In 2025, I followed a friend's lead and made a bingo board of 25 Games I Want To Play, and it was an absolutely wonderful time - and I even managed to finish like, 15 of them?
It was a great tool for helping me make Non-Mobage Grinding decisions and satiating curiosities I've had for years if not decades, and I hope to some time in the future write up a little bit about my 2025 bingo. It sounds cringe, but I really feel like I took at least a little bit away from every game I played.
Heck, I even ended up walking to Star Rail and saying unhinged shit like 'yeah I like Castorice more now because I think Dragon Quarter's D-Meter is sick as hell'.
As such, I spent a bit of time this winter setting up my 2026 bingo, as there's plenty of spillover from 2025, things I didn't have time to explore in 2025, and even moreso - new interests and releases that I can't believe keep popping up. It rules so much to like things and have friends who are very vocal about liking things.
Also yes I didn't put Labyrinth of Touhou Tri on here because it is an actual Day 1 gimme. This list is more for the reaches out of my comfort zone as well as the 'I think this game is for me but I haven't given it the time it deserves'.
I wanted to give a short paragraph to the 25 games on my list (which I had to painfully cut down from a shortlist of 35 or so - see you in 2027, Gnosia) to give a sense of what I think beforehand. I'm hoping it'll be a fun contrast in 12 months' time!
Robot Girl's Dream
I wish to learn about the robots. I think this is character raising or something? The kind of art style that makes me think 'Hey y'all played Monmusu Gladiator'
Drapline
I played the demo for this one and was instantly hooked - the UI is slick, the gameplay loop is character raising, the dragon girl is dumb and hungry. In the trailer she eats an entire NPC and I'm not sure how this affects the gameplay. Excited to see how it's doing in early access.
Blue Reflection
Area person who likes Atelier games excited to play a second Gust game pumped up by a good friend. There are probably girls or something.
Dance of Cards
Solo dev makes Earthbound Kaiji or whatever goes on here. I've owned this for quite a bit and it's time to see what's goin' on.
Monster Girls Quest
People who have been posting about this RPG Maker game, you know what's up. It is unclear from timeline osmosis whether this game has more kinks or gameplay mechanics.
Return of the Obra Dinn
I own this and literally don't know what it is other than probably critically acclaimed so I assume it's heavily narrative-based and like 4 hours long. I support that.
Powapuro Pocket (any)
I trimmed so many tactics games off my list and yet this is the 3rd character raising game I have on here. I played like half an hour of like Powapuro 6 last year and it's how you are a time traveling alien who needs to play baseball to save the world or something (via proxy of supporting the scrimblo local team vs Big Corporation Baseball). Look trust me on this.
UFO 50
First up to bat in 2026. The kind of game that I hear makes game devs go feral.
Ace Combat Zero
Look have you SEEN all the MADs this game got on Niconico in like the mid 2010s. Never played an Ace Combat but picked this one over AC3, which I keep trying to steal the UI design of.
Rhythm Doctor
It's actually really cool how many different kinds of people (and not just Music Gamers) I've seen say 'Rhythm Doctor just hit 1.0 and it's amazing what Rhythm Doctor does as a game'.
Hat World
It's some free RPG where if you look at a screenshot of this game like once you will immediately think 'damn this game got juice though'.
Chrono Trigger
One of my coworkers will probably disavow me if I don't play this this year but you know what I can still somehow go into this game blind in 2026 and that's nice. I think the only 16-bit-or-less RPGs I've played have been first-party Nintendo IPs, unless you count the LIVE A LIVE remake, which I loved.
Tokimeki Memorial 2
The center of the board by pure randomness. Tokimemo 1 surprised me in a positive way in how it was story-light but full of emergent story up until the strong character endings; I'm really interested to see whether Tokimemo 2 will be a different experience now that Konami has like 10000000 dollars to pour into every aspect of the game.
VA-11 Hall-A
That sort of game that you kind of Know But Don't Really Know for years.
sunny-place
I think I came across this by literally just searching Steam for Any Game Under $5 sometime. This sounds like it could be Physics Scrimblo Trackmania-Like-Substance With Anime and like this dev does a lot of literally whatever they want. So congrats this is my racing game pick for the year.
Fuuraiki 1
Did you know that not all Fuuraiki games take place in Hokkaido? I thought they all did but now I assume the common thread is 'photographer travels through various Real Life Photos that the devs thinks are cool and experiences pathos possibly'.
Purgatory Dungeoneer
IIRC, maximalist RPG Maker game with some influences taken from Dungeon Encounters. Of course I own this.
UltraNothing
Another 'not sure how this is on my Steam wishlist' game, from the vibes of the reviews this feels like a sokoban-type game where the puzzle design at first looks really clunky but then possibly becomes really genius. I wanted to put at least one game on here with like 50 reviews or less.
Fantasy Maiden Wars
Your friend who loves robots wants you to play Fantasy Maiden Wars. Your friend who reposts pics of thick ass Patchouli wants you to play Fantasy Maiden Wars. Game critics want you to play Fantasy Maiden Wars. JAKE wants you to play Fantasy Maiden Wars. Play Fantasy Maiden Wars.
Stranger of Paradise
Well I mean I thought Revengeance was sick as hell this year so this is the logical conclusion (citation needed).
Bokura no Kazoku
What if Bokunatsu was about raising a family in the city, or so I hear. Let's have another spin on Kaz Ayabe's wheel of 'experiencing sentiment for a life experience I don't have'.
Sakura Taisen (any)
I had to cut an embarassing amount of tactics games in favor of what I *think* is a tactics game but I mean the other ones don't have Kohran Li.
Harvestella
Carry-over from 2025 bingo, I own a boxed copy of this which is quickly depreciating but the value of 'what I hear is a long JRPG masquerading as a farming game' never drops. I played the demo for this once on the Sunrise Seto sleeper train and really liked the main character designs.
Mischief Makers
A beloved N64 game of multiple people I know. The children yearn for green haired turn robot girls. I hear this is a Treasure game but I thought Treasure made shmups and I don't think this is a shmup. I don't actually know anything about this game, don't tell me.
of the Devil (ep. 1)
Episode 0 of this visual novel rips!!! Without playing most of the influences for this, I absolutely loved the twists, character designs, and vibes for this one, and I've been looking forward to ep 1 for a long time (ep 2 is coming out you ding dong). Games guaranteed to make you say obnoxious shit like 'yeah I love girl yaoi. yeah I love death note'.