Hollow Lantern

Hollow Lantern is the game on this list I keep thinking about. It's a quiet adventure where you wander a mist-covered town, tapping to examine objects and piece together why everyone left. There's no combat and no fail state — just atmosphere, environmental puzzles, and a story told almost entirely through the things people left behind.

The puzzles are clever without being obtuse; most tie directly into the fiction, so solving one feels like understanding the place a little better. The sound design deserves a medal — wind, distant bells, the creak of a door — it's genuinely eerie through headphones.

It's short, maybe four hours, and that's the right length. It doesn't overstay its welcome, and the ending landed harder than I expected from a mobile game.

What we liked

• Dense, unsettling atmosphere
• Puzzles woven into the story
• Beautiful sound design