Games you missed out on in July 2023

After the heavy-hitting month of June, did July have any worthy games?

There has been a lot of focus on the first half of 2023, which was packed with big-budget games that received stunning reviews. July seems to mark the lull before the ramp-up to the holiday period, with fewer big-name releases. However, that doesn’t mean no games were released. There were a whole host of smaller releases that we played and wanted to highlight this month.

Here are some of the best (and worst) smaller games that we didn’t get to review yet in July.

A Little to the Left + Cupboards and Drawers DLC – GY

Secret Mode

This is a game where you get exactly what you think you’re getting. It’s a puzzle game where you organize different areas of the house in aesthetically pleasing ways. Every object is designed to slot pleasantly together while not overlapping, and there are often several ways to solve each puzzle. There is also a cat. And many times you stop your puzzle solving to pet the cat.

The Cupboards and Drawers DLC which came out late June, adds a surprisingly beefy chunk of content to the base game. While there are fewer levels, the levels are usually much more difficult with many interconnecting parts that start out as a mess on the floor. These kinds of puzzles – rather than the arranging things in order ones – are the most satisfying as you find a place for everything.

The biggest issue I want to point out is the lack of accessibility options. There are a huge number of puzzles based on color, like grouping objects by their color, or making a color gradient. There are no color blind options here, and testing these on our resident color blind person Oli, they could not differentiate or complete these puzzles.

The DLC improves the whole package, and those who were left a little wanting by the base game will find that it delivers the game they were perhaps envisioning. An incredibly soothing experience, with aesthetically pleasing shapes and calming music. Don’t expect much more than this and you’ll enjoy yourself.

Score: 7/10

Version tested: PC (Steam Deck)

A Space for the Unbound – GY

Toge Productions

A Space for the Unbound came out in February, but as July is one of the quieter months I’ve only just had the chance to play it. I’m not afraid to admit that I bawled like an absolute baby playing this game, and I know that I am not the only one. A story that plays out in the space between dreams and reality, it’s the strength of the writing that makes this an unforgettable experience.

It deals with tough topics like mental health, bullying, depression, and suicide, and it does so with care and nuance. So many games have tried to do this but come off as clumsy, but this captures the experience perfectly. The one place it falls down is in the combat gameplay which feels completely adverse to the message at the core.

There are some exciting puzzles and well executed point-and-click elements which add to the story and encourage you to explore the town. But there are also some fighting sequences and quick time events, which seem completely opposite to the themes it’s going for. There are also a huge number of collectibles, which in general add to the world-building, but feel punishing as many are time or chapter specific. However, for these fumbles the story is so incredible that it’s easy to look past them, and enjoy one of the best stories gaming has to offer.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: PC (Steam Deck)

Disney Illusion Island – OB

Disney Electronic Content

Disney Illusion Island promises to be a child-friendly platformer metroidvania game, but it unfortunately fails to live up to its premise. After sitting through an introductory cutscene that is, frankly, far too long, you’re thrust into a world that is actually quite pretty. That is one good thing I can say about Illusion Island — it looks stunning from top to bottom. Environment and character art is colorful and exciting, and the animations are absolutely top-tier. Unfortunately, that’s about where my compliments come to an end.

One of the things that makes metroidvania games so appealing is the exploration, and there’s absolutely none of that in Illusion Island. I like getting and feeling lost, I like ramming my head against the wall trying to brute force a solution before it suddenly all clicks together. Instead, what we have here is a map designed like a metroidvania, but with no incentive and no need to explore it. Instead, you open up the map, see where the arrow is pointing, and go there. It’ll never point you to somewhere you can’t go, so it’s always the right solution, and that’s just boring.

It’s not helped by the controls, which are some of the floatiest I’ve ever experienced in a game, nor by the total lack of combat making everything feel just a little bit samey. That experience gets worse when you play multiplayer, as the camera pulls out and the sound effects – different for each character – pile up. What you’re left with is a chaotic mess of visual and auditory noise, something that borders on unpleasant for almost its entire runtime.

As an introduction to metroidvanias, Disney Illusion Island is fine. At its very best, it is only barely serviceable, and there are far better games to start with if you want to dip your toes into the genre.

