The Wanderer reading room

Game Reviews

Idle RPGs, MMOs, browser games and mobile RPGs, taken apart properly. Every review carries a score out of 10, what the game does well, what it does badly, and the kind of player it is actually for.

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Narrative RPGWindows PC

Duskpunk

Vienna-based developer James Patton, working with Deloria Patton under the studio name Clockwork Bird and following earlier releases Spinnortality and Silicon Dreams, delivers a dice-driven, Citizen Sleeper-inspired narrative RPG about an ex-soldier surviving a steampunk city on the edge of revolution, earning specific, detailed praise for its writing, world-building and consequence-driven choices from a Very Positive review base, tempered by a smaller, honest minority who found its late-game structure and political framing left them unable to fully recommend it.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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Indie, SimulationWindows PC

Dystopicon review

Palitroque's dark-comedy dystopian life-sim about surviving on TV-watching wages under an authoritarian regime lands a perfect "Positive" score on the strength of sharp satire, addictive time-management mechanics, and a huge spread of wild, branching endings.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Casual, Indie, SimulationWindows PC

Eggo

A charming, Tamagotchi-inspired desktop pet with genuinely lovable art and a social breeding system, undercut by widely reported crashes and incomplete English translation.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Tactical RPGWindows PC

Entropy

Lovely Hellplace, the studio behind the cult favourite Dread Delusion, returns with a turn-based tactical RPG about a troupe of actors turned demon-hunting mercenaries in a dying, infertile world. Early Access reviewers are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about its writing, art direction and PS1-JRPG atmosphere, but a hard-locked autosave system, erratic difficulty tuning, and roughly three to four hours of available content are the recurring complaints worth knowing before buying in early.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Adventure, IndieWindows PC

Everdeep Aurora review

Nautilus Games' cozy digging platformer follows a lost kitten drilling through a meteor-scarred underground world in search of her mother, earning a "Very Positive" score for its gorgeous pixel art and heartfelt world, tempered by thin progression systems and the lack of an autosave.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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Farming SimulationWindows PCmacOSLinux

Farm Together

A NZ$28.99 co-op farming sim that has held Very Positive across roughly 17,600 Steam reviews for eight years — built almost exactly like a free-to-play mobile farm game, timed crop growth and all, but without a single mandatory purchase, which is exactly why it keeps earning multi-thousand-hour devotion from some players and "this is Farmville" refunds from others within the same review page.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action, IndieWindows PC

Feed The Pit

A three-person team's follow-up to The Deadseat turns cult-horror hunting into a tense card-and-map puzzle, though Act 1 is only a third of the promised story.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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CasualWindows PCmacOS

Fill The Void

A physics-driven incremental collectathon where players grow a black hole by devouring themed dioramas — bowling alleys, underwater casinos, hibachi restaurants — praised unanimously by an early review sample for its quick, satisfying arcade loop and built-in level editor.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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Point-and-Click AdventureWindows PCmacOS

Foolish Mortals

Inklingwood Studios, a husband-and-wife team who turned a pandemic-era career pause into a Kickstarter-funded classic point-and-click adventure, delivers a lovingly crafted 1930s Louisiana ghost mystery that earns some of the year's warmest reviews in the genre, tempered by a specific, consistent minority who found its dialogue overlong and its humour too gentle for the Broken Sword and Monkey Island comparisons it invites.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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Action RPGWindows PCLinux

Foreign Sun

A solo developer's spiritual successor to Biomass swaps that game's crumbling factory for a sinking, faction-riddled city, wrapping a tight beam-weapon combat system around a branching, choice-reactive world with seven-plus endings.

7.6 / 10

Reviewed

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Action Roguelite / PuzzleWindows PC

Forestrike

Kyoto-based Skeleton Crew Studio, the team behind 2021's Olija, follows up with a martial arts roguelite built around rehearsing every fight infinitely in your head before executing it for real, a mechanic reviewers consistently praise as a genuinely fresh solution to action-game difficulty even as a specific minority finds its slow death-to-retry loop and lack of run-to-run reward undercut the roguelite structure wrapped around it.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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RPGWindows PCmacOS

Forsworn

A solo-developed turn-based tactics roguelite that sends a party of heroes to slay gods, earning strong day-one praise for its build variety and simultaneous-turn co-op, tempered by reviewer complaints about punishing boss escalation and repeat-kill enemy design.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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RPG / SimulationWindows PCLinux

Frog Island

A cozy creature-collector about caring for a magical island of frogs while piecing together a forgotten past, built on a Neko Atsume-meets-Virtual-Villagers charm and unusually thoughtful accessibility options, undercut for a vocal minority by clunky minigame controls and occasionally vague quest direction.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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Collectathon 3D platformerWindows PCmacOS

Funi Raccoon Game

A collectathon 3D platformer about a raccoon stealing everything not nailed down, Funi Raccoon Game backs up its deliberately absurd, meme-heavy presentation with a genuinely well-built platformer underneath, and this review's sample confirms both the near-universal praise and the small, specific complaint that its internet-humor style won't age or land for everyone.

8 / 10

Reviewed

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Action / RoguelikeWindows PC

Galactic Vault

Galactic Vault is a movement-shooter roguelike from solo-turned-full-time studio MeepMeep Games that pairs fast, fluid traversal with a deep weapon-building system, and this review's sample finds a game with an exceptional post-launch support record and a fanbase that overwhelmingly prefers its movement to genre touchstone Deadzone Rogue, held back only slightly by UI clarity and content-variety gripes even among its biggest fans.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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Casual Indie SimulationWindows PC

Gaming Burnout Treatment Center

A cheap, funny library-randomiser tool from Wave Games dressed up as a satirical rehab clinic for decision-paralysed PC gamers, Overwhelmingly Positive across 513 reviews for its relatable premise and genuinely useful filtering — an unconventional pick that succeeds precisely because it doesn't pretend to be a traditional game.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Management sim / real-time tacticsWindows PC

Gladiator Command

Gladiator Command is a solo-developed ancient-Rome gladiator school management sim with real-time arena combat, and this review's sample finds an addictive, actively-supported Early Access loop that fans compare favorably to Domina — undercut by a genuine, recurring complaint about unfair late-game difficulty spikes that the developer has been visibly working to smooth out for months.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Kart Racing / AdventureWindows PC

Go Kart Island

Grumpy Pizza, the solo studio name of developer Ewan McKenzie, delivers a cozy, open-world kart racer starring a highland cow chasing entry-fee coins around a fictional island, earning warm, specific praise for its witty British humour and Mario Kart-meets-Banjo-Kazooie charm from a small but enthusiastic review base, tempered by a minority who found its open world thin and its novelty wearing off before the story concludes.

7 / 10

Reviewed

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Action, StrategyWindows PC

Golden Swirl

A dark fantasy deckbuilder that fuses card strategy with real-time dodging, earning a Very Positive launch reception for its distinctive art, voice acting and semi-real-time combat, tempered by reports of a misfire input bug, uneven card balance, and a story some reviewers find hard to follow.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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Narrative AdventureWindows PC

Goodnight Universe

The follow-up to Before Your Eyes casts the player as a psychic baby craving his family's love while a shadowy corporation circles, delivering the same eye-blink-driven emotional storytelling to an audience that's overwhelmingly moved by it, with a specific, real minority finding its back half meandering and its twists too far removed from its intimate opening.

7.5 / 10

Reviewed

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