Hello!
One of the things I really enjoy is unique, interesting or out-of-the box game design. It doesn’t have to be AAA game, it doesn’t have to be a perfect game, it can be pretty rough - but if it has a mechanic or design element that is somehow unique or original, I’m instantly in love with the game.
The problem is that such games do not usually get a lot of exposure, since it is after all a niche. And that is really a shame - in the past few years the most fun had with video-games was playing such smaller and shorter indie games with something unique or pretty clever, where I can obsess over the design and more importantly - get inspired. That leads me to my question - are there any communites or blogs or content curators that are about this kind of smaller, maybe unpolished, but original games? Or what games would you recommend that would fit into this description? I don’t mind if it’s a 5 minute experience. It’s ok if it’s more interactive art than a game.
To better illustrate what I’m looking for, I’d compare it to modern art - the kind where you get a single colored square on a canvas. I never got it, and it always felt just weird - until I had to start doing flyer design and started researching and reading about composition, space and all that stuff. And now I see there’s so much going on even on a picture with a single line, that it’s really interesting to think about why the square is where it is, and what kind of composition rules was he working with.
And I think it’s the same for game design - sometimes you see a clever mechanic or design on otherwise really ugly and unpolished game, and it still gets you inspired and thinking.
I understand that my question is a little bit vague, so I’ll give you a list of some games I consider unique, some of them are well known, some of them not-so-much:
- Immortality - you probably know about this one, but a game where the plot twist is discovering a hidden game mechanic, you could’ve done all the time? And the fact that you watch three movies at once in random scene order is also a really good experience.
- Against the Storm - I really like how they solved the issue with management sims - that they tend to get boring once you set everything up, by making it a roguelike.
- Different Strokes - an online persistent collaborative museum of art, where you can either leave a new painting, or edit someone’s else. Each painting can be edited only once, so there are always two authors of a single piece.
- Sayonara Wild Hearts - I really like the idea of making what’s basically an interactive music album. While the game design isn’t anyting that interresting, the focus on music is cool - there should be more music albums with video-games instead of video-clips.
- Project Forlorn - Again, not really a game - this time I think there’s no actuall gameplay, but it’s the best interactive music album presentation I’ve ever seen. And again - I like the idea of exploring music and games together.
- Playdate - Not exactly a single game, but rather a console - but the idea behind giving you a game per day (which is I think how it started, they may all be available now looking at it) sounds amazing - which I’d also consider a game design (or rather, experience design?).
- Baba is You - Another probably well known game, but the puzzle mechanic is just mindblowing.
- Before Your eyes - In this game, the main mechanic is that you go through the memories of someone who has just passed away, but the time advances every time you blink - physically blink, because the game can use your camera. That is such a clever idea, that it definitely fits onto this list.
- Nerve Damage - This is my favourite recent discovery. The game is trying so hard to be uncomfortable to play, with it’s main design build around just being unplayable. But it somehow works and once you get into the flow, it’s such an unique experience.
So, does anyone has some recommendations about where to look for more experimental games? A curated list, blog would be awesome - since clicking through pages of games on itch.io is pretty hit and miss. Also, feel free to share some of your favourite unique design or experimental experiences and games!
Outer Wilds.
but a game where the plot twist is discovering a hidden game mechanic, you could’ve done all the time
Turn this up to 11.
Outer Wilds is definitely in my top 3 games of all time. I’m currently waiting for a few years to forget as much of the game as I can, so I can replay it with the DLC and in VR.
Absolutely fuck playing that in VR, that would be terrifying haha!
Have tried it twice and both times got motion sick pretty quickly. Perhaps third time lucky.
Increasing the fov or playing further from the screen may help. Unfortunately a zero g physics game tends to have a lot of issues with motion sickness.
- Heaven’s Vault: Language translation point and click adventure game.
- Project Hospital: A great hospital sim. You can even diagnose the patients yourself!
- Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin: A japanese RPG/brawler with a (very detailed) rice farming simulator as the way to gain XP to level up.
