There’s something inherently cathartic about turning workplace frustration into pixelated chaos. Monday Syndrome takes that idea and runs with it — hard.

Instead of running with the theme of most rouglites with slow starts and runs taking a while to take off. Monday Syndrome throws you into chaos from the get-go. As soon as players reach their designated floor, hop out the elevator they have to be ready for the havoc. Devilish co-workers, destruction and projectiles.

Great premise

Think Hotline Miami within the rouglite genre and taking place in a office from hell. Players in between the chaos will unlock stationary, chairs or anything else one could potentially find in the aforementioned setting. As well as unlocking the weapons, players will use their collected wages to unlock traits and modifiers that can be slapped onto their weapon of choice to make them even more powerful. Sometimes very game breaking.

During the runs there are to bars players will fill up, and exp bar and ‘boons’ bar. Quite self explanatory the exp bar will reward skill points that can be distributed into a variety of passive bonuses. Boons however will pop up when ready and give players a choice of three traits alongside their flaws that can cause some interesting synergies.

All of this sounds like a perfect game to hop on for a run or two to relax and slowly unlock more and more gear, unfortunately the premise is far greater than the execution.

Just like the in game traits.. everything has a flaw attached

Monday Syndrome ‘officially’ left early access and fully released on February 9th 2026. Yet upon launching the game, the version number still reads v0.7. A small detail that immediately raises eyebrows. More concerning is how much of the structure still feels like an early access build.

Systems appear partially gated in ways that suggest unfinished implementation. More critically, progression doesn’t consistently function as expected. You can unlock new weapons and invest in upgrades, but the game frequently fails to acknowledge those changes until you fully restart it. In a genre built around tight iteration loops — die, upgrade, jump straight back feeling stronger — this kind of friction is deeply disruptive.

There is only one skill tree as the other 3 are ‘unavailable in early access’ and every floor feels the same. Enemies do not scale meaning by floor 5 the player is un-killable, to top it off when you get to the boss… it the same TV every time, which also doesn’t scale in difficulty.

My Conclusion

There is a genuinely good game underneath these issues. The combat works. The progression ideas are solid. The random boon system introduces meaningful variety. The concept is clever and thematically cohesive.

But releasing under a 1.0 banner while still displaying a early access restriction and lack of polish makes it difficult to recommend at this moment. Not because the core design is flawed, but because the experience doesn’t yet feel complete.

Monday Syndrome is fun. It’s chaotic. It’s cathartic. The foundation is there. The price tag doesn’t ask much but once again that’s not the issue. Once the developers bring this title up to what has been promised I’d be happy to change my score but for now, I say give it a miss.

There’s something immediately disarming about Dead Pets. It looks loud, colourful, and chaotic — a cartoon fever dream about demons trying to make it in a punk band. But spend a couple of hours with it and you realize: this isn’t just about playing gigs. It’s about burnout, ambition, friendship, and the uncomfortable reality of still “figuring it out” in your 30s.

And somehow, it blends all these struggle with humour extremely well.

Good morning Void City!

You play as Gordy, front woman of the band Dead Pets, living in the wonderfully weird New Void City. The world is surreal — Demonic characters, neon-soaked streets, absurd side designs — but emotionally, it’s grounded. Bills are due. Relationships are fragile. Energy is limited. Dreams cost time… and a lot of money.

The setup is simple: keep the band alive while juggling life. The execution? That’s where Dead Pets shines. Dead Pets blends narrative adventure with light management mechanics. Each day you decide how Gordy handles situations.

• Work a shift at the diner to earn cash
• Practice with the band
• Go to Yoga
• Burrow money

These among others are choice and every choice affects stats like money, mental health, social standing, and band progress. The loop isn’t punishing, but it is tight. You can’t do everything. Something will slip.

And that’s the point.

The game captures the modern creative grind beautifully — the constant trade off between stability and passion. Do you take extra shifts to stay financially safe, or risk it to rehearse for a show that might flop?

It’s stressful in a very real, very relatable way.

