Disc Room

Another game from Devolver Digital, who's known for publishing at least okay quality indie games. The review scores for this are pretty good, but it's not a well-known game. It's Disc Room.

Disc Room is an interesting take on the bullet hell genre. Instead of enemies that fire bullets who you have to kill, the enemies essentially are the bullets, and you can't kill them, but have to survive for as long as possible. Most rooms have a goal of surviving for some 10 or 20 seconds, but they may also have a variation on that, such as the timer only going up while in a zone. There are also other goals, like dying to different discs, which there are almost as many of as there are different rooms. Completing goals unlocks new rooms, progressing the game. You will also unlock new skills (invulnerability frames, bullet time, etc.) as the game progresses, only one of which can be used at a time.
The rooms are quite short, depending of course on how well you can play, but the overall game time should be around 3-4 hours. After that, you can go for completing all goals, dying to all discs, or just going for a high score in each room. The difficulty also ramps up quite fast, so maybe you'll complete the first half of the rooms in an hour, and then spend three in the other half.

I like this bullet hell variation, and I think Disc Room was well executed in terms of the vision it had. I didn't notice any instances of the game being broken, or missing the mark on some of its mechanics or anything. However, I do think the vision wasn't quite as good as it could have been. While reasonably difficult, simply running around and dodging isn't the most fun gameplay. It's kind of repetitive, despite the large number of different discs, but at the end of the day it just boils down to not overlapping your player box with the enemy boxes. It's also kind of short, even if you did want to enjoy it for more than a couple of hours. And finally, many rooms have a greater or lesser degree of randomness in them, which can get really annoying in an otherwise heavily skill-based game.

So, overall, good execution, subpar idea, and too short. I wouldn't recommend it to most people, but if you're big on bullet hell games and/or chasing high scores in short bursts of gameplay, then maybe you'll find it fun while it lasts. Although to my knowledge, the randomness in this game may very heavily clash with the usual strategy of learning attack patterns in bullet hell games, so consider that.

Void Bastards

My initial impressions of Void Bastards were pretty positive. The graphics were stylized, some of the story was told through animated comic panels, the narrator was slightly humorous, and exploring unknown spaceships was somewhat exciting, as I didn't really know what I was going to find.
To elaborate, Void Bastards is an FPS roguelike about exploring and looting randomly generated spaceships. It reminded me a bit of Heat Signature if it was first person, didn't have time stop, and just had fewer features overall. See, I'm already getting into some pain points here, as Void Bastards very quickly fell off. Around the second or third spaceship, I kind of developed a general route I would take through the ship. Helm first, as that highlights the loot, and then just loot all the stuff that wasn't near enemies and kill a minimal amount as that only wastes weapons and health.
There are also some decisions on which ship to board next, based on what kind of items you're looking for, but at least as far as I got, that boiled down to just going for ships which unlock a new item, and don't lock me out of my overall goal. I'd say the worst was that there weren't any interesting decisions to make. Each weapon was mostly suitable for each level, so you'd just go with whatever you had ammo for. There were no major differences in strategy between ships, and rather obvious best picks for which ships to explore next. To top it all off, death was very inconsequential, as you kept all the items and upgrades you had, and only got new character traits and a fresh batch of ammo, food, fuel, and other consumables.

Despite the criticism, I wouldn't actually say Void Bastards is a bad game. It's well made, it's witty, and the gameplay is okay, but it's not good enough to carry the nonexistent meta progression. There's just far too little strategy, decision making, and personal improvement throughout the game. If you think you'll really like the core gameplay loop of looting randomly generated ships, evading some enemies, killing others, and you don't care about the lack of variety, then maybe you can enjoy it. Otherwise, I just can't recommend it.

Amid Evil

I really gotta stop even trying these retro FPS games. I don't like them, and I won't play long enough nor know enough about them to give a good review on them. But rules are rules - I played Amid Evil, now I gotta talk about it.

