A rare free game for the Playdate that doesn’t come from the seasonal catalogue, Recommendation Dog!! is the fast-paced brother of Root Bear in spirit and function, though noticeably lacking any delicious puns in this instance. I guess the developers just wanted you to be a dog with a job for some reason, fair enough I suppose. Where they substantively differ is in the details.

Recommendation Dog!! is more about pure speed and image recognition, with you trying to match prospective customers with a suitable worker for their problem as fast as possible to serve as many people as you can before the time is up. From starving customers in need of a chef, to people who just want to see some magic tricks, the rolodex of workers you’re given to search in order to fulfill as many clients’ needs as possible makes for a dizzying list of characters.

Besides that, it’s not so different from your typical score-chaser. It has a “story mode” that is extremely easy and over before you know it. The length is fine, but for a title offering such an inconspicuous challenge it should have been much tighter on the required timing of each level. It has an endless mode as well of course. I wasn’t nearly as drawn to spend too much time on it for this game. When the game’s difficulty is only capped by raw hand speed, I can only get so much better before I’ve had my fill. Still, for a free title I would say it’s a decent one.

Reel Steal is a vertical progressing, height-based platformer where you control your thief character as you smash and grab loot from rich moguls and magnates to get back at them. You start from the top of the level - the building you’ve infiltrated - and by using the crank you control your descent, and once you’ve grabbed the loot, your ascent too. The one kink in the design for me is the perpetual horizontal strafing your character is forced to do at all times. The idea is for you to wait until your character is lined up just right to continue your descent into the level, or if you’re an impatient person, to use the face button to manually change your direction of movement at any time.

At no point are you given the ability to be completely still. Even when you are changing your movement direction you are always in motion. While this adds some intended challenge, the ergonomics of the handheld makes for an uncomfortable hand position if you want to use the crank and have constant access to the face button at the same time, at least for me. This usually meant unless I was feeling particularly impatient, I just waited for my character to loop around the right direction. The time loss was negligible for a game like this, but even still, with all things being equal I think forgoing the forced horizontal movement altogether would be a more satisfying choice. To compensate they could just elaborate on the trap and level design.

The levels themselves I found as endearing as the characters. Short bursts of simple platforming that wouldn’t be out of place on the homepage of coolmathgames.com, if anyone remembers that oasis that every middle schooler lauded. The campaigns are thematic, with repeated replays encouraged with small tweaks and new character abilities. I did it only twice, but I can see myself returning at some point. My favorite little detail though has got to be the option to leave a customizable calling card at the end of every level. It’s like a cursed etch-a-sketch that challenges your creativity and dare I say artistic capabilities. I love little bursts of character and flavor like that. As small as an aspect as that is, it’s the kind of thing that sticks with you when you think of the game.

Another thing that sticks with me is the perplexingly low ratings from other users. Beside the one issue I find with the control scheme, Reel Steal runs and plays like a charm. I’m a subscriber to the different strokes for different folks mentality, but I don’t want it left unsaid that this game isn’t earnest in what it’s trying to do. Given that it’s one of the handful of free games for the Playdate, there’s really no reason to not give it a chance.

I’m a bit embarrassed to rate this game as high as I am, but I just can’t resist when it’s Snake 2.0. And it is most definitely 2.0. The basic idea is that instead of the traditional Snake rules we all know and love, you can now jump over yourself and even ride yourself to prevent death and gain more snake length space. The catch is, mean little apples spawn outside the perimeter of the area, who are intent on taking a bite out of the snake this time. They’ll latch onto you and ride upwards towards your head, resulting in a game over if they reach it. To prevent this, you can jump on your back with clever positioning and jump-timing, allowing you to eat the homicidal apples right off of you.

There’s some different speeds you can choose to lower or raise difficulty, but regardless of what you choose you start at a moderately long length. Something I’m unique in not minding it seems. To me, the first few snake lengths are filler seconds that are negligibly difficult, so to short circuit that downtime isn’t such a massive lost. However, an option to outright choose starting length would be killer too.

Classic games like these are what I love to see being reinvented on the Playdate. Short, non-intensive ventures that already have wide recognition and at least a modest amount of fondness from the general public. The profitability might be low, but that’s what makes it such a great candidate for the seasonal catalogue. Personally, I would have been fine paying a couple of dollars no problem, but they made the smartest move to get more people on board and acquainted with the concept. Hopefully this trend of putting small spins on 90s Windows games continues. Next up, Minesweeper! Who’s with me?

I’ve not yet played it myself, but apparently El Huervo, the artist for this game, worked previously on Hotline Miami. And from all that I’ve seen, that makes more sense than the sun rising in the morning. By far Ultros’ biggest boon, the art style is absolutely gorgeous, with its sunbaked colors and sharp accents. The neon mosaic of a living sarcophagus adrift in space is an ethereal experience that, to make an early prediction, is a promising early contender for most visually stunning game of the year. If I were just grading the game on that I’d be a different story.

Sadly, the story feels like an experiment to say as few things in as many words as possible, which is weird considering your character doesn’t even talk. It becomes clear early on that Ultros is one of those metaphorical, lore-heavy games that requires a fair bit of reflection and time(line)-keeping to get in order, much less understand. I tried to hang on to every word said, but about an hour in I gave up on caring what the game had to say about metaphorical rebirth space-mumbo jumbo. I would say it made me feel like an idiot, but I challenge anyone not obsessed with the game to make any sense of the lore in Ultros. On its own the characters you meet are interesting and mysterious, shout out to my boy Gardner who’s just a chill dude doing what he does best, gardening. I think if they just left it there, with a kooky cast of characters that you meet and sometimes fight for first dibs at zoning privileges, it would be a charming story not unlike something like Undertale. As it stands, the cryptic monologues just didn’t do anything for me.

