You play as a nameless skeleton-like character who’s a bouncer at a bar. NecroBouncer is a hack-and-slash fighting title where you need to clear room after room and defeat the boss at the end. There are four bosses total, each having unique patterns of attack. The premise of these fights is to dodge until the boss becomes vulnerable and then spam your attacks. The first two bosses become vulnerable on their own, but the final two bosses have a bit of a puzzle to them. It took me a long time on the third boss to figure out what I needed to do to get him to use a different attack that would tire him out. Overall, though, the bosses weren’t too difficult; not until you figured out how to play, that is.

Being a hack-and-slash style, NecroBouncer has fairly simple controls. You spam Y to attack with your weapon but you can also use special attacks with A and X. These specials use magic, but the game is generous at making sure you never run out. This was a good thing for me because I had far too much fun spawning zombie minions to attack enemies for me. You can press B to roll dodge, which allows you to be invincible for a moment. The controls were fluid and smooth throughout my gameplay experience, which was great since this title is fast-paced.

Yet, there’s still a lot of downtime. The way NecroBouncer works is that you go from one room to another, clearing enemies and solving puzzles. There are four floors total, each having their own unique map every time you begin a playthrough. So, no two playthroughs will ever be alike.

The rooms are laid out like a mind map beginning from the left and moving to the right. You can choose between one of four rooms to start in and then you follow that branch throughout. Sometimes, rooms will branch into two or three others and you can decide. Each room has its own gimmick, and you’ll know what it is ahead of time.

What do I mean by gimmick? Each room, in addition to a horde of enemies, often has a puzzle. For example, there’s a crystal room where you need to break all the crystals. Every few seconds, enemies will spawn from the crystals. Once they’re all broken and no more enemies can spawn, then the room is cleared. There’s another room called King of the Hill where you have to stand on a platform in the middle of the room for a certain amount of time. The thing is, enemies spawn whenever you’re on the platform. Some rooms, on the other hand, are “bouncer” rooms where it’s simply a rush of enemies you have to defeat.

So, I often mapped out the course I’d want to take before choosing the first area so I’d get the most out of it between preferred room styles and rooms that allowed the most rewards. Some rooms give you a treasure chest upon clearing them. The treasure chest contains relics (which are basically power-ups). You’ll have these relics for the rest of the run. The more you play, the more relics you’ll unlock so you can begin a run with some relics, too.

Some of these relics allow you to have more health, do more damage to enemies, spawn more zombie minions, and more. There are a lot of relics. Once you defeat a boss, you’ll have the chance to buy something at the bar. The bar will have relics available, including health. Depending on how much money you have, you can take whatever you want before moving onto the next set of rooms.

NecroBouncer is one of those games where you see how far you can go. With only four bosses, though, and the more powered-up you become, each playthrough gets easier and quicker. The first time I cleared all four bosses, I did so within an hour and a half.

The game also offers stats and extra missions to work toward. For example, defeating each boss without taking any damage. You don’t get anything for these, but it’s nice to have something else to do since the game, despite no two playthroughs being alike, can get repetitive.

I enjoyed my time with NecroBouncer and I’m sure I’ll go back and play it again. However, even though it ran smoothly most of the time, the game did glitch a few times. I once cleared a boss and the reward options froze. The chests were closed, but the outline of the rewards were there. So, I think the game thought the chests were open but I couldn’t select anything. I needed to close the game completely, losing all my progress for that run. I know the nature of the game is to see how far you get in one go, but a quick-save feature would have been nice for those glitch moments. Despite how short a run can be, I did need to abandon a run because I had somewhere to be and couldn’t complete it on time. A quick save would have been really nice at that moment.

Regardless, if you’re looking for a game that’s on the shorter side and a fun roguelite experience, NecroBouncer is a great choice. You may not play it for hours on end, but it’s good to go back to once in a while as a pick-up-and-go type of game.

