

There were a few games last year that we didn't have time to review, so before 2025 gets too crazy we're playing review catch-up and rectifying some of these omissions. So if you're reading this and wondering if you've slipped through a wormhole back into 2024, don't worry, you've not become unfastened from time. We're just running late.
I played Mouthwashing entirely in one sitting back in October and had to lie down for a while afterward to recover. I felt vile, unsettled at what I'd seen over the previous three hours. Mouthwashing is about as classic a "walking simulator" as you can get mechanically, and while its stabs at more intensive gameplay fell a little flat for me, its narrative, vision, and atmosphere made it one of 2024's standouts, a people's champion of indie horror for very good reason.