Perfect blend of gameplay and story beats

To keep the pacing lively, the game weaves in small minigames, including rhythm-based band performances and fun interactive shifts as a waitress. They’re not mechanically deep, but they add depth and prevent the experience from becoming a graphic novel. Performing with the band, in particular, feels satisfying because it represents the payoff for your earlier decisions. When a show goes well, it feels earned.

Where Dead Pets truly shines is in its writing. The tone swings comfortably between absurd humor and emotional vulnerability. Characters are messy and flawed in ways that feel human despite their demonic appearances. Conversations are sharp, awkward, and often painfully honest. The game explores creative burnout, fear of failure, drifting friendships, and the quiet pressure of falling “behind” in life. It doesn’t offer easy solutions, but it does offer empathy.

My Conclusion

Dead Pets is a fantastic combination of minigames, graphic novels and life simulation. For a very affordable price you can experience all the struggles of life in a stylised, overflowing with humour and wacky characters game. If anything about this game intrigues you, rest assured everything surrounding it will pull you in even more.

Anomaly games have become well known within the horror genre over the past couple of years, currently cementing itself as one of the most popular sub-genres in 2026.

You’d only have to go back to 2023 when they really took off and made a name for itself. In comes The Exit 8, where you’re trapped in an endless Japanese underground passageway and you have to pay close attention to your surroundings, trying to spot any anomalies to escape from the unnerving underground.

Not long after it was released the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and it became a viral indie sensation, being played by huge streamers and amassing many views on social media. If that wasn’t impressive enough, it was announced by the developers and publisher last August that it sold over two million copies and if that somehow didn’t manage to pique your interest, there was even a film released about it last year, debuting second just behind Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, attracting over one million viewers in Japan.

So it was a pretty big success, and there’s no surprise that the anomaly genre has become popular ever since it was released. It truly was a massive influence and you can tell by playing some just how much of an inspiration and impact it has had.

Now not every game of the genre has taken inspiration from the king of anomaly games, some have gone down their own route and stray from the same setting and mechanics, just like The Attic 18th.

In this psychological horror you play as James, a man trapped in an attic with his beloved cat, armed only with a camera to snap pictures of anomalies within the environment as he hunts them down, with each photo taken unlocking a new memory of his mysterious past.

Most anomaly games lack the scare factor to truly make them a terrifying and tense experience, something that The 18th Attic easily succeeded at.

I’ve played my fair share of anomaly games and most of them I’ve never really wanted to continue, purely because they become very boring since the spotting anomaly aspect is all they really have to them. I’ve never actually been anxious or tense when playing any, that was until I played The Attic 18th which I was actually relieved to finally finish.

What made it so effective in the scare department was that each floor had you feeling anxious, whether it was because of an anomaly jumping out at you after successfully capturing one, or getting jumpscared after leaving the floor failing to capture one. The latter really had me tensing up each time I walked up the stairs, especially when I spent minutes searching the floor certain that there was nothing present only to get surprised by a disfigured thing appearing halfway up the stairs.

I always preferred having to deal with an anomaly than not having to. Mind you sometimes they were easy to spot and other times they weren’t, but seeing the message pop up that I detected it lifted a weight off of my shoulders, since I knew I could walk up the stairs without having to worry about getting jumpscared again.

But it worked so well, it had me doubting myself even though I looked everywhere positive that the floor was safe. That feeling never really went away no matter how thoroughly I checked the area, it was always lingering throughout the whole playthrough and I prepared myself each time I ascended the stairs which was exactly why it was so effective in that aspect, something a lot of games within the sub-genre failed to execute.

Make sure to snap the anomalies

You see, something else I really liked about The Attic 18th was how you interacted with the anomalies in the environment, which was using your trusty camera to take pictures of them.

Successfully capturing them would allow you to proceed to the next floor safely, and on some occasions you would be met with some rather horrible jumpscares, which only reminded me of the horrors I forgot lurked in the shadows. Photo cartridges were essentially ammo for your camera, you came across some every five floors, so naturally they were a limited resource which you had to use wisely.