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I typically begin a review by explaining the story. However, given that Pine Hearts is narrative-based, most of what I could say would be spoilers. As the game description says, “It tells a story of the loss of a family member with tenderness and care.” It takes you on an emotional ride with quirky characters and cozy aesthetics. The main goal is to get up the mountain, but the park ranger won’t let you through until you’re well prepared. Thus, your adventure begins.

As you play through Pine Hearts, you’ll piece the story together yourself by rediscovering memories. Tyke has been here before, he just needs some help reminiscing. To unlock these memories, you’ll find tear drops across the open world map. You’ll need a total of 1,300 drops to unlock all five memories. Needless to say, it’s a short adventure. I got through the game within a handful of hours, but it was worth every moment.

But how do you get the tear drops? That’s where the gameplay comes in. First, tear drops are scattered about generously. All you need to do is explore the world and you’ll find them waiting for you. You’ll also earn drops by completing quests for NPCs. Some of these quests will get you exploring the world and simply give you 50-100 tears. Other quests will allow you to further explore the world by getting the tools you need.

For example, you’ll need a hammer and a shovel, just to name a couple. You’ll find the shovel as part of a quest and get to keep it, which will help you with other quests down the road. Despite its cozy vibes, Pine Hearts will keep the quests coming, so there’s never a dull moment. Sometimes, you’ll have multiple quests at once, especially if you talk to everyone you pass.

The world is open with a handful of major areas to explore, each with subareas. You’ll explore a couple of caves, beaches, and even a castle. There are no levels, game modes, timers, or the like; you can go through the game at your own pace. Some quests will involve a mini-game (such as lawn mowing) or a puzzle (such as connecting gears together to trigger a gate mechanism), but none of it is too difficult or head-scratching. 

The controls are simple, too. To break a rock or leap over a cliff, you simply press A. Sometimes, you’ll need to move the L-stick in a certain direction. The default option is to use timed button presses, but I turned that off. It was fine and worked well, but I preferred to play through the game as simply as possible.

Once you have enough tears, you’ll unlock a memory and get to watch it. You’ll have some control over Tyke during these short sequences, but there’s minimal gameplay. Again, I won’t go into detail because of spoilers. However, unlocking these memories will also remind Tyke of a skill he used to have, such as leaping over chasms or creating bridges by pushing a tree over. These skills will allow access to other parts of the map and create shortcuts.

By the time I had unlocked the final skill, I still needed about 75 more tears to get the final memory, thus gaining access to the mountain. I was able to backtrack through the map and go through the areas again without the pressure of quests. I could take in the scenery while keeping an eye out for places I missed or couldn’t access before.

When the final memory was unlocked, I had access to go up the mountain. I cried. A lot. I think Tyke kept it together better than I did. I won’t say much else; you’ll have to experience this game for yourself.

The only downside to Pine Hearts was that there were a few glitches. At one point, Tyke got stuck walking in place, and the only way for me to fix it was to exit to the Switch homepage. Also (and this is more of a personal preference), I would have liked to save the game whenever I wanted. It autosaved often enough, but I would have liked more control over when and where it saved, especially since the game would freeze or lag at each autosave. Otherwise, my entire experience was smooth and relaxing, with lullaby-like music playing in the background.

Overall, Pine Hearts is a short and (bitter)sweet title. If you’re looking for a new cozy adventure that tells an amazing story in a sensitive manner, then certainly give this one a go. You won’t be disappointed. (And yes, you can pet the dog!)

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I don’t believe I need to explain what Pac-Man is all about. In terms of gameplay, PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs doesn’t do anything exciting to rejuvenate the mechanics of this classic arcade game. You still play as Pac-Man, munching your way through a maze avoiding (and sometimes eating) ghosts. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

However, now you’re competing against 63 other players. Yes, this game is taking notes from titles such as Tetris 99 and pits 64 Pac-Man players against one another. The last one standing wins. In theory, this is a great idea, but it didn’t execute well for me.

Upon turning on the game, you’ll play through two levels of Pac-Man to teach you the basics. It’s quick, so even if you’re well-versed in Pac-Man, you won’t roll your eyes too much. The second level explains that you’ll be able to get power-ups, such as a shield or ghost repellent. Other players will be able to go in and out of your maze, just as you’ll be able to explore their maze.

