Star Guard

Star Guard (free, Windows/Mac) is a fun distraction with an appealing aesthetic that gave me flashbacks of playing Apple IIe games at my friend’s house as a kid. Anna Anthropy wrote a thoughtful, well-illustrated breakdown of the game on a design level, but I found the fight against the boss frustrating because it broke the Bioshock-like mechanic of the game that kept the world persistent across multiple lives and as such required a total shift in play style. Still, it’s definitely worth spending some time on, as it reminded me of recent games like Jumpman and AsciiPortal that add some new gameplay ideas to very classic, stripped-down engines. Jumpman and Star Guard in particular do a great job of letting you enjoy the mechanics without being burdened by B- narrative and load times.