Games I Played in January 2026

Games, Review
Michelle is a stylish survivor in Sorry We’re Closed | screenshot by me

Sorry We’re Closed (á la mode games) is a survival horror game with immense amounts of style. The art (which is one of the first things that attracted me to it) is stunning, both the nostalgic computer graphics and the character portraits. The music hits the perfect vibes and the gameplay adds to the survival horror experience.

Michelle is a young woman working in a corner shot in a small neighborhood in London. Though on another continent, the community feels very much like some of the counter-culture neighborhoods I’ve seen in San Francisco, being full of charming punks, oddballs, and weirdos. Everyone seems a bit on edge, considering the number of disappearances in the area.

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Global Game Jam 2026

Games Development
Covers for the games Best Face Forward (showing the silhouette of a face with the text arranged inside) and Thomas Was NOT Alone (showing a man in a beanie and suit jacket, holding a wine glass, with pink hearts floating around his head)

Over the weekend, I participated in the Global Game Jam at the UC Davis location hosted by the Game Development & Arts Club. I’ve done several jams in the past, but always as a solo developer. So, this was the first time I participated in a jam with the intention of joining a team, let alone at an in-person event. Quite nerve-racking.

Fortunately, everyone was wonderfully chill. The event kicked off with a presentation, with former Davis alumnus providing advice on how to approach a jam, before declaring the theme for the 2026 jam: Mask.

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‘Stray’ Is a Cute Cat Game… Full of Horrors

Review

In Stray , developed by BlueTwelve Studio, the player gets to experience what it’s like to be an ginger tabby cat exploring the ruins of the human world. At the start, the cat is living with a group of fellow strays, who wander along giant pipes and culverts, likely looking for food — when one of the pipes suddenly gives way causing the kitty to fall into a deep crevasse, with their cat family helpless to do anything but watch him disappear into the dark.

Alone in an underground structure full of garbage, the kitty must find their way back outside (hopefully to return to their family). Fortunately, he’s not alone in this journey. Neon signs and lighted arrows guide the cat through dark tunnels, helping him to avoid danger, and ultimately leading him to a small, empty apartment with a secret room full of computers and technology. After solving a simple puzzle, the cat encounters a new friend in the form of a small, floating robot.

B-12, as this robot is named, would also like to reach the Outside, because that’s what it’s long-dead creator wanted. So, it straps a battery pack to the kitty’s back and together, they head off to escape to the world above.

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Games I Played in December 2025

Games
Everything is oddly insectile in Cocoon (2023) | Source: Geometric Interactive

Cocoon (Geometric Interactive) is a puzzle platformer with some of the most satisfying and interesting puzzle mechanics I’ve ever seen. As a strange bug-like humanoid creature, the player is released from a cocoon and tasked with exploring and finding their way through alien worlds. The worlds are strangely biomechanical, making them feel unsettling and cohesive all at once, and the puzzles are fascinating and intuitive. In almost every instance, I could figure things out by bumbling around a bit, with the solutions being so satisfying I found myself getting emotional just through the sheer act of playing the game.

My only frustration came from the boss fights, since the gameplay felt disconnected from the beautiful wonder of the rest of the puzzles. Each boss fight just felt like an annoying obstacle holding me back from the delights of the rest of the game.

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Games I Loved Playing in 2025

Games
A grid of four images showing screenshots from The Last of Us II, Mouthwashing, Immortality, and The Outer Worlds 2

Over the last year, I played 28 full games, of which I finished 24. As with previous years, most of my gameplay has come from the lingering backlog of years past, with only a handful of games having been released in 2025.

It’s been an interesting year of play for me. In many cases, the easy joy of play gave way to more complex experiences. Some left me emotionally wrought. Others featured gameplay that slipped into the frustrating, but nevertheless held me captive with their narrative.

Fortunately, some lighter fair was also included in the mix. There were games that delighted me with their puzzle design, offered unique narratives, or just granted me the simple joy of a fun experience — something I definitely needed by the end of this year.

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