Anise and Chili - You play two girls who go split paths in a dungeon and have to fight battles by themselves, sometimes against more than one monster at a time and die easily. It can be a bit frustrating, I'll be honest, especially as I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do to progress. It's not bad looking, I just like a bit more transparency with my puzzles.
AUI - One of my HOT PICKS of the IGMC this year. You play a lava baby who can transition between stone and lava when exposed to fire and water (respectively). It's a sidescroller and you need to change your state of being in order to get through the stages. Lava can jump higher and longer, and can fall through grates and burn vines. Stone can knock down weak walls and roll around gaining speed and altitude for jumps from ramps. It's a really nice game, so I recommend it.
Shadowknight: Traverses the Terrorverse - Oh boy. Yeah, okay, so there was a good idea behind this game. It's a pity there's a few issues with it. One being how you're not taught how to play (and need to be) outside of voice acting (look Ma, no subtitles!) and the art is custom made but badly custom made (no offense dude, but you gotta know it's not that good. Kudos for trying but yeah.) IDK, if you want to play minigames that are eh, then go for it?
Shopkeeper's Secret - No. Not unless you like avoiding game over events on dumb looking maps. Apparently there's some 'avant garde' bull**** going on with it but imo it's not worth the pain.
Starlight: Celestial Beginnings - The sequel to a game I played in the last IGMC (iirc?), it focusses on the brother who has been separated from his sister (his sister was the main of the previous game) and how his cozy RPG village gets burned down by some jerk and he needs to undo all the good sister did (without knowing that) in order for Mr McEvilpants to 'let' him see his sister. Very basic jRPG stuff, really. It's not bad.
Don't Loot Back - I... I couldn't play this game. Not only because I hate the floaty camera bull**** (who made that plugin? I need to hunt them down) but also because a bug stopped progress for me in the introduction of 'how to play'. Welp. It has a neat concept but the way-zoomed-out view with that camera makes me want to kill puppies.
Garden of Avarice - Oh boy. Okay, so the writing and portraits and characters? Pretty good. Everything else? No. It's all bad maps and default database from start to finish. Which is a pity, because the writing was really well done. Oh well.
Junkdogs - So one of my viewers said this wore it's love for Cowboy Bebop on it's sleeve and they weren't wrong. The characters are great, the writing is well done and the atmosphere is pretty neato. The music is very boppy and the gameplay is a bit janky at times but nice despite the odd issue here and there. Unfortunately, I got stuck at the room you need to escape from, but I enjoyed what I did play. I rec this one.
Orion Destiny - Missing assets never help a game, especially when it's an RPG and you're trying to pay attention to the guy telling you where to go and missing asset alerts keep popping up and distracting you. It's a very standard RPG. Nothing I could really recommend. I don't remember much bar the asset issue and that there wasn't much there to keep me invested in the story.
Squidude - I liked the idea of levels that randomly generate as you go along, and having it be 'last as long as you can with all these randomised challenges'. The music was... well, it definitely had a presence. Not a great presence but a presence non-the-less. It's an interesting concept, I just wish we'd been told how to play.
The Companion - Oh boy. So the idea in this game is pretty good, but the rest of the game is a mess, and not even a hot one. There's no explanation, the timing is far too fast for you to do much and there's no indication when your hero will die (the bars don't work). I got further by not equipping my hero with anything than I did doing so, weirdly enough.
Across the Universe - A survival game based on being stuck on Mars. Christine/a gets messages from an alien being after she is the last of her crew to survive the crash landing on the planet. She has two years before she can be saved. The game looks good and what is there seems to be interesting, though it needs a lot of work. It actually does something no other game I've played yet has done - explained where the project would go, what would be done in the full version and various information about future systems and how they would work. It's an interesting way to showcase what would be in the full project.
Atmania - This game has a few issues. For one, it's a 2-player game that requires you to play as two players in order to even get to the first part of the game, with no explanation of what you're supposed to do. It looks like it has a lot of systems going on and there's been effort put into the mapping, but there's also a fair few bits that aren't translated to English.
The Chronicles of Espiria - An ode to PSX jRPGs of years past, this 3D-ish game is quite pretty and plays well. I do wish the story was a bit less meh, as it could have been something truly special with a bit more effort in that category, but it's probably going to rate pretty high up in the ranks due to the overall polish and nostalgia factor going on. Give it a try.
Cyanima - You are in an MMO world where you need to use skills found in cards to deal damage to enemies in battle. You move around on the battle map, avoiding attacks from enemies while firing at moving enemies, to hit them. It's got some neat ideas and the graphics are pretty polished. I quite liked it and the music is boppy. Check it out!
Everbloom - A neat little adventure game where you find yourself in a town and need to look around to find out the secret. Honestly, it does have a few issues - the 'battles' can be a bit hard (thankfully you can retry them without loading up the game again) and it tends to just tell you what's going on in the town straight up, spoiling the surprise. It's worth looking at if you've time.
Parallel - I couldn't get it to play since it was missing files or something. Oh well.
Kiara - A pretty good escape the room-esque game, it has a charming style and the sound really helps set up the atmosphere. The puzzles can be a bit on the obtuse side as the hints for them aren't exactly great at letting you know what you need to do (First requires four numbers. You can figure it out from there if you pay attention to the names. The second wants you to look around closely. The third requires a little optomitryknowledge.) It's got a good concept that I personally liked, though, so I'd say check it if you've time to kill. You do need to continue from save, not start new game though, due to a bug.
Abyss of Oblivion - Probably going to find a place in the top 15, if not the top 10, it has polish in spades, a long play time, attention to detail and fun gameplay. The randomised aspect might be a bit annoying to some, and battles are the main forte of the game. I can see people getting annoyed if they lose their power skills (you gotta learn that ****, yo) but the overall polish on this game really makes it shine in all areas. I highly recommend.