By going into other mazes, you’ll be able to eat their dots, power pellets, and fruits, steal their powers-ups, and also eat the ghosts and the other players (provided you have a power pellet). You have three lives, so if you get eaten by another player or get caught by a ghost, you’ll respawn back in the maze you died in.

Each round also has two missions. For example, one mission may be to eat 10 dots in someone else’s maze, eat two other players, go into three other mazes, etc. The missions are random for each game, so you won’t know what to work toward until you’re in the game. Even then, the missions don’t appear right away and they each have a certain amount of time to complete. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like the missions ranged from 30 seconds to a minute or so.

Completing a mission earns you more points. If you don’t complete a mission, you get zero points. There are no huge stakes or incentives to complete one or both missions within a game. In fact, I gave up on certain missions. If the game wanted me to eat 10 dots in someone else’s maze, sure. However, there was a mission to eat three ghosts in someone else’s maze. After completing that a few times and it not registering in-game, resulting in me “failing” the mission, I didn’t bother to work toward it whenever it popped up. The same thing happened a few times when I was supposed to eat two other players.

I think these missions were put in place to get players to explore more. There were many games where I stayed within my own maze and still managed to win first place because I’d let the other players duke it out amongst themselves or they’d get eaten by ghosts. I mostly lost games because I was clumsy and got eaten by my own ghosts.

Each game consists of four rounds or two minutes each. So, each game is short and sweet. It was often much less than that because players would drop like flies (either dropping out of the game or dying quickly). Then, it would take roughly a minute for the game to match me to a server. I was doing chores in between games because there was so much waiting. 

And there you have it: the two modes, elimination and ranking. I know I only explained one way of playing, but that’s because both modes are exactly the same. The only difference between the two is that the ranking mode will save your score and add it to a local and global leaderboard. That’s locked until you reach level 10. You’ll earn experience points for every game you play (depending on the missions you complete, how long you lasted, etc.). I had played about two hours of games in the elimination mode to reach level 10 just to unlock the exact same mode.

You’ll also earn coins when playing, which allows you to dress up your Pac-Man and buy different designs for your maze. It’s nothing too special, but I enjoy that type of aesthetic. My Pac-Man dressed as a bee was adorable.

Despite playing online with 63 other players, PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs is lonely and slow. You can play with friends but only if they have a copy of the game. I understand why; split-screen for this type of gameplay would be rough to follow, but the asking price (at the time of writing this review) is $19.99. For five minutes of fun at a time, lots of waiting in between games, and only one mode disguised as two, I personally feel like that asking price is a bit much.

I had fun with PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs when I first started playing. However, the longer I played, the more bored I got. It’s so slow-paced at times and the lack of content grew dull. Pac-Man itself is a fun game, so I may go back to this title from time to time, but it certainly won’t be a go-to of mine.

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I first played the game solo to get used to the controls and see what the game was all about. Upon choosing an avatar, a cutscene shows your character sitting at home watching TV. A commercial comes on about saving the world by working at the best shipping company. Your character calls the number on screen, and you’re thrown into the first level, which also acts as a tutorial. 

The gameplay for Ready, Steady, Ship! is simple. Your job is to connect conveyor belts, and ensure they’re facing the right way before placing boxes on them, leading the packages to their delivery truck. The boxes come in different colors, such as pink, blue, or green. Most of the time, the conveyor belts lead to different trucks. If you want to 100% the level, you’ll need to place the right colored boxes on the correct path to their corresponding truck.

Regarding controls, you’ll mostly use the A button to grab conveyor belts or boxes and B to throw the boxes. You can also sprint for a short time, but if you’re really in a hurry, there’s a coffee vending machine that gives you a speed boost for a longer time. I rarely used this because the physics often made things finicky.

