To the Moon is at its worst when it's trying to be a video game.

Part of this is down to the RPG Maker engine powering it: the point-and-click controls feel awkward when they work correctly, to say nothing of how irritatingly broken they become when the pathfinding falls apart; using keys to simulate a gamepad is more reliable, but hardly convenient; contextual actions and their hitboxes malfunction regularly. And some problems are really only attributable to the game's design: like the frequently lazy and tedious maps, and the universally boring puzzles.

That being said, gameplay is not what makes To the Moon noteworthy -- it's the writing. The game's plot, although slow to build at first, is genuinely interesting and unique (despite some superficial similarities to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). And the way that this story is told through dialog is generally pretty great. To the Moon's writing is markedly better than the vast majority of craptastic video game stories, and arguably approaches the quality level of critically-acclaimed films.

It's not perfect. Comic "relief" sometimes comes at inappropriate moments, breaking dramatic tension. Some portions of the game move slow, whether due to the unwanted interruption of bad gameplay, or simply from scripted elements literally moving very slowly. And I have some minor, distributed quibbles, like the dialog's weird approach to non-profane exclamations.

To put a point on it: this isn't the best game story I've experienced. But it ranks pretty high, with some particularly sophisticated use of foreshadowing, and fairly effective ... emotion, type, stuff. Feelings and shit.

To the Moon is bad as a game, but good enough as a story to make that game worth tolerating.

Better than: Dear Esther
Not as good as: Analogue: A Hate Story (which really had a better sense of brevity)
The story is memorable: but the game's strongest message might be don't make an adventure game in RPG Maker.

After Ittle Dew, I really wanted to delve deeper into Ludosity's catalog, and Card City Nights was dirt cheap relatively highly-recommended. But, for an allegedly "simple" game, its mechanics are varied and nuanced enough that its rewards don't really seem worth the effort. There are so many different effects to wield -- beyond straight-up offense and defense, there's disabling cards, removing cards, rotating cards, and more. The variety of hypothetical situations would theoretically benefit a balanced deck, with a little bit of everything; but the way the game's numbers work, if you aren't stacking your deck with the right attribute, there's just no way to keep up with the variously min-maxed AI opponents. It's rock-paper-scissors against a computer that always throws "X," but you won't know what "X" is until you've lost to it. And don't even get me started on the awkward rarities attached to certain link directions.

Don't misinterpret my complaints: the basic mechanics of the game are interesting, and I think they could actually support some fun sudden-death matchups against humans and balanced AIs. But the campaign's characters are dedicated to playing in ways that just aren't fun to play against. And the campaign itself is such a thin facade over the core conceit of collecting more cards that it just doesn't feel worthwhile.

Progress: Won 3/8 legendary cards.

Magrunner goes off the rails a bit in its third act. Not the story -- the story was never on any rails to begin with, floundering helplessly on the side of the track. No, what starts to fall apart in the third act is the gameplay mechanics. There are enemies that you need to "fight" by magnetically hurling things at them, and there are chases that are just totally out of place. These wacky tangents converge in a final boss fight that was obviously rushed out the door, where even the victory condition is completely unintuitive.

That aside, there were only a couple of places where I really felt like the game's puzzles were unfair, i.e. mechanics or objectives were cruelly non-obvious. In general, Magrunner's puzzles are really well-designed, and the amount of content is pretty admirable as well. Although the first act's levels tend to go by pretty quickly, in its second act, Magrunner presents some real head-scratchers. Forget the fact that this isn't really how magnets work; this is a good Portal-like puzzler.

What makes it fall short of Portal, in addition to the aforementioned third-act decline, is Magrunner's narrative weakness. The intro is pretty cutscene-heavy, as is the finale, with a pretty disappointing ending to boot. And there's only one character - the mentor - in the whole cast who's worth a damn; the protagonist has no personality whatsoever, other friendly characters come and go without a second thought, and even the villain is a flat, throwaway stooge. Although Magrunner succeeds in setting up a Lovecraftian atmosphere, its story elements are thoroughly underwhelming.

Despite those shortcomings though, Magrunner is definitely worth its running length. Its core puzzle mechanic is unique enough to support some really fresh puzzle design, and its atmospheric twist is unlike anything you're likely to have played before.

Better than: Quantum Conundrum, Q.U.B.E.
Not as good as: Portal, Portal 2
Story not as good as: Event Horizon

Progress: Finished on Normal

At first, Magrunner appears like nothing more than yet another Portal-alike -- right down to the elevators that carry you from test chamber to test chamber. And not unlike Portal, its puzzle conceit is simple, but compelling: you'll use left- and right-clicks to charge objects positively or negatively, using magnetic attraction and repulsion to make blocks and platforms move around, in order to make a path to the exit.

(Important science note: Magrunner's implementation of magnetism is wrong. In Magrunner, similar polarities attract one another, and dissimilar polarities repel. Ultimately this makes more sense for the game's puzzles, since you sometimes have to attract a collection of more than two objects. But the fundamental disagreement with reality is still bothersome.)

