Game: Cloudbreaker
Developer: Ballast Games
Where I found it: Steam's "Your Personal Calendar" widget

This is VS-like slop but it got my attention due to a somewhat unique theme involving the sky, ships and somewhat diegetic UI. Gameplay wise I can't really praise it, it is VS-like slop at the end of the day. The upgrades are a little more inspired than the average game in the genre, and the way you assemble them is particularly interesting, as it uses that Tetris-like inventory system that's common in some roguelites now. I haven't had time to explore the items you get more thoroughly, though, because like all these games, you're supposed to play 1000 runs to unlock things and I just don't really have the patience for that, but it seems like a deep and interesting system, the game seems to have enough autism to it in terms of stats and so on.

What I liked most about this game though was that it's... soulful? I can see that someone put effort into making this world believable and making you inhabit it. This is visible with how everything is justified lore-wise, even if the mechanism for said justification is whatever, at least nothing is contextless, but it's also visible with the UI especially. I love how the UI looks and behaves, it feels like a part of the world and it also feels tactile, I can feel my hands moving the pieces around and doing this or that. Does this mean I think this is a high quality game just waiting to be discovered? I think it is high quality in many aspects, I'd be proud to release a game like this, but I also think the fact that it is VS-like slop detracts a lot from an otherwise creative and daring project, so my final judgement is no.