If you happened to find yourself with none left then capturing anomalies was impossible, no photo cartridges was practically a death sentence so you had to pray that you found some on the next few floors otherwise you’d be finding yourself respawning in front of your furry little friend, which is the only comfort and sense of normalcy you’ll have throughout the whole game.

Not only was it a unique way to spot them compared to other anomaly titles, but it just made the atmosphere so much better. If you’ve played any horror games which implement cameras or recorders as your main form of defense, then you’ll know just how much scarier they can make the experience. It’s a mystery how something which simply records/takes pictures can flip the atmosphere within an instant, but I imagine we’ll still be questioning this for years to come.

Tarsier Studios gave new soul to the puzzle-platform horror adventure by mixing it with grotesque fairy tales and their truly amazing world creation and storytelling.

Little Nightmares 1 & 2 have their strengths and flaws, but they are amazing games that have a special place in my heart as someone who really loves dark-themed games. I really had high expectations for Little Nightmares 3 (not developed by Tarsier), which sadly did not exceed them, and it fails to match the quality of its predecessors. So now all my hope is on Reanimal, and I have really high expectations set by Tarsier themselves.

Tarsier Studios promised a darker world with Reanimal, which is very exciting, to see a darker world than their previous games that already had an amazing dark world. Now that we have set our expectations for Reanimal, let’s see if it exceeds them or not.

STORY

The story uses the same formula they used before, which doesn’t give a straight answer. Instead, it leaves it to you to decide, and everyone will have their unique take on the story based on their personal perspective. This is great, and it was the perfect choice not to change that formula.

The beginning of the story highlights dehumanizing individuals who obey without having an identity of their own, becoming mere shells created by a leader solely to obey. This strips humans of their most important right: to be different.

This is the prologue of the story and the beginning of the dehumanization. The rest of the game shows how this process continues to grow, with animals demonstrating it through metaphors and showing that it worsens the more it proceeds.

The ending shows one of the outcomes of dehumanization in a great way, which makes you think deeply about the whole story you experienced.

While the story is really great and its meaning can differ a lot with different perspectives, it has one problem, and that’s the length of the story, which takes around four hours. Even though Tarsier has always said they prefer quality over quantity, the game would have benefited from an additional hour or two and perhaps another boss fight to feel more complete and have a decent playtime.

GAMEPLAY

Reanimal is fully 3D, unlike Little Nightmares, which was 2.5D, so you can now move in every direction at any time, which is very exciting and can make the gameplay completely different.

The combat has been greatly improved, and there are more combat sections and mechanics in the game. Still, it isn’t perfect, but it’s way better than Little Nightmares. You have different weapons and some really high-tension fights that are truly enjoyable.

The platforming, however, takes a step back. It introduces no new mechanics and, in fact, features less platforming overall compared to Little Nightmares. This is unfortunate, as the shift to a fully 3D design presented significant potential that could have allowed it to surpass Little Nightmares rather than fall short.

The puzzles also took a hit, being both fewer in number and less challenging.
The full story can be played in single-player, online co-op, and local co-op.

Overall, the gameplay suffers more drawbacks than it achieves improvements.

VISUALS

The amount of talent Tarsier Studios has in creating dark worlds and atmospheres is unbelievable. If not the best, they are definitely among the best people on Earth to do it. Not Little Nightmares 1, not 2, and not Reanimal, none of them have fallen short in this regard.

Everywhere you go gives you a chill; you might see something or someone, but you can feel that thing being empty, alive but dead inside. Everything in the world has a duality of being dead and alive, not only living things but even locations give that same feeling.

For example, the cinema looks abandoned, but it has an audience watching a disturbing movie over and over again. They are there, but they don’t react to you.

The graphics are also great and better while having perfect performance, tested on both PS5 and PS5 Pro.

SOUND DESIGN

The sound design is great and it’s successful in communicating the same feelings that the visuals do, so you have fear crawling through your eyes and ears at the same time.

