Totally. There are some excellent AAA developers too (e.g. Naughty Dog, Remedy, Santa Monica, FromSoft, Kojima) but I’d say the biggest surprises for me have come from AA studios and indie developers – Animal Well, Clair Obscur, Returnal, Silksong, Crypt Custodian, Celeste, to name a few. I mean, there are tons of crappy indie games too, but the amount of creativity and quality in the indie scene is stunning.

Can’t recommend Bandcamp fridays enough.

There’s never been such an abundance of games and consoles as there is now. There are more games than anyone could ever play, both new and old. Releasing another poorly made remaster doesn’t mean no ones making new original games. I don’t think there hasn’t been a year I didn’t play an original, engaging and creative new video game. It’s literally the golden age of gaming.

Japanese and Italian. What is life without katsukaree and pizza?

Also in Fromsoft games runbacks are a deliberate design choice that forces the player to take a quick break after dying to a boss.

A dream with spiders.

Porcupine Tree - Blackest Eyes

Mew - She came Home for Christmas

Blasphemous 2 is more enjoyable than Hollow Knight

Blasphemy!

Blasphemous 2 never dethroned Hollow Knight.

“Welcome home, good Hunter. What is it you desire?”

Yes. Both are brilliant and although I’m not sure, I feel like the former had a big influence on Cameron’s Avatar (much more so than Pocahontas tbh). Hard to pick a favourite but I really like the Western shore trilogy.

Immediately thought about Le Guin. Probably my all time favourite author. So many great novels and short story collections to choose from. Even her YA novels are thoughtful, wise and the prose is pretty much flawless. OP, let me know what you’re in the mood for and I’ll recommend a few books.