Hi, Guide readers! I’m Keza, the Guardian’s friendly local video games editor (and writer of our games newsletter Pushing Buttons), taking over this week’s Guide to fill you in on what’s worth playing while you wait for the next episode of Better Call Saul to drop. Whether you’re in the mood for a vibey skateboarding game, pretend badminton or a grand fantasy epic, 2022 has been very kind to us so far. (And if you’re someone who thinks that video games aren’t for you then hey, stay with me. You never know, I might be able to persuade you otherwise.)
First up, a game that seems directly aimed at everyone who’s ever taken a look at a Mondrian painting and said “But anyone could have done that”: Please, Touch The Artwork (PC, smartphones) is a puzzle game about abstract art, telling the genre’s origin story by letting you mess around with iconic paintings, trying to recreate their lines and colours. It makes you think about the art, how it’s constructed and what it means, and it’s also chill and unpressured, with no time limits or objectives to hurry you through. I’ve spent a couple of pleasant hours now poking at it on my phone when I don’t have the mental energy for anything more taxing (which, given the current state of the world, it quite a lot of the time.
