I grew up with a sister. She’s four years older than me, which meant that for most of our childhood she was legally, emotionally, and intellectually obligated to ruin my day. We didn’t get along especially well as kids, and my very first memory on this earth is, fittingly, an argument with her. I was absolutely convinced that I had been born at three years old—fully formed, already wise, and frankly ahead of schedule. She insisted, cruelly and without imagination, that everyone is born at zero. I defended my theory with the kind of confidence usually reserved for people who are very wrong and completely unaware of it. She shut me down immediately. In hindsight, this was less a disagreement about age and more an early lesson in sibling dynamics: I would present bold, nonsensical theories, and she would demolish them with facts and an eye roll. Round 22’s game reminded me what it is like to have an older sibling that insists on contradicting you and one that constantly lets you know they are stronger, smarter, and faster than you. Round 22’s game is:
Blendo (Skin Deep’s developer) has always had a knack for making unique games that feel surreal, but still understandable and Skin Deep fits neatly alongside the studio’s previous titles in that lineage. The game is an immersive sim that values cleverness over combat and trusts players to figure things out without holding their hand—or even really telling them what the hand is for. Set aboard a series of spacefaring ships overrun by pirates, Skin Deep casts you as Nina Pasadena, an insurance commando whose job is less “elite operative” and more “extremely cautious problem-solver with a clipboard.” It’s a game about reclaiming stolen property, navigating hostile spaces, and rescuing cats from space pirates. All of this is wrapped in Blendo’s signature mix of dry humor and understated weirdness.
Playing Skin Deep always feels like standing on the edge of a perfectly avoidable disaster. You’re fragile, lightly equipped, and keenly aware that nearly everyone you encounter is carrying something much larger and louder than you are. The game has very little interest in brute force; instead, it nudges you toward patience, observation, and a willingness to try things just to see what happens. Most of your time is spent squeezing through vents, ducking into lockers, and nudging the environment in small, cartoonish, often absurd ways that somehow snowball into success.
The real pleasure comes from watching the game’s systems collide—sometimes elegantly, sometimes in total chaos—and realizing that even a bad decision can turn into a workable solution if you stay flexible. Levels are packed with interactable objects—bananas, mugs, sinks, soap, and countless other mundane items—and each one comes with a label that doubles as a quiet hint about how it might be used. Pick up a box of black pepper, for example, and you’ll see a warning label that reads: “WARNING: STUN HAZARD Throwing at or near someone will cause sneezing.” That’s the game gently encouraging you to weaponize this package of seasoning. Nearly everything you find has a purpose, and discovering those uses feels less like following instructions and more like learning the strange, slapstick logic of the world one mistake at a time.
Each level in Skin Deep takes place on a different spaceship that’s been thoroughly overrun by space pirates. These ships were originally operated by cats but the pirates have since stuffed the entire feline crew into locked boxes scattered around the ship. As Nina Pasadena, an insurance commando whose job exists for reasons best left unquestioned, you’re sent in to quietly undo this mess. You sneak aboard, hunt down keys, rescue the cats one at a time, and get them safely evacuated. Once the crew is out, it’s up to you how things end: you can neutralize the pirates or steal their ship and leave them confused about what just happened. It’s a rescue mission, a stealth puzzle, and a very strange workplace assignment rolled into one.
Between missions, you get a chance to kick back in Nina’s “habitat,” which is basically her personal space station lounge-slash-office. Here, you get a bit of exposition about the world—but more importantly, Nina can log onto her personal computer to correspond with the cats she has rescued via email. Each feline has its own personality, dialogue, and sometimes absurd little storylines that unfold over the course of the game. They’re clever, often hilarious, and absurdly well-written, which makes you start to care about these spaceship crews in ways you never expected.
After a few levels, the plot starts to finally untangle itself—or at least, it pretends to. Nina discovers that the mastermind behind the space pirates is none other than her evil clone, Zena. Zena has somehow built an entire interstellar pirate empire, complete with seemingly unlimited loyal minions, and is apparently doing it all with style. Nina, understandably annoyed that her twin is making her life way harder while looking good doing it, sets out to track her down and, ideally, take her out. Of course, Zena isn’t just running a pirate operation—she’s also carefully crafting the narrative that she’s the “good” twin while framing Nina as the problem child. Feels eerily familiar — like classic sibling rivalry, just with more laser guns and space cats. I won’t spoil how it all ends, but there are plenty of ridiculous antics, laugh-out-loud moments, and surprisingly clever plot twists along the way.
Tonally, Skin Deep continues Blendo Games’ tradition of letting humor emerge naturally from systems rather than jokes. Much like Quadrilateral Cowboy, it’s funny because it allows things to go wrong in believable, human ways. Plans unravel, alarms get triggered, and carefully laid strategies collapse because you forgot one small detail. By the end of a mission, you don’t feel like a hero—you feel like someone who survived by staying observant, adaptable, and just a little lucky. Skin Deep is tense, playful, and quietly confident, a game that understands that the most memorable moments often come from barely holding it all together.
My sister and I didn’t exactly win any “Sibling Harmony” awards growing up—our childhood was more of a polite war with occasional explosions. Thankfully, time has mellowed us both, and now we mostly just respect each other instead of actively plotting revenge. She has two kids of her own and lives about an hour and a half away from my wife and I. It’s almost Christmas as I write this, and we’re planning a trip to her house in the coming weeks to celebrate the holidays. Who knows—maybe I’ll bring up some of our classic arguments for laughs, or maybe I’ll remind her of the time she drop-kicked me in the face and knocked out my tooth. Sure, we still bicker here and there, but at the end of the day, blood is thicker than water—and apparently, also thicker than grudges.
"Got me wondering what my evil twin is doing"
"Send me to Wonky Space NOW"
"Slapstick has never been so immersive"