As I said, it's a retro FPS, even though it starts you off with a big melee axe. The graphics are low-poly, the textures are pixelated, and in my honest opinion, it not only looks like shit, it's very unapproachable, because it's difficult to make out the important parts of the game like where the enemies are. But hey, that's just the aesthetic they were going for. Can you blame them? I sure can.
The movement's the same, floaty jumping, running backwards as fast as forwards, and just generally hopping backwards to fight many enemies, just like Devil Dagger or what other popular retro FPS games there are. As I said, I'm not really knoweldgeable, sorry.
You have pickups for health and mana, which serves as your ranged ammunition, and then soul points which can make you hit really really hard for a while once you cap them.
There's different levels, different difficulty settings, and you're being timed, because as usual with these types of games, time matters. I've never been big on neither speedrunning nor timed challenges, so that's another pain point for me, personally.

Well, that's my really brief review of Amid Evil. It doesn't really say much about the game, now that I look back at it. To tell you of things that are not my personal experiences, but that may be more useful: The whole game takes about 10 hours to complete. It's one of the higher rated retro FPS games out there, and is by the same publisher that made Ultrakill and Dusk, which are supposedly a lot better. (I don't know why I didn't try those instead, but I won't anymore.) It's clear I didn't like it, but don't let that stop you. If you enjoyed the two previously mentioned games, Amid Evil's probably more of the same.

The Beginner's Guide

Well, that was a philosophical journey and a half. And a damn old one too, from late 2015. The Beginner's Guide was a far shorter experience than I had anticipated, at only 1.5 hours. To make matters worse for reviewing it, it almost entirely consists of spoilers. But I will do my best to skirt around the spoilers, and give an idea of what the game is about anyways.

The Beginner's Guide is a walking simulator, narrated by its creator. It features a bit over a dozen chapters, each of which is a tiny video game made in the Source Engine, and not particularly polished. You slowly go through them, listen to narrator, and maybe form some thoughts about it all at the end.
That's about as much as I can tell you, because really, there isn't much substance to these little games. I can tell you that despite the eerie atmosphere, there will not be any jumpscares - this is not a horror game. I can also say that I felt I saw through the game rather early, but then again, maybe the game wasn't expecting to fool anyone or everyone, and either way, it probably didn't matter.
Despite the little games being very non-stimulating, I felt the narrator kept me going through it, and it never lingered too long on any bit. Unlike other small, I dare say, experimental, games I've played - I think that while the content of the mini-games was significant, it wasn't important that it was what it was. It was more of a chosen example, to illustrate the ideas The Beginner's Guide was trying to convey.

This is already going in the direction of a philosophical dissection, which I really don't care to do, nor do I think I should do. While the narrative is about video game development, it can easily be interpreted to be about any kind of art. It is most certainly not a game for everyone, and I think that if you have pursued or wish to pursue any artistic field, you will understand the story a bit better. Whether you'll like it or not, regardless of the previous condition, I can not say. I can only say that it failed to really reach me. As much as I found open questions in this game, I felt I had answers for all of them, for myself. So, because I didn't personally enjoy it, and because I think the target audience is a bit niche in any case, I wouldn't recommend it.

Vaporum

One of the older games still left on my list - from late 2017 - it's Vaporum.

I'm going to be upfront - I did not give this game a fair try. It's basically Legend of Grimrock, which came out 5 years earlier, but worse. And Legend of Grimrock itself is a throwback to old RPGs, which I haven't played, but can only assume couldn't afford proper collision detection or such due to the technology of the time, and thus defaulted to having all combat and movement be on a grid. The entire game is exploring this pre-built dungeon (meaning little-to-no replayability). There's traps, there's small puzzles, and there'a a bunch of enemies. The enemies, once close enough, take an action every some unit of time, either moving closer to you, or attacking you. Mind you, despite the game being set on a grid, and enemies acting almost as on fixed ticks, the game is actually action-based. You (or your party, if we're talking about Grimrock) are generally faster than everything else, allowing you to abuse the tick rate and outmanoeuver the enemies, dodging their attacks by timing, while getting your own in.
There are of course also the usual RPG elements, such as collecting consumables, new items and weapons, levelling up, different skills, etc.

