A super quick puzzle game where you guide two friends as they circle around tiny islands to reach the top of the hill at each one's center. I say "guide" because the characters act on their own set path; you control time, pushing them forwards and backwards as they continue on whatever path they choose. You can have them interact with a few objects that may cross their path, and this will affect the paths they choose. A god simulator writ small? A spiritual successor to Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons? This was a clever concept that may be too slight for some to care about but The Gardens Between worked just fine for me.

Perhaps my favorite game of all time; I admit The Witness is not perfect (the audio/video logs in particular) but I love so much about it that I don't really care. The gist of the game is that you wander around solving line puzzles on grids scattered across a mysterious island, simply navigating a path from a starting point to an ending point over and over again. But there's so much more at play here- without any words, guides, or any other form of gameplay, The Witness teaches you the rules for different styles of puzzles, further and further refining them as you go- asking you to think critically about the world around you, combining the rules in interesting ways, and respecting you enough to not hold your hand outside of a very brief introductory tutorial. The Witness is challenging but (almost) always fair. You have free reign to wander around the entire island, solving puzzles and unlocking even more puzzles, so whenever you're stuck on one you're welcome to walk away to some different part of the island and try something else until inspiration strikes. Out of the 600+ puzzles here only a few of them absolutely must be beaten to finish the game, but once I beat The Witness I immediately wanted to go back and solve some more. A friend of mine has criticized the lack of plot in the game- there's so many little hints at a story that are never assembled into a real narrative, but this didn't bother me at all. The Witness is a testament to the joy of discovery and incredible game design, and a tacked on storyline would have gotten in the way of you and your thoughts (hence my dislike of the few hidden audio logs you can listen to).

For anyone debating playing The Witness, I beg you don't get frustrated enough to consult a walkthrough. It will never feel worth it and even the hardest puzzles can all be figured out with enough patience. I also suggest playing with a friend, and try bouncing some ideas off of each other. Even long after I beat The Witness, I had a blast watching my friends play the game and giving them the gentlest nudge in the right direction when they struggled. Watching other people have the "A-ha!" moments I had was nearly as fun as experiencing it for the first time.

I liked the Harvest Moon series back in the 90's but it's shocking how one guy was able to make the definitive game of the genre on his own. The farming/mining/fishing/upgrading gameplay that makes up most of Stardew Valley is addicting, sure, but what really sets this apart is the incredible attention to detail. The town you move to feels alive, with periodic holiday celebrations, dozens of characters with their own storylines and motivations, and all sorts of little side tasks to work into your daily tasklist and keep you busy for many in-game years. I put this down when I reached the "ending" but I'm ready to pick it back up soon to check out some of the later-game content.

So much is done right here. If you're a fan of the Alien franchise and want to feel like you're in the movies, Alien: Isolation absolutely delivers. The Sevestapol station, all grimy and run-down feels perfectly at home in the Alien universe, and the alien is sufficiently terrifying. My only real gripe here is that the game simply goes on far too long without having a good reason to. You go on fetch quest after fetch quest for 20+ hours when a shorter game with better designed missions would have been more effective. The individual encounters are scary, sure, but over the course of the game, as I played on hard, the alien killed me hundreds of times and the effect wore down from "shock and terror" to "anger and frustration." Unless you're a masochist I will go against the grain and recommend playing this on a lower difficulty.

I'll say this for Fractured Minds- I can think of no better way to farm for Xbox achievements. 1000/1000 completed in about 20 minutes, and the game itself isn't terrible. 6 quick levels completely designed and programmed by Emily Mitchell, a young woman dealing with mental illness, trying to demonstrate how that feels. It pulls off a few neat tricks, my personal favorite coming after maybe 1 minute of play time. But there's just not enough here to make much of an impression unfortunately. I'm curious to see what Emily could pull off with some more resources at her disposal, as this almost feels like a first draft of what could be a much better game.