Sure, the ragdoll-like movement is fun to watch and can be funny. However, the controls don’t always register . The A button would appear for me to pick up a box; I’d press it and walk away without the box. I had to get up close and personal with the items, press the button, and let the game figure out what I was trying to do. Oftentimes, I’d throw a box, miss the conveyor belt, and the box would get stuck in a spot I couldn’t get to. Instead of respawning after a certain amount of time, that was it. When this happens, there’s no way to 100% the level without restarting the whole thing. 

The good news is each level has three rooms. Once you complete a room, the door unlocks, and you can move on. However, there’s also an emergency exit button. So, if you get stuck in a room, you can give up and move on. Each level is timed. The clock doesn’t reset when you enter a new room. You earn stars based on how fast you beat the levels and also how many boxes you ship correctly. Earn enough stars, and you can unlock more levels.

Despite some of the glitches and slight frustration, I enjoyed my time playing solo. However, after a few levels, the game brings in forklifts. Forklifts and ragdoll physics do not mix. At least, not in Ready, Steady, Ship!

The forklift was nearly impossible to control. To accelerate or reverse, you use the L and R buttons. Instead of holding them down, you press the button once, and the forklift will continuously move until you hit the brake. It was highly frustrating to control where I was going while trying to operate the actual lift to pick up and transport crates of boxes. When I’d get as far as picking up the crate, I’d try to maneuver the forklift only for the physics to push the crate off the forklift, and I’d have to start the process over again. I almost always ran out of time and couldn’t complete the forklift levels.

So, I gave up on solo and played multiplayer with my sister. Ready, Steady, Ship! only allows up to two players locally. The levels for multiplayer are different than they are for solo, which was a nice touch. However, the game played the same. There was less chaotic fun and more frustration as the camera didn’t zoom out far when we were on opposite ends of the room.

Once again, the controls were fickle as we attempted to work through the different levels. Similar to when I played solo, we had a fun time with it while we played. However, this most likely won’t be a go-to game of ours. 

The strongest part of this title was the level design. The early levels start off normal but as you progress through the game, the rooms themselves are a puzzle. For example, one level has a pool filled with acid that you need to make your way across via metal grates moving back and forth. I had the most fun playing these types of levels, trying to figure out the design rather than shipping the boxes. And while the controls were simple, they didn’t always register, which brought me out of the game.

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First, let me begin by saying the graphics were simple, yet pleasing. I enjoyed the bright, colorful ambiance throughout the ages. The music was pleasant, and the narrator’s voiceover work was on point. Not to mention the sound effects were satisfying, as well. Hearing a rock clonk someone’s head was funny, and I loved the sound of the audience clapping when a match completed.

The gameplay is straightforward, using only one button at a time. I played in handheld mode, which effectively utilizes the touch screen. So, I only needed to tap (and sometimes hold) the screen. This mechanic and the short rounds mean you’ll get through this game quickly. It took me between 1.5 to 2 hours to complete all eight sections.

The main premise of this game is to go over the history of Cricket, the first section being “Cricket Through The Ages.” It teaches you the basics and how to play the game as it was originally invented. (Honestly, I still don’t fully understand the game of Cricket.) This mode also takes the time to teach you the controls – tap to move, or sometimes you’ll hold the button down and then release to throw an object. The game will pin you against NPCs, throwing objects at one another to see who gets out first. You’ll need to win a handful of rounds against multiple NPCs before the game moves on, unlocking the next section.

Since there’s only one button and it’s just you and one NPC at a time, these rounds last about five seconds. Due to the ragdoll physics, you’ll sometimes get each other out (or you’ll get yourself out). Also, you both might fall over unable to do anything, resulting in a tie. There are no lives or timers. If you lose a match, the game will make you do it again.

The next section is Ash’s World Cup, which is essentially the same thing. This time, you’re in a tournament. Once you win all the rounds against four other teams, the next section is unlocked. Most of the sections are, more or less, the same. Cricket Through The Ages tries to make things a tad more interesting by shrinking the characters, making them giant, putting them in slow motion, and other effects. The objects would switch up, too. Instead of a cricket bat, your character might have a golf club, pool noodle, baseball bat, and others. Instead of a cricket ball, you could have a bowling ball, soccer ball, snake, rock, and more. However, these changes didn’t add anything to the gameplay, especially since each round lasts a handful of seconds.

