Look at that, I'm sharing my thoughts at the start of the month and not halfway through! That's because I'm home sick on a holiday weekend (figures) and have lots of time to burn. If you have some time to kill too, just read on below for my thoughts on the games I beat in June. A lot of them are free student-made games which is probably my most common subset of games played lately. I enjoy seeing what creative, independent minds can come up with for games these days. Plus they're short and fit into my busy schedule!
Alba: A Wildlife Adventure - Was an Epic Freebie - A cute game where you play as Alba as she sets forth to rally her small Mediterranean island community against a new mega hotel in order to save the local ecosystem. The tree-hugging vibe isn't too heavy-handed since the townsfolk weigh the pros and cons of development vs conservation, but the shady developer's actions like bribery, littering, and arson make their choice easy. I think I'm a bit older than the targeted audience of this game, but it was still fun to search for and snap pictures of the island fauna, explore the town and repair signs and birdhouses, pick up trash, and to befriend the townsfolk. The environment is warm and inviting, the dialog is friendly, the head nod/shake mechanic to answer questions is adorable, and Alba has the cutest skip/run movement. It calls itself a wildlife adventure, but it's mainly birds you catalog. But hey, at least you get to snap pics of some great tits
Chop Chop Princess - Free on Indiegala Launcher - Speaking of great tits, a thicc princess steals a teddy bear from a dragon and has to flee from it while dodging deadly obstacles in this endless runner. While her cheeks are busy absolutely devouring her daisy dukes, you're busy punching raccoons, smashing leprechauns with a hammer, and beating the crap out of crabs with their own claws in order to survive long enough for another selfie. The spectators cheer you on and gift you rewards used to unlock the next obstacle/level. The surrealist cartoon art and whimsical symphonic soundtrack portray a beautiful but unsettling fairy tale world

The art is honestly the only good part, though. The gameplay is not challenging, nor does it increase in difficulty. It's a mobile port that, frankly, misses the mark on offering any incentive to play on PC.
Evergarden - Somehow got on Legacy Games - A growth-centric tile-based puzzle game with mechanics similar to 2048 only, instead of numbers, you are combining and compounding plants

Evergarden also adds in some unlockable powerup abilities to the mix that can alter your strategy and playing style within the hexagonal map. You are transported to a mysterious world through a letter from your mom and meet the forest spirit, Fen. You look for your mom, with each completed level leading you closer to her. Each round awards you talismans that you can place together in a certain pattern that unlock the next area, which I think is sometimes more fun than the main puzzle mechanic! Aside from the powerups, there is no added variety to the plants, and the difficulty becomes nonexistent as you crack the methodology of success. The world is colorful and stunning, and for a pure, mindless puzzle experience this is decent; just don't expect too much from it.
Home -
Free on Steam - A short interactive feel-good exercise into what "Home" means to you

Is it a place of possibility? Of letting loose? Is it out in nature or is it with someone special? The gameplay has you walk your character through different places and offers you various people and objects to interact with. As you interact with things that are important to you, the game drafts up a custom poem that you get to read in its entirety once you reach Home. It warrants a couple playthroughs, as replaying it allows you to craft a poem that personally resonates. Play for the reflection and appreciation, stay for the two strangers twerking at each other from across the dance floor.
How We Know We're Alive -
Free on Steam - A pixelated, emotional side-scrolling story about a girl, Sara, who returns home to her rural Swedish town a year after the passing of her best friend, Maria. While there, Sara learns more about Maria's death and challenges her preconceived notions of blame and grief. This game touches on a lot of real feelings and struggles people battle - Friendship, diverging life paths, relationships, resentment, depression, truth, finding happiness. To Sara, the religious small-town life trapped Maria, and Maria's life could have been so much more had she not had a teen pregnancy, had she gotten an abortion, had she run off to Stockholm with Sara to pursue careers in writing. But the reality was not as cut and dry. You see the story through only one lens until the powerful resolution, which was a strong presentation on how you tend to see what you want to see. This game is fantastic. Now reach out to that friend you've been meaning to catch up with
One Ping Only -
Free on Steam - A student-made game in which you pilot a submarine full of rich people down to see some wreckage, but then you get lost and the pressure implodes the sub and you all die because you skimped on safety measures. The end. Just kidding - but the timing of playing this game was not lost on me

Are you piloting a sub? Yes, using a creative ping mechanic to visualize the map. Are you exploring some wreckage in the depths? Yep, of a civilization post-disaster. Do you get lost? Well, you're not supposed to, but I did end up clipping out of the map during my first playthrough... Do you die? I'm not quite sure. As you explore and scan the environment in order to learn more about the calamity, you make your way to a weird ending that is a cliche perceive-it-how-you-want cliffhanger. I wasn't a fan of the ending, and I wish I could have inverted the Y axis for controls, but it was still an innovative, brief, lonely game unlike anything I've played.
SkyIsland -
Free on Steam - A top-down adventure game where you set out to explore a floating archipelago of islands. Your plane is attacked and you crash, after which you meet some tiny leaf creatures that feel right out of a Zelda game. They speak of a prophecy and ask for your help to free their land from a monster that is freezing the islands. The game is beautiful, and it checks off a lot of adventure tropes, but it doesn't really introduce anything new. The English translation is a bit off at times, the combat is frustrating because you attack towards where your mouse cursor is and not towards the direction your character is facing, and there is no penalty for dying so any challenge is lost

It's another student-made game, so I commend their effort, but you can pass on this one.
Tree Trunk Brook -
Free on Steam - Tree Trunk brook is a point-and-click hiking adventure, set in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, that takes you on three trails along which you snap pics of wildlife, pick up litter, and find the lost items of fellow hikers you meet. The setting is pieced together by a collage of photographs from parks in the northeast - a couple of which I hiked when I lived in New Jersey, which is pretty neat! It has a relaxing sound mix of babbling brook water, rushing wind, and chirping of birds. There's a bit of replay value to build friendships with the other hikers, who are all unique people with different motivations for being outdoors

The achievement for picking up 50 pieces of trash annoyed me, and I didn't like having to click on the interaction icon above the character's head for everything, but Tree Trunk Brook is still a pleasant walk through the woods and a reminder of how odd the height of the pandemic was and how freeing being outside became.
Your Average Bear -
Free on Steam - We end with another student game! In Your Average Bear, you play as a, you guessed it, bear who moves to Average National Park and wants to make friends with other animals. You do this by delivering their food via UbearEats. To get the food, you must steal from the campers at Average Campground. This is a comedic stealth game in which you hide in bushes, avoid rangers, and distract campers while swiping their hot dogs, watermelons, and more. The writing is funny, and I quite enjoyed the ongoing commentary from the camp's manager over the speakers. The stealth implementation was subpar, as I found I could Leroy Jenkins through most instances, and I didn't even need to utilize 4 out of 6 distraction tools. I also didn't like how I couldn't pick up items from on top of logs or tables right in front of me - I had to actually jump ONTO those surfaces in order to pick up the items on them. A clever idea, but mediocre gameplay