As the name Gardner suggests, planting and watering flora plays a significant part in healing yourself, fighting enemies, and traversing the living landscape. While the possibility of planting the wrong seed at the wrong spot exists, re-planting is made easy and non-punishing. Typically, when you plant a new seed, some time is necessary for the plant to grow to its full size if it’s a platforming shrub. A feature most evident in the rebirth mechanic that occurs every time you defeat a new section of the map, sending you back to where you first spawned and taking away your upgrades. On that aspect I’m lukewarm, since when I regained my skill points I usually just rebought the best upgrades over again. The idea is to experiment with new abilities and try out different skill sets, but with almost half the abilities falling squarely in the convenience category, I didn’t bother exploring too much. Conversely, I quite enjoyed the gardening angle. It’s a bit hard to keep track of what’s where when it’s a Metroidvania, but they sold me on the idea, however novel it may be.

The soundtrack was diverse, with traditional orchestral motifs and otherworldly moans interchanging throughout the winding tunnels of the ship. While I’m more privy to the weeping violins, I could appreciate the more haunting, abstract tunes as well. Fun fact by the way: composer Oscar Rydelius actually obtained a fair bit of the sounds in the score during a trip to Peru, including from ambient landscapes and indigenous instruments, which when pitch-shifted definitely fits the vibe they’re going for here.

And yet the weaving of all these cool, unique aspects can’t help but make it apparent how generic the world and movement is. You get gadgets, but none of them really stand out as particularly creative or fun. Even as far as Metroidvanias go, this one feels extremely linear. Twice did I have to look up how to progress further, as seemingly all points of entries into further areas were blocked off or otherwise restricted. If you’re going to make an ultra-dense Metroidvania that’s fine, you simply have to keep in mind that it should be tailored to all orders of progression. The last thing I want to do is go back and forth jump-hugging a wall in hopes that I can break the game into submission.

Now if more sections were like my favorite area of Ultros, the weird pirate game show section, where you play silly sports contests against various aliens, then I’d likely be singing a different tune altogether. It’s cheeky, and wacky, and unfortunately the only memorable section of the game that doesn’t involve running from Qualia, another character in Ultros. Next time, less filler and more killer. While my time was still positive overall, I can’t help finding myself somewhat disappointed with what we got. Unless you’re a hardcore Metroidvania fanatic AND in love with the style like me, maybe just stick to finding a neat wallpaper inspired by the game and giving a listen to the soundtrack.

In many ways, West of Dead is simultaneously the antithesis of AND the perfect model of the roguelike dungeon crawler. You got your consumables, different realms, rapid game reloads, short sessions meant to be replayable, and procedurally generated levels. I think what most sets it apart from your Hades or Enter the Gungeon is its particular emphasis on slower combat.

You learn this very quickly.

Instead of being "encouraged" to use cover generously, you’re all but forced to even in the first underworld area. When cover is destroyed our outside arm’s reach, you also have access to your main proactive defensive maneuver, the dodge. Your savior and condemner. This floaty dash is very inconsistent in its ability to actually dodge incoming shots. Try to use it only when necessary. While you can and sometimes have to spam it in swarm scenarios, I find it’s even less consistent in its pathing and distance you gain from using it when spamming the move.

So long as you can adjust your expectations for a slower, more methodical experience, you can enjoy yourself plenty with the combat, jank and all. In fact, the game is quite easy. I didn’t die once before I was already at the end in a minuscule four and a half hours. The only difficult sections - excluding getting used to the cover movement - was the final boss and the preacher, and the latter only because of his gargantuan health pool and seemingly neo-like ability to dodge your shots. Since it’s a roguelike you can obviously keep playing for more secrets and upgrades, but honestly? I had my fill by the end of my first session. In a pure dollars to hours exchange, West of Dead probably isn’t that great of a deal, but I didn’t regret my time with it at all. Luckily, I got it on sale, and so should you if you have any intention of playing it.

Also, as a side note: It’s odd how frequently I incidentally play games that are roguelikes or Metroidvanias, with this one being one of the former. I don’t know if that speaks more to my not looking into prospective games deep enough or just the prevalence of those genres, or both. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s just funny how many titles from those genres I’ve played without knowing ahead of time. But I digress.

The procedurally generated maps here are much smaller, refreshingly small in fact, and are well designed in the sense that it makes you feel like you’re outside while still in actuality being in dank, claustrophobic rooms better suited for close-quarters gunplay. There’s little to no backtracking, and realms take less than an hour to clear.

And while the game is blink and you’ll miss it quick, it will at least be a visually stunning time for the night it takes you to beat it. The comic book art style is undeniably the biggest beacon of awesome West of Dead possesses, and what I’d wager is the largest draw the game has. One that I’m afraid has caused a lot of unfortunate expectations, like the assumption that the depth is as good as the art direction. And I admit that as someone who is in the 90th percentile of people who played and actually enjoyed the title. Even I can agree this is missing some much-needed variety in the gun and tactics department. That said, I certainly had a better time than Ron Perlman did, who appeared to have been threatened at knifepoint to provide the VO for the main character for the game. Which is a shame, because he really is a great choice for the role.

To anyone considering buying West of Dead the two roadblock questions I’d ask would be: are you ok with a shorter, easier adventure than most roguelikes, and are you content with this being a cover shooter focused on methodical gunplay? If both of your answers are yes, then the game isn’t such a hard sell when it’s discounted. Otherwise, I’d steer clear.