I won’t go through every mode of this game, because they’re all quite similar. However, some were slightly different. For example, the World War game had you tap the screen to advance forward toward an enemy. You can hold the screen down to toss a grenade. The point was to move forward until you reached the enemy line, resulting in a win. This was more frustrating than fun due to the ragdoll movement. I’d always trip over the bodies on the ground, falling over, or my grenade would bounce off of something, thus coming back toward me, and I’d blow myself up. This too is tournament style, so you must win this four times before moving to the next section of the game.

Cricket Through The Ages also has a Games of Olympus mode, which still utilizes the one-button gameplay mechanic. If you’re tired of playing Cricket, you can try your hand at archery, swimming, climbing, pole jumping, and eight other sports. But you can’t choose which one you want to play; you’ll get to play all of them in a specific order, and it’s not as easy as it looks. The one-button mechanic mixed with ragdoll movement simply didn’t work for some of these sports. The climbing was nearly impossible, and I won the gold medal for swimming by accident. (You’re supposed to dive into the pool, but I’d always fall into it.)

This game allows for two-player co-op on a single Switch system. I asked my sister to play a couple rounds with me and while we did get in some laughs, we quickly grew bored after a few matches. There’s no versus mode where you choose which games you want to play. The narrator still goes through the motions of explaining the history going in order of the game modes. You can choose a specific mode once you’ve unlocked it, but it’s the same every time. There’s no leaderboard, either. Cricket Through The Ages is a simple, mindless game.

I wouldn’t expect to add this to your rotation at game night with friends. You might have about twenty minutes of fun before getting bored. Given the colorful graphics and effortless mechanics, I can see a younger audience having fun with this game.

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One of the main selling points of Make Way is the multiplayer. It has cross-platform online co-op, which is great. The few times I connected with someone online, it was usually me and one other person. Otherwise, it wasn’t often other people were online. I was able to play a few times with my sister and cousins, and that was a lot more fun. (Mostly because we were so bad at it.)

I mostly played by myself to get the hang of the controls. There are a decent number of cars to choose from, but other than looks, they’re all the same. No car is faster or easier to handle than the rest. There are no stats to think about; just grab your favorite-looking car and go.

When playing alone, there are four modes: Race, Classic, Chaos, and Custom. The only mode that’s unlocked at first is Race. Here, you can customize how many NPCs you want to play against and their difficulty: Training, Easy, Medium, Hard, or Extreme. I stuck with training, not because the NPCs posed a threat, but because I struggled with the controls.

When getting into a race, a handful of track pieces appear. You and the other players get to choose one and then piece them together to make one track. So, instead of doing laps on one track, the road is one long continuous piece. Each piece marks a new checkpoint. You’ll earn points based on passing checkmarks and whether you’re the first one to cross the finish line. This process repeats until someone reaches a certain amount of points. This means that some races will have five rounds total, and others may be much longer; it all depends on how well you and your friends (or NPCs) play.

But, of course, this is where the controls in Make Way get wonky. I wasn’t a huge fan. I think out of habit, I expected my car to be controlled similarly to Mario Kart. However, I would describe these controls more as “ragdoll physics.” I’m not sure if that’s what it actually is or if I’m simply terrible at controlling my vehicle. There’s no drifting, but there may be a lot of sharp turns. You hold down the A-button to accelerate and press B to break. If you jam the left analog stick too hard, your car will turn right around. It’s not easy to get your car back on track (no pun intended) because the camera only follows whoever is in the first place. If they get too far ahead and you get cut off-screen, then your car blows up, and you can’t finish that track.

Luckily, each track acts as a checkpoint. So, if you can’t finish, you’ll teleport to the next track and get to start from there as soon as the first player reaches that threshold. It’s not that you don’t quite lose the race entirely, but because you couldn’t finish that track, you’ll earn no points. I didn’t necessarily mind this, but it got annoying at the same time. When I did play online, I’d get matched with people who clearly played the game more often than I did. So, I barely got to finish my tracks. Once someone gets to a certain amount of points, no matter how many more rounds there are, it becomes one-sided and you know you’ve lost no matter what you do.

