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Pyre is a fantastic journey with very tense and exciting realtime tactical "sports" combat, an intriguing story and some cool choices over the course of the campaign, which affects your progress and playstyles. The art style is fantastic and compliments the characters and this weird and original mix of a colorful and dark background theme very well, its just incredibly beautiful, solemn and polished. This is definitely one of the best games in the bundle, but it also might swallow you up whole as this isnt an affair you'll be done with in a single evening. Very wholesome and worthwhile package with characters you'll remember long after the game is over and a lot of fun to be had during the matches. 5/5

Everyone probably knows Celeste already, so this one is quick and short. One of the best platformers in recent memory with an engaging story/setting, some very well balanced progression with additional tough as nails challenges and a good pacing for new mechanics. Platformer with a strawberry shaped heart. 5/5

Easily the most popular game I looked at so far, Night in the woods is a thoroughly unique and intriguing slice of life adventure, observing a million different aspects about her life, the city and the pains of growing up. The game is almost painfully slow as you wake up and just go about your life every day with sorta normal scenes from "life". It all just feels very real though, as its written well and the characters are so well realized. I can easily see a lot of people getting bored by it, but man is it a special game that really doesnt come along too often. 5/5

I am madly in love with what this game is doing and its probably impossible to put that into words or a picture. At its heart its an action adventure that takes some structural queues from the Zelda games (It is NOT a Zelda game) and adds an insane amount of small touches to that formula, making it feel like an explorative adventure game with some basic combat. This game is lovely and ... mad. A village from the 14th century has randomly disappeared and you accidentally stumble into purgatory where that village has been preserved. You follow quests, explore the world and find secrets. What elevates this game above so many other games is its emphasis on giving the player agency and making him care about that agency. In addition to click and choose conversations, you have an old school type textbox to enter a command for an item/conversation. The dev didnt go all crazy with the endless possibilities, but what it does is making you care about every scrap of paper, every bit of conversation, because you know the game is hiding secrets that you can only unlock by reading, remembering and using that knowledge in the right place. And the game has quite a few of those secrets. This game has a good and varied soundtrack, looks a lot better in motion and tugs and pulls at your curiosity constantly and that is something really, really special that is still unfortunately very rare to find in video games. Probably in my top 5 games of the bundle. 5/5

Another amazing take on the Zelda games that takes Majoras Masks time limit to the next level. You have exactly 1 minute to save the world... until the world starts again and you have another minute with the items and knowledge you gained before. Incredibly smart game world design, cool ideas, a breeze to play and the only downside I could see before was a relatively short playtime for a relatively high price, but this game is unique and absolutely worth the money and minutes you spend on it. Worth it alone to marvel at the design ideas they used to realize the concept. 5/5

Another fantastic game that crept up on me out of nowhere. Your family has left and you are the last one in your old family home, passing your time and tending to your animals and farming your land, eagerly awaiting news from your family by the postman. Or do you not care and just wander out into the desert? Its an absolutely gorgeous and lovely tale of loneliness, happiness, loving the small things in life and also... the curse of frailty. I was expecting this game to be more of a simple ponderous affair, but there is much more to this blend of pondering and small, but fitting gameplay mechanics. I highly recommend exploring what this game offers and guiding this person along her path, whatever it may bring. Its guaranteed to affect you. Very life, very good. 5/5

Fantastic and unique narrative game with a lot more content than I would have expected that thoroughly had me on its hooks. You are an astrologist that is giving advice for a variety of issues and illnesses. The game almost works like a simplistic detective game in that regard. You can let the stars inspire you or just pick up on subtle hints from the clients story or possibly even research the most likely causes yourself and then watch the reaction on your petridish of history. All these stories are interspersed with absolutely amazing adapted theatre songs and then you figure out that its all based on a real person and even some of these clients were his actual real life clients. This is a marvellous tale of illusions, which had me interested in every single character. 5/5

Right when I started dreading every new Visual novel in my download list, a visual novel comes along with the most unique game mechanic I have seen in the whole bundle so far. Every conversation isdone through a small card game where you and your conversation partner back and forth match cards to each other. You start with a pack of cards symbolizing your previous experiences in life, travel the region and start to make new experiences, which in turn allows you to adjust your own deck. The way you internalize your experience then directly affects how your future self talks to other people, opening and blocking venues of conversation. Its an absolutely genius way to visualize the flow of human conversations. 5/5

I was already wondering when I'd step over a game that I absolutely want to give highest praise for that other people will have absolutely no idea what to do with. That time has now come. KIDS is equal parts interpretative dance, art, short film and interactive tool. For a big chunk of it, I had my mouth wide open and was not able to tear my eyes from it. I am still contemplating about the message, but I know that you all should try this. 5/5

