I haven’t seen anyone mention Kenshi, so I guess I will.
Kenshi is a post-apocalyptic, RPG, RTS, city-builder hybrid. You can play as one individual character, or you can build up a squad to roam an entire continent full of towns, people, and everything else that wants nothing more than to push your face into the dirt and watch you squirm. It’s an intensely brutal game, but one with an aesthetic that I can’t get enough of.
There are different races of playable characters (from humans, to hivers, to shek, and skeletons) all with their own different stat bonuses and handicaps. If you lose a limb, you can either find someone who sells prosthetics or just leave that character crippled for the rest of the game.
There’s kind of a story, but the game is mostly just you existing in this world and learning about it. There are plenty of different factions you can join or help out, and there will be consequences for choosing a side.
It’s also incredibly moddable, with the steam workshop having thousands of mods already.
That game doesn’t care if you exist or not. The world will live just the same!
Tomb of the Necrodancer is a rythm rogue like which is very unique, imo.
Yoko’s Island Express: Pinball Metroidvania!
Yoko? Oh, no. It’s Yoku’s Island Express, and it’s fantastic.
Surprised I haven’t seen I Takes Two here yet - it’s a tour de force of genres.
If you never played this game and want a close to perfect coop experience, you should definitely give this a try. It’s perfect for a session with your SO, and it doesn’t rely on neither massive skill nor gaming experience.
I loved every bit of the journey that me and my wife was on with It Takes Two.
Can second this recommendation. It’s a really fun game, but you need a partner to play with you. I played with my brother, and it was so freaking fun.
Will also recommend it. My girlfriend loves that game more than any other
I tried this game but something about the way all the cute fun bosses cry for mercy as you coldly kill them really turned me off to it
I’m sure everyone is all over this, but Dave the diver is so much fun. Little bit of rpg, little bit a farm sim, little bit a restaurant sim, throw in some action sequences
I’ve certainly been enjoying certain content creators absolutely destroying the local shark population.
That game is a little bit of EVERYTHING.
Hi-Fi Rush mixes DMC-style combat with rhythm gameplay, and has a great soundtrack and charming personality to match.
ICEY might be a good one to check out. It mixes cynical untrostworthy narration (like from the Stanley parable) with a 2D side scrolling hack and slash. some people say it doesn’t quite measure up on both fronts, but I enjoyed it. it has a nice art style too
Subnatica. Exploration, farming, habitat building, and creepy at times. You will love it
I’m in the minority, I know, but I have mostly negative memories of playing Subnautica. I enjoyed exploring new areas, and the progression of the story, but the hours spent looking for one more resource so I could progress just made me mad. I don’t like save-scumming, but after
spoiler
losing my seamoth to a leviathan for the 3rd time, I said fuck it, and save-scummed regularly.
I had just finished playing Outer Wilds and my friends said “oh, then you would love Subnautica!” No, not the same kind of game at all. I say all of this so that anyone thinking of playing it has the right expectations: if you can’t find the one thing you’re looking for, I recommend just looking up a guide on where to find it. I don’t think the game funnels you to the correct areas well enough for you to find everything you need naturally.
When I think of Subnautica, I just remember having to drink water like every 5 minutes or so. I would have loved to explore, but I was busy getting basic resources all the time.
That was another reason, yes. Apparently you’re supposed to find the parts to the water filtration system relatively early in the game, and it will regularly spit out large bottles of water that help a lot. I didn’t. So yeah, for 90% of the game I’m having to periodically chase Bladderfish for 5m so I can spend 2 minutes spam crafting a bunch of waters, so i can carry several around with me, taking up valuable space in my inventory.
The game does have a freedom mode where you don’t need to worry about food or water.
But then there’s no challenge, so it gets boring.
I wanted to like subnautica, but I just couldn’t.
Yeah, I really liked it but I wish the devs would’ve implemented one more skill mode at a slightly easier level. I was OK with losing whatever inventory I’d collected during the single trip if I died, but I really wanted the “sea moth doesn’t explode you just have to start from base again” mode. Especially since I lost one of them because I couldn’t figure out which key did the electric charge zap thing.
We’ve proven that we can find the blueprints and materials necessary to make the thing in the first place, so having to collect all that metal again (with limited inventory space) just felt like busy work.
Yeah, I think I can only tolerate busy work games when played in a group. Because then you can delegate the work, and at least you’re still hanging out. Like the Forest.
Nier Automata
Peglin merges dungeon crawler rogue-lite with Peggle style gameplay.
Slay The Spire merges dungeon crawler rogue-lite with a deck builder card game.
Dicey Dungeon merges dungeon crawler rogue-lite with dice rolling.
I got stuck on a theme 😅
To add, Cult of the Lamb is both a base building game and action roguelite
The Typing of the Dead
If you like strategy games. This is one of my favorite games of all time. I haven’t seen anything quite like it sense. Close, but nothing hit the genre mix like this game.
Rise and fall: civilization at war.
There’s a 2011 game called Before the Echo (previously called Sequence before the board game maker decided to get pissy about it) that’s a basic rhythm game but you play on a screen with three boards where rhythm arrows drop, and you have to manage swapping between all of them. One board you clear arrows to prevent enemy damage, one generates mana for you, and the third is where you cast spells (that do damage, heal you, etc). There are a few different items you can get and there’s some light crafting/leveling systems as well.
As someone who doesn’t usually play rhythm games (largely because I’m bad at them) it was pretty fun. The story is amusing as well, and the main critique I had was that it’s very slightly on the grindy side and there aren’t enough songs to support it, so you start hearing the same ones over and over. The music is decent but it can get a bit old.
Rain world is a really good survival platformer
Rain World is fantastic, especially after Downpour came out. I love having a reason to beat the game at least 5-6 more times!
How has no one mentioned Inscryption?
Why has no one mentioned Pyre?
So, I really wanted to like Pyre. I love all the rest of Super Giant’s games, and I put maybe 10 hours into Pyre. But I think it was just too much Visual Novel for me. I wanted to spend more time playing the actual game (the rights?), but they only lasted maybe 5-10m and then it was back to reading and flying around.
But yeah, the art, sound, writing, and world are all beautiful. Just couldn’t get into a groove.
And it gets pretty repetitive. Once you start “releasing people”, it gets redundant (and sadder)
