yesterday i felt like i should really get to some of the stuff in my backlog, there's tons of stuff sitting there that i would have a great time with that i really have no excuse not to play. so what did i do? i replayed the game i had already played 4 or 5 times instead.

usually when i play a game too much, get really familiar with everything about the game, i start to see its cracks more clearly. i might cool down on it a bit. i guess that happened with Hyper Light Drifter, but only in that it went from my absolute favorite game to just a solid top 10. this game does everything that matters very, very well. the aesthetic and presentation alone could carry the game - the visuals are phenomenal, the music isn't something i'd usually go for but it perfectly fits into the game, and everything comes together to create a perfect atmosphere for just about every area. the gameplay has flaws, but is well designed, with the combat the highlight. there are certainly a few issues, bugs and things mostly, but they don't really detract from everything the game does great. my single biggest issue with it is occasional input inconsistency, which can turn one attack into another and throw you off if it's a particularly intense fight. apart from that infrequent issue, the combat is just about the best i've ever played. the harder fights can get pretty damn hard, but they feel great to master. challenging fights aren't even something i usually care much about in games, but something about HLD's combat just perfectly clicks for me. it's pretty simple at its core, but variety in enemy design gives plenty of depth to encounters. gameplay outside of combat mainly involves exploring the ruined, decaying world, searching for secrets. there are some non-combat challenges, mainly focusing on precise sequences of dashes. these are, to be honest, the weakest part of the game, made worse by the rare input dropping. the longest of these challenges is inconsistent enough that the 99% category is much more popular among speedrunners than 100%. however, none of these dash challenges are required to beat the game, and are only necessary if you really want that 100% achievement. for the most part, you're just wandering around, getting in fights, and finding hidden passageways, and the game is great for all three of those things.

Hyper Light Drifter, even after i've played it over and over and found every single flaw, remains one of my favorite games. i'm really excited for Solar Ash and, unless that turns out to be a huge disappointment, i'll probably throw my money at whatever the developers do after that as well.

also um it turns out there's gonna be an HLD animated show by the castlevania guy? not sure how i feel about that

this is legitimately one of the best trans coming-of-age stories I've ever read/played/watched. i've found most media about trans experiences is either kinda preachy stuff made for cis people (honestly does need to exist, but is boring as a trans person) or obscure stuff made for trans people (often quite good but also often kinda opaque to cis people). If Found... occupies an ideal and disappointingly rare middle ground, presenting a deeply heartfelt and personal trans narrative without either dumbing it down for or alienating the majority of the audience. it doesn't waste time explaining basic shit about being trans (although it does have explanations about Irish phrases and society). there aren't a whole lot of details i can give without spoiling everything, but this is a beautifully emotional story about a bunch of queer young adults.

the use of the medium seems odd at first, like maybe it should've been a comic, but as everything comes together the way the mechanics fit the story becomes more obvious and it feels perfect as a visual novel. i have heard complaints about the erasing mechanic being tedious - honestly, i can see how that could be an issue with a mouse, or especially a controller. it works really well with the touchscreen on Switch, though, and i imagine on iOS or a Windows tablet as well.

cool little experimental game that makes some very interesting design choices. i would say it's worth the few dollars, but now that it's the 2nd the only way you can get it is piracy (which the developer appears to be fine with).
it's a difficult platformer with weird and slippery but fun physics. i can't say whether this is just me being bad at platformers or what but the hardest room took me about an hour to get both of the keys in it. it's not very long even if you're trying to get every key possible, though. someone who plays more 2D platformers than i do would probably have more to say about that aspect of the game; i just know it works quite well.
the real interesting part is the hacking system. to use any save point, information board, or certain doors, you need to "hack" them. this grants you temporary access. if you want to make that permanent you can use the "mine" command - the thing is, though, that makes it harder for everyone else who plays the game to hack that object. i played late in the day yesterday and there were already around 10 owners on average per object, and it's just gonna get worse. that is, unless you decide to forgo the benefit of permanent access to help everyone else out. it's a simple but interesting exploration of acting selfishly vs altruistically. i would say there's a lot of further room to explore this concept, but with a bigger or more complex game it would kinda just make for a miserable experience for people who didn't play early. with Cruel World, the whole thing is short enough that other people's greed doesn't add enough difficulty to make it unenjoyable. the mechanics are simple enough that even if the tutorial board got to like 100 owners it wouldn't be too hard to figure them out by playing.
if what you're looking for is simply a platformer, there's probably more interesting (and easier to obtain) stuff out there for you, but if you're interested in a cool little experiment in design, i would highly recommend Cruel World.

edit: it's available again (that didn't take long lol) and it's been updated

the weird counterpart to Bernband. very similar in some regards - you're aimlessly exploring an alien city, in which you come across a few bars, and you can see your character's hands. very, very different in other regards, though - Bernand is a very stylish game, very impressively immersive especially for a small indie game, while Hernhand seems to deliberately avoid any sense of good style, and is kind of outright hostile to immersion with its weird graphics and clumsily-placed objects. i don't mean that in a bad way, i love my weird ugly surreal games, it's just definitely a very different aesthetic experience than Bernband. the reason I'm giving this a lower rating isn't that, but mostly that the weird alien city you explore in Hernhand is much smaller, and an essential part of why i liked Bernband was getting lost.

very fun colorful 3D platformer with a catchy soundtrack. you jump between floating islands and shoot baddies, trying to get a fast time and 100% accuracy. it's simple, but challenging, especially the later levels. when you finally master a difficult level it's incredibly satisfying. there are a few major complaints i have:
-there are various mechanics to pressure or force the player to move fast, and that's great, but in many cases they're redundant.
-i understand why the developers chose not to give you a crosshair but i still don't like it.
-the fog introduced in the 4th world adds very little to the game and just makes it less fun, and in a few cases hides targets so you have to know where they are to shoot them before even seeing them.
despite those issues, the basic formula is just so good that the game is extremely fun and engaging anyway.