Games I Played in October & Novemeber 2025

Games, Review

Looks like I forgot to share October’s games, so here are both months at once. Whoops!

October

Page for selecting video clips, showing he clips arranged in rows. One clips is highlighted for selection.
Selecting video clips in Immortality. | screenshot by me

I finished Immortality (Sam Barlow / Half Mermaid Productions), and it’s phenomenal. To learn how to play the game, the player really just has to dive in and discover how to play the game. The mechanics of pulling up videos, scrubbing them (playing, fast-forwarding, and rewinding), and then zooming in on objects or people in scenes allows for an impressive amount of discovery and exploration of this multi-layered and powerful narrative.

Marissa Marcel was an up-and-coming actor, who starred in three films — none of which ever aired. The game presents itself as a retrospective, allowing the the player to delve into clips from these films along with behind the scenes footage to discover her story. In the end, it’s so much deeper than the surface story, revealing a fascinating perspectives on how artists strive for a kind of immortality through their craft.

Games I Played in September 2025

Games
Hero character in Bad End Theatre.

Bad End Theater (NomnomNami) presents a simple narrative. A hero is sent to rescue a maiden from the clutches of a demon overlord. But with this visual novel, the player is able to select which character they want to be — hero, maiden, minion, or overlord — and the choices you make as one character effects how things turn out when you switch over and play as one of the other characters. As the player continues, they are able to turn on or off certain personality traits, which impacts all of the possible outcomes. And all of those outcomes are inevitably bad — terrible deaths, failure, and isolation. At first, it might seem like that’s all there is, but the game actually builds to a sweet and satisfying ending. It was a delightful little game.

Games I Played in August 2025

Games
Polly is the infamous mascot of the shipping company the crew works for. | screenshot by me

Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ) is a psychological horror game about a crew left stranded in space after their ship collides with an asteroid. The five person crew operates a long-haul transport ship, and are constantly reminded by the company’s mascot Polly to stay focused on work and to not linger to long in idle distractions. The isolation on the ship and the slim chance of being rescued reveals dark secrets and the crew’s hidden selves.

The game approaches the narrative as a puzzle, presenting scenes from two points of view — Curly, the captain, and Jimmy, his second in command — and arranges these fragmented scenes out of chronological order. This puzzle structure allows for an emotional escalation, building tension through mystery, rather than a straightforward progression of the plot. It also reflects a sense of workers being trapped in the flow of their lives, struggling to take responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made as the story cycles back on itself and grows increasingly surreal. I was particularly haunted by the Curly’s looming eye swirling in its socket, like the Tell-Tale Heart’s ever beating heart beneath the floorboards.

Games I Played in February 2025

Games
Looking toward the massive city of Baldur’s Gate in Baldur’s Gate 3 | screenshot by me

I’ve heard from several folks that Act 1 and 2 of Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios) is really just the beginning of the game, that Act 3 is the largest part of the game. They were right.

Act 2 involves traveling to a land cursed by darkness, and the player can either fight against the forces controlling that darkness or side with them. I really enjoyed this section of the game. It had some fascinating side quests and a great epic battle to defeat a seemingly immortal being. Completing this era feels climatic — and then we discover that this is only the start of a new storyline, leading the player to Baldur’s Gate.

Games I Played in January 2025

Games
Baldur’s Gate 3 | screenshot by me

I dipped my toes into Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios) when it was first released in 2023, but only played about an hour at the time before putting it down. This was partially due to my confusion about how to play the game and partially due to various distractions at the time that stole my attention away to other games.

In January, I opened it up again just for research. I wanted to understand how how Larian approaches branching dialog and gameplay choices, assuming I’d play for only and hour or two — and before I knew it, I was lost in the story and having a hard time putting it down. As of writing this, I have played around 80 hours of the game. And I still have soooo much game to go.