Blue Prince - ★★★★★
Blue Prince. Here’s the review: look at the rating, buy the game, grab a notebook – hell, buy a nice journal specifically for the game, so that you’ve got something better to remember it by than a few scrappy, crappy notes wedged between shopping lists and fantasy football line-ups – and spend your next month of evenings playing it.
The Darkest Files - ★★★★☆
The Darkest Files from Paintbucket Games sees players take the role of Esther Katz, a young prosecutor in 1950s Germany looking into historic crimes from the tail end of the Second World War. The game is a spiritual successor to Paintbucket’s earlier title, Through the Darkest of Times: both games are, unsurprisingly, pretty heavy experiences, going along with the studio's mission to develop video games that leave a lasting impact and focus on strong narratives.
Long-time readers won’t be surprised to hear that The Darkest FIles sounds like “my sort of” game: digging through swathes evidence and piecing together a story from various accounts… what’s not to like?
Block Shop - ★★★★☆
In Block Shop, from FoolBox Studios, each puzzle has the player take various machines and conveyor belts to transform the level’s input blocks to those displayed in the output.
It’s a game that provides me plenty of personal “Eureka!” moments, but also impresses with its concept and level design.
The Roottrees are Dead - ★★★★✮
In The Roottrees are Dead, the Roottrees are Dead. Namely, the President of the Roottree Corporation, his wife, and their three daughters. You’re tasked with identifying all the remaining blood relatives of the Roottree family, ostensibly to sort out the inheritance issues that might arise with the family’s untimely demise.
It’s often compared to Return of the Obra Dinn - which is likely IndieLoupe’s only five-star game... can it live up to that hype?
Pocket Lint - ★✮☆☆☆
Follow the Fun are probably best known for their - at time of writing - 66-game ‘I commissioned some…’ series. It’s a hidden-object smorgasbord which sees players finding bees, or finding cats, or finding frogs, or finding dogs, or finding bunnies, or finding abstract bunnies… you get the idea. If you’re into that sort of thing, it’s a nice little series that executes the concept very well. Pocket Lint is a brief deviation from those games, offering a code-breaking puzzler where players attempt to get the correct combination of items in the right order.