Souls Like Strings

Feel the power of a petty bureaucrat

Why

• Makes inspecting paperwork somewhat interesting
• Plenty of fun little interactions to discover
• Tells some interesting stories (Jorji!)

Why Not

• Pretty hard to not lose quickly on Steam Deck/a trackpad without Easy Mode
• Difficult to play for long stretches

Impressions

Papers please is definitely an interesting game; if not a fun one. But I suspect that's by design. Every part of the game from the music to the washed out color palette, tedious document checking and arbitrary rules handed down from on high conspires to make you...

I've never had so much fun clicking sentences

Why

• Innovative (at least to me) detective gameplay
• Genuinely interesting mystery, delivered (almost) entirely through transcripts
• Surprisingly intuitive, no tutorial and it's not needed

Why Not

• You'll spend a lot of time staring at transcripts
• Only one mystery, I could definitely play a whole game of this

Impressions

I won't spoil the mystery, but essentially you're a traumatized old detective trying to pull together the details of her only unsolved case from the shattered pieces of her memory. There's a bit of dialogue at the start...

John Wick in watercolor

Why

• Every frame is a beautiful painting
• An emotional story supported by a stellar soundtrack
• A lot more 'gameplay' than Gris
• Movement and combat feel satisfying

Why Not

• You somehow hate the art style?

Impressions

This is the second game from Nomada Studio, the team behind Gris, another absolutely beautiful game telling an emotional story in watercolor. I really cannot overemphasize how beautiful this game is, the screenshots are impressive but still don't do justice to how it feels to play. If you were picky you could call Gris a...

Why

Why Not

Impressions

The best games I played in 2025, many of which were not released this year.

Honourable Mentions

Slay the Spire, which I put more hours into than Silksong (!?) this year, despite already having hundreds of hours in the Switch version.

Shady Part of Me for baiting me into playing a puzzle game with French voice acting and a cool art style.

Florence for getting me into short indie games with gameplay designed to elicit a specific feeling.

The List

10. Paradise Killer

For the PS1 era vaporwave vibes and charmingly sinister setting.

9. Inscryption

For breaking...