The thing is, you want to get first place in Make Way. Otherwise, you don’t earn any points to unlock anything. Even if you get second place, you don’t earn any points for your overall level. There’s a lot to unlock in the game, too: new track pieces, cars, other gameplay modes, hazards for the tracks, and more.

In other words, Make Way can be a bit of a grind at times. For a multiplayer game, I actually preferred to play alone because that was my best shot at earning points to unlock new things for the game.

I unlocked Classic Mode next, and I ultimately decided to stick with Race Mode. Classic is described as “the way the game is meant to be played.” There are few to no walls on the tracks, speed boosts now exist, and there are items and hazards. The items weren’t anything interesting. I didn’t understand how they worked, mostly because I’d almost always run off the side of the track before being able to do anything.

Earlier, I mentioned that Make Way wasn’t the game I expected. I thought I’d get to build my own tracks and share them with friends and online. (Think Super Mario Maker, but with race tracks.) I didn’t expect to build the track one piece at a time during the race and then not be able to play it again. I’m sure that’s what Custom Mode is, but I didn’t make it to level ten to unlock that mode.

After a while, Make Way felt like a chore. I had to keep playing to unlock more features and modes, but it became grindy and repetitive. I did have fun with the game and think it’s a unique spin on the racing genre. If you’re looking for something different in the racing genre, then certainly give this game a try. However, keep in mind that the controls are a learning curve and you won’t be able to do much in-game until you unlock a decent amount of things by playing it for a few hours first.

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In this game, you play as Pong, the ball, attempting to break free from between the two paddles. Though it’s implied, there’s no dialogue or straight story to follow. The game begins with Pong bouncing back and forth between two paddles, introducing the dash mechanic right away. Controls are easy enough—hold ZR to charge up Pong and release to dash. The A button changes Pong’s direction, moving up or down. However, you must hit the wall if you want to turn around. While the controls are easy enough, that doesn’t mean the gameplay is simple.

Each level is like a maze with light puzzles to solve and other obstacles to bypass so you can get out and move on to the next stage. These might include spinning levers, spikes, breakable walls, wind tunnels, water, and more. It took me some time to figure out the mechanics to overcome some of these obstacles. For example, when in water, Pong moves slowly and sinks. If you want the ball to move slightly faster and upward, you must make it “swim” by tapping the A button. qomp2 does a great job personifying a ball.

The puzzles aren’t necessarily the tricky part, though. It’s the movement. Two buttons are easy to remember, but the gameplay is all about utilizing angles to manipulate where you want Pong to go. This means you might be stuck in one room for some time as you get the angle just right in order to get the ball in a specific spot. It wasn’t always easy; geometry isn’t my strong suit. Honestly, if it weren’t for the accessibility options, I probably would have rage quit.

I turned off the fish eye and screen shake because I found those to be too jarring when playing the game. Other options for accessibility included hints (which I turned on, though I never noticed what the hints were) and raycast. I turned that on since it’ll show you where your ball is headed. That helped me figure out the angles and decide where I wanted the ball to go.

It wasn’t until I got really stuck on a level that I went back into the options in a desperate attempt to see if anything else would help. I’m glad I did because another option was there: invincibility. By default, it was turned off. I don’t remember seeing that option there before, so I wonder if the game did that on purpose to ensure you try actually playing the game first, which is clever. I turned invincibility on; sure enough, nothing in the levels hurt me. I could cruise through the part I was stuck on, only having to worry about the angles and my movement. I turned the option on and off depending on when I was really stuck. I’ll admit, there was one level in World Three where I had it on for the whole level. I would have been there for ages otherwise.

It sounds like qomp2 is a long game. It is, and it isn’t. There are 30 levels total, but they’re relatively short. Sometimes, I accidentally found a shortcut to the end that allowed me to skip the entire level. There are no timers, and frequent checkpoints appear at the levels. You’ll die a lot, but it’s not unforgiving. The game also autosaves in between levels. So, you can easily pick up and play this title whenever you want. There’s one collectible in each level, adding some replayability if you don’t collect them all the first time.

