The Prompt
Anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot of people jaded with modern gaming. I understand why. If you only see the games that have the most marketing, which are the ones you’re most likely to see for obvious reasons, then you’re primarily seeing the likes of AAA games with second-job-esque battle pass FOMO tactics, loot box gambling, pay to win, and constant reminders that you’re missing out on the full experience of the game like coming across fan favorite characters in the DLC of an already-expensive Star Wars game. The plural of “anecdote” is not “data”, but it could be this fatigue with the games that the average person is aware of that has led to a drop in spending and the crash that the industry is currently facing (but let’s not sugar coat it; there are surely other factors, too). I sympathize with these people, but respectfully, there’s a whole wide world out there of great games that never ask for a dime after it’s in your possession, so let’s call out those games and spread the word.
The Rules
- One game per top level comment, with the game name behind a “#” symbol so that it forms a heading, and platforms it’s available on in parentheses. Leave a brief synopsis with no spoilers and a brief critique. I’ll be starting us off with a number of examples. Upvote the ones you agree with, and leave a comment on the top level one for discussion.
- The game should have no paid DLC, no announced paid DLC, and feel like a complete product as it stands right now. I actually don’t mind the most common types of DLC, like what you would find in the Paradox model, but I know there’s a large enough contingent of folks who really do mind, so any DLC whatsoever is a deal-breaker for this thread. I’m making an exception for soundtrack and artbook DLC since, as far as I know, the existence of this stuff doesn’t bother anyone and just allows for avenues for certain artists to get a better cut for their work from super fans. I’m not making an exception for cosmetic DLC like you’d find in V Rising, as innocuous as I personally find it to be.
- The game’s first release must have been in 2024. By this, I mean that if it came out on PS5 two years ago but launched on PC this year, it doesn’t count, so no God of War: Ragnarok. No collections of old games like Marvel vs. Capcom.
- No early access games, except for games that were in early access and hit v1.0 this year. So no Palworld, but Satisfactory is on the table if you’d like to recommend it. I personally didn’t care for it, but if you did, feel free to list it!
- Only games you’ve played thoroughly enough to be sure you’d recommend it. If you only started playing the early chapters or levels, maybe let someone else recommend it, just in case the quality nosedives later on. I’m personally only recommending games I’ve finished or beaten, though that definition admittedly becomes challenging with the likes of UFO 50.
The Thaumaturge (Steam, GOG, Epic)
I’ve played the Witcher games before, but this RPG is the most Polish game I’ve ever played, in a very good way. The RPG systems are fairly light, and the progression system is very atypical, but probably the best way to describe this is a narrative adventure game like Life is Strange but with a turn based combat system along the lines of what I understand Child of Light to be, where each action takes a certain amount of time, and it displays that order at the top. The combat is fun, and the RPG systems and branching paths offer some replayability, but I think the real star of the show here is that the story is just so different than basically any other game I can think of. It takes place in 1905 Warsaw, where national boundaries are constantly redrawn around an expanding Russian empire, what that means for the citizens and their politics, and how the superstitions of their day play into that.
I’m happy the game is getting some love. Played the demo and thought the game was really unique and solid in what it wanted to be. Sadly my financial situation limits my budget for games otherwise I would have bought it just to show some support for the studio
Shadows of Doubt
An alternate universe corpo city filled with generated crimes to solve. You get a case board, scan for fingerprints/footprints, talk to witnesses, look up sales records, check out cctv cameras among loads of other stuff. All of it is happening live in the city - everyone has schedules, an apartment, a workplace, an inventory, an email account, a blood type, a shoe size… - so that murder/kidnapping/robbery literally happened in the game while you were crawling through vents looking for an envelope with sensitive documents that someone asked you to steal. Just yesterday I got to a crime scene super quickly and caught a murderer leaving the scene of the crime with the murder weapon on their person. There are deus ex style body augmentations too.
One of my favourite cases was a woman who got murdered. I had the husband pegged for it but couldn’t pin it on him. His fingerprints were all over the place and he was on the cctv but they lived together so that wasn’t really evidence. The case went cold. A couple of days later the HUSBAND is murdered and I’m stumped. Just go looking for anything related to the guy and hope I stumble across something useful by accident. So eventually I break into the husband’s boss’ apartment and find a bouquet of flowers with a note for the boss from the husband. It turns out the husband is having a secret gay affair with his boss. The boss kills the wife so he can be with the husband. Husband doesn’t want to be with a murderer I guess so the boss kills him too!
