One might not be able to intellectualize exactly what they're doing at a given moment in SWARMLAKE, an endless score-chaser first-person-shooter/platformer hybrid that tasks one with jumping deftly in and around massive swarms of enemies - some clusters of spheres that follow you around, others incomprehensibly tall walls of pointed death - collecting satisfyingly-explosive orbs to stave off the horde for as long as one can, but something about the gameplay just feels right in some instinctual way. The deeper one falls into the swarm, the more one naturally steps in tune with its intricate, captivating dance, learning little techniques and bits of gameplay knowledge like making right-angle turns to maximize enemy drop pickups or facing your direction of motion to clear out enemies in your path that offer the game a sense of skill progression and depth far beyond what its minimalist presentation suggests. Each run gives one the sense that they understand the game more, that they can wrangle with the chaos a little bit better (provided the game doesn't randomly decide to kill them as it feels sometimes, which is my one gripe) than the last time, which makes for a perfect, maddeningly-addictive way to waste an afternoon - or much, much longer if you feel like honing your skills to take on this game's leaderboards.

Work can be a stressful, impersonal thing, and after hours of grinding away at a spreadsheet or penning a research paper, sometimes you feel the need to channel all that pent-up energy somehow so it doesn't get the best of you. Since the days when ancient merchants fiddled around with their abacuses (or abaci?) and scales while they weren't dealing with customers, humans have long sought to perfect the humble desk toy as a means of coping with the banality of the newfound professions needed to support agricultural civilization, and after 10,000 years of continuous refinement, VPet-Simulator ushers in a new, digital age of these great little gizmos. While the game takes obvious inspiration from Tamagotchi toys and older desktop pets of a similar nature, Vpet-Simulator polishes those ideas through fluid animations and customizability to such an extent that it feels like a welcome presence on your desktop, and not an intruder from a deep, dark corner of the web who managed to stealthily slip past Microsoft Defender somehow. As a virtual pet, it's relatively low-maintenance and unintrusive, perfect for setting aside on a second monitor and checking in on whenever you have time to spare for a break, and it's easy to get invested in its growth and well-being, since the devs took great care in making the default character feel very cute and lifelike. All in all, if you want a little cyber-friend to help you through tough work sessions, or simply want a new plaything to mess around with for a few minutes, Vpet-Simulator is free and easy to set up, and I'd wholeheartedly recommend it over any of the alternatives.

8/10 - Nominated for the Sit Back and Relax Award