My November log

November, November. Autumn, leaves are still falling… Well, scratch that, where I live Autumn has already come and gone: November was full of wind, rain and hail, and temperatures plummeted.

I had a nasty cold in the beginning of the month, but at least I felt well enough to play games. And unlike last month, I completed many! That feels good.

In the blog side of things, it was a super fun November. I changed a little bit the design of the website, I received my first game key for a review and I was a guest writer for the fist time. I experienced the craziest timing when I wrote a review of my Steam Deck a few days before Valve announced the Steam Machine (more on that in the news section). I wrote and published a post that I had been conceptualizing for a while – Do you play, when you play video games? – and I feel really happy to see it out in the world.

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🧠 The Game That Stuck With Me in November was…

Each month, I pick a game that I can’t get out of my head for a while after finishing it.

My November pick is Fading Serenades. This action-adventure inventory management game is another one for my collection of short and impactful indie gems.

It’s a futuristic world but here you need to do things the old way. Traverse Clifford Island to deliver parcels to the locals, run, jump and climb. Manage your inventory and place items strategically in your backpack, all while vibing to different music in each location.

The way the story unfolds little by little was brilliant. And the underlying commentary is something I’m still processing and that I believe has the power to resonate with people in more ways than one.

Fading Serenades is available for PC and MacOS. I finished the game in about 4,5 hours (and played it for a bit longer to unlock the remaining couple of achievements).

What game has stuck with you recently?

My November gaming log

This month I played so many cozy games! I wasn’t feeling 100% for a couple of weeks so I resorted to playing games on the chill side. I finished Kitchen Sync: Aloha!, that I started last month, and also picked up the games below.

Winter Burrow, finished. I played Winter Burrow and reviewed it as a guest writer for Good Game Lobby. This cozy woodland survival game was a fun one to play as the weather was getting colder and colder around here. It seems that the developers are planning to add a map and storage organization options to the game – I always love to see post-release quality of life updates!

Little Corners, playing casually. I reviewed this super cute diorama decoration game here on the blog, read it here. They just had a quality of life update last week with some improvements to the game and they shared they’re working on a new corner! Can’t wait to decorate it.

Pixel Cafe, dropped. Pixel Cafe is a mix of cafe management and visual novel with a coming-of-age story. I played it for 2 hours until deciding that this game is not for me: the management mechanics were too repetitive and the story didn’t captivate me.

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, playing. Ni no Kuni was on my list of classic RPGs I wanted to play and now felt like the perfect time to start it. Plus, I am a Studio Ghibli fan and if you don’t know, the animated sequences in this game were produced by the studio and the original score was composed by Joe Hisaishi.

TOEM, finished. I played TOEM for the monthly game club from Good Game Lobby. I wasn’t planning to pick it up to play it myself, but I’m so glad that this was the pick of the month, because I absolutely LOVED it! In this cozy adventure game, you take pictures and help people. There’s a TOEM 2 in the works and I can’t wait to play it when it comes out. I recommend checking out Margot’s review of TOEM, as she talks in depth about several aspects of the game I really enjoyed.

In December, GGL’s game club will be playing Ori and the Blind Forest. Join the Discord server if you want to join the discussion.

Undertale, playing. Writing about the games I played this month fills me with determination.

We went to a concert from Duo Potpourri celebrating the 10th anniversary of Undertale last week and it was lovely! The week before, I started playing the game for the first time ever. Below is one of the compositions they played in the concert – enjoy!

Demos I played and recommend

Arcane Eats. A roguelike deckbuilder with a delicious twist. Think like a master chef, balancing resources as you strategically combo ingredients to subdue hungry hordes. Recruit a legendary kitchen crew, and rise through the heroic cooking guilds—before The Hunger consumes us all!

Release date: 2026.

Cropdeck. Plant, grow, and harvest in this farming roguelite deckbuilder. Craft a powerful deck of plants and combine quirky scarecrows with passive effects for wild synergies. Pay taxes. Strategic, satisfying, and delightfully wholesome.

Release date: Q1 2026.

inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories. This is a third-person single-player simulation game centered around a small-town convenience store in the early 1990s. Shelve goods, engage in meaningful conversations with your customers, and see how choices you make impact their lives!

Release date: Spring 2026.

Wishlists

Vampire Crawlers. As someone that has put a LOT of hours in Vampire Survivors, I had to wishlist this one. Deal world-ending combos and blitz through infested dungeons! Vampire Crawlers: the turbo wildcard from Vampire Survivors is a casual, turn‑based deckbuilder with roguelite elements.

Release date: To be announced.

Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times. Create unique spells by combining magical runes to solve puzzles your way. Transform objects, manipulate time, and discover the mysteries of a world where everyone has vanished, leaving only 12 people behind. Every puzzle has multiple solutions – if you can imagine it, you can probably do it.

Release date: To be announced. ✅ Demo available

ROVA. Help a new space colony conduct research on large spherical planets, by documenting elements of alien worlds through photography. ROVA is a game about discovery and exploration.

Release date: To be announced. ✅ Demo available

Showcases

Cozy Quest opening showcase, November 17

Cozy Quest is a Steam event organized by Secret Mode and they had a showcase to kick it off. There were many games that caught my eye, besides Rhell and ROVA that I listed in the wishlists section.

There were also interesting Let’s Plays and interviews, which I recommend checking out on Secret Mode’s channel.

State of Play Japan, November 11.

This showcase organized by PlayStation had a good diversity of games. My personal highlights were that Coffee Talk: Tokyo‘s release is happening on the 5th of March next year and that inKONBINI is coming to the PS5 in April.

Gaming news

Valve announces the Steam Machine and a new lineup of hardware releasing in 2026, but without disclosing the prices so far. Also, Valve says that a Steam Deck 2 is not on the horizon as they are waiting for better technology to allow a substantial performance upgrade.

GTA VI is delayed… again. Initially expected to come out this Fall, it first got pushed to May 2026, then to November 2026.

Game publisher Krafton announces voluntary resignation packages weeks after announcing it’s now an AI-first company. Also, allegedly the CEO used ChatGPT to try and find a way out of paying bonuses to former Subnautica 2 leads. Yikes.

Paralives’ Early Access delayed. Initially set to release in EA on December 8, the team pushed the date to May 25, 2026. This is a highly anticipated indie life sim game, especially by the Sims community, so it was a bit of a bummer to see it delayed by so many months.

Looking forward to in December

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for gaming this month since we’ll be working on some house renovation soon. However, I am really looking forward to playing Lake this month with the Cozy Gaming Club, and wrapping up some more of my ongoing games. I’m also curious to follow the game awards happening soon.

Wishing you all a cozy December ahead!

Thank you for reading,

-Luna