Score: 5/10

Version tested: Switch (provided by Disney Games) 

Car Detailing Simulator – OB

Games Incubator

About once or twice a month, I get sent an unprompted review copy of a game I’ve never heard of. It’s usually Something Simulator, something innocuous or a random professional slapped into a first-person simulator game. Normally I’d just ignore these emails, but this month I decided to try something new and check it out. In this case, it’s Car Detailing Simulator for the Nintendo Switch, a game that was previously released on mobile devices and Steam a couple years back.

So is it any good? Well, it’s better than I expected at least. The basic gameplay loop is that you get a dirty car into the shop, you wash it, clean the interior, and send it back to the owner. That’s about it. It’s a brainless busywork simulator, like PowerWash Simulator but not quite as fun. For killing the time when you don’t want to think though, it gets the job done.

I do have a few small reservations about the game on Switch – it’s often difficult to see when a car is dry, so you’re pretty much always going to get penalized for returning a wet car, and the controls are iffy – but honestly, it runs well, looks fine, and is mostly bug-free. It’s not the best game in the world, but if you have a hankering for cleaning cars for some reason, you may as well give it a try.

Score: 7/10

Version tested: Switch

Femdemic – OB

Rel.Pink

Femdemic is a strange little game that asks you to take control of an alien bacteria that turns men into women. Yes, really. It’s an idle clicker game, like Cookie Clicker, with some strategic elements similar to Plague Inc., but unlike those games, there is a bit of story behind the thousands of clicks, too.

There are actually two story perspectives to follow, depending on what you’re in the mood for. The first is a quite lovely story where you’re a benevolent alien bacteria tasked with helping trans women achieve the bodies they wish they had. In this path, you’re only affecting the bodies of trans women, and the game makes a point of showing that your intervention is very much the result of draconian policies on Earth preventing trans women from getting the medical care they deserve. It’s a nice backdrop for a game that’s fairly light on story, and it’s the version of the game that’s entirely free from NSFW content.

The other path, on the other hand, is less about trans positivity and more about the feminization fetish community. Here, your goal is to forcibly change the sex of every man on earth, and do so before the authorities catch on and find a cure for your bacteria. If you want, you can view the changes you’re making in realtime to the human body, in all its naked glory, which is both funny to see and informative for the game flow.

Look, this game isn’t going to be for everybody, but as a cute little idle clicker that has you acting as either an angel for good or a demon for chaos, it’s a lot of fun to have running while you do other things on your PC.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: PC

Dave the Diver – SO

Mintrocket

Dave the Diver was released at the very end of June, so our review couldn’t make it to last month’s "Games you missed out on" roundup, but we finally got to play it in July, and you should too. It’s a wholesome adventure RPG that combines exploration and fishing with a light restaurant management sim, into what is one of the most interesting indie games so far this year.

You play as the titular professional scuba diver, who is summoned by a friend to explore a mysterious Blue Hole in the ocean. The terrain and ecology of this area are different every time you dive in, and your friend has opened a sushi restaurant nearby to exploit the ever-changing fish varieties found in this weird biome.

As Dave, you’ll dive to explore the Blue Hole and catch fish twice daily and then help run the sushi restaurant in the evening, in a perfect gameplay loop that might sound repetitive but actually always feels fresh. The game is constantly throwing new things at you - be it gathering resources, crafting weapons, playing mini-games and solving puzzles, fulfilling weird requests, fighting whacky bosses, taking underwater photos, and much more.

Diving in the Blue Hole is dangerous, so there are plenty of weapons you can craft and upgrade, even some that do elemental damage to your underwater enemies. Upgrading your gear requires resources you grab during your dives and money you get from your sushi restaurant. Some upgrades will make catching more fish easier, creating a satisfying and addictive loop between the diving and restaurant management phases of the game.

Done in gorgeous 2.5D pixel art, Dave the Diver is a joy to look at, and its story dives deeper than you would expect from a game like this. The cutscenes are funny, well-written, and full of jokes, while every character you meet is so expressive and fleshed out, that you will never feel compelled to skip through dialogue without reading it.

All in all, Dave the Diver’s unusual genre blend creates an infinitely satisfying and addictive gameplay loop, which, thanks to the constant influx of new mechanics and game content, feels fresh and rewarding until the very end.

Score: 9/10

Version tested: PC (Steam)