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!
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.
- 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.
Undertale? I came at it being basically familiar with RPGs and having only a faint idea of what it was like. It was awesome. It has a few things that get “rosebudded” a bit these days, being an old game with a bunch of meme potential. It’s an indie, very Japanese-inspired RPG with “bullet hell” fighting mechanics and an astonishing soundtrack. I basically can’t praise it enough, BUT if you’re going to play it and have managed to not get it spoiled so far, do yourself a favor and don’t read up on it first.
Factorio? I fell in love with it practically because of the nice, flashy power graphs. It’s a factory sim with “tower defense” aspects but you can play peaceful mode if you (like me) are not into that or don’t like its combat mechanics.
TIS-100, Shenzhen IO, SpaceChem, Opus Magnum or Zachtronic games in general, if the last one was somehow not geeky enough. A lot of the zachtronic-style games have more or less the same general idea and they also focus on some nostalgia/zeitgeist type things. TIS-100 and Shenzhen IO are coding games on an imaginary computer, you basically write a minimal form of “assembly”. SpaceChem and Opus Magnum have the same basic problem solving thing but are less overtly “code-y”. TIS-100’s UI is very “faux retro” and their last game, Last Call BBS doubled down on that aesthetic, really drilling down into the “90’s kids’ idea of computing back in the day”. I personally didn’t like the actual LCBBS games or activities but the presentation is really neat.
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 ^^
Hyper Demon - the camera is almost 360 degrees and in the trailers the gameplay seems unintelligible, until you play it for a bit
Planescape: Torment
The story of an amnesiac immortal piecing things back together.
The immortality isn’t invincibility, you still die, but wake up after a while.
Die enough times and you lose all memories, maybe with a different personality altogether, that’s where the game starts: a cold slab in the morgue and the start of this new incarnation you now control.
It’s not only a respawn mechanic though, the mechanic is used in a few puzzles and social encounters, it’s also integral to the storyline.Endure. In enduring, grow strong.
