4 Games
The end of the academic year is tough! It's tough for teachers, students, and families. A lot happens in a short period of time and because of it I've had to put this blog on the backburner. With that said, I saw a post on BlueSky where people were encouraged to share some games they enjoyed that had fewer than 500 reviews on Steam. The idea is to shine a light on some games that maybe have flown under the radar and to encourage people to leave reviews for games they enjoyed that didn't have many. I played a bit loose with the 500 review limit, but below are 4 games that I really enjoyed that could use some more love.
Inspector Waffles (Steam)
This is a really fun point-and-click game that came out 4 years ago. I didn't get a chance to play it until recently, but I'm glad I did. The art is great, the puzzles are fun, and the story is really solid. The game length is appropriate as well. I don't love an overly-long adventure game, especially when the length is padded by something like a maze or moon-logic puzzles. I'm glad the creator is exploring the universe some more, with another game in a GBC-style and then another coming out on Playdate Season 2!
Gettysburg: The Tide Turns (Steam)
I generally really like war games, but I'm terrible at them. I don't have enough time to devote to many of the more complex ones so I end up not finishing battles or not learning the rules well enough to win. Gettysburg: The Tide Turns is a simpler war game that takes under an hour to play (unless you try to go through the whole battle) and introduces some new elements. One of the most unpopular is the use of a "chit pull" system to determine when your actions occur. I admit this can be frustrating if your attack action comes before your move action, but it never happened enough to be a deal breaker for me. If you're looking for a simpler war game, this is a great place to start. (There are a number of reviews that mention crashes but they never happened in any of my playthroughs)
Nantucket (Steam)
Sea shanties? Card battles against whales? What more could you want? This is a strategy game where your goal is to kill Moby Dick. You can hire people for your boat, sail around and explore the sea, fight sea creatures using an interesting card mechanic (pictured above), and enjoy some solid old-time sea music. This game has just over 500 reviews so it breaks the rule I established above, but I had a lot of fun for the five hours it took to beat this so I figured it deserved a spot as well. There are some legitimate complaints about this game (it gets a bit supernatural at the end), but I enjoyed the mix of resource management and the battle system.
Rosewater (Steam)
I've written about this game before on other social media sites, but it's really worth a look. This is one of the most player-friendly adventure games ever made. Francisco found a way to beat moon logic by designing puzzles that have multiple logical solutions. How would you try to solve this problem? It'll probably work. Then you've got the great art, VO, and sound design. It's fantastic and more evidence that point-and-click adventure games are far from dead.