Recent reviews by Rufus Blackwood

A charming, really cleverly designed independent title with great art style, mood and music. Overall, it has a well-balanced difficulty – but maybe could have a slightly more streamlined ending bits. Nevertheless, if you're a fan of beautiful, minimalist art and you enjoy lots of mind-bending language puzzles - I highly recommend this one.

Cocoon is a masterpiece in seamless puzzle design served with excellent art direction. It twists your brain but does it painlessly. Definitely one of the best premium indie games of the year!

Super well-designed, atmospheric and engaging. One of the best idea releases of 2023 so far.

I'm honestly surprised that I got so caught up with this one. The game has an expertly crafted loop, really good production value, some fresh ideas (which is not that obvious in this genre, 90% of games like this are basically mindless reskins), great server customization options, and works really well in co-op. Dang, even the music is good. There is only one "But" - I would rather not recommend it for solo play but that's just me.

Stray is 100% my type of game. Adventures of a stray cat in a rusty, colorful cyberpunk city full of somewhat clumsy robots. Sure, it's not very challenging or long (it took me ~6 hours to finish the main story and do most [if not all] side-objectives) – but the mood just oozes from the screen it makes you enjoy every second you spend it this world. Oh, and I also really loved how subtly nostalgic it is (FFVII+Ghibli+Half-Life vibes) without being directly referential. Seriously, what's not to like?

It's a short, ominous, and emotional point'n'click experience crafted with great attention to detail. It tackles some gripping, interesting themes and serves them up in a thick, dark atmosphere.

And, for some reason, it's also free? So... you have no excuse, just play it.

A well-crafted, mature, emotional experience. And a well-deserved BAFTA winner, too. Do yourself a favour and play it when you have a chance. And don't worry if you don't want to use the webcam - in my opinion, it won't become less impactful without it - although it's a nice gimmick.

Moncage manages to achieve something that is extremely important in puzzle games - it makes you think, it challenges you - but it never gets too convoluted to become frustrating. It is a fresh, well-designed experience that I'd recommend to puzzle game aficionados who enjoyed anything on the scale from Gorogoa to The Room series.

A super cool mixture of a good card game with some escape room-ish mechanics and a decent portion of conspiracy theory vibes. With tons of dark, odd atmosphere on top. Definitely worth checking out.

Draugen is probably one of the best "walking sims" that I've ever played and I'm not a big fan of this subgenre. It's an intimate, emotional story set in a beautiful, Scandinavian landscape. I really enjoyed the art direction, music, and the overall atmosphere. If you feel like playing a slower, more subtle game - definitely give Draugen a try.