Bakery Simulator

I bought this on a whim but am very glad I did. Be sure to back up your saves because apparently people have problems with this one (I've crashed twice, but had no save data deleted).

This is a very fun simulator where you can watch the bread rise as you do it. You follow recipes, two at a time when you get near the end and then switch to a car to do a mini-game to deliver them. When you reach a certain level, you can choose to pay someone else to deliver it (what I did at my later levels). Juggling < 90 doughnuts whilst making 11 Silver loafs is fun to jugggle, and each recipe has a secret ingredient you can add to get extra money.

It's not as in-depth as other cooking simulators, but it is more time-management and measuring based under pressure which makes it very fun for me.

Temtem

I skipped the initial hype ("look guys! it's the Pokémon killer!") but I still bought it prerelease, and playeda all the way up to the end of 2022.

My initial impression was awe because of the beautiful and unique colours and designs of the Temtems. They are certainly unique, playing a part to aesthetic design rather than mashing together elements. The animations are so smooth and the music is pretty good too. The mechanics added make it interesting for its genre, and its lack of luck-based battles drew my attention.

The story itself isn't great. It forces you to be "best friends" with a character called Max who is an annoying and mean-spirited person. The game gives no reason to ever think otherwise, as throughout the story they don't change their ways or have a decent moment for a soft side with our character. Then Max "dies" (but not really) but at the time people thought they did because there was no story update further than that at the time. I applaud Crema for having the bravery to do this to a child character, but it's completely reversed by having Max make a return near the end.

Being an ex big Pokémon competitive fiend, I assured myself I'd get into the endgame and pvp. Sadly, pvp was wildly inaccessible to most people due to ridiculous grinding. I can unfortunately say it hasn't improved much, and though Showdown is a good addition (it's basically Pokémon Showdown), ultimately even at launch most people doing pvp were an extremely experienced minority. New players to pvp are essential, but I don't see a way right now the way they're going to change their lack of pvp players. Endgame is also a disappointment, and most "endgame" meat comes from pvp despite there being several endgame solo player activities.

If you like creature collectors, I definitely would recommend this. It's a treat to play, definitely unique and without a doubt gorgeous. Its single player experience is where it shines as long as you don't look too hard into the story.