We officially found the best RPG in the bundle. The closest I could thematically describe it as is a mix of Undertale and Earthbound. A mysterious force is corrupting the world and you and your shapeshifting powers are trying to take it back. Its a 30-50 hour RPG, has incredibly satisfying level up mechanics and a thoroughly unique world. I will definitely return to this to finish it. One of the biggest surprises so far. Its fun, original and probably the most entertaining classic RPG experience I had in ... ages. 5/5

Still one of my favourite Indies ever 7 years after its release. While its technically a puzzle game and the latter half of the game reflects that more thoroughly, the first half of the game is why I absolutely adore it. The game does not tell you anything, you are completely on your own to explore its mechanics and combination of different actions that makes this feel like one of the very, very few instances of a game that actually manages to convey that feeling of exploring alien concepts and mechanics. It is built around that idea and some initial confusion is intended. Just play around with its controls and observe patiently. 5/5

Amazing idea. Its an adventure where you are the hacker guiding someone else with your skills. The story is well written and genuinely interesting and the interactions you do as the hacker are varied, so you always find new ways and tools to exploit. This is mainly a text based adventure, so one example that I for now leave up to your imagination is how text based stealth works. It has currently 4 episodes that expand upon the ideas of the previous games as the devs quite apparently grow with their ambitious idea. Easily one of the most atmospheric games in the bundle that you will want to check out if you enjoy unique concepts. 5/5

I wanted to play this for a while and had no idea this is in the bundle. Absolutely fantastic exploration game in a truly postapocalyptic setting. By travelling through a black hole, you revisit earth 30.000 years or more after you left, long after humanity has tried to find a new life underground and eventually failed and died out. You are exploring those remains, nature that took back earth, and hostile dangers, while steadily increasing the capabilities of your little ship. Its a great setting, beautiful environments and very cool boss fights. Its not really a metroidvania as its more of a contemplative journey outside of its boss highlights, but due to its relatively tight structure and atmosphere its truly special from start to finish. 5/5

Genuinely one of the best games in the bundle. Its a top down adventure game in a world shrouded with darkness and you helping Niko on his journey to restore the light source of this world. The game starts relatively simple, but has quite a few surprises up its sleeve, just dive in and dont look back until you are done about 4 hours or so later. Likable main character, good writing, great world building and a few surprises to reward you with. Some puzzles are quite hard to figure out if you didnt thoroughly explore the world, so be observant. Similarly to other games we discovered in the bundle, there might be more to it than seems at first. Do not read anything about it. 5/5

Amazing. In a sea of zelda clones, it manages to iterate and invent a completely unique niche for itself. Its not one massive adventure, but rather a slice of adventure that you can relive multiple times, which will allow you play and experience the game in very, very weird and intentionally glitchy ways in sequential playthroughs with different maps or different rules. Not only does the story throw surprising beats that seriously intrigue the player to push forward (and I really dont want to spoil here), but the amount of replayability, randomly generated dungeons and modes (How about a whole game generated for everyone daily that you can compete with) and the resulting endless content make this a ridiculously great get from the bundle. 5/5

Hands down one of the best and certainly one of the most original and most stylish jump & runs I played in a long time. It easily combines brain melting visuals with challenging and varied level ideas that are equally challenging for your fingers and eyes and continuously amaze with new visuals and twists (ha) on the formula. A bit surprised there are no times/speed running options here as figuring out the mechanics is already amazing, but nailing the movement of a level into a perpetual motion is downright mesmerizing. It combines the best of twitch action games with platforming challenges wrapped up in an interactive piece of digital art. Downright amazing and jawdropping. 5/5

Gem of a game. Stealth action platformer that while having a very gradual difficulty curve really will task a LOT of you in later levels. Definitely not the type of game everybody will finish and I am honestly not sure I will be able to, but its a great blend of its stealth theme and precision platforming that makes it oh so incredibly rewarding to pull off that jump in between the electrical fances running toward you, before you switch to your invisibility cloak during your 1 second jump, so the patrol on the platform you land on cannot detect you. Very snappy, which is important as restarts are frequent. Art style works well and the soundtrack is great. Definitely play this if you are in for a challenge. 5/5

This is entirely way too beautiful and nobody knows what a special little gem is hiding here (27 steam reviews, what in the world). Its a unique platformer about a girl exploring her surroundings and every bit of the gameplay and presentation masterfully incorporates into the main story beats, message and theme of being a curious girl in a big world where everything might be a wonder to explore or danger to avoid. This game can be drop dead gorgeous when it mixes realistic surroundings with her imaginative view of the world, it is touching, has an amazing ambient soundtrack with an everincreasing amount of challenge (and more unlockable challenge levels), so you are forced to learn the intricacies of the movement system (it gets.. hard later on). It is a rare feat when every section, every new locale in a game feels like a reward in itself, this game is truly special. 5/5

