Some games I've played recently:
Candleman's DLC: Lost Light: 4.5/5. I really enjoyed the base Candleman game, and gave it a 4/5 when I played it originally. The developer released free DLC (with some achievements too) that added three chapters to the game and finalized the main character's story arc. The DLC chapter was fantastic. A lot of clever puzzles that took advantage of the game's unique concept. I haven't played another puzzle game like this one. I really enjoyed the bittersweet/light-hearted narrative touches the DLC added, and the unique puzzle / game play gimmicks in each chapter. I've bumped up the whole game to a 4.5/5 because of how much I liked the DLC.
AER - Memories of Old: 4.5/5. Absolutely beautiful and gorgeous game. This game felt to me like a flying / sky version of Abzu. You play as a young woman named Auk whose tasked with going on a pilgrimage - she needs to visit several temples/shrines and find out about why the world is in such disarray and find out what happened to the gods of old. This game is one half exploration game (involving flying as Auk through vast skies and landing on small floating islands scattered throughout the world) and one half dungeon puzzler (some islands have barebones dungeons with pretty basic puzzles - nothing on the level of Zelda but still nice to experience). The game has an amazing soundtrack, a wonderful art style, and a subdued but surprisingly dark story. Really enjoyed this game for what it was - a charming, beautiful little puzzle/exploration game where for half the game (maybe more than half) you explored in the sky and for the other half you explored ambient / immersive dungeons (very simplistic dungeons, mind you).
Toby: The Secret Mine: 2/5. This game is a Limbo clone and not a very good one. I felt like a game like Monochroma (while also mediocre itself) offered a lot more in terms of game play, story, and art style. This game was really short (probably less than 2 hours?) and the majority of the game play was a bunch of unfun trial-and-error puzzles. I know people throw that term around to criticize Limbo and INSIDE but I've never felt annoyed by the puzzles in those games before. Toby The Secret Mine's puzzles were never satisfying or clever or fun to me - I basically slogged through a really easy 1-2 hour sidescrolling platformer which didn't offer much enjoyment. The one quality I liked about the game is its superb backgrounds, but I wouldn't go as far as saying the art style is great - sure some set pieces (especially the snowy and rainy levels) looked beautiful, but most of the foreground was bland/ugly and the character designs for both the enemies, the main characters, and his allies were really unappealing.
Looking forward to Scorpio and the next two months:
Right now I'm playing Thimbleweed Park. Really really enjoying it but it's so close to the Scorpio release date. I really want to get the 1000/1000 in the game quick before my Scorpio ships. For all of November I plan on exclusively playing these three games:
Assassin's Creed Origins (I've had it since last Friday - don't plan on installing it until Scorpio is here)
Super Lucky's Tale (my friend is getting it for me as a gift)
Cuphead (had it since launch but I got sidetracked by some other indie games)
And in December I plan on playing a bunch of older indie puzzle games that I bought but had performance so poor that I wanted to wait for Scorpio performance. Can't wait to try them out eventually.
RiME
>observer
The Town of Light
Dreamfall Chapters
The Inner World The Last Wind Monk
Also excited to play these Telltale-style games. Seems like I might get insanely lucky and have them all release their final episodes AND get season pass discounts by Christmas time:
Minecraft Season 2
Batman Season 2
Guardians of the Galaxy
Life Is Strange prequel
