability scale for games that might be played at parties, this isn't very high. Where something like Secret Hitler forces interaction between all players, Codenames encourages (or for the codemasters requires) you to play all of your information as closely to your chest as possible. Strategically this lends the game a lot of depth, but it makes it slightly less appealing for some people who want to socialize with others during their games. Still, this is an undeniably fun time.

An all time classic social deduction game. It really is remarkable just how much great social tension and deduction this game can generate with such a simple ruleset. It's always a fun time with friends, and it's easy to see why it's so popular.

As a digital adaptation, Secret Hitler makes the jump perfectly. While physical pieces are nice, the core of Secret Hitler is in the socialization and deduction, and that is still present even without the physical pieces. The game works remarkably well, and this simple but effective adaptation makes it really convenient to play with online friends.