Now, while I only played Vaporum for about an hour, I have closer to a dozen hours in Grimrock, which is why I felt confident in abandoning the game so soon. I just dislike almost everything unique about it. The combat and movement systems of times past, used again here, weren't like that by design, but by necessity, I'm quite sure. It feels terrible, and that's not only because I think combining turn-based and action gameplay is a bad idea. I would much rather go on a one-on-one whacking contest with each enemy than do the tedious dance of maybe having to do three movements in quick succession, not fucking any up, before I could land a hit on an enemy without retaliation. It makes the combat drag on so, but is necessary to not run out of health and resources.
Also the puzzles are kind of lame, and finding little hidden buttons on walls isn't enjoyable in my experience. Vaporum especially didn't give me the impression that the dungeon was designed very well, and the production quality of everything from graphics to voice acting was a bit below the bar I'd like.

All-in-all, definitely not a game for me. For the most part, gameplay of the past should be kept in the past, and mixing genres doesn't end well, and I don't think Vaproum is an exception. Combine that with the not-great overall quality, and I have no reason to recommend it. Perhaps if you really liked Grimrock and are looking for more games exactly like that, because I don't think there's many of them around.

Unreal Life

You never really know what something's going to be like until you actually experience it. Unreal Life didn't seem like anything particularly special from its store page, but managed to strangely hook me in the first hour of playing it. It hooked me for the wrong reasons, but as I kept playing, I discovered other reasons to keep playing further, and despite a somewhat rough journey, I saw it through to the end.

Unreal Life is a story adventure game, which is to say it has no real gameplay to speak of. It's kind of like a point-and-click game. You pick up items and interact with the environment and the characters in it, but it doesn't really place much emphasis on making the puzzles actually difficult to solve or the way forward difficult to guess. I can't say I'm a big fan of busywork in the middle of my stories, but perhaps this quiet time helps some people process events that have already transpired, or helps grow closer to the characters, by spending more time with them. Of course, if this was written as a visual novel instead, I wouldn't be writing about it here, so my complaint is a bit paradoxical, but I do think some puzzle segments involved a bit more walking back-and-forth than most would be comfortable with.
Of note is a somewhat unique mechanic of being able to see the last prominent memory of inanimate objects. This was the mentioned initial hook for me, but I soon discovered that it's not really utilized much from the puzzle perspective.

It's not really important, but while I think the art and music were good, they had much more spirit than actual quality. Especially the art - some of the sprites were or had pieces that were nigh unrecognizable. Still, the overall composition and feel of all the visuals were fantastic and made up for the lack of quality.

Enough about the gameplay. You shouldn't come for that. You should come for the story. Unreal Life is a mystery about a girl waking up with memory loss in a strange world. There's a sentient traffic light, and animals can talk. Inanimate objects have memories, and doors can teleport. You know only you need to find a woman by the name of Sakura. Things don't make a lot of sense, and you're troubled by headaches as your memories slowly return, revealing bits and pieces of the mystery. Still, the inhabitants of this mostly empty world alleviate and help to come to terms with the traumatic things you remember and do their best to make you feel cozy despite the looming unease and dread.
I remember hearing from someone, many years back, that only young children and fully-grown adults can appreciate fairytales. Being in neither age group at the time, I couldn't ever see myself enjoying a fairytale again in the future. I still wouldn't say the statement is entirely true, but I think Unreal Life is something that a child could enjoy, while also being something that I enjoyed. Sometimes the story was just so simple and childish, yet I couldn't help but smile. I wish I could tell you more details about the story, instead of my emotions, but as with all stories, especially mysteries, that would spoil it.
I will say that the ending was a bit dissatisfactory, with a slightly forced conclusion, but I decided that it wasn't important. Much like the story tells you - it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. I felt a lot of happiness through it all, and a less than perfect ending wasn't going to take that away from me. But... perhaps you notice the few missing achievements after you complete the game, even after really going through every interaction. I would have no idea how to unlock them, but luckily, watching a 30 minute walkthrough showed me something very interesting... For better or worse, this game has a very hidden supposedly "true" ending. It's brief, but if you choose to acknowledge it, it changes everything. My feelings on the "truth" are conflicted, because on one hand, accepting it resolves my grievances with the regular ending, but at the same time throws away so much else I loved about the story. I know I'm being cryptic, but that's all I can say without spoiling anything. In any case, it's a very unique detail to add to a story.

