1. Stick It To The Man
We're back! After putting much work into this website in 2025 but not necessarily putting a lot of work into the core challenge, this is the year that we really make a run at beating the challenge for the first time ever. I realized to accomplish this, it may be prudent that when picking a backlog game, for example, to really focus on the one's that complete quickly. Enter Stick It To The Man, the first 2026 entry and a fantastic one at that. There is no doubt that Stick It To The Man serves as a narrative experience moreso than a pure video game, and usually I stay away from those types of games. This game, however, proved that I shouldn't as it was a relaxing, entertaining, funny and delightful experience. This is a 2.5D puzzle platformer that has you using an arm that has been appended to your head to help the folks of the town you're in and solve the mystery our character has been entangled in. Every chapter presents a new environment, from insane asylums to the downtown streets, which allows our character to interact with the various objects and NPCs that surround him to solve the puzzles. When I say solve the puzzles, this isn't exactly Day of the Tentacle levels of point and click. There are only a few options per puzzle so bruteforcing any of them is relatively easy. But this in no way takes away from the core appeal of the game which is it's charm. The voice acting, graphics and story are all fantastic which is what you want out of game like this and why it's getting such a high rating. There are some moderately difficult pure platforming sections which has our character navigating through one hit kill agents but none of these sections posed much of an issue. This game serves as a fantastic one or two session experience and a more than solid way to kick off the 2026 challenge.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 8/10
2. FoxyLand
2026 is off to an incredibly hot start and we're looking to keep the train going with this very short, easy, and relatively charming 2D platformer. A new strategy of mine to actually complete the challenge is to not shy away from games that have a YouTube full playthrough time of 40 minutes and this is a major reason FoxyLand was selected when it came up as a backlog selection. There's nothing special going on here - this is a 2D, minimalistic, very quick and easy platformer that is fantastic for the challenge but at the same time I have to be honest with the rating. You control a fox who navigates through 36ish levels with the goal of collecting all the diamonds in a given level which then opens up the exit. The levels themselves are very short - I'm talking 30 seconds or less to finish. The mechanics are incredibly simple as this pure platformer is as bare ones as it gets with running and jumping pretty much being it. There is another collectable, apples, which serve only as unlocking cosmetics. This immediately gave it a point up on Grapple Dog which had the incredibly annoying mechanic of a running tally of items collected that would unlock bosses and subsequent levels. Overall, FoxyLand seems like a higher end game development project from an ambitious student hence a 5 rating, but it suited the challenge perfeclty and I'd eagerly pick FoxyLand 2 on a future backlog roll.
Platform: PSN
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 5/10
3. Hotshot Racing
Ok, so within the first 20 minutes of Hotshot Racing I was ready to give this game a 3. I picked way too difficult of a difficutly setting, I didn't understand the drift or boost mechanics, and I was getting crushed in a racing game which seemed a farcry from my beloved Mario Kart World. However, once I lowered the difficulty setting to a respectable normal, looked up and understood how to drift and driting mechanics in general, this game instantly skyrocketed in ratings as it became an incredibly pleaseant and quick and easy experience. This is a game which made me think of the challenge in a more general, philosophical sense. I pride myself on not looking up solutions in games, but this solidifed the fact that, similarily to roguelikes, it is totally permissible to look up how the mechanics of a particular game work in order to really appreciate the short experience I have with it. Once I understood the basic drift and boost mechanics I started enjoying myself immensely - I also learned these are the basic mechanics employed in most of these retro racer type games. I'm not a racing game purist and I would have liked to see some shortcuts and powerups etc. but I'm sure many would disagree and this would violate the spirit of a pure retro racer. To beat the game, the self imposed condition was achieving a gold medla in all the Grand Prix cups on Normal which was easily achieved once the core mehcanics were understood. Could I have pushed for a Hard or Expert playthrough? Probably, but I'm trying to start the year off strong and will inevitably run into a roadblock soon so I need to make up games and time now. This game reminded me, however, how racing games do occupy a special place in my heart and I shouldn't shy away from them if they present a viable winning condition.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: NORMAL
Rating: 7/10
4. Ynglet
