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Steam Quickplays: February 2026

Posted on February 10, 2026 by Aywren

Many of these games I played back in January but waited to document until I had a solid number of games to write about. I also have some bad news and something to admit… I broke my own rules and bought a game bundle this month. So, now I’m back under 75% of my backlog played. -sigh-

The good news is that in checking the new games, all of them are either pretty short, or quite playable in small chunks, such as on the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck has been a help with settling down to focus on some of the shorter indies – which I have plenty of.

So, here’s what I’ve dipped into since the last Quickplay.

Toy Tinker Simulator

Toy Tinker Simulator was a free game that I got over the holidays, but one that I thought looked interesting. Turns out that the game controls are wonky and the game mechanics aren’t always very intuitive.

However, I appreciated the fact that the game focused on refurbishing vintage toys such as wooden boats, trucks, rockets, and the kind of things you’d see in old-fashioned Christmas toy artwork. I’m not sure why that little bit of charm was enough to capture my attention, but I played it a solid hour and some. I also left it installed in case I felt like poking at it a bit again.

But for the regular price of $12.99? I don’t think it’s charming enough for that cost.

Castle Flipper

Being a fan of House Flipper, of course I’ve had my eye on Castle Flipper! When I saw it on Steam Sale for less than a dollar, I pulled the trigger on this.

I feel like I need to put more time into this game before I speak to it too much. I enjoyed what I have played through the missions. However, reading the Mixed ratings, I see people saying that eventually the missions run out and then you’re left with only building castles and not flipping them. Apparently, the pure building features of the game aren’t quite as intuitive as folks would like them to be.

But for less than a dollar? I won’t complain terribly if I get a somewhat fun series of missions with some wonky building at end game. I wouldn’t like plunk down full price for this one, however, based on what I’m seeing in reviews.

Arcanium: Rise of Akhan

Arcanium is a blend of strategy card battler with a roguelite. I do enjoy card battlers in general, though rougelites tend to wear thin on me if there’s not enough of a reward that holds over from attempts.

I really, really like that there’s a party system in this game, and that you collect cards for characters based on their “class.” It reminds me a little of Across the Oblisk due to that. I can see that there are tons of characters to unlock as you progress, as well.

However, I didn’t make it too far on my first few runs, and it felt like all I achieved was unlocking one or two permanent cards from the time I put into it. Maybe this is my lack of understanding, but the game purposely ramps up the difficulty for each action you take, spiraling you towards defeat in ways that are out of your control. I wasn’t sure I liked that concept vs. the small reward for my time.

I did mark this as a game to come back to once I have more breathing room in my backlog as I think it’s interested and I’d like to explore it more. If you enjoy this type of game, I’d suggest watching for a sale as there’s no demo for you to try before you buy, and the $20 price tag is somewhat steep.

Gourdlets

Gourdlets is less a game and more a sandbox. It’s another in a line of games I’ve been seeing lately that are basically creation boxes for creation sake. I’m not sure how I feel about these types of games being an artistic person – I guess if I’m going to do a from-scratch piece of creation, I’ll focus more on my own art than digital elements in a sandbox game.

In this game, you build a little world for your plant-like Gourdlets to inhabit. There are no resources to gather, no currency – again you’re just creating for creation sake. The Gourdlets then interact with the items you place and earn maturity points with each interaction. Once the little flower on the top of their head blooms to maturity, you can click on the Gourlet add points a meter, which then leads to a random item unlock once the meter is full.

The only issue I have with this is that you start with far more items unlocked than you work towards unlocking. It feels like there’s only a limited bit of content to earn, especially since the central game loop mechanic is seeing the Gourdlets interact, mature, and fill up the bar.

I feel like there needed to be more progression and more items behind the unlock mechanic. But, overall, it is the cute, chill sandbox experience that it claims to be. It’s also pretty cheap to pick up, and even more cheap on sale.

Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island

Frog Detective 1 is a “game” that I got in the new bundle. I wouldn’t have normally purchased something like this, and now having “played” through this game, I don’t have much interest in playing any of the others in the series.

I knew it was a short game, but based on reviews, I saw that folks saying it has great humor and dialogue. I was on board for that!

However, after spending the 40 minutes to beat it, I’m a little torn on what to think of it. This might be a fun point and click dialogue game for a child under the age of 10 or so. The content was wholesome and characters colorful enough for kids. Some of the deadpan humor might be over the head of a child, however, which is what makes me question whether it was aimed towards kids.

I’d already deduced the answer to the “mystery” halfway through the game, and most of the awkward humor just didn’t land for me. I understand what the writing was going for, but I feel like I wasn’t the proper audience for the tone and humor style.

Again, I’m torn on what to say for it because it’s quite charming, but extremely simple - likely aimed towards a younger audience.

Those have been my quickplays going into February! As I noted, I picked up a new bundle which I’m focusing on, so expect more quickplays coming through this month (I hope) as I try new things and give my first impressions!

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