#bakeru

Yesterday I drew my original characters Tobirama and Joy in Naruto SD Rock Lee and his ninja pals anime style.

A poker rougelike? Surely not. Actually…surely yes!

Game of the Year

Mario & Luigi: Brothership

2nd Place

Balatro

3rd Place

Bakeru

Special Mentions

Control

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Cocoon

Batman: Arkham Knight

Solar Ash

Tomb Raider (2013)

Deep Rock Galactic

The 2025 Wish List

Pikmin 4 DLC

Mario Odyssey 2

Dragon Quest Builders 3

Titanfall 3

Bakeru

If you ask people who grew up in a specific gaming generation, Konami was one of the legends of the video game industry. It produced numerous franchises such as Contra, Castlevania, Metal Gear, Silent Hill, and even many successful licensed games such as their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Ultimately, talent and leadership are what makes a company, and the company has had multiple exoduses that resulted in the formation of other talented companies founded by ex-Konami employees. These include Treasure (Gunstar Heroes, Light Crusader, Sin and Punishment: A Successor to the Earth), ArtPlay (Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night), Kojima Productions (Death Stranding) and GoödFeël. GoödFeël in particular was founded by former Konami programmer, Goemon producer/director and Ebisumaru namesake, Etsunobu Ebisu. It started out making Japan-only educational games such as English Training and Training Quiz for about three years, before transitioning into action games with a light-hearted feel. GoödFeël is probably best known for their Nintendo-published games, of which there are quite a handful, including Yoshi’s Woolly World, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Wario Land: Shake It! and Princess Peach: Showtime! In addition to those, however, GoödFeël has developed a few games that were not published by Nintendo. These include the company’s early educational titles, plus two action games at time of writing this article: Monkey Barrels and Bakeru. Monkey Barrels is a low-mid budget top-down twin-stick shooter involving monkeys. Bakeru, meanwhile, is a possible spiritual successor to the Goemon series with a style of its own.