After a few levels, you’ll face boss fights, which are cleverly done. For example, the first boss is a big paddle that you need to dash into a few times to kill it. The bosses get more in-depth and unique the deeper you get into the game. 

Overall, qomp2 is a simple game, but it will keep you thinking. You’ll always need to be one step ahead to ensure the ball goes where you need it to. It’s challenging but not unforgiving, allowing you to retry the levels as many times as you can handle. Or, for a more casual experience, go through the whole game with invincibility on.

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Each level contains a box and a handful of cats. The cats vary in shape and size. Some can fit within one square inside the box; others take up six or eight squares. Also, cats can be different shapes, taking up L-shaped squares. Think of the blocks from Tetris, and that’s what you have here, except it’s cats.

The objective is to fit all the cats in the box. You can rotate the cats to help them fit better, but obstacles are in the way. Within the boxes, balls of yarn or cat trees may take up space. So, how do you rotate all the cats to fit comfortably?

That’s all there is to the game. Aside from the range of cats and the box sizes differing from level to level, the gameplay can become repetitive. Overall, it’s quite simple. I didn’t get stuck until level 41, almost halfway through the game. A few levels did not utilize all the squares in the box. I caught on quickly enough to count how many spaces the cats would take up and then count all the squares in the box to know whether I’d need to use all the space.

Unfortunately, Fit My Cat isn’t perfect. Even with only three buttons—selecting a cat, moving them, and rotating them—the controls weren’t always responsive. I didn’t notice an issue until the later levels, so I wonder if the controls become confused the more cats there are on screen.

Regardless, it became frustrating—the L-stick hovers over a cat before selecting and moving them. Moving them was never an issue, just selecting them. It was almost as if the cursor got stuck in the box with the cats. I’d move the stick in all directions, always switching between two or three cats. I needed to wait until the cursor caught on with what I wanted, or I’d have to reset the level and start over. It made an overall relaxing experience annoying at times.

What I liked most about Fit My Cat was the lack of pressure. The music is soothing, with cats meowing now and then. There are no timers and no lives. You can start and restart a puzzle whenever you need to. It also autosaves, so you can do one puzzle here, another puzzle there, and take your time overall. With over 90 levels, this game will keep you busy. Not to mention, the graphics are charming.

Overall, Fit My Cat is a great option if you’re a fan of simple puzzle games with no stakes. Just remember that the controls can sometimes have a mind of their own.

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Upon starting the game, you create your character. To be honest, the character creation wasn’t anything too fancy, but it was fun to play around with the different hair options and the like. You’re then thrown into the main story.

You play as a first-year student at Greifenstein’s Wizard Academy. Within 24 hours, the school is under attack by The Crown, which is a group that wants to cause chaos at the school. As with most wizard-school games, it’s up to the newbie to figure things out and save the day. Now, while the plot is a bit on the clichéd side, Spelled & Secrets did have unique qualities. This title is a rogue-lite so your character learns and grows as they go along.

My favorite part of this game is the spells. You can equip three at a time and upgrade them using experience points earned from defeating enemies. My favorite one is turning into a mouse. It sounds useless, but it made my character move faster. So, I played as a mouse 90% of the time. The first upgrade for that spell is to spook any enemies within a certain radius of me. That helped me get in the first attack most times.

Speaking of enemies, they’re easy enough to defeat. One of the first spells you receive is magic missile. I held down the L-button to lock onto the target and spammed that spell. The enemies are unique in the way that some teleported around you, some spit poison, and some jumped at you. However, I kept my distance and spammed spells until they died. It wasn’t too difficult.

The bosses are  okay. Once I learned their attack pattern, it was mostly a waiting game. I’d dodge for a certain amount of time (meaning, my character and the boss walked circles around each other) and then spammed more of my attacking spells. Also, the bosses aren’t immune to their own attacks. For instance, the first boss throws fireballs to make lava puddles in the area. These puddles burn said boss if they walk in them. It was chip damage, but it still helped me out.

