Some Games I Played in 2025 and 2026

This page combines 2025 and 2026 because I have very few games to write about for 2025 - not a great gaming year for me, unfortunately! 2026 will be updated throughout the year - at least I hope so.

2025

new-to-me games

Slender Threads (2025)

As I wrote in my 2023 game recap, the demo version of Slender Threads was one of the highlights of that year for me and I was excited to play the full game. Well, having played it now, I can say that I had a great time! Set in 1930 (I assume; the year is never explicitly stated, but one character mentions that Pluto has recently been discovered), this game is about a travelling salesman/aspiring writer who arrives to a peculiar small town and ends up being involved in some spooky goings-on.

Is this game in any way groundbreaking? No. Does it offer a new and unique take on adventure games? Not really. Was it a solid point-and-click adventure game and a damn good time? ABSOLUTELY YES. I feel like the word _solid_ describes it best: it’s just consistently good on all fronts. The graphics and the atmosphere were my favorite parts of the game. The town had a unique flair to it, as did the character design. The plot was good overall and had a couple of nice twists. The puzzles weren’t too hard and didn’t rely on moon logic as far as I can remember. The map of the town was expansive with a lot of locations to explore (though some of them were under-utilized, in my opinion) and clearly a lot of heart put into it. My one minor complaint was that the hints in Harvey’s notebook weren’t very helpful sometimes.

demos

upcoming releases

Imperial Grace

This is a fantasy visual novel/otome game where you play as a new empress of a fictional medieval-inspired country. You have three possible love interests (two men and one woman) which doesn’t seem like a lot, but there’s actually lots to do in this game that isn’t about the romance, judging by the demo alone. You allocate resources across your kingdom which influences the gameplay, and you make lots of other story choices – people from all over write to you for help and you have to make decisions on how to handle their requests. I played the demo a while ago but I remember being impressed by the amount of worldbuilding.

Draculesti

Another visual novel! This one is a romance/horror (loosely) based on Dracula. You play as trans!Renfield – have I mentioned there are strong LGBTQ+ themes in this one? – and there are four romance routes, including a ghost, one of Dracula’s brides, Jonathan Harker and Dracula himself. I loved the atmosphere (very gothic!) and the art style of this one.

Bad Summer

This may come as a shock to whoever’s reading this, but it’s… another visual novel. Not only that, but it’s a horror romance one! Judging by the (quite long) demo, there are two storylines where you alternate between playing as a paranormal detective of sorts and a summer camp counselor fresh out of high school. Both protagonists have their own selection of possible romantic interests. The demo had moderate jumpscares and some interesting minigames. The one I remember is a fun anomaly detection minigame – it was challenging enough but also perfectly solvable. I really liked the vibes of this VN and am interested to see how the dual narration thing plays out later in the game.

2026

new-to-me games

Arctic Awakening (2025)

One of my most anticipated games of 2025! I found out about Arctic Awakening when the devs pitched it as being inspired by Firewatch (among other things) on the Firewatch subreddit. Since Firewatch is one of my favorite games, I was immediately interested. I’ve since played a few versions of the demo and now, finally, the full game.

Arctic Awakening is set in the near future, several decades from now. You play as Kai, a pilot whose cargo plane crashes in the middle of Alaska. Your second pilot is lost in the wilderness somewhere. Your only company after the crash is your court-appointed therapy robot. This makes it sound like a survival game but it’s actually a mystery “walking simulator” type game. It’s very much inspired by Firewatch visually and narratively, and I’ve seen many people describe it as a mix between that game and The Long Dark (never played it myself but that seems to be a good comparison). Arctic Awakening still very much does its own thing, however.

I really enjoyed this game! I played it right when I needed it, and its themes really resonated with me (climate change and AI therapy robots, anyone?). Though I wish the pacing was a bit more even. It felt like a lot was crammed into the final chapter and it was a bit rushed in general. I would’ve also LOVED it if we could uncover some lore about the project and the final antagonist. I don’t mind ambiguity and I certainly wasn't expecting to be spoon-fed explanations, but I felt that the scope of what was happening in the game was big enough for the player to deserve to find out some stuff at the end. Speaking of the end, the final choice turned out to be super underwhelming - to me, at least. I have a lot to say about it, but it would be impossible to do that without spoilers :”) My main issue is that I expected the impact of that final choice to be bigger after all the fuss. There was so much buildup, but it turned out even the end cutscenes for both choices were almost identical! That aspect felt underdeveloped to me.

Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit (2025)

A Nancy Drew-inspired game that had been in development for a decade. TREMENDOUS FUN. I love that we are now having a ~revival~ of sorts with people who grew up playing the Nancy Drew games now making their own similar ones. And the dev plans to make this one a series too! I hope it all works out.

The premise of the story is that Penelope, a crime writer who’s helped solve a real-life crime, gets called to a tiny American town to help with a series of missing person cases that don’t seem to be connected… OR ARE THEY?

I loved the story and the more mature themes it explored (as opposed to E-rated family-friendly themes found in Nancy Drew games). I loved how messy and traumatized every single character was. But generally speaking, this game was SUCH a boost of nostalgia! It genuinely felt like playing a new Nancy Drew game - and one of the older ones at that (that’s a massive compliment btw). This game went HARD on Nancy Drew nostalgia! The story takes place in 2016 or 2015 but there’s no or barely any modern tech. There’s even a joke about how Penelope doesn’t like technology. She even uses a typewriter! Then there’s the alarm clock, actual Easter eggs, things you can look at just for the sake of looking… So, in short, the exact things that so many of us miss in a Nancy Drew game. I also liked the puzzles. They were just the right amount of difficulty for me (though I still had to consult a walkthrough a couple of times, especially for that diabolical stairs puzzle).

demos

upcoming releases

lily's world XD

Is there a name for the subgenre of adventure puzzle games where you explore someone’s computer or phone and solve puzzles to find out their story? I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of those lately. Well, this is that kind of game, except it’s also psychological horror! There were a couple of jumpscares in the demo, but I felt like the level of scariness was just enough for me (a jumpscare hater) to feel unsettled rather than scared.

The player character finds an old laptop while dumpster diving. It used to belong to a 16-year-old girl named Lily, and the gameplay consists of you trying to figure out what happened to her through what’s on her computer: saved images and files, internet history, music playlists, old social media and blogs etc. It turns out Lily disappeared years ago and someone doesn’t want you finding out the truth.

Based on the demo, I’d describe this game as old web nostalgia mixed with psychological horror. The demo only contains the beginning of the story, but what was revealed was unsettling and pretty sad. It contrasted nicely with the girly aesthetic of Lily’s desktop and blog. The dev used her own old pictures and generally took inspiration from her own experiences as a teenage girl in the 2000s which I think is pretty neat! The puzzles that were included in the demo were also just the right amount of difficulty for me: totally solvable but also not *too* easy. I hope we get a release date by the end of this year because I’m really looking forward to playing the whole game.

Organize My Shop

The full game comes out in less than a month and I intend to buy it, so this will likely be just a placeholder review until I play the full thing.

It’s an organization game where you organize different items in a shop – no timers or punishments for mistakes or anything stressful like that. Just organizing stuff for the satisfaction of it. Which is exactly what I love! The demo was extremely promising and I’m looking forward to more levels in the full game.