Have You Played... Hoshi Saga?
Stars In My Eyes
Hoshi Saga has been my constant companion throughout the years of RPS. Collections of micro-puzzles from developer Yoshio Ishii, they appear without warning, with gaps of a couple of years, then two in six months, then vanish again for a bit. In wanting to recommend the series as a Have You Played, I've checked back, and noticed I've missed everything since 2011. HOW? There are four more Hoshi Saga games waiting for me! What a silly happy thing.
Ishii remains an enigma to me. I've reached out in the past, but never heard back. He makes these tiny little web games under the banner of Nekogames, bursting with incredible creativity. Then makes some mad Flash thing about cats, or a game where you have to chop a tree down so it crushes a boy and girl before they meet.. Then a concept as ingenious as Cursor*10. Absolutely barmy.
The Hoshi Saga games stand out above all else in his crazy archive. While the difficulty is often pitched a little too low, ploughing through each game's 36 tiny puzzles to find the star is immeasurably rewarding. And I'm stopping writing now, because I've got 144 more of them to play! Bye!