To sum up the long ramble, Unreal Life is a wonderful story. It has its shortcoming in its execution, but I loved that it could make me appreciate some moments of childlike wonder, while telling a touching and serious story in the background. I would absolutely recommend it to fans of story-only games. I would also like to see these developers make more stories, hopefully smoothing out some of the rough edges next time.

UnderMine

UnderMine is an action roguelike where you dungeon crawl through a bunch of floors, each of which has a bunch of rooms. Most rooms have you defeating a bunch of enemies before you may leave, but some other rooms have a store, or a passive powerup (artifact), or some other event. You also get one slot for a potion, which is your one-time consumable, and some of the gold gathered during a run carries over to buy upgrades between runs. You have a melee and a ranged attack (but can't melee attack until your ranged attack has returned to you like a boomerang), and can dodge in the form of a jump which can also cross gaps.
There's also some other stuff, but that's most of it. If you've played anything like Binding of Isaac, UnderMine will feel very familiar.

Now, my problem is that UnderMine is a bit too familiar for how unimpressive it is. It's not a bad game. There's a good amount of content and upgrades and replayability, but it's pretty bland and not executed well enough to stand out. I've said it time and again, but if your game doesn't innovate, then it needs to be really, really good.
To just list some grievances: The jump feels very floaty, and it can be difficult to see where you're going to land. It doesn't let you reposition well, but gives you a very lengthy invulnerability period. The ranged attack feels a bit too strong compared to how small and risky a melee attack is. Potions, which are kind of underwhelming in terms of combat strength anyways, have you stand still for multiple seconds to activate them - often not feasible in combat. Every time anything drops gold, you have to play some dumb minigame where a bunch of slimes appear out of the walls to steal it and you have to get to it first or beat them off.

Overall, I don't have anything interesting to say about UnderMine. If you're a fan of action roguelikes in the vein of Binding of Isaac, and you just want a new one to play, UnderMine might well be worth your time. It's a solid game, but for me who's only a slight fan of the genre, it is neither unique nor of superb quality, so I don't really have a reason to recommend it over the many other games like it.

Supraland

I do not understand the positive reception of Supraland at all.
It's a game centered around exploration, solving puzzles, and collecting things, with some combat thrown in. I don't really know how to further elaborate on the gameplay, since it's not particularly remarkable. The exploration happens in an open world. Puzzles are largely physics-based, and collectibles are mostly coins, but also some power-ups. The combat is poorly done, with few enemy types, and weapons that are too powerful for the task. For example, the beginner sword just had no attack cooldown, allowing for effectively infinite damage.

It's not just the aesthetic, but I feel the game is designed more for children. The narrative, the world being a literal child's playground, the art style, the really simple and poorly written dialogue. I also found the art assets and visual design of the game to be rather basic. Add to that the fact that I'm not big on games centered around just running around and collecting things, and I just don't have anything positive to say about the game.
I mean, it's not that terrible, but I do feel the review score is too high even if I don't just consider my personal preferences. Regardless, whether this game is actually bad or I'm not just the right person to review it, I can in no way recommend playing Supraland.

stikir

I remember the developer of stikir. They also made Indecision, which was a similarly insane game. And I don't mean insanely good or anything like that, I mean completely absurd.
It's a short game, taking about an hour, and there isn't any amazing gameplay nor a real story, but it's an experience to play. It kind of defies description, being just this surreal and abstract thing, but still very much having elements of games in it.

Yeah, I don't know what to say about it. I think it's worth experiencing. It's short and relays its ideas in a rather rapid fashion so nothing overstays its welcome. If anything, things happen a bit too fast, but that just adds to the intentionally confusing atmosphere. I wouldn't say it's a "good" game, but, yeah, worth experiencing.