Anyway. The Portal comparisons are all well and good for several levels, and then shit gets really fucking real. I don't think it's a spoiler that, within the game's first act, it rips off its sci-fi mask to reveal some dark and spooky Lovecraft business. I've still got plenty of game left to go, but so far it's using some great environment design and ambient sound to nail a creepy atmosphere.

Which is especially good since the dialog writing and voice acting isn't really keeping up. With the exception of one supporting character in particular, pretty much everyone in this story has really dumb lines and a really hammy actor spouting them out. Parts of the plot are also a little weird, and not, like, R'lyeh weird -- just. Well, for example, one of the supporting characters is a clear satire of Mark Zuckerberg (his name is even an anagram of Zuckerberg's). It's a bit ... out of place.

But the atmosphere, and the rapidly-increasing puzzle complexity, are keeping Magrunner interesting regardless. I'm suitably anxious to delve deeper into this hard sci-fi nightmare.

Progress: Finished Act I

I can't be certain if the developers of Puzzle Bots intended for it to be a slow, dull, schlocky homage to point-and-click adventure games from 20 years ago; or if they legitimately found a time machine, and recovered this game from Lucasarts circa 1990. But deliberate or otherwise, its primitive mechanics and flat narrative make it hard to maintain any amount of interest in.

Progress: Made it to the kitchen.

Kingdom Rush is a mostly-well-crafted tower defense game. I mean, I could essentially end the post here. It doesn't go too far beyond what you'd expect from a modern tower defense: you can build towers of varying melee and range effectiveness, you can upgrade them with money you earn from defeating enemies, you can follow alternate upgrade paths for different unique abilities, you can use out-of-combat points ("stars" you earn by completing levels) to upgrade your upgrades so you can upgrade while you upgrade. You have a hero unit, selectable from different options (with different strengths and weaknesses), who can level up during combat.

What makes Kindom Rush noteworthy is, basically, that it's well-made. It's easy to control, it has a shallow learning curve - up until the end - and it's polished with a moderate coat of fun, from cartoony animations to game-industry in-jokes. There are plenty of unit and upgrade options to play around with, so it never really feels repetitive. And, although I didn't get into it myself, there is a wealth of end-game content to explore in the form of bonus mini-campaigns.

But, the game isn't without its share of issues. The last couple missions ramp up sharply in difficulty, such that many previous strategies no longer work, and there isn't any real direction on how to improve. Replaying a level in a more difficult mode disables certain features, turning the game into a puzzle where you have to find the one or two possible tower setups that will work. There are a couple of balance issues that just seem unfair, like the Lich, which infinitely spawns skeleton minions that count toward failure if they reach the end of the lane, but don't yield any rewards when they're killed. And it's a bit disappointing that the extra bonus missions (which constitute almost as much content as the main game) don't open up until completing the core story -- until which time, levels only progress in a forced, linear order.

These irritations are really only remarkable because the rest of the game is just fine. Not excellent, but certainly not bad, either. Kingdom Rush does very well for itself within the established mold of tower defense; but its potential is ultimately limited by how comfortably it still fits inside that mold.

Better than: Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim
Not as good as: Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten
It does help: that the game is full of classic references, like tesla-tower dwarves yelling "Toasty!" when you upgrade them.

Progress: Finished the main campaign on Normal.

What I expected from Incredipede was a kinematics-based puzzle game, attempting to construct a weird muscle-bug creature to manipulate objects and climb over obstacles. That expection is ... partially accurate. But I'll get to that in a bit.

Incredipede's campaign is presented in two difficulty options, "Normal" and "Hard." In the Normal mode, there doesn't seem to be any construction element at all -- the game provides your insane creature, and you attempt to maneuver it, as if it isn't in constant, horrifying pain, to a goal at the end of a level. Given that the levels aren't really that complicated, the challenge isn't in solving obstacles so much as it is in solving the creature's wacky movement patterns. This gameplay is pretty much QWOP plus collectibles.

The Hard mode is where the construction elements come into play, but not necessarily. Even in this mode, the majority of the game seems to be about taking what the game gives you and trying not to play it like a tool. Just, uh, more ridiculous. Sometimes, you'll have to build upon a given creature in order to make something better. Allegedly. I didn't actually get far enough in this mode to try that aspect of the game.

I only even got to try the construction mode by ignoring the story levels and going to the game's "Sandbox." But imagine my disappointment when discovering that controlling the construction mode was even more difficult than trying to control the pre-constructed creatures. How do I undo or remove limbs? How do I actually connect muscles? I'm not going to say that this mode is impossible, but - my patience having already worn thin by that point - I simply gave up trying to figure it out.

Incredipede is fairly well done for what it is: the presentation is good, and given that its goal is to be hard to control, it really nails that. But in light of what I wanted-slash-expected, the game is a definite let-down.

Element4l is a dumb game with a dumb name. The controls are fidgety, the graphics are obnoxious (glowing objects obscure vital on-screen elements!), the environments are dull, and when you get right down to it, the gameplay formula - using a small number of elemental abilities to avoid obstacles and traverse levels - isn't fun. Element4l completely failed to grab my attention in its opening levels, and the videos I've seen of later levels don't really look any different.

Progress: not much.