While the spells were cool, the game wasn’t too impressive for me. The story is slow and I wasn’t interested in it at all. I found myself skimming the text boxes. The layout of the school feels like a maze at times, even though you do fill out the map as you enter new areas. The school isn’t exciting, either. All the classrooms, dorms, and courtyards more or less look similar. There wasn’t a “wow” factor for me. 

However, I like the graphics. The game is pretty to look at, even if the actual areas aren’t anything too special. The music isn’t too bad to listen to, either, but even that got repetitive.

Spells & Secrets has potential, but it’s a lackluster game for me. I think I’d be able to overlook some of this if it wasn’t so slow. To make matters worse, it doesn’t run well on the Switch at all. The frame rates continuously drop and loading screens are long. Unfortunately, I didn’t try playing in multiplayer mode because it couldn’t handle my character alone on-screen.

Will I go back to this one? Maybe. If you get it on Nintendo Switch, you’ll need patience for the lag. Spells & Secrets isn’t an exciting title, but I was intrigued enough by the spells and the way the game utilizes that mechanic.

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I know what you’re thinking; you’re supposed to think when solving puzzles. However, Pan’orama is more about strategizing your tile placement and the game does the math for you. No math or keeping track of my own points? I’m sold.

This title has four modes, one of them being the tutorial. Normally, for these types of games, I skip the tutorial and then often get stuck. So, I opted to play through the tutorial and, to my surprise, it took five minutes. The gameplay is simple and the controls are minimal making them easy to remember. You have the ability to zoom in and out of the map, move and rotate the camera, and the rest is simply placing down a tile. That’s it.

I launched myself into playing the main mode next, which is Standard. You begin with a single tile on the map and have a hand of 40 other tiles shuffled randomly. You can’t skip one or pick and choose. You have to use the tiles in order. Each one has its own element. They don’t have names, just pictures. So, I call the elements, rock, tree, water, house, wheat (which is a barren land), and flower (which is a wild card). Rocks build mountains, trees create forests, and so on.

The idea is to place the same elements adjacent to one another. By doing so, the surrounding similar tiles will grow, giving you more points. If you place a rock next to a tree, you’ll only earn one point. As your map grows, you need to find the best spot for each tile to maximize the points you earn. The nice thing about Pan’orama is all I needed to do was listen to the zen music and move the tiles around until I found the spot that gave the most points before placing it. There is an undo button and you can use it as many times as you need. If you want to reset the whole map, you can do that. It’s chill gameplay at its finest.

The points have a purpose other than getting a high score, though. The point of the game is to build all the monuments and there are 52 of them. Once you reach a certain amount of points, the game will give you the choice of one out of three monuments. To build them, it’ll ask you to place certain tiles down in specific spots. Upon completion, you earn more points and more tiles get added to your hand. This process continues until you either lose by running out of tiles or win by building all 52 monuments.

The first time I played Standard mode, I lost getting only 1700 points and a handful of monuments built. I then tried Creative mode, which is a sandbox. Normally, that’s my favorite mode for these types of games but without the points, there’s no real purpose to having everything unlocked at once. So, I didn’t play long.

I moved onto Challenge mode next, which is the same as Standard. However, you need to play the mode to unlock certain challenges. It was a little confusing at first. It would make more sense to unlock challenges by reaching thresholds in Standard. There are also two types of challenges: perks and masters. Perks seem to be ways to earn more points, such as upgrading the flower tiles. However, I never unlocked any of the master challenges, so I don’t know what that’s about.

So, I went back to Standard and beat the game in about five hours. Yes, that was in one sitting. You can save and it auto-saves, but Pan’orama is addicting. I woke up on a snowy weekend morning and played this game for eight hours straight.

My only complaint? The loading screens are a tad long. Otherwise, the graphics are charming, controls are smooth, and the music and gameplay is zen. I can certainly see myself going back to this title since no two playthroughs will ever be alike. I got over 16000 points in the game I won. Maybe I can beat that next time.

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