written by Tylyn Anson

Secret Little Haven is a 2018 video game from designer Victoria Dominowski – or more officially, publisher/developer Hummingwarp Interactive – about a youngster named Alex in 1995 spending time on their Sanctuary OS Computer (a Mac ersatz, given context clues) instead of dealing with the issues in their own life. Alex writes fan fiction, surfs the net, chats with friends in an IM client while learning rudimentary coding – basically, everything that someone growing up in the ’90s and early 2000s like myself did as we were discovering ourselves in our youth.

That’s all there is to it, gameplay-wise, and yet it’s one of my favorite games of the year so far, possibly one of my all-time favorites.

SPOILER WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT
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