I made a silly little thread about some of the ones that caught my eye and why, but I essentially scrolled through the list and sifted through what seemed appealing, made some brief notes as I went along, and then reordered my final list of games I do want to play in order of which was most sparkly seeming.
Interest was very biased towards my favourite genres (post-apocalypse, horror, gothic, romance). In terms of most to least important, it went: eye catching name → interesting tags (did I like the genre, tool used to make it, could I play on the web) → riveting blurb that made me want to play more → cover art → author. I will admit that my eyes glossed over entries without any cover art.
Top game of the list is January by litrouke for me- I love their work, and have thoroughly enjoyed previous post apocalyptic writing from them. It also hits it out of the ballpark in terms of a story I’d enjoy: morose, sombre, following a man in the aftermath of the apocalypse, and the promise of the sort of peculiar desolation you get with deep winter that I love so much in Canadian literature.
I will admit, it was originally lower down my ‘want to play’ list, (in large part because I felt like I was left wanting for a bit more substance than their very short blurb) but once I saw the author, it went straight up to the top of the list. Their writing’s delicious to sink your teeth into- atmospheric, haunting: pulling you into building dread with a deep undercurrent of unease percolating just beneath the surface of an already grim situation. I love it.