Disco Elysium is a fantastic, nihilistic, depressive but also encouraging role-playing game that completely avoids classic combat and draws you deep into a familiar yet unknown world. It draws heavily on real customs, countries, languages and even racial stereotypes but wraps it all up in new names and places. In most cases, this creates the pleasant strangeness of an uncertain fantasy world. Occasionally, however, the flood of unknown nations, names and ideas in never-ending dialogues can be quite exhausting. And while we're at it: There is a lot of talking. I mean a loooooot of talking. So if you're mainly looking for action, you're definitely in the wrong place. With The Final Cut version, however, the game now also has a superb voiceover, so we no longer have to read pages and pages of dialogue. The dubbing is one of the best I have ever heard in a video game. Especially the inner voice of our protagonist alone would be award-winning in my opinion. But in general, all the voice actors and actresses do an excellent job of portraying the incredibly diverse and varied cast. From the grumpy barman to the sly chairman, old truck driver lady or a bratty child. Listening to them is usually fun, even if the content sometimes varies. There were times when I thought to myself "Come on, get on with it" and read faster than the character spoke in order to click next. Compared to the game as a whole, however, this was a rarity. The dialogues, like the voice acting, are of an incredibly good quality. It's just a pity that the dialogue tree has a small shortcoming, namely that higher-level selections remain "greyed out" even though a new option underneath has been unlocked through new discoveries. But what is Disco Elysium actually about? We are a party animal of a detective who should be investigating a murder but has lost his memory. A role-playing game couldn't start in a more clichéd way. But the development of this party animal draws you in so much, makes you feel excited, make supposedly good decisions, make "Now more than ever!" decisions and want to know more and more about who we actually were, are and could become. And the run-down town of Revachol doesn't make it easy. Fortunately, we get the sympathetic detective Kim Kitsuragi from another Precinct to help us with advice and support. In my opinion, the chemistry between these two alone makes the game worth playing. The gameplay consists mainly of dialogues, gathering information for further dialogues and... Dice rolls. And oh boy... I got strong X-Com flashbacks here. Because at least in my playthrough, I completely messed up a lot of >70 rolls. Fortunately, there don't seem to be any soft locks in Disco Elysium and even if a failed dice roll hurts for a moment, it still advances the story. And that's exactly what makes the game so charming because we do our best and live with the consequences. Here I would strongly advise you not to save scum because that defeats the purpose of the game. And this theme of "it is what it is" runs through the whole game with its depressive undertone. We chat our way through the districts of Revachol (with a semi-successful fast-travelling system that forces us to go to one of three points before jumping to another), learn more about the world, the murder, the parties in the city and ourselves level up our skills and listen to the fantastic soundtrack. Which is also great and emphasises the game with its melancholic and sombre tones (except for that damn tent in which I couldn't hear myself think!). I can only advise you not to get too attached to the murder case. Because this is basically just the hook for the game. I made the mistake of finding the end of the game very disappointing. It's better to accept the long journey of self-discovery, self-knowledge and healing. That way, this almost masterpiece of an RPG is completely open to you.

Level Devil is a neat little browser game to enjoy for about 40-60 minutes. What's great about it is not the graphics or even the level design because both are rudimentary. A black little guy, mostly the same coloury backgrounds and everything is blocky and pixely. In fact, Level Devil reminds me a lot of "This is the Only Level". The logic of the game changes constantly making you rethink as quickly as possible. Sometimes you jump high, sometimes you are slow, sometimes you ARE the goal. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Kaizo Mario style mean tricks played on you like disappearing grounds or suddenly appearing spikes. Most of the time you simply cannot react fast enough forcing you to start again. Because of the bite-sized levels, the frustration doesn't get all too high (but it's there). But it is free, it is short and if you are a fan of this style of game then what are you waiting for?

After Animation Arts proved with the great Secret Files series that they are in no way inferior to the great developers of the 90s when it comes to globe-trotting point-and-click adventures, they have taken the final step towards Indiana Jones with Lost Horizon. The setting literally cries out for it with the period of the Third Reich, including Nazis and locations like Hong Kong, Morocco, Germany and Tibet. Many scenes and story beats could have come from an Indy film or game in one way or another. However, Lost Horizon never seems like a blunt copycat but takes the excellent original as its inspiration. We travel across the world to stay one step ahead of the Nazis and protect the powerful artefact from them. Whereas the wonderfully designed backgrounds shine, the character models appear somewhat stiff and clumsy. And in most cases, the drawn portraits that appear during dialogues don't really match the character models. But for a point-and-click game, that's really complaining on a high level because ultimately it's all about the story and the puzzles. The latter are mostly standard fare (although there are a few exceptions that are slightly out of line). But in the end, Animation Arts freshens up the game with a gameplay twist that I don't want to spoil here. Lost Horizon is definitely a game for point-and-click fans, Indy enthusiasts and adventure seekers.