One Of My Favorite Games Of 2024 Mixes Animal Crossing's Cuteness With Gory Body Horror

Over the past weekend, I found myself scrolling through Steam, browsing its impressive Summer sale, and looking for a new title to play. Yes, I know just came out, and I've heard nothing but great things about it, but I sucked at the base game and therefore locked myself out of the expansion. One day I'm sure I'll revisit it and "," but for now, I was just looking for something fun and relatively stress-free to jump into. Fortunately, Steam answered this with a surprising free recommendation: , and its charm and dark humor made it one of my favorite games of 2024 so far.

I've written in the past about how I love the stealth genre, with AAA series such as ,, and often appearing in my favorites. While the AAA scene has seemingly shifted from stealth heavy titles, offering stealth approaches as an option in a game that gives you a variety of ways to play instead, the indie scene has produced some of the best stealth titles in recent years, and falls into this category for me.

takes the concept of other stealth cleaners (is that a genre now?) such as and combines it with a casual, cartoony and playful artstyle that would be more akin to a cozy game like , rather than one that involves becoming a werewolf and devouring an office full of people. While I don't tend to play many cozy games, that juxtaposition with some of the bloodier moments of the game is part of 's charm, and the moment that the protagonist, Kyle Milton wagged his tail like a happy puppy after transforming into a furry monster was the moment I knew I was sold.

The following indie games all center around cozy tones, slice-of-life narratives, or whimsical art styles that will leave players feeling warm inside.

follows Kyle Milton, a Janitor at Howlin' Hugs, who finds himself in a predicament when the CEO of the company forces all staff to work unpaid overtime through the night for a week; otherwise, they won't get their paycheck for the month. Is that legal? Probably not, but it certainly makes for a