It’s occasionally a little buggy still. I was supposed to follow someone, take a photo of a briefcase handoff, follow the recipient and get the briefcase back and have done this type of case before. Yesterday though the handoff never happened and I waited with the original owner for a few in game hours. My guess is the recipient is dead or was someone I knocked out earlier while I was solving another case and I messed up their schedule.
I second Shadows of doubt. I haven’t played the release version yet (I’m still building factories in Satisfactory) but I can give my most memorable detective work from early access. I was doing side jobs because my murder case had gone cold. I had a gig where I needed to find proof that the clients partner is having an affair. The information I got about the potential lover were some vague physical traits like eye color and shoe size. But the key information was that the lover’s partner worked as Wait staff. So I
- went through every restaurant, bar, diner etc in the city.
- Got a list of every wait staff member.
- Found out where they live.
- Broke into their house.
- Found their partner information.
- Found the potential lover.
- Started looking for key evidence to tie them to the affair.
The last step is where my gig ended up in a roadblock. I’m not 100% sure but I think it was bugged because I did everything I could come up with. I went through the clients partner personal stuff and found nothing. I went to their work and found nothing. I went through the lovers personal stuff and found nothing. I went to lovers work and found nothing. I even planted a tracker on both of them and followed them around to see if I missed something and I still found nothing. I even checked the mailboxes. So the key evidence was probably bugged and I couldn’t find it.
Despite that I haven’t had such a unique experience in any other game. It’s up there in my backlog waiting for me to return, but first the factory must grow.
Indika (Steam, GOG, Epic, PS5, Xbox X/S)
Indika is, at its core, a story-driven game about a woman and her troubled relationship with her religion. There are some light puzzles to be found here, but it is primarily about using interactivity in new ways to tell a story, and I think for those reasons, it’s very worth seeing. In the opening moments, it clearly conveys that it’s got some ideas. On top of that, it’s a looker. It’s using most of the benefit that Unreal Engine 5 offers, and someone on the development team really understands cinematic framing, at times resulting in some of the best real-time images my PC has ever rendered.
Peglin (Steam, iOS, Android, Switch)
Just released 1.0 a month ago. Simple enough gameplay loop. Throw orbs at pegs on board to fight enemies. Go down different paths on a map until you reach the boss fight at the bottom, upgrading and getting new orbs and relics along the way to help. Repeat 2 more times and you win. Has 20 levels of increasing difficulty after beating your first run, but locked behind standard progression.
Dungoens and Degenerate Gamblers (Steam)
Released beginning of last month. Play Blackjack against opponents, but you each have a life bar. Score higher than opponent to deal damage equal to the difference in your scores to them. Various non-playing cards and other nonsensical cards will appear as playable cards. Things like a get well soon card, SD card, a flat out 21 card, a birthday card, and many more can be found. Go until you either lose all your health or beat the final boss on one of two different routes to be taken.
Could you split this into two comments, as per rule 2? It makes it easier to vote and discuss without mixing both.
Peglin is great.
How long can you play the game without getting bored?
I have over 300 hours still going. It’s only if you like that kind of game.
I do. It’s on my wishlist because I have so many new games that I didn’t play yet that it wouldn’t make sense to buy it now I just wondered, in regard to the gameplay, if some people eventually feel bored after some days :) so thanks for the feedback
Dread Delusion (Steam)
This a first person RPG in the style of the PS1 with Elder Scrolls influences worn on its sleeves. This isn’t so much about the RPG parts of the game as it is about the exploration aspect, which isn’t usually my jam, but it worked really well for me here. Despite having tons more draw distance than 5th gen consoles, it is of a similar scope and scale of games of that era, with a lot of the positives from back then that I tend to forget about. A lot of people complain about yellow paint in modern games, and this is the antithesis of that: everything worth exploring is visible from miles away, and there’s a lot of it, with no fluff to make it visually confusing.
Selaco (Steam)
It’s technically still in early access, but damn I haven’t had that much fun with a boomer-shooter in a while. The level design is top-notch, the music slaps, and the AI is actually good at cornering you.
They’re working on the next two chapters, which you’ll get when they come out at no additional cost. Also, the OST is on Bandcamp.
