Helltaker (2020)

For a free game, Helltaker takes the cake with short but challenging puzzles paired with hilarious hijinks and charming ladies that feels like it should 1000% be made into a longer game.

The player is a mysterious human known as the "Helltaker", descending into hell to invite a variety of demon women to his harem. Each stage is a short Sokoban-esque puzzle where the player has a specific amount of moves till death. Various obstacles can be beaten back or destroyed and some panels alternate damage to reduce turns further. The difficulty isn't insane but the challenge can be tricky, forcing the player to make the most of every turn.

At the end of every puzzle, the player encounters a demon (or angel) woman and must say the correct line to gain them in the harem. The bad ends simply restart the puzzle so the penalty for losing is some additional humor and a quick retry. Said women have a variety of charming (and malicious) personalities that the player is encouraged to find absolutely captivating. The end features a more action-oriented boss but it's more exciting than frustrating as a turn from the more patient puzzle fare.

Luckily the art and music are captivating as the ladies, as the art style is chock full of sinister, sharply dressed characters and the puzzle stages have kinetic, cutely drawn depictions of hell and the demons within. The music has a VERY strong beat, and really pushes the player to keep moving throughout.

There isn't a whole lot that needs to be said about Helltaker given its length and fetish that it speaks to but it's an incredibly fun and finely crafted bite that begs to be played. If a gay man can get won over by a sadistic harem of goblin-esque ladies, so can you!

I saw Helltaker was a short game, so I decided to solve all its block-pushing puzzles on my own -- no Youtube, no GameFAQs, no in-game hints. Nearly decided to off myself on stage 9, but I persevered damn it. Victory is DELICIOUS! I got my sweet sweet harem of lovely demon ladies, and my sweet sweet pancakes.

But are those even pancakes?! The (pan)cake is a lie, those are crepes!

(Lucifer best waifu.)

turned based puzzle visual novel -- elements i like that i haven't seen mixed together.
really polished and cute, feeling self-aware enough to not cross a line of cringe.
short and sweet, with each new level increasing in difficulty noticeably rather than slightly.

a couple typos, one i just assumed was a character's poor grammar lol, but that's trivial since the rest of the game feels rich in its quality that I'll probably come back to it for the achievements. very uniquely crafted experience with good art. loved it.

(also malina is best demon)