The soundtracks of Little Nightmares 2 were a masterpiece. Reanimal also has great soundtracks; they’re calm, stressful, and match the atmosphere and gameplay. They’re not better, but they’re still great and connect what you see and what you do to what you hear.

CONCLUSION

Reanimal has a dark story, carefully crafted for a deep exploration into the concept of dehumanization using animals as symbols. The gameplay is fully 3D and features improved combat, but falls short in its platforming and puzzles. The visuals are outstanding, creating an eye-catching dark atmosphere and world with high-fidelity graphics and perfect performance. Sound design and soundtracks harmonize with the visuals to further immerse the player in its darkness. Reanimal has both improvements and drawbacks, with enough shortcomings to place it slightly below Little Nightmares 2.

Nonentity Galaxy is strategy roguelite with space fleets and dark humor. Developed by Brick-Up Studio and published by 2P Games, Nonentity Galaxy had a full release on February 4th, 2026. Players command and organize their fleet of spaceships, travelling through space to complete field missions, all while under the thumb of corporate greed. Tactics and strategy play a big role, as enemy fleets will become progressively stronger as you travel, depending on which path you choose. By purchasing or scavenging better ships, modules and rarities, players can keep up with the challenge. However, sometimes it might be better to cut your losses and escape, because you can’t make money if you’re dead.

In Nonentity Galaxy, there’s a deeper story than just doing field missions in space with your fleet. Working for the Corporation, players will quickly learn of their oppressive and manipulative nature. To make the best of things, players will skim a bit off of the profit, slowly earning resources in order to upgrade the fleet. Though I enjoyed many aspects, I found myself having a hard time really getting into the game. For core gameplay, managing my fleet and watching battles unfold was fun, but began to get repetitive fast. For the story, I enjoyed the dark humor, but it was a bit more dark and depressingly profound rather than humorous. I think overall the game is decent, but I’m having trouble seeing what this game does differently beyond managing a fleet rather than one ship. So, get ready to gather galactic cubes, because it’s time to discuss Nonentity Galaxy!

“What on Earth is it that makes humans so damn immoral?” – Taryn

Nonentity Galaxy‘s story is told through dialogues between characters and AIs with animal personas. Starting off as Taryn, a young woman escaping crippling debt on Earth, players will come to learn more about her and her two colleagues/friends, Dossier and Haulmore. They have many dialogues together over shared meals of paste, discussing the oppressive Corporation and the cruelties of the world. They have further discussions with other characters too, such as training specialist Cook and the Mothership AI who has the persona of a dog with a hat and sunglasses. After a short while, I got the general feeling that everyone felt trapped, stuck under the Corporations oppressive nature.

However, when the steam page states its “grim yet hilarious” and has “lethal doses of dark humor”, I expect something a bit more funny. Most of the story so far feels profoundly bleak. Not in a “too dark to be funny” way—I enjoy dark humor—but I struggled to find much humor in the writing, and it feels like it could use more. As a straight dark narrative, though, it works. The gloom fits the themes of space and corporate greed, and it’s clear the characters aren’t being told everything. That secrecy turns the plot into a quiet mystery about what’s being hidden and who’s lying to us.

A few players stated that they felt the dialogue went on far too long. I can certainly see why they feel this way, as it does tend to stretch out longer than it probably needs to. I personally didn’t mind, but it is something to be aware of or turn off with the option to skip conversations.

A Well Strategized Fleet of Ships, Travelling Through Space

Core gameplay for Nonentity Galaxy revolves around managing your fleet as you travel through space. In general, there are three main types of ships—frigates (tanks), gunships, and support. Frigates will want to be on the frontline and placed as close to the battlefield (or gray area in the middle) as possible. Gunships will dish out the damage from a distance in the back, using canine cannons or summoning carrier bombers. Supporting ships provide buffs like shielding or galactic charging. They require adjacency to other ships in order to provide those buffs. There are also larger ships, such as the yellow ones that are typically stronger and more effective than their smaller counterparts.

