"Okay, just one more run."

This is the phrase I've muttered at midnight--and then again at 2 AM--every day since diving into Vampire Crawlers. There are nights when it feels like it'd take an army to pull me from the clutches of its pixelated chaos. This deckbuilding spin-off to indie roguelike Vampire Survivors is every bit as gripping as that original outing, bringing both familiarity and freshness wrapped up into a first-person dungeon-crawling adventure.

I love that Vampire Crawlers maintains an undying commitment to the tone, characters, and retro visuals of its predecessor. It's evident even from the initial cutscene, which shows a returning character fending off hordes of attackers in the Mad Forest from Survivors' isometric view before transitioning to a first-person view of the area. Without using a single word, it proudly declares that a new perspective doesn't change the fact that this is still unquestionably Vampire Survivors at its core.

"Okay, just one more run."

This is the phrase I've muttered at midnight--and then again at 2 AM--every day since diving into Vampire Crawlers. There are nights when it feels like it'd take an army to pull me from the clutches of its pixelated chaos. This deckbuilding spin-off to indie roguelike Vampire Survivors is every bit as gripping as that original outing, bringing both familiarity and freshness wrapped up into a first-person dungeon-crawling adventure.

I love that Vampire Crawlers maintains an undying commitment to the tone, characters, and retro visuals of its predecessor. It's evident even from the initial cutscene, which shows a returning character fending off hordes of attackers in the Mad Forest from Survivors' isometric view before transitioning to a first-person view of the area. Without using a single word, it proudly declares that a new perspective doesn't change the fact that this is still unquestionably Vampire Survivors at its core.

That being said, where Vampire Survivors was about quick reactions, Vampire Crawlers is about planning and execution. Its slow, grid-based movement is merely a means to reach the next turn-based battle in which you now use a deck of cards to perform gloriously ludicrous attacks against hordes of enemies. Vampires' items show up in the form of cards here, ranging from damage-based options like Knife, Whip, and Cross to support-focused options like the power-increasing Spinach or healing Pummarola. Evolutions even make their return, letting you combine two cards into a more powerful version that can further devastate your foes. New additions to the lineup are few and far between, but it's this dedication to serving up what players already know and love that helps the transition into a new format feel seamless.

This time around, you don't directly control specific characters so much as bring them along for the ride. Referred to as Crawlers, they each have unique starting weapons and passives, but they also present as cards that can be played from your deck to provide additional bonuses for a limited time, such as increased damage or XP boosts. Eventually, you can bring along up to three Crawlers at a time, so mixing and matching characters that complement each other helps you set the tone of your runs right out of the gate.

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There's no shortage of boomer shooters out there for those looking for some retro-style first-person action: Cultic, Ion Fury, Prodeus, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, just to name a few. Yet only one of these nostalgic shooters meshes the genre's arcade sensibilities with the black-and-white rubber-hose visuals of cartoons from the 1920s and '30s and the unmistakable trappings of film noir.

Originally released as a tech demo that quickly went viral in 2023, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is now a fully-fledged game--one that oozes style and doesn't lack substance either. It's both familiar and incredibly niche at the same time; an endlessly charming game that I found a joy to simply behold, even before the cartoon bullets started flying.

Unsurprisingly for a game about furry rodents, Mouse: P.I. is all too fond of cheese-based puns and wordplay, so it makes sense that you should slip into the stylish trenchcoat of one Jack Pepper. The titular P.I. is a former war hero-turned-private dick working on a missing-persons case. As is par for the course, the investigation quickly spirals out of control, escalating into a complex web of intrigue and corruption that spreads to every sleazy corner of the city of Mouseburg.

There's no shortage of boomer shooters out there for those looking for some retro-style first-person action: Cultic, Ion Fury, Prodeus, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, just to name a few. Yet only one of these nostalgic shooters meshes the genre's arcade sensibilities with the black-and-white rubber-hose visuals of cartoons from the 1920s and '30s and the unmistakable trappings of film noir.

Originally released as a tech demo that quickly went viral in 2023, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is now a fully-fledged game--one that oozes style and doesn't lack substance either. It's both familiar and incredibly niche at the same time; an endlessly charming game that I found a joy to simply behold, even before the cartoon bullets started flying.

Unsurprisingly for a game about furry rodents, Mouse: P.I. is all too fond of cheese-based puns and wordplay, so it makes sense that you should slip into the stylish trenchcoat of one Jack Pepper. The titular P.I. is a former war hero-turned-private dick working on a missing-persons case. As is par for the course, the investigation quickly spirals out of control, escalating into a complex web of intrigue and corruption that spreads to every sleazy corner of the city of Mouseburg.

It's an enjoyable and authentically noir tale, full of twists, turns, and all the familiar hallmarks of the genre, with femme fatales, morally ambiguous characters, and a tangled plot among its defining elements. While it's not a straight-up parody like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's "The Janitor Always Mops Twice," Mouse: P.I. doesn't take itself too seriously either.

The writing is witty and lighthearted throughout, playing up the genre's clichés with a comedic tone befitting its cartoon art style. A few fun concepts are also implemented to fit its unique world and add some breadth, such as its dairy-based narcotics and black ink as a substitute for blood. You can also find old newspapers hidden within each level that give Mouseburg a sense of history, with news of ongoing worker strikes and emerging political parties, as well as exposés on mob bosses.

The voice cast is excellent, too, particularly Troy Baker, who embodies Jack Pepper's sarcastic stoicism with a performance that's both hardboiled and humorous--adhering to the film noir genre with a knowing wink.

As the investigation takes you across Mouseburg's seedy underbelly, including unscrupulous movie backlots, city docks, subways, wetlands, a highfalutin river boat, and more, you're met with opposition from a range of armed crimin

You don't see games like Pragmata very often.

Big-budget single-player shooters aren't as common as they once were, and even more rarely do they launch new franchises. They often come with trade-offs--a game might nail the fundamentals, or have some surprising new hook, or have a resonant story, but rarely do you get all of them at once. Pragmata is the total package, a blend of tense and satisfying combat elevated by deep underlying mechanics and strategic choices, all in service of telling an impactful tale that spends time nurturing the relationship between its memorable characters. It's one of my unexpected surprises of 2026 so far and an early shoo-in for one of my favorites of the year.

You play as Hugh Williams, an everyman astronaut dispatched to a corporate medical research colony on the moon. There's an eerie stillness to the base that suggests something isn't quite right, but before you and your crew have any time to investigate, a moonquake rocks the base and leaves you as the only survivor. Now stranded and beset by legions of hostile robots, you're befriended by a mysterious android girl who helps you to survive by hacking the otherwise near-invincible robots. When she tries to give her alphanumeric name, Hugh calls her Diana to make it easier, and the two are joined at the hip from that point forward.