Delayma because it’s like “dilemma”, you see. And autokerwrongt keeps changing it to that.

Trolley Delayma was an entry in a Ludum Dare game jam, where the theme was “delay”. They’ve used that, combined with the philosophical “trolley problem” to make a game which looks somewhat like, but plays very differently to, Baba Is You. “Trolley” is American for tram, in case you were confused why this isn’t set in Asda, and the associated problem is whether to run down one important person or several less important people.

The delay bit comes in to try and not run anyone over at all, as you cause the tram (or trams) to get stuck in a loop of track. Some levels are puzzles, as you try to flip bits of track correctly, and some are a race against time as you have to do them quickly enough – all while avoiding the tram yourself.

It’s a clever premise, which ends up being sort of the reverse of those slide-puzzle type train track games where you craft a route to the end before it crashes. Oh, and it’s also free.

Well this is a bloody weird game. It is, sort of, a game about making a game. Only you play the game and the game keeps changing as you do. One minute it’s a platform game, then it’s a sideways scrolling shooter, then you’re in the dark, then you have to dodge stuff while not falling in holes. Weird, as I said.

In some ways it feels a bit like a Wario Ware game, only with the microgames somewhat longer (mostly) than 3 seconds each. If any more information than this is needed, then I can only suggest you play it yourself.

If you look at the screenshot, you’ll see that everything is very small. This is not, as I discovered having spent a long time trying to change it, a bug, a zoomed out setting, or a screen resolution issue. It is, in fact, intentional. The entire “map” is visible for the duration of the game, and everything is supposed to be tiny. And, on a Steam Deck, almost impossible to discern what is going on.

But I managed it. It’s a sort of direct-control point-and-click adventure game, in that you move your little… group of pixels around the island and interact with… other groups of pixels. You pick stuff up. You solve puzzles. You do a bit of light platforming. Eventually you get the keys to open the path to the pear and “win”.

By far the hardest part of the game is just being able to see the stuff on the screen. I get Sokpop’s style choice and I expect on a 24″ monitor this would be fine, but oh boy was it eye-hurtingly tricky. Don’t let it put you off though – if you’ve the screen for it, it’s great!

It’s another Sokpop game! I love all of these so far. Dino Game is probably the least fun one so far, but it’s still good enough to be worth a play, especially since it’s so cheap and short.

You’re on an island with big brontosaurus-type dinosaurs. You need to escape via your UFO, but you can’t reach it as it’s up in the sky. If you can befriend the dinos, by feeding them what they want, however…

Yes, pretty simple, short and silly. Not a bad thing though.

In a sea of coattail riding Vampire Survivors clones, it takes something for one to stand out. HoloCure did this by being free. As in, completely free. No cost, no IAPs, no paid DLC. Free. That, and it came to my attention via a recommendation from Gaming on Linux, who I follow because apparently I’m a Linux gamer now what with the Steam Deck and all.

Anyway, the game. it’s Vampire Survivors only with anime girls and cute baddies. Apparently, all the characters you can pick are VTubers but I neither know of them nor do I care, because I’m just here for the gameplay. Which, thankfully, is excellent.

Of course, it’s very much like That Other Game. You have swarms of baddies and you attack automatically. When you kill them they leave XP capsules, and when you level up you get to select a new weapon to add to your arsenal or upgrade an existing one. Eventually you become a walking death machine, have bosses to face, and the difficulty ramps up. Same as Vampire Survivors.

The differences, aside from the characters and baddies, are pretty small. The main one is that HoloCure is properly twin-stick. You still “auto-fire” like in VS, but you can choose in which direction independently of the direction you’re moving. Levels are also shorter, generally. In VS, at 30 minutes Death comes for you and the level ends. Here, you get an end of level boss at 20 minutes, and the level only ends when you or they die, which can take some time. Most of the weapons are different to VS too, but a lot of them are just analogues. There are a few really bizarre ones though, like the potatoes that bounce around the screen.

So it’s different but the same in the ways that make it fun. What is really different is the Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon-lite side-game it has going on. Outside of playing the normal levels, you have a house you can visit and furnish, with a little farm to grow crops, a pond to catch fish, and a pen to hold, er, baddies that you have hired to farm coins for you. It’s not very in depth, but once I completed the main game (as in, had successful runs on each level and unlocked all the characters) I spent an inordinate amount of time on it.

HoloCure is an absolute bargain.