- Warsim: The Realm of Aslona: A text based kingdom manager / adventure game. Full of quirky details and humor.
- THE LONGING: A very very slow paced point and click adventure game about waiting… for 400 days… in real time. Why not read some books while you wait, or come out of your little hole and explore the caverns outside?
- Cultist Simulator: Run your very own lovecraftian cult, the card game!
- Windward: A pirate sandbox akin to Sid Meier’s Pirates! Tried it on a whim when I got it in a bundle and got stuck playing it for 15 hours. Worth a try.
- Shadows of Doubt: A procedurally generated detective simulator (in early access at the moment).
- Ruinarch: A big bad simulator sandbox. You are the big bad. See that village over there? Make their lives miserable!
- Ghost of a Tale: You are a mouse bard in a fantasy world of anthropomorphic animal people. You are imprisoned in the castle dungeons and need to escape.
- Heat Signature: A space bounty hunter sandbox. Hijack a ship, kill your target, collect the package, throw yourself out the airlock, and pick yourself up by remote controlling your ship.
- Intergalactic Fishing: You like fishing? Do you want to fish an unlimited amount of different fish in an unlimited amount of different lakes all over the galaxy? Look no further.
- The Last Federation: You are the last surviving individual of a powerful species in a star system full of different species at different levels of technology. Your mission: unite the star system to save its people from annihilation. Will you be able to unite all of them, or will some species be eradicated for the greater good?
- Songs of Syx: A fantasy city builder of grand proportions. Build your kingdom’s capital and fill it with hundreds or even thousands of individual people.
- 5D Chess with Multiverse Time travel: Are you good at chess? Well, everyone is on a level playing field when you introduce time travel and the multiverse.
+1 Heaven’s Vault. Gets you thinking in totally different ways.
Braid is a puzzle platformer divided into several sections, where time functions differently in each section and you have to figure out how to use it to solve the puzzles. It’s very well designed and (as I remember it) the puzzles can be quite challenging.
Have you played Return of Obra Dinn? Also Inscryption, the creator is half mad
You’ve come to the right place, I also fancy artsy games and unique experiences.
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Return of the Obra Dinn is a great mystery game about figuring out who died and why. You use your watch to go back in time and explore the moment of death of everyone, trying to piece together what happened.
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Viewfinder is a new puzzle game where you take pictures of your surrounding and place them in front of you, turning them back into 3D-space
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Antichamber might be my favorite abstract puzzle game ever. It’s hard to explain and can be a little obtuse (you get lost easily), but basically you explore a lot of world-shifting environments and try to figure out what is needed. Eventually you get a gun that manipulates cubes and stuff. Really, just play it.
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Manifold Garden is a close second after Antichamber. You explore infinitely repeating worlds and shift gravity to solve puzzles. It’s not a hard game and you can finish it in a few hours, but it’s a great experience.
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Journey is probably a game you’ve come across before. I loved this game to death when I first played it on PS3, I’d recommend giving it a shot. It’s also quite short, only about 3 hours long.
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Hypnospace Outlaw is a game where you play on a fake late 90’s operating system acting as a web moderator. I can’t understate how cool this game is, and the seemingly innocent story gets more interesting as you play along.
There’s probably more out there, but these are on the top of my head.
Great list, I can second Obra Dinn and Antichamber, so I’ll have to try out the rest
Thank you, there are some games I haven’t heard about. Hypnospace Outlaw and Antichamber sounds cool, the rest I’ve already heard about or have on my backlog, but thanks for reminding me that I should finally play them.
I’ve played Return of the Obra Dinn, it’s exactly along the lines of what I’m looking for. Have you heard about The Case of the Golden Idol? It’s similar to Return of the Obra Dinn, in it being a detective game that nails the design and solves issues of that genre in a clever way. I’ve found it in a game awards I’ve recently stumbled upon - the Independent Games Festival, which looks like one of the few game awards that are worth following (the only other one I know about are the BAFTA awards).
