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Do you have any game sub-genres that you have a name for, but aren't big enough to be "official" sub-genres?
I realized that some games I play fall into specific categories that could be their own sub-genre, but are either too specific, haven't been around long enough, or there's a "good enough" combination of genres that could be used to describe them that makes it impossible to find more in that genre.
I'm interested if anyone else has any of these weird little sub-genres that they enjoy and wanted to share.
Feel free to add any games that you think fit into sub-genres other people describe
Knowledge Based Games
Games where you as a player learn things about the game itself which allows you to solve puzzles. Sub-genre of puzzle and mystery games, but a bit more specific than that. The puzzle/mystery is more about how the world itself works rather than the individual puzzles or mysteries themselves. Oftentimes, things you figure out change how you view the world itself. Not a full requirement, but sometimes if you know the "truth" about the world, it is possible to skip directly to the end of the game. With a normal puzzle game, you can come back to it after a few years, you will probably beat it faster than your first playthrough, but you will probably have forgotten most of the individual puzzles. With knowledge based games though, it's much harder going back to them, as the things you found out change how you view the puzzles themselves.
I've definitely seen the phrase "Knowledge Based Games" used before by video game essayists on youtube, but it's not exactly a tag you can search on steam for.
Not going to put spoilers for these games, and honestly recommend going into them pretty much as blind as you can, but I highly recommend them if you like that feeling of discovering something and saying to yourself "Oh shit, this changes everything"
Outer Wilds Is the probably the game in this genre that gets discussed the most nowadays. You travel around a miniature solar system in your space ship trying to uncover the mystery, and save your species while in a time loop. There are lots of really cool moments when you figure out how things work. Since it's in a time loop, if you know how all the mechanics work, you can easily skip right to the ending of the game.
The Witness: The main mechanic for this game is solving little mazes. But as you progress, extra rules are added to the mazes, so just getting to the end of the maze isn't enough. Figuring out the rules to how they work is a lot of fun to do and it feels great when you figure out why a certain solution works or doesn't. It also does a really great job with environmental tutorials for each section of the game. Starting you off with tiny puzzles that only have 2-3 possible solutions that you can brute force before coming up with theories about why only the one solution works. Also has a great "Oh Shit" moment.
Void Stranger: Seems like a basic Sokoban (block pushing puzzle) game at first, and I honestly didn't think I would enjoy it that much. I ended up putting 50 hours into it somehow, and took 10k+ words worth of notes about everything I was discovering, theories about what is going on, and things to go back and try out to see if they do anything. The puzzles themselves are very well designed, and most of the levels don't have too many moving pieces and instead require you to figure out the "gimmick." I had a few different "Oh shit" moments while playing this game
Tunic: Zelda-like with a twist that you find pages to the instruction manual that are written in a different language. The core game itself is fun, but also has you learning about how the game itself works. In a zelda-like fashion, you will get tools which allow you to solve puzzles, but sometimes, the tool that is given to you is knowledge itself and you could have solved those puzzles the whole time if you only knew how, which definitely makes it harder to play a second time fresh. Also has some meta-puzzles for those who want to go the extra mile, with figuring out how to read the instruction manual language, open the door in the mountains, and the golden treasures.
Anti-Chamber: Mind bending puzzle game with non-Euclidian physics. For how surreal and interesting this game is, I don't actually have much to say about it other than it's a lot of fun and is constantly challenging your expectations. There's no big "Oh shit" moment in this game, but instead each puzzle is it's own mini mystery about how the world of Anti-Chamber works.
Honorable mention: Return of the Obra Dinn: Also talked about a lot recently, but probably doesn't fully fit into this category, but I wanted to mention it anyway. I describe it as a Sudoku Murder Mystery where you are trying to figure out how everyone on this ship died based on snapshot vignettes of things that happened on the ship. I say this one doesn't fully fit this sub-genre because there's no real learning about the rules of the world other than the mystery of why all these things happened on the ship itself, which is separate from the actual detective work that you are doing. You will probably remember some of the harder deductions you made because you were proud of figuring them out, but that is more like being proud of solving a difficult puzzle as opposed to truly changing how you view the game world.
