I didn't realize kestrels were so common in...

checks instruction booklet

...caves?

My Nana used to have a physical 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe board. Growing up, I used to think it was the coolest thing ever and would ask to set it up to play every chance I got. Sometimes my uncle would play with me. It was a little clunky, but I remember loving how the plastic boards were transparent and how the rods meant to keep the boards in-place kept falling over. Usually we'd play maybe one or two games and then I'd ask to play Chinese Checkers or Super Mario Land on my then-new GameBoy Pocket.

I have nothing to say about the Atari 2600 version of 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, but it was nice visiting memory lane.

I should visit my Nana. I love her. :)

I remember my mom getting this game for my younger brother when he was a toddler and I always wanted to play it. My parents are convinced that it was because I just wanted to play whatever he was playing at the time.

Nah. Reader Rabbit's Toddler goes hard.

I watched a "playthrough" of it, and like most games from my childhood, it looks a lot different from how I remember it. But it's still a cute "click with the mouse and stuff happens on screen" game featuring abc's, 123's, and coloring.

You can't tell me coloring doesn't rock.

Really all I wanted to do as a five-year-old was play computer games on my parents' Windows 95 and click on stuff with a mouse, and I had very limited access to games. Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System was a banger. Zoo Explorers ruled (it was bad). Pretty sure there was some game called "Waterworks" that just flat-out refused to work. There was a demo for some Tiny Toons Adventures game that my mom hated for some reason.

Reader Rabbit's Toddler worked. My bare-minimum requirements were reached.

I'll take it.

After getting a clutch goal playing as the slime girl in a funny bee costume on a team with my friends over voice chat, I've turned around a little bit on this game.

It's alright.

The emotes that are just jpegs of people's faces zoomed in are hilarious.

League of Legends soccer might not be my thing, but it's not bad.

I've recently developed a soft spot for PUNKCAKE Délicieux, developer and publisher of Shotgun King: the Final Checkmate, Antecrypt, and MoonPong: Tales of Epic Lunacy, after playing (and giving up on) Antecrypt in particular. I respect their consistency in releasing monthly games. They remind me of Sokpop Collective for similar reasons: small group, regular quick game release schedule, similar art direction in all of their games, and slapping ideas together to see what sticks.

After being exposed to tons of shovelware on Switch and Steam, it's nice playing these quick-idea games without feeling like I've been tricked.

I really liked playing Antecrypt, and I really liked playing MoonPong. They're both simple enough arcade-style games with interesting ideas that don't overstay their welcome. MoonPong, with its core gameplay of rotating a paddle around a circle to bounce a ball at enemies while preventing it from leaving the circle, strikes a nice balance for me between mindlessly zoning out while the moon bounces off of enemies and carefully planning where your paddle should be to prevent a game-over.

It's nice. It doesn't blow my mind or anything, but in a sea of long-term-cash-flow schemes and creative bankruptcy, I'll take "nice."

The NES version of Toobin' is cute and fun but, like most NES ports, it makes me want to try out the arcade version more than anything.

The funniest thing to me about this game is that tubing down a river is, as I understand it, supposed to be a fairly relaxing activity. I mean, you just sit in the tube. Even speedboat tubing looks exciting, and it is, but you're ultimately just sitting there. It's awesome. Meanwhile, our Toobin' protagonist is giving it all he's got just to get down the river. Awesome. I wish him the best.

Also, major shoutout to the digital guitarist doing the soundtrack to this game. Racing down the river, and this dude's absolutely just tearing ass on this guitar solo.

I really appreciate the way in which the power of incredible violence is utilized in this particular Kirby game. An overall excellent reference to Kirby's Dream Land reflected in both the simplicity of the gameplay revolving around exclusively inhaling enemies and spitting them back at other enemies, as well as a comparatively short completion time. Easy and intuitive enough for the most casual gamer to pick up and have immediate fun, but not so easy that it will put the average seasoned gamer to sleep.

One of the best bowling games I've ever played.

I look forward to experiencing yet more acts of incredible violence committed by our favorite lovable pink menace.

"The game is set in the mythical land of-"

I'm gonna stop you right there, bud.

The game is set in the mythical land of hell.

This game is fucking evil.

Ghouls are entirely responsible for the enemy placement and jump physics of this affront to nature.

If I ever stumble upon the lost city of Atlantis I'm just gonna fill it with bats.

An (aggressively) easy shmup for mobile devices. Navigating a shmup-style plane with a touch screen sucks. There are cute enough ideas in here, but I don't have enough patience to warrant giving them any of my time.

I tried this out simply because I canceled my Netflix subscription after realizing that I truly just don't watch shows on Netflix anymore, or shows in general for that matter. I figured since I have a couple weeks left I might as well try out some of their phone games.

It wasn't really worth it.

Poinpy is great though. If you have Netflix and a smartphone, play Poinpy. It fuckin' poinps.

Cute and simple. Simple art direction, simple plot, simple mechanics, but with just enough depth to warrant replays. It's got all the knights-and-magic tropes that you'd expect. A quick little adventure to save the kingdom or whatever. Classic video games.

I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to! I don't generally think "I might replay this one in like a year or something" with most games I play, and I do with this one.

Tinyfolks is a tiny little game and it gives me a tiny little smile.

Wow.

You wanna talk about a perfect port? This is it. Missile Command for the Atari 2600. It just works, and you've got different options to start at different levels if you want.

There's even a children's mode.

They made a difficulty for children. For Missile Command.

I love video games.

Yeah, I'm done.

When you get a treasure chest it shows you a spinning upgrade wheel while your prize money increases, just like one of those gross casino ads that shows up on reddit mobile over and over.

Play FLERP or one of the many other "bullet heaven" games instead. At least they don't explicitly look like an advertisement for a fucking casino.