Because in general, I’d say that most game awards are a joke. I mean, look at the “Most innovative gameplay” from the last few years of Steam Awards, and compare them to BAFTA or IGF. I may have a different outlook skewed by my interest in game design, but I just can’t get over Stray winning so many game design awards, especially in a year where games such as Immortality came out. I mean, there’s literally not a single unique mechanic in Stray. It’s a platformer where you don’t even have to jump manually -.-
Have you heard about The Case of the Golden Idol?
I’ve seen it before but I haven’t played it. I might give it a shot.
most game awards are a joke
Steam game awards are a popularity contest, so don’t worry about it. It’s community-voted, not by critics, which means everyone just voted the game they knew.
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Not sure about experimental but different game mechanic:
Radio Commander - a RTS that you totally control via the radio, you don’t see anything, you must interact with your deployed units.
Hell Let Loose - Not niche, but very unique in its 50 person radio system, where you must communicate and coordinate with other players. Think of it less as a FPS, and more as a management training simulator.
Majesty - A old game, but you don’t actually control units, you set goals and bounties and the units have their own agency and will accomplish things in their own good time.
The forgotten city - A very cerebral approach to time loops by a indie studio.
Cruelty Squad rapidly became one of my favorite games. It’s a true art piece designed with a significant amount of spite, for both the world we live in and the player punishing themself with the game. Every single part of the game is thoughtfully designed, down to the fishing mechanic. It challenges you, both in its gameplay and in its audiovisual experience. It’s abrasive on purpose, to wear you down until you get used to it and can build yourself back up better.
Pyrocynical recently did a video about the game but it’s very long and a bit too revealing for someone who knows nothing, so I actually recommend Markiplier’s video which shows just how bizarre the game is to get in to going in blind.
I absolutely recommend TUNIC. It’s sort of a combination of a legend of zelda/dark souls gameplay and a really interesting puzzle element. Basically, you are playing this game without the guide or any tutorial, and as you play you pick up pages of the game guide which teach you how to play, but it’s written in a language you can’t read, so you have to piece together the mechanics based on the pictures. The game is absolutely full to bursting with secrets, including a final puzzle that blew my mind when I figured it out. I played it with invincibility on so that I could focus on the puzzle element and not worry about combat so much.
It’s one of those games that you can only play once because you learn so many secrets through playing it, but it’s a truly magical experience.
Since nobody mentioned it before, Stanley parable.
If I had to describe it with one sentence: you’re not playing the game, it plays you. I played a lot of games but this one stuck in my head. It awards for thinking outside the box.
Any other title like antichamber were already mentioned ^^
Creeper World 4 - a sort of tower defence, but you are fighting the ocean. Sounds insane, and the graphics are not really great. But the core game play loop is so well refined. Check out the mods as well such as “light play as creep” or LPAC where you are the ocean instead.
I’m still on Creeper World 3 and it’s also very good. So was number 1. I didn’t enjoy 2 (which has different mechanics) as much.
I’ve only played two of the games you mentioned, thanks for the list! Here are a few I thought were especially interesting and that I played somewhere recently:
- Nuts - you set up cameras to track movements of squirrels to find their hidden stash; gameplay is placing cameras and reviewing footage
- 140 - platformer stripped to its roots; the novelty is the simplicity; honorable mention Thoth (same idea, but twin stick shooter)
- Ys 1 - ARPG with bump combat, which I found very interesting
- Death Squared - MP (2 or 4) puzzle game where moving one unit can move set pieces, so coordination is needed
- Titan Souls - boss rush, but with 1HP for you and the boss
- Gorogoa - abstract puzzle game
- Donut County - you’re a hole
- Fez - 2D puzzle platformer where the gimmick is it’s actually 3D, but you can only see one 2D surface at a time (rotate worpd mechanic)
And some you’re probably aware of:
- Superhot
- Doki Doki Literature Club
- Oxenfree
- Portal/Portal 2
- Undertale
Thanks again for the list! I’m excited to see what others post too!
