It is *amazing* how cute and delightful the petsim Bunbons is. I booted it up thinking it would only be a light 30 minute long venture, but instead this game has a delightful surprise up its sleeve: after a bunbon grows up and becomes happy enough, you can send it off, revealing a big map of unexplored planets, each sent-off bun giving you access to a new planet with a new variety of bunbon to raise. You can also crossbreed your bunbons, and soon enough you'll have tons of adorable little buns on your hands. There is plenty to explore and many crossbreeds to try, but the gameplay is relatively simple, so much so that it can mostly play itself, but it's so fun to interact with your bunbons that it's hard to be idle for too long. Makes for a wonderful idle game while being impressively extensive, not to mention the pixelart is cute and gorgeous. Simply put: I love it to bits. It's probably my favorite pet simulator/idle game on itchio. Definitely try if you're a tamagochi/chao garden type of game fan!

Approximate play time: ~ 6 hours (can vary greatly)

Available for free on: Itch.io (PC and mobile browsers)

Semblance is a platformer with an interesting feature: the player can push around and mold platforms (and eventually themselves) into different shapes, though only in one direction at a time. The game has a lovely aesthetic, and the art is polished and pleasing to look at, but it doesn't have much intergration with gameplay beyond the background, and after a while the simple style started to blend together for me. The puzzles are complex and require you to come at them in any way you can think of; they're well done but I found the harder ones a little grating as the game went on. Unfortunately the length of this game was not appealing to me as I'm not a huge fan of puzzles like these, but I can see someone who is a big fan really enjoying this game. It reminds me of puzzle games I used to get on the app store in the 2010s like Badland. If you loved those, you should give Semblance a try.

Approximate play time: ~ 4-6 hours

Available for $9.99 on: Itch.io

It's hard to say much about FRANKEN, because if I listed off what I love about it I would just be giving an hour-long essay, when you should really spend that hour playing FRANKEN yourself. It's free and it's easy and it's FUN!! It's full of great splendidland humor and charm from start to finish, in character dialogue for sure, but in just about everything including the plot itself as well. At first I was admittedly a little concerned about the battle system, just because it seemed like it would make the outcome of fights super obvious from the second they start, but you'll learn pretty quickly that FRANKEN is unpredictable, and this keeps battles (and everything else) fresh. You could call it creative and hilarious, you could say the art style is gorgeous, that it does great witty subversion of rpg game tropes and does rpg tropes with excellence and style, or you could just say it is god damn. good!! And all of these things would be right. Solid and beautiful game!

Approximate play time: 1 hour

Available for free on: Itch.io

DTWM is a visual novel with a unique setting: you follow a few sentient dolls who live together in their little dollhouse, playing as their owner and watching over them. The writing is excellent, the art is very pretty and detailed, and the characters are well developed and interesting; the only thing I wish is that there was more game to play! I'm definitely excited to see what these developers make next.

Approximate play time: 1 hour

Available for free on: Itch.io

(Review of the whole Lonely Wolf Treat series!) While the first game starts out a bit rough, and the setting and world of the game can be strange/takes some getting used to, the LWT series is genuinely adorable and heartwarming. As games progress they get better and better at endearing the players to the main characters, and you really connect with them, even when they're being silly and cracking jokes. Lovely series of games. (Just wish they were packaged altogether!)

Approximate series play time: 4 hours

Available for free on: Itch.io

VERY cute and enjoyable game about raising and selling chickens. Gameplay is simple and it only takes about an hour to complete all the quests but is on the high end of idle games to me despite simplicity. Seems like a nice game to come back to when you need something to relax with for a short while.

Approximate play time: 1 hour

Available for $1.50 on: Itch.io /

A short game about being uncomfortable in your own skin. Beautiful visuals and music, lovingly crafted, really uses renpy to its full abilities. Only downside is that blunt writing and meme references can take you out of the experience, but great ending dialogue pulls you back in again.

Approximate play time: 45 mins

Available for free on: Itch.io

A short visual novel with a fun little coffee mini-game. The story is a sad one, but good, and the art is really charming!

Approximate play time: 30 mins

Available for free on: Itch.io

A cute little sandbox with cute little ai characters! Limited in what control you have but you can still make some really lovely and beautiful little landscapes. Only an hour of main "story" gameplay but the random generation leaves opportunity for a lot more messing around afterwards.

Approximate play time: >1 hour

Available for $3 on: Itch.io

Short but very sweet game about being a big ol bear that rolls around and eats stuff. Nothing too extensive (there's only three couple-minute-long levels total) but still a fun game and the graphics are well done and cute!

Approximate play time: 30 mins-1 hour

Available for free on: Itch.io

A cute and neat but very simple game, with only really an hour of mileage, tops. Fun small novelty, but not very engaging.

Approximate play time: 30 mins-1 hour

Available for $3 on: Itch.io

An RPGmaker horror game that knows its roots well, and is full of fun characters, math puzzles, and gory deaths. Interesting story and fun atmosphere, but not very fun to play on its own. (You're going to wander aimlessly and die a LOT in this one.) An intriguing first episode that I hope leads to bigger and better games!

Approximate play time: 3 hours

Available for free on: Itch.io