I've had Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition sitting on my Wii U for ... I guess, almost as long as I've had my Wii U. So after being thoroughly underwhelmed by WayForward's attempts on Adventure Time, I figured, let's see what they can do with an original IP of their own. As it turns out, not much.

This isn't to say that Mighty Switch Force is a bad game, exactly. The core gameplay is competent enough, and there seems to be a respectable amount of content in here, based on the visible level count. The graphics are fine - if a little obsessed with cute, busty cartoon girls - and the soundtrack is stellar, as per Jake "virt" Kaufman's usual. But it's impossible not to notice the gaping absence of story, or any narrative explanation to the game's premise or world design.

Some games can get away with this lack of storytelling, but here it's conspicuous to the point of bothersome. With how strongly the game's characters are visually detailed, it just doesn't make sense that there isn't any amount of expository text, or any spoken narration -- especially in the midst of voice samples for random game actions, like checkpoints and health pick-ups. It's baffling that the graphics and sound are as polished as they are, but there is no attention whatsoever paid to the game's premise.

And without that, all that Mighty Switch Force really offers is a competent, but relatively unoriginal platform-puzzle game. The collision-switching mechanic is hardly new, and the other puzzles I saw in my (admittedly brief) time here were nothing that hasn't been done before by many other games. It simply isn't compelling enough for me to continue on with.

Better than: Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know!
Not as good as: Offspring Fling!
But you really should: give the soundtrack a listen (and the sequel's, while you're at it).

Progress: Finished the first four levels.

Now here's a game that (unlike some others) really understands, and builds upon, its forebears. Ittle Dew, aside from having a pretty fun title, is a refreshing and exciting homage to the top-down Zelda formula, and arguably to Link's Awakening and Phantom Hourglass in particular.

The pitch is pretty straightforward: a small-scope island map, with four interconnected regions, each with a dungeon, a magic treasure, and a boss. Dungeon puzzles don't waste any time becoming awesomely devious, and some bonus puzzles scattered around the map - which conceal heart pieces, as well as extra collectibles - definitely push the envelope re: strategic block pushing. Seriously, these are some of the best-designed block puzzles I've ever seen.

One of Ittle Dew's really fascinating twists on the Zelda approach is re-ordering the formula's basic sequence. In a Zelda game, you'll be given some story goal (get the thing to save the person with the thing, yada yada yada), then explore the overworld to get to the dungeon, crawl the dungeon to get the thing, and finally beat a boss to escape the dungeon.

Ittle Dew upends that by first having you explore a central dungeon - ala Phantom Hourglass's Temple of the Ocean King - to collect gold, to use for "buying" a magic item, which causes the shopkeeper to teleport you inside the dungeon where that item lives; then you get the item, solve puzzles and beat a boss to escape, and make the relatively short trek back through the overworld to the hub. It's a bit jarring at first, but this approach has some distinct benefits: like removing the need to retread ground in the overworld, and cutting out the thing-for-person-with-thing bullshit (which, you'll note, had become a blight upon modern Zelda). Ittle Dew maintains a big-picture overall goal, but keeps things light along the way.

This sense of whimsy is reflected in the game's art and writing as well, which is infused throughout by eye-catching designs and irreverent humor. Ittle Dew's characters and elements are weird, but not unsettling weird, like Anodyne's -- off-the-wall weird, like, people in animal costumes; pancakes that fly around; and dungeon obstacles with faces. Encountering an enemy type for the first time will initiate a brief get-to-know-you conversation. Sometimes you'll run into a non-sequitor art detail, like a birdhouse on the wall, and Ittle will pop up a bit of flavor text. The presentation overall is just fun.

Beyond its well-informed gameplay and entertaining aesthetics, Ittle Dew offers a lot of opportunity for additional difficulty via sequence breaking. There are three magic items to collect, but evidently it's possible to finish the game with any combination of only two of those! Dungeons and the overworld are also filled with puzzles that can be accomplished with combinations of items, or with only a single item, if you really want to test your mettle. And then there are the optional collectibles and a pair of bonus dungeons, just for extra challenge. Personally I'm not that motivated to squeeze yet more life out of the game, but if I was, Ittle Dew would certainly be accommodating.

Sadly, all stories must have villains, and the big one here is that the game is short. I wrapped it up in under three hours - including the tens of minutes I spent staring at some particularly fiendish puzzles - and there is a Steam achievement for finishing in less than 15 minutes, so, apparently that's a thing that is possible. Again, there is plenty of extra content, if you're so inclined; but as the crow flies, it's over fairly quickly.

The PC version of Ittle Dew also seems to have a baffling performance issue, which gets exacerbated by the amount of constantly-moving elements on-screen at any given time. It's bizarre, since this is a Unity game that also runs on mobile (there's even an Ouya version). But if you can live with some frame-skipping, it's at least tolerable.

Ittle Dew is a short, tightly-crafted Zelda-like that does some things (block puzzles!) better than Zelda ever has. It oozes fun from all its pores, and never weighs itself down with unnecessary filler. I really, really hope to see more from this franchise in the future.

Better than: Anodyne, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Not as good as: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Less content, but more densely satisfying than: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Progress: Completed the game with all three items.