Edit: I just wanted to say thanks for the post! I found a ton of great games to try out, and I hope you got the same out of it. :)
Here’s one you almost definitely won’t know. Guy made his own game engine to make it work.
Hyperbolica - A whimsical Non-Euclidean adventure with mind-bending worlds full of games, puzzles, mazes, and secrets! Immerse yourself in reality-warping geometries where lines can never be parallel, horizons are curved, and space grows exponentially.
Antichamber for a good old school mind bending puzzle game
These definitely aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but these are some really unique games I like.
Dwarf Fortress: A colony sim who’s depth gives it it’s uniqueness factor. It’s been in development for forever and if you dig into it a little bit stories will begin to construct themselves in the game in a way that no other colony sim does. Heads up that you won’t know how anything works and your forts will fall apart, it’s part of the Fun.Check out Kruggsmash on YouTube for some great videos on it.
Caves of Qud: I just learned about this game today actually, it’s a rogue lite(like?) In a similar vein as Dwarf Fortress. Super long in development with incredible depth and replayability. Really interesting stories that come out of it.
Kerbal Space Program: Learn to send adorable little green men to the moon! Build rockets, crash them, learn and try again! A few games have tried to do something similar, but nothing matches the vibe of ksp. Best to stick with the original + mods for now, the sequel needs more time in the oven.
Frontier Pilot Simulator: Be a delivery person on a alien world, fly vtol aircraft around, deliver goods, make money, upgrade craft. Ok that sounds basic as hell, but something about this game scratches a doing things itch for me. It’s great once you kinda get the flight controlls and can be played in 20 or so min intervals which I actually have trouble finding these days.
Delta V: Rings of Saturn: Take the old school asteroids game to it’s absolute furthest possible development and then a bit further, no, further than that, keep going.
Trackmania: Racing game that has crazy tracks but manages to stay grounded somehow. Fun if you just want to try and beat the latest tracks, also fun if you lose hours or weeks or months or years or decades of your life trying to get the best time.
VTOL VR and Jetborn Racing: Ok it’s a VR game, and you need a headset. But if you have one it’s literally the best flight sim ever. It’s just realistic enough to make you learn a bunch, but not so realistic that you get bogged down. No sticks or equipment needed, it’s all VR motion controls.
Carrier Command 2: Control a whole ass aircraft carrier! It’s very microprose, so super simulated and fiddly, but really really neat. If you have friends and can somehow convince them to play this with you, it’s super fun* *I take no responsibility for friendships lost due to ‘fun’
Anyways, I might like odd sim games a little bit more than is strictly healthy. Splattercatgaming on YouTube is a good source for finding odd games if you haven’t seen them yet.
Baba is you: a simple block pushing puzzle game where you make the rules by lining up words. It’s not like anything else.
Iron lung: a short horror game about navigating a submarine blind
Dollhouse: a flim noir styled avoid the pursuer type horror game, with eack level adding new mechanics. One of the most interesting games I’ve played, but it got lost to a ten year hype train and never recovered from the initial review bombing.
Jazzpunk: hard to describe. An first person puzzle game where the whole game is a joke and every aspect is unexpected.
Papers please: run a Soviet bloc security check point, and try to keep your family alive with the small amount of supplies you receive for filtering citizen correctly. Same guy who made obra dinn.
Receiver 2: at the surface it’s an fps with insane gun mechanics. Deeper though, it’s forced meditation and mindfulness. Nothing you do can be reactionary or automatic, every movement must be on purpose. Lots of mental health themes.
Many others already mentioned here are great. Obra dinn, doki doki, antichamber, outer worlds. There’s a ton of great things out there.
I have 35 and 41 hours in Receiver 1 & 2, I’ve managed to finish 1 2-3 times and never finished 2. But it’s a game you keep coming back to for its satisfying gameplay loop and challenge.