And just like that, we have a 9 which means an early contender for played game of the year and honestly it couldn't have come from a less likely source. Ynglet is a minimalistic, short, easy and cheap 'puzzle platformer' but it is undoubtedly special. I'm not evey really sure how to describe the setting of the game. The story seems to be some sort of metaphor for the big bang or panacea where a disastrous event separates our main character from her children or lovedo nes of some sort. The main character you play is some sort of parasitic amoeba which flows in and out of various objects and blobs in a variety of levels with the goal of reaching a portal like symbol at the end. The way this game flows and introduces mechanics is sublime and goes to show how much of an impact a minimalistic design can really achieve. It doesn't seem fair to give a game which probably cost a couple hundred or thousand dollars to make a 9 and then Edge of Fate which probably costs hundreds of thousands whatever low rating I gave it - but it kinda is what it is. The music, artwork, world and level design are all perfect for what it's trying to accomplish and for a quick and efficient experience this is pretty much the pinnacle.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: Tricky
Rating: 9/10
5. ScourgeBringer
2026 is off to a record breaking, roaring start and in comes our first of what I can only imagine be many roguelikes of the year - ScourgeBringer. This game clearly draws inspiration from the greats as it has all the classic tropes and characteristics of a great roguelike. I'm talking permanent upgrades bought with currency earned from defeating bosses, secret rooms found by breaking walls, mini bosses etc. etc. Again, like the greats of the genre, the game plays out like a 2D precision platformer which requres the player to move through multiple rooms before reaching the final boss of five different worlds/biomes with escalating difficulty. Speaking of difficulty - this game is difficult. With health drops being very stingy, you are required to play almost perfectly through the first few biomes to even have a chance at a successful run. The combat is lighting quick and fluid rewarding pure aggression, reflexes and instant decision making. There are pretty much zero iframes after being hit and the parry mechanic is slow and requiers a lot of precision. This is one of the rare roguelikes where it's actually not so beneficial to explore and clear every room searching for upgrades and health containers etc. and quickly beating the two mini bosses and the final bosses, especially on the later floors, is a better strategy and it's the one that ultimately led to my winning run. Online reviews have the difficulty as a major point of contention for the game, but I personally loved it. A true sense of accomplishment game from beating the final boss which I hadn't felt in some time. From what I can tell there are no, 'game breaking runs' that we see in a game like BoI and victory truly had to be earned. Ironically, the first time I saw world 5 was the run where I beat the game as I had saved up just enough health to survive the floor and then run through my, at this point, memorized sequence of attacks to quickly spam and defeat the final bosses two phases. I think some more ability diversity, more NPCs to interact with, more mini games and secrets within the biomes etc could have bumped this game up even higher, but an 8.5 seems like a reasonable and deserved rating.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 8.5/10
6. Puzzle Agent 2
After a blistering start to the year we are slowing down a bit but still maintaining pace. As mentioned this year, I realized that successfully completing the challenge will require me to occasionally deviate from a lengthy but enjoyable current backlog game and quickly pumping out a game I know that can be beat in one or two casual sessions. Puzzle Agent 2 fits this description perfectly and was chose for this purpose. Although at hard I think precision platformers and roguelikes will always be my favorite gaming genres, there is a special place for these point and click adventure games ever since playing Day of the Tentacle on my parents PC probably over 25 years ago. This game doesn't quite operate like the Sierra games of the past, but it does a relaxing and charming experience. This game also doesn't even come close to the absurd difficutly some of those games presented. As opposed to picking up objects and using them to interact with the world to solve puzzles, you literally solve puzzles to progress through the game. The puzzles range from trivial to at best somewhat difficult and for more on the actual game mechanics you can check out the description for the first game which I beat a few years ago. Puzzles aside, there is something quirky and fun about continuing this story with Agent Tethers and this mysterious town of disappearing people and the eerie vibe that surrounds it. I thought this did a great job of wrapping up this story which is going to be at the heart of most of these kinds of games. I would definitely play a Puzzle Agent 3 which was kind of hinted at in the final cut scene of this game, but seen as how this game was made over a decade ago I doubt that's a possibility.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 7/10
7. Wizard of Legend 2
