Nintendo Switch 2020 Game Roundup

I’ve been playing a lot of Nintendo Switch during the COVID-19 pandemic, and particularly on my vacation time around the holidays. Aside from some of the major blockbuster releases highlighted as featured titles in the Nintendo eShop, I have found some nice little gems that are inexpensive, but really well done and highly entertaining.

Imagine you’re the child of the CEO and you are allowed to come work in the office with zero training. Try to figure out how to get the job done while breaking as little as possible. This game is so fun and entertaining. There are multiple ways to solve each puzzle and “get the job done” but it may not be clear early on the best way to do it. It’s fun to figure it out and then go back and try to beat your scores by being more efficient and breaking less. There are also hidden costume elements you can find and pick up along the way. It’s really well designed, funny when you discover that the physics of the game often cause outright chaos, and rewarding when you discover a better way to solve a puzzle.

I just bought this the past week, so I haven’t yet played the co-op mode with my daughter, but I would imagine it opens up a lot of new possibilities for solving the puzzles when you have two players working together vs. having to complete tasks all by yourself.

I think I paid only $4.00 for this game and it’s such a hidden gem. It’s beautifully designed with a fantastic soundtrack. It’s a puzzle-based game that involves the shifting of time. It starts off fairly easy and gets more challenging as it develops. You have to pay close attention to the details of the animation and sometimes the sound as you’re moving back and forth in the timeline in order to make certain events happen. I can’t recommend this one enough.

I love a good mystery, so this game was right up my alley. The artwork, animation, storyline, and humor are on point. There are lots of mini-mysteries to solve as Jenny figures out an the answer to what is going on in her small town of Arthurton. There are some great characters and you have choices along the way in your interactions with them. I was really sad when I finished this one.

I love scary movies, books, and games. Anything that makes me jump out of my seat is a winner. This one is super dark and creepy. It does take much to be grabbed and crushed by one of the monsters in this story, and sometimes it takes a bit of experimenting to figure out how to avoid them. The graphics are gorgeous and the puzzles are fun to solve. Looks like there’s a part II coming out soon!

This one was an impulse buy for a mere $3.00 and it was so worth it. The plot is entertaining and humorous and the dialogue is witty. I can’t help but feel for the raccoon who has made some poor life choices and gets snubbed by his friends as they find out that he is responsible for digging holes in town, one of which he and his friends all fall into. 999 feet below ground, they discuss how they each got there. With each plot, you relive their experience with a physics-based puzzle game. Most of them are really easy, but a couple are a bit challenging to figure out. All in all, it’s a great story.

I bought this one because it reminded me of an escape room. It’s basically that, but you constantly have to keep perspective in mind. It took me a bit to get started and figure out how to control the size of objects in a room, but once I got rolling, it got easier. There were a couple of challenges I really struggled with, but I eventually did get to the end of the game. This one will definitely stretch your problem solving skills.

This is an interactive story with beautiful scenery. It almost feels like a vacation in the mountains as you hike with a map and compass and complete different tasks as the story unfolds. There’s a choose your own adventure element to it with some choices in dialogue. In the end, it’s a mystery that unravels slowly to an exciting and satisfying ending.

This is a very unsettling puzzle game involving a boy who makes his way across a dark and foreboding landscape avoiding danger as he goes. He makes his way into a facility where he finds out what nefarious activities are going on there. This one had some moments that startled me so badly, I had trouble sleeping afterwards. Definitely not for kids. It’s a work of art, and some of the puzzles are truly challenging. This is a predecessor to Limbo which I bought, but haven’t started playing yet.