Strategic placement of available ships plays a big role in combat. Combat can run automatically, but players can step in to target specific ships or fire mothership support weapons. Winning battles rewards you with galactic cubes, new ships, upgrade modules, and rarities that power up the mothership’s weapons. In most cases before a battle begins, you are able to place down new ships, re-organize and upgrade your fleet. It’s a nice pause before combat to re-strategize, check out the rewards you’ve earned, and plan accordingly to the enemy fleet’s formation.

Travelling is done in a pretty standard roguelite fashion. You will have multiple paths to go down and players must choose which one they’d like to take. Paths can include things like combat, encounters that yield various outcomes, and shops to purchase ships or modules. When choosing combat, higher levels will of course be more difficult to go up against, but will result in better rewards. If you go up against an enemy fleet and think you won’t be the winner of it, you are able to escape. However, this will result in ending your traveling and you will suffer any penalties because of it. Still, better alive than dead though, so it is important to keep this in mind.

As a roguelite, it does the job. I didn’t run into any issues with the core gameplay, and I always understood what the game wanted from me. I always enjoy roguelites where you do a bit better with each run, and I think that this game fits in with that. They also don’t limit the number of ships you can put down. It was fun to just throw everything I had at enemy fleets. My fleet might have looked chaotic and messy, but it was effective at getting the job done and beating them in numbers.

However, the game quickly became repetitive. Different runs will feature almost identical paths, including the encounters. This begins to feel like I’m repeating the same path over and over again. I think what is supposed to make things feel different is the stuff you prepare back at the base, but it would be nice if there was more a variety for the potential locations we can come across. I also struggle to see what Nonentity Galaxy offers that’s different from other roguelites. Many of the elements are pretty common for what I’d expect in a roguelite. Managing a whole fleet rather than one ship just isn’t a big enough difference for me. I wish there was more of a “wow” factor for this game. Unfortunately, I can’t really see one and kind of lost interest early on.

Stealing from the Corporation your Hard-Earned Credits

After a successful run, phase jump, or escape, the game sends players back to the base to review a breakdown of their rewards. The Corporation will of course take a lion’s share of the profit, but there are a few ways of increasing the overall profits. Collecting more galactic cubes, bringing back ships, modules and rarities, and completing missions will all lead to higher profits.

Afterwards, you have five areas where you can check out. Field work is where you will start a new mission. Salvage division is where you can purchase ships and modules to take with you on future runs. Storage division is where you can store the ships and modules you don’t want to use right away. HR division is where you can spend rank privilege points for passive effects to take with you on runs. Finally, Life Support is where you can have a free meal that gives bonus rewards, but has a cooldown for often how you can consume meals. This is also where more conversations occur between our main three to give you a better understanding of the story.

Again, I think this is where most of the game’s variety takes place. As you purchase more ships, your need for pre-made ships will lessen. This will allow you to fund your own fleets to take on missions. Purchasing modules will allow you to have these upgrades right away, rather than hoping to come across one during a run. When setting up a field mission, you are able to select different passive upgrades from the HR division to take with you, as well as a different commander and locations to travel to once you unlock them. However, I personally think it isn’t a big enough pull to keep from feeling repetitive or to retain my attention. I think the set up is again, pretty standard for what I might expect. Again, there unfortunately isn’t a whole lot that wows me as a player.

A Just Okay Time, Out There in Space, Working for a Dime

Overall, I think Nonentity Galaxy is just okay. Though I think the positives outweigh the negatives, I had a hard time finding something that kept my attention. It isn’t a game that I could reasonably see myself spending hours on, completely engulfed and losing track of time. It is by far not the worst game out there. However, it is certainly not the best game, nor even the best roguelite out there. I enjoy the game’s dark narrative and think it’s executed well, but it lacks the humor its Steam page promises. I think the core roguelite gameplay is effective, but its pretty standard for what I might expect in a roguelite.

