Yes, we actually DO need this, THANK you.

The View Can Wait - Richard Claremont , 2026

Australian , b. 1965 -

Slightly-lesser-known picks.

More mainstream. I feel bad leaving Hello Kitty Island Adventure off the list but feel I've repped it quite enthusiastically and repeatedly.

Chime: A music puzzler where you piece together tetroids on an open grid to create quadrilaterals that disappear with a sweep of the Lumines-like timeline. Challenges include creating a quad spanning the entire playfield, 100% coverage of the playfield, never losing your combo, etc. A good marriage of sleek visuals & addictive gameplay with chill but propulsive background music (Philip Glass, Moby, etc.). There's a sequel, but I recall the music not being as good.

Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken: A horror-adventure-RPG hybrid where you search for your brother through the land of dreams. There are inventory puzzles but also turn-based combat with enemies, with the twist that you can spend your MP equivalent (Focus) to materialize helpful weapons and items out of the ether. Good use of dream logic and imagery; smart, unique resource management; some good freaky moments. I wrote about it at moderate length here.

Haven: One of the few romance games focused not on creating a new relationship but on developing an existing one. You play a young couple who's eloped from a futuristic, arranged-marriage society and is exploring an oasis planet they're attempting to make their home. Charming relationship dynamic with a satisfying, intellectual twist on a desert-island fantasy. The devs even added a free update so you can choose the leads to be both male or both female - a considerable undertaking, given the massive amount of VA work in the game.

High Hell: A super-saturated, cel-shaded FPS with very short levels that's almost as much of a puzzle game, in how you choose to approach its challenges, as a shooter. Downright kindergarten-gleeful use of ragdoll physics in its doofy devil salarymen enemies. It reminds me, in a weird way, of Untitled Goose Game, where you're just creating a lot of avuncular chaos. (You're shooting enemies, but it's largely bloodless; the game's way more interested in being stupid than violent.) I'm not an FPS person, and I might never muster the skills needed for the final level, but I enjoyed this. Very funny. Hell of a soundtrack.

The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker: An FMV mystery where you're taking over the practice of a recently-deceased psychiatrist whose patients are all everyday folks…except for one paranormal trait. (One guy, a grocery clerk, is experiencing time loop shenanigans. "I'm having a loop day," he announces listlessly as he slumps on the couch.) You play by typing in questions to ask your clients; by default, the subtitles will now highlight keywords, but I find the original no-highlights gameplay more ~immersive~. One of the titles that put Wales Interactive on the map and where the FMV genre really came of age.

Stories Untold: A horror anthology, kind of, from the team behind the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall. Each segment hinges on interacting with some sort of obsolete technology - text adventures, microfische, etc. You probably saw the first segment - "The House Abandon," released as a free demo - from one of your favorite LPers. You get three exceptionally effective sci-fi/horror tales, with the second, "The Lab Conduct," a groundbreakingly-thoughtful commentary on empathy in video games. Some find the fourth tale and its implications unwelcome; I used to agree, but with time, I've come to appreciate it as a kind of brilliant realization of an all-consuming idea you can't banish from your mind. If you disagree, though, you can just enjoy the first three stories standalone.

Tacoma: The second game from the studio that did Gone Home; you're investigating a space station whose crew has disappeared in a sci-fi tale set in a highly-corporatized future that seems to get more prescient with age. You uncover the story of the missing crew through opaque holographic records that look like a 3D Kamaitachi no Yoru, which sounds strange but leads to a unique emphasis on body language to convey emotions.

Timespinner: Metroidvania where you're trying to a recover a time-traveling artifact that erases its chosen guardian from the timeline. Appealing heroine with a fun weapon (a pair of homing orbs) and lots of interesting rumination about the implications of its unique brand of time-travel hijinks. One of the few Symphony-inspired games that looks like it genuinely came from the 32-bit era. Good soundtrack. Fun to play. A strong emphasis on loved ones and family. Bonus: though the dev clearly has a certain ending in mind, I like that he took the time to make the alternative endings complete and satisfying for those who chose them.