I recently played through Book of Hours, which I think fits in that mold rather well. You're a librarian, you catalog and read books as well as crafting various things using a large assortment of crafting stations and the junk lying around the library. The game mechanics themselves are a bit of a mystery at first, and often you realize that you've had the tools to do something for a while but were lacking the knowledge to combine them in the right order.
I created a new project in Obsidian to help me catalog and interrelate all the crap going on, and it ballooned to a fairly massive size before the end. I'm actually not sure it's possible to complete the game without copious external notes, at least not without an obscenely frustrating amount of trial and error - or an eidetic memory.
Also 12 Minutes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Minutes
It’s a pretty good time, I completely recommend it.
Can we call these games "know-likes?"
I’ve heard “Metroidbrainia” which is both funny and accurate. Upgrades happen in your own understanding to unlock new paths, usually requiring you to hop back and forth to areas already explored with new information that changes the options available to you.
Exploration puzzle games?
Great question. I'd like to put forward Bridge Simulators. Not to be confused with bridge constructors. It's a genre that almost exists, but there's still no tag within Steam to describe them.
The premise is this: you and a group of friends take up stations to control a ship (usually a spaceship). You progress on a dangerous adventure where your crew must work together, often balancing resources such as power to defeat hostiles and make it through dangerous territory. Roles typically involve a captain, engineer, and weapons expert, with each station offering unique challenges. For example, an engineer may need to match shield harmonics to reduce incoming damage, while the captain is making the executive decisions to get everyone to safety.
I have not played all of these (so excuse the brevity), but I got started with Artemis and found it a lot of fun in a good group.
And though I've only briefly followed these projects, these are open-source alternatives from dedicated communities.
As an honorary mention, I will include Elite Dangerous for its multicrew mode, though it mostly just gives you an extra "pip" of power to put into one subsystem.
You might enjoy barotrauma. Submarine game but basically a bridge simulator
Definitely belongs on the list. Phenomenal game
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime!
Great multiplayer spaceship bridge game. Used to be 2 player coop and they added 4 player coop later.
I would hesitate to call it a "sim" but it's nonetheless a fantastic "bridge management" game. Instead of helming one of the stations you constantly rotate between them to manage whatever danger is incoming.
Regular Human Basketball from my comment on 'Controls Games' is very similar to Lovers with running and jump on buttons to activate different systems, except it's two
giant baseketball mechsRegular Humans playing against each other with up to 10 players.That's a great one! I heard about Artemis a long time ago and thought it sounded really cool, but never had anyone to play it with.
Potential game to add to the list, although stylistically very different
Puzzle Pirates: The pirate puzzle MMO from 2003. Players could crew a pirate ship together and player would take on different jobs that would impact the ship in different ways. Rigging puzzle for speed, Repair puzzle to get health back for the ship, a bailing puzzle. But what was more interesting was when you got into a fight with another ship, the captain had their own puzzle game of maneuvering and firing cannons, while there was a separate puzzle for people to load the cannons. Maybe doesn't fit as well because there isn't too much communication beyond the captain yelling at people to be better at their jobs, and at the end of the day, each person is just trying to be as good at their individual puzzle as possible.
Guns of Icarus Online is similar. I had a blast with friends flying a steampunk airship, though it is way more combat focused than some of the games you listed. It is just team vs team but each crew member has their own role and has to communicate well to keep the ship going and win rounds.
Spaceteam! It's a silly version of this for mobile, which lends itself to a group of people frantically shouting orders at each other while simultaneously trying to repair the ship and implement the orders. If you've ever wanted to have your friends frantically shouting at you to INVERT THE FLUX POLARITY!! while you're pushing buttons and wiping sludge off the controls, Spaceteam is for you.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sleepingbeastgames.spaceteam
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spaceteam/id570510529
Void Crew may fit this description.
I saw your other comment about Knowledge Based Games and thought you were about to describe what I had in mind, but you took it a very different direction. So I’ll change the name a bit:
#Wiki Games#
These games have a huge amount of unique items or resources. Usually, playing the game blind doesn’t really equip you to have the best experience, and mastery requires a significant amount of research through the relevant wiki pages for that game. A few games that I can think of are Minecraft, Terraria, Stardew Valley, maybe Rimworld.