I don’t know why you got downvoted, because you answered the question. I don’t know if they’re planning on making any DLC, but as it is right now I’ve played for about 6 hours and just made it past the mall. This is all still in the first chapter, for those who didn’t know.
#4: No early access games, except for games that were in early access and hit v1.0 this year. Even if it’s a great game this year, odds are it’ll be a better game when it’s done, so I made this thread to call out games that are done.
Fair enough. I didn’t read the whole post because it was an absolute wall of text.
I thought I did a fairly good job of segmenting it so that it wasn’t a wall, but maybe next time.
Echo Point Nova (Steam)
(Made by the same folks behind Severed Steel) A short and sweet, low-fi yet beautiful co-op (and optionally PVP) movement shooter with extremely satisfying projectile mechanics, destructible environments and a gorgeous soundtrack by Floating Door. Zip through at ridiculous speeds across a series of mysterious floating islands with your hoverboard and grapple beam. Inch closer to god-like power as you progress.
Definitely not for everybody but there’s a demo (which can also be played in co-op) available on the store page.
SteamWorld Heist II (Steam, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series, Switch)
Like its predecessor, it’s basically “2D XCOM with skill shots instead of randomness”. Highly recommended, perfect for gaming on the go with a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch.
UFO 50 (Steam)
It’s a collection of 50 games, not mini games, from a fictional game developer called UFO Soft in the 1980s. Not every game is a winner, but a ton of them are. You see the advancement in technology and design techniques over the course of the 1980s, and there’s a bit of back story for each game that you can start to put together a throughline for the company and its fictional developers. About half of the games also have local multiplayer. I’d prefer that they also had manuals for each game, especially the more complicated ones, but that means that my favorites in this collection are the simpler games that speak for themselves more quickly.
Mortol is the game of the year.
Weird way to spell Avianos
Can none of you spell Golfaria?
Devil Blade Reboot
A really cool Shmup, it’s hype as fuck, the OST it’s a banger, the scoring system is pretty straight forward but with enough dept and is approachable for new player to the genre!
If you’re tired of your million-hour games where the gameplay is just walking forward, a shmup that’s just condensed gameplay can be your oasis in gaming.
I don’t end up playing new games much because I’m such a deal hog, so this is really nice to read :)
Animal Well (Steam, PS5, Switch)
This is a puzzle-driven metroidvania with a simple retro-inspired aesthetic that aims to teach you how to interact with it wordlessly, and it usually succeeds at it. I’m honestly not sure how to fill out the rest of this blurb without ruining the intended experience, but while I wasn’t this game’s biggest fan and wasn’t interested in digging into its secrets post-credits, I did enjoy my time with it.
I’m really happy with my few hours in it. I was afraid it’d be another Rain World situation where I can tell I like it and admire the craft but don’t actually feel the need to play it much, but I do find it enticing still.
I never beat rain world either, got maybe halfway through but I still count it as one of my favorite games of all time.
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore (Steam, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox X/S)
Arzette is a very specific joke for nerds like me who know too much about the history of video games. It’s designed to look and sound just like a Phillips CD-i Legend of Zelda game; a cursory glance at the credits seems to indicate that someone from Digital Foundry may have consulted on it to get it right. A friend of mine has a CD-i that he allowed me to play some time ago, and you have no idea how badly games like those play, especially on that awful controller. Fortunately, this game plays totally acceptably while still having a slight metroidvania angle to its 2D action platforming levels. It’s got a bit of a slow start, but after that, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, so if you’re in on the joke, you’ll likely have a good time.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Steam, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series)
Pretty original mix of brawler and tower defense, with a presentation reminiscent of Okami. Avaiable on Game Pass and has a demo on Steam.
Balatro (Steam, iOS, Android, Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One/X/S)
A deck-builder card game where you make poker hands, but Jokers and other cards give you crazy power-ups. I probably didn’t explain that very well, but it’s absurdly addictive. It’s like the perfect Steam Deck game.
Put a space between the # and “Balatro”.
Should be fixed now!
It isn’t.
I dunno what to tell you, friend.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780/Balatro/
Overwhelmingly Positive (97% of 43,242) All Time
Overwhelmingly Positive (98% of 1,908) Recent
95.63% STEAMDB RATING
This game is probably too addictive.