Very cool metroidvania that you should all check out. The beginning seems par for the course for the genre, but the game revels in its theme and found some really innovative ways to incorporate that into the game and level design. You can turn back time to avoid a bad jump, sure, been there done that. You also see the projectiles of opponents before they shoot them. And then you figure out that the game throws diverging timelines at you, which act as fast travels, but you will also lose any physical powerups that you might have received on that timeline, only to combine this with its fantastic level design and upgrades that allow you to find those powerups again later on without needing to travel back in time (and can keep them now). And after all of this, the game nonchalantly throws another curveball at massive speeds at you after the intro which I wont spoil here. This is a tour de force in level design and probably the most original metroidvania I ever played. You will need quite a few hours to chew through this. 5/5

Well, holy crap is this good. Like seriously, seriously good. It looks like a fairly standard action platformer, but the developers managed to press the essence of what made those games fun way back when into a new casing that perfectly speaks to modern gaming standards with a ton of variety in each level, some really, really satisfying movement and combat mechanics and just overall great art style. I am honestly not sure if I could pinpoint another game on the spot that evokes the oldschool feeling of this genre better while also keeping it fresh and all around entertaining. It has a ton of levels that you will need a while to chew through and some smart design decisions with multiple difficulty levels and retries per level that subtract from your performance rating. Great, great game. These devs are insanely good and honestly would deserve being snatched up by a big Indie publisher. 5/5

This is frankly one of the best shmups I played in a long time. It has an original gameplay mechanic that you need to use to its fullest to get and decent score. Your ship attacks automatically, so you can focus on the movement and attack boosting. The closer you fly to to enemies and their bullets, the more energy you soak up, making more damage and charging your super attack. The individual levels all have very different features, the bosses are great, it looks drop dead gorgeous and you have diverging story paths depending on your performance. This is the real deal and the very definition of a hidden gem. 5/5

I regularly tend to be disappointed by games trying to invoke the Loco Roco style and charm because they never really instill that feeling of happiness and wonder that Loco Roco did and just seem like been there/done that affairs. Pikuniku is a very basic game. You can jump, kick and walk (and do a few other minor things with your legs), but it tells the story of a colourful adventure that will have you grin constantly. Its not a hard game, but the colourful characters and well paced, varied quests are transporting you back to a time when games were just ... fun and full of childlike wonder. I tip my nonexisting hat. 5/5

To no ones surprise, this game is one of the best action roguelikes with a good amount of stuff to unlock, secrets to uncover, challenging difficulty and very satisfying gunplay with a multitude of different upgrade options/gun options. I have a few smaller quibbles regarding its visual style that might lead to some motion sickness and I wish some parts (minibosses for example) were a bit more varied/randomized, but it doesnt take away from it being a great game. 5/5

This is indeed quite the refreshing story. It is basically "just" an interactive story, but the interactivity makes the characters feel so much livelier, the environment so much more real that its easy for you to dip your toe into the waters of these relationships and immediately feel a connection. Its not grand, its not bold, but its true. Its a nice short warm movie about characters you will all too soon miss already, which is an impressive feat. 5/5

Its a relatively short adventure about a ... hike. That might not sound too exciting, but its the definition of a well made lovingly crafted feel good game with a soothing soundtrack that will just give you nice things to see and experience all along its 2 hour runtime. Its cozy, heartwearming, adorable and frankly another game absolutely deserving to be experienced by everyone, especially now that you have it free from the bundle. The small pixelated but very welcoming interactions with other inhabitants of this cozy place make it almost possible to not like this game. 4,5/5

One of my favourite Indies the year it came out and I didnt even realize its in the bundle. The game is easy to explain: Its a an action puzzle platformer, with jello physics and a great soundtrack. You jump and sink into jello and using that to propel yourself towards the goal. Its well polished and an all around blast to play and you might be surprises how challenging the levels can become later with that seemingly simple concept. Keep playing if you enjoy the beginning, but wonder if its a bit too simple. Quite a few interesting ideas to come. Shame the game never got the attention it deserved. 5/5

Insanely fun arcade style action game that makes you feel like a badass slicing through bullets, shooting and air gliding through the levels. Oh yeah, and you can slow time too. The first bleed was fun, but they really ramped up your movement capabilities in a way that just navigating these worlds is stupidly fun. The bosses are extremely well designed and the game has a multitude of different modes such as random worlds and daily challenges. Pretty damn near perfect sequel. 5/5

This is the type of puzzle game I was really hoping to find in this bundle. It starts slow, introducing you to its world of sights and sounds (fantastic audio design btw), but then continuously ramps up its mechanics and difficulty that constantly leaves me in awe and curiosity which new mechanic this abstract puzzle journey game introduce next. No text needed, just pure experimentation. The basic premise is simple: Navigate to the exit in all 24 levels. The fun starts with the most simple mechanic of the game: You can move sideways, but to go up/down, you need platforms that you can move through. Then the game adds more elements that quickly make reaching that goal much more complex and rewarding. Lovely game with a zen like presentation that allows you to chill out and sink into a cloud of puzzles. 5/5