Short "peaceful, relaxing" indie 2D platformer with visuals that nicely combine hand-drawn 2D backgrounds with cel-shaded 3D models. Unfortunately, the level design isn't particularly interesting, and the platforming and general control feel awfully clunky, which becomes a bigger and bigger problem as timing-based elements take greater precedence further in; this isn't exactly Celeste, to be sure, but it's frustrating in ways I can't imagine the developers intended, and is more than enough to keep me from finishing this one. try it on deep discount, maybe

I would not have thought to ask the question "what if A Short Hike were about a child running around pretending to be Link in Breath of the Wild?", but I'm sure glad the developers of Lil Gator Game did. An unbelievably charming small-scale open-world exploration game with BOTW-inspired traversal mechanics (climbing on any surface with an upgradeable stamina meter, a glider, a shield you can surf downhill on), writing that's genuinely endearing in its depiction of childhood and growing up without coming across as overly affected, and an open world that's just the right size and density for it to be fun to explore without much in the way of navigational aids. The only reason I didn't give this a perfect rating is that I occasionally wished for more mechanically involving quest design (they usually don't involve much more than talking to one character or easily collecting/smashing a nearby item) or more bespoke platforming or puzzle challenges to make full use of the traversal toolset, but those are ultimately fairly minor complaints given how delightfully compact an experience the rest of the game is.