Screenshot: Soggy Froggy Playdate Season 3 is here. And even though the console and all of its accessories are currently sold out on the Playdate store—which is a bummer; I went to buy a pizza box cover just to discover that the entire storefront is empty—Panic plans to have more hardware available later this year. In the meantime, current owners can look forward to their weekly Season 3 deliveries, with the first two games dropping just yesterday. One of those launch titles

I’ll be keeping a close eye on Beat, Heart, Beat as it heads toward the finish line. It’s an incredibly fascinating intersection of midwest emo grunge, rhythm mechanics, and avant-garde art. The highly specific—and punishingly addictive—gameplay loop makes it a unique standout in the indie rhythm space.

Despite its heavy origins, Dancing with Ghosts remains an uplifting and deeply cozy experience. You follow Mai, a 15-year-old girl struggling with severe depression after the death of her parents. She befriends Pim, an 11-year-old ghost visible only to her. The narrative boldly tackles complex concepts like loss, depression, and suicide, but it juxtaposes these difficult themes with gentle gameplay designed around a singular, hopeful message: the best way to heal yourself is

If you’re a fan of retro game content, video game history, or just curious about Alien Breed, you should definitely check out this title. I don’t want to get on anyone’s bad side, but I never thought the Alien Breed games were great even for their time, so you sort of have to go into the whole thing with academic curiosity or some thick nostalgia goggles.

Insomniac aimed for a prestige, character-driven blockbuster, but missed the mark, leaving players with a flawed brawler that never quite figures out who its hero is supposed to be.

Like its predecessor, Toem 2 highly encourages thorough exploration. While you don’t have to complete every quest in an area to move on, you’ll probably want to. After all, who wants to leave a startled bear without his jam, or refuse to help a worm control the growth of strange vines that make her sneeze? The sequel includes larger areas with different themes than the original, making for even more joy in discovery.

I would love more than anything to come in and say that the reviews have it all wrong. That the Steam Early Access reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about. But the “Mixed” average review score for the Early Access product tells a lot of what you need to know about the game itself. My friends were right to pass on crewing this vessel.

I’m going to be keeping an eye on anything Torchlight Games does in the future, because False Hero is a brilliant game. It’s easily in my top games of the year list, and made me feel that sense of wonder that Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls did all those years ago.