If you're coming into Wizard of Legend 2 without playing the first one and completely devoid of context, then you might take some objection to the 6 rating. After all, this is a relatively polished, graphically sufficient game with smoothe combat that gives one a Hades from Etsy type of vibe. And that's not necessarily a bad thing - I consider the Hades series in the S-tier of roguelikes so a slightly diminished version of that shouldn't be so bad. But thsi does more than give a Hades vibe, parts of it seem like a blatant rip off to the point where I would think Hades developers might have a legitimate issue. There are also other issues with the game. The base world is incredibly bland, the voice acting is seems amateur (especially compared to Hades), the biomes themselves are unmemorable and quite frankly boring and soulless. And of course there is a lot of good - the combat is smoothe and responsive, the dodge mechanics using i-frames seems fair and balanecd, the boss fights are pretty epic and the actual abilities seem diverse and fun to experiment with. All in all this game could of pushed a 7.5 if I hadn't played the first one, but I have played the first one and a ton of it at that. There was no reason to deviate from this pixelated world of escalating difficulty and mystery to this bland, much easier Hades clone which seems to have lost all of it's personality. One can argue that these games should be treated and rated in a vacuum, but that's just not how real life works. It all made sense when I discovered that the original dev team and handed this off to a completely new team which is a damn shame. All in all, not a bad experience and incredibly quick (I beat the game in under 10 runs) but given how good Wizard of Legend was the expectations were high for this sequel and they were not met.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 6/10
8. The Excavation of Bob's Harrow
Although the Puzzle Agent series is cool and unique in it's own game style, I would consider The Excavation of Bob's Harrow the first true point and click adventure game of the 2026 entry. And an absolutely fantastic one at that. As mentioned on my Puzzle Agent 2 write up, ever since playing Day of the Tentacle around 25 or so years ago, these types of brutally difficult Sierra point and click games have occupied a special place in my heart. With all that being said, this particular point and click game may damn well be near the top of the list. The voice acting, the story, the pixel art, the puzzles are all absolutely S-tier as it completely encapsulates all the positive aspects this very niche genre has to offer. The lovecraftian horror driven story is a slow build but the payoff is incredible and the end game is legitimitely terrifying in the context of a point and click video game. What I really respect about this game is that it doesn't employ any 'moon logic' design that in my opinion does hurt this genre somewhat. A puzzle that makes no sense and is only solvable by pure interaction brute force is not a good design and this game has pretty much none of this. The only thing that comes to find is feeding a cat a severed hand which reveals a key but, based on your limited inventory items at this time it's really not that bad and it does have some, albeit bizarre, logic to it. This game hsa reopened this genre to me and I can't wait to dive into the next point and click adventure.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 9/10
9. The Terrible Old Man
So a 4 rating seems a bit harsh yet very generous at the same time. Harsh because I always say I rate these games in somewhat of a vacuum. This means I'm rating This Terrible Old Man as a short, point and click adventure game meant to be completed in one sitting. However, it's generous because honestly this feels like something I could have programmed and designed with a couple weeks of game development classes. This game comes directly off the heels of The Excavation of Bob's Harrow and it was actually made by the same developers. It has the same Lovecraftian horror-like elements but this servers as a very unpolished and crude prelude to what was one of my favorite point and click games of all times. The overall story was ok but the dialogue was crude and poorly written, the puzzles were almost non existent, and the graphics felt like cheaply designed pixel art. The irony is that rating this game in a vacuum likely saved it from the 1.5 or 2 rating it probably deserves. Regardless, rolled the credits in half an hour or so, so it does get some love in how perfectly it suited the challenge on this year which is off to a record pace.
Platform: PC
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 4/10
10. Super Mario World
Honestly, the fact that this game had never been completed in a challenge year shocked me. I built a new feature in the admin panel that compiles and lists all games beaten from eever year, and I couldn't believe that Super Mario World didn't show up. This iconic, legendary 2D side scrolling game could of probably got a 10 on it's own, but the fact that it spawned a completely new genre in gaming in the form of kaizo-hacks will have it ever solidified as one of my favorite games of all time. The platforming mechanics and what creators have done with them are so far ahead of their time that the game feels just as good and responsive to run now as any modern day platofmer. Just incredible. Now, this game would have already been a great challenge game on a record setting year but the fact that I used to very poorly speedrun this game made it perfect. Now, I'm coming close to challenging any records on speedrun.com, but I do know the 11 star exit route and was able to knock this off in 25 minutes or so. It kind of baffles me that developers at this time would make a legitimate, non glitched route ot beat this game quickly but that again might be evidence of how ahead of it's time this game was. Realizing I hadn't beat this game as a part of the challenge made me realize I've barely beat ANY Mario games in challenge year format, so expect there to be an onslaught in 2026.
Platform: SNES
Difficulty Setting: N/A
Rating: 10/10