It does seem like the developers at Brick-Up Studio are actively making improvements though, which is always nice to see. They’ve released a bunch of bug fixes and small tweaks since the game’s release. I think it’s a game to at least keep an eye on in your wish list. Hopefully future improvements help give the game that wow factor I feel it is currently missing.

Thank you for reading and don’t try to escape your problems in space!

You might be sitting there wondering what Bogos Binted means. Trust me, so are we. There comes a time when inventing your own alien language begins to work against you. At least Uno is just in Spanish. So, I was initially wary of Bogos Binted. I played a couple of solo matches and began to warm to it. Then I gathered together my friend group, played a game where my laser gun backfired and blew my head off, and I began to fall in love.

It’s an extremely simple game, through and through, but in the same way that Uno is simple. You can learn the rules of each game in about five minutes, but it feels fresh and new each time because there’s so much randomness involved. That said, Uno comes with a nice instruction manual, and Bogos Binted‘s biggest problem is how bad it is at explaining things. Alien nonsense notwithstanding. It raises the question of whether Bogos Binted is truly great, or if it’s just the company of my friends that I was enjoying.

Extra-terrestrial Card Sharks

The simplest way for me to describe Bogos Binted is to go through its five game types. First up is Zogblorp. Yes, they’re all named like that. In this one you need to lay down number cards, but without going over the number in the centre. If you’re the one that goes over, you have to inflate your head, which has a chance of killing you. Special cards can force other players to lay, or mess with the total. I very much enjoyed this one. It’s like playing blackjack while everyone holds a gun to the head of the player on the right.

We didn’t gel as much with Zinky Zoogle, where everyone has to lay a higher card than the last one. It’s alright, but all the special cards are just for wiping out previous cards and it wasn’t tremendously exciting. Beeple Meep is better, where you’re given a ‘rank’ of card to match. They range from Knight to King, with a set number in the deck. Therefore, you often need to bluff. If you think someone is bluffing, you can slam the button and challenge them. If you’re right, they inflate their head, if you’re wrong, then you inflate. It’s essentially the card game cheat (or its less PG name), and I enjoyed it.

Alien Dentistry

Next up in Bogos Binted‘s library is Vorp, a social deduction game. Basically, you have to write a clue that points towards a word in front of you, but there’s an impostor who can only see the general category. Everyone votes on who they think is the imposter. Didn’t gel as much with this one, as there are plenty of more dedicated social deduction games that we could be playing. By far and away the best game, though, is Zoggy. Essentially it’s that crocodile game where you press down the teeth, only the crocodile is a gross alien that will bite your head off if you get it wrong.

I’d say, in general, most of the games are hits. Some hit harder than others, but they were reliably fun. Still though, I’d recommend playing with friends before dipping a toe into online, as Bogos Binted is pretty bad at explaining the rules. Zogblorp is the only game with solo play, for example, which is baffling. This would be a great place to learn the rules, so you can clue your friends in. Otherwise you get a few pages of text, which in Vorp’s case didn’t really help. Also, not to harp on, but the alien names make things needlessly confusing. I did a rundown of the games after our session, and nearly every game name was met with ‘which one was that again’?

Bogos Binted? – Stupid Good Fun

There are other bits outside of the games though. For one, interacting with other players is good fun. You have a range of emotes, including flipping the bird. By far the most used one was the spit emote, which led to the odd moment where I spat on my wife’s corpse. Best not dwell on that. There are also things on the table that you can fiddle with, which helps to pass the time if someone’s pondering over which card to lay. It’s hard to be bored while playing Bogos Binted.

And it’s that which makes me think that Bogos Binted is actually great. The card games are kept remarkably simple, so you can fall into a game quickly, and it gives you just enough toys that you keep generating wonderful moments. Like that whole ‘laser gun backfiring’ thing. It also adds a little bit of darkness with the head exploding, while keeping a lightness of tone elsewhere. It’s something that will probably slot easily into game night, as it kept us laughing for hours.

Oh, and I Googled it. ‘Bogos Binted’ is a reference to a meme. Thanks for making me feel old, guys.

(Bogos Binted?’s Steam Page)