I've made my peace that I will likely never do everything in this game, but the amount I have done was one of the most unique and refreshing experiences I've had with a game in years. Slowly discovering how this shifting house works and scrawling notes that make me look like a madman transported me back to the days of playing Myst. This is a far more complex and ambitious set of systems at play that constantly had just one more layer to peel back resulting in what has to be one of the most narratively rich and layered puzzle game experiences.

An Immersive Sim directed by the guy who brought us Thirty Flights of Loving and Quadrilateral Cowboy? Yes, please! Condenses so much of the joy of an imsim into a short, sweet playtime that it's an easy recommend for any fan of the genre. It'll leave you wanting more, but I think it is well worth the cost and it gives you enough of an incentive to go back and replay levels that I can see myself easily doubling my initial playtime just to poke more at these levels and find all the little secrets.

I've never done drugs in my life but I think playing this game is as close as I want to get. I'm basically hooked on Cosmo D now and will need a regular dose ever couple of years in order to survive.

Doesn't surpass Hexcells for me, but I found it an enjoyable brain-burner for an afternoon. For these simple logic puzzles, I think that's all you need. A simple rule-set presented with Brown's signature style makes this a lovely way to spend an evening or afternoon. I say once you play through the Hexcells series, this is an easy recommend if you are craving more.

I spent so much time talking to Tom Francis about this game at PAX Prime one year and he just seems like genuinely a nice and funny guy and that comes through in his game design, so I may be biased in how much I love this game.

This game basically encapsulates having fun dorking around with dumb systems to make fun things happen, which I will always champion in games. If you like the idea of flinging yourself across a map into a guard and then punching them out excessively just because it's funny, you're in luck. Want to make it so when a camera sees you instead of triggering an alarm, it flings open a door into the guard's face? You can do that, too!

It doesn't overstay its welcome and I had so much fun I replayed the entire thing after I finished it, which I almost never do.

If you like the deduction of something like Minesweeper or Sudoku, this game is for you. I prefer it to both for a couple of reasons. I love that no matter what, you never have to make a blind guess. There's always a way to make a correct move based on the information you have. That simple elegance of design puts it above Minesweeper and I think this version is a bit more aesthetically pleasing and unique than Sudoku.

Disregard Hot Girl Summer, it's Pot Boy Summer!

Seize the means of production in this Marxist action espionage block-pushing title that mixes elements of MGS, Animal Crossing and the Idler genre. It's wild, it's crazy, it's the best thing I played in 2023. You need to play this game.

First off: had a few technical issues with freezing/crashing but fixed it by turning down shadows and going from ultra to high on most settings. I have a card that is a couple of years old so not a big deal for me. Game still looks great.

As for the game proper: it's a lot of fun and I think the core reason why is because this game forces you to become a master of the spaces. You have to come time and time again through the same areas and while that might sound tedious, the ways everything changes depending on time of day or how you manipulate the timeline means that you almost always come across something new or interesting.

The loop mechanic also encourages you to not spend too much time exploring. I think some people will make the mistake of trying to exhaust a map on the first couple of visits and this is not that kind of game, you are going to come back probably a dozen times to each map and you are sometimes just encouraged to go in, do one thing, and then move on. Try to do too much and you run the risk of overextending and dying from getting too greedy. In that way it captures the core tensions of a roguelite without some of the random BS that often plagues the genre where you feel like you were put in a no win situation. The circumstances and behaviors are predictable and you can manipulate them all but the more you try to do in a day, the more you open yourself up to dying.

I'm still not sure who the target audience of this game is for. As an immersive sim fan, it tends to lean away from some of those elements for the more roguelite sense of progression. It's also more of an action shooter than probably any other game in the genre. As an Arkane fan, I like it a lot as well but I can see people who really loved the meticulous, clockwork designs of Prey and the Dishonored levels not digging the more fast and loose design of Deathloop.

I think the issue is that Deathloop is really trying to strike out on its own and innovate in a way a game of this size and budget typically doesn't. Dishonored is modern Thief, Prey is modern System Shock, Deathloop is just Deathloop. I admire the bravery of the design here and personally think it's great but I'd get anyone saying that it didn't click for them. The game takes some big risks and I think that means some people are going to bounce off hard from this game.

Not only the best Cyberpunk game of 2020 but also the best 2020 game about 2020.