That's a good one! I think a lot of Roguelites like Bindof of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon also fit in here. There's definitely a lot of fun to be had learning what everything does your self, but if you want to see what everything does in detail, and how all the various powerups interact with each other, the wiki seems pretty mandatory.
I think Old School Runescape also fits in there in it's own weird way. When I was playing it, I constantly had multiple wiki tabs open.
Ooh, yeah OSRS definitely fits too! And yeah now that I think about it, a lot of roguelikes/roguelites fit, but I guess it didn’t cross my mind because my favourite (FTL: Faster Than Light) doesn’t really need a wiki until you’re achievement hunting or wanting to unlock certain ships and layouts. It’s a relatively straightforward gameplay loop and there aren’t many ways to change your ship in a given play-through. Plus the game visually gives a lot of information about what’s going on.
Don't Starve Together has to be at the top of the list for this genre. That game is bonkers evil without the wiki.
I play a lot of grand-strategy games, and honestly, some of them are completely different from one another that it almost doesn't even make sense to lump them together. For example:
Total War games are pretty unique in that they have a large campaign overworld, but then go very deep into the nitty and gritty of the battles. There are plenty of RTS games out there, and there are plenty of games with large campaign maps, but not very many that combine them as fluidly as Total War games.
Civilization V has spawned a whole wave of 'civ-clones' that feature a hex-based map and turn-based combat. Civ VI is like this too, but I would say that V is the one that started the trend. Old World, Millennia, and Humankind are others in this category.
Paradox games have their own feel to them that I'd honestly lump most of them together before comparing them to other franchises with similar time periods or themes (e.g. Imperator Rome is WAY more akin to CK3, EU4, and VIC3 than it is to Total War Rome I & II). A lot of them use similar mechanics in a way that is not as common, or at least as deep and extensive, in other games. Things like trade goods, aggressive expansion, diplomatic interactions, succession, population control, culture, religion, etc. are deeply ingrained in a lot of these Paradox games in similar ways. They exist in other games, of course, but not as thoroughly and not quite as many of them.
I'm sure there are other subcategories under the grand-strategy umbrella, like base-builders or boardgame-likes, but these are the main three that came to mind for the games I've played.
Survival games have ballooned to mean so many things.
A quick Google returns Minecraft, Escape from Tarkov, Rust, Palworld, Rimworld, DayZ, Conan Exiles (an MMO), to name a few. None of these I would consider a survival game. There are some survival elements present in some of these, but the game itself should not be considered in the survival genre.
Survival to me is a much more niche style of game. The Long Dark, Raft, Subnautica, Stranded Deep, The Forest, Grounded, I would say these are True Survival games I guess. And they're hard to find. Wish there were more. Especially more like The Long Dark where the struggle is against nature itself. So good.
Totally agree. Definitely feels like what happened with RPG's in how once they got popular, every game started adding RPG leveling systems to their games. There was a period when so many games added crafting and hunger meters to hop on the survival game trend even when they don't actually add anything to the game. Really needs the distinction between "Survival Game" and "Game with Survival Elements" in the same way people distinguish RPG's from "Games with RPG Elements."
Just a note here, Age of Conan is the MMO. There are three different Conan games from Funcom now, only one of which is a MMO (AoC). Conan Exiles is a survival game that can be played either fully single-player or on dedicated servers of up to ~30 players (average maximums), but usually ends up more like a dozen. The highest player limit I think I've seen is 64.
Source: I play all three (including Conan Chop Chop which is silly hack and slash fun).
Oh huh, Google was showing it as an MMO, and I was just doing a quick glance and know nothing about that game so I just assumed that was the case. My bad, sorry about that!
Active Character Tower Defense
These are like traditional tower defense games, but during the waves you're not playing a top-down management role: you're a character in the world and can directly move around and attack the enemies. Examples include the Sanctum and Dungeon Defenders series.
If anyone has any more examples of this genre, I'd love to know about them!
I'd say Orcs Must Die is in that same genre. It places you more "in the trenches", where the towers are utilities you deploy to help avoid the onslaught of orcs. It has a different feel than Sanctum, which to me is closer to a traditional tower defense in its design. There you're spending more time planning the actual "path" of the towers, and the gunplay is secondary in that respect.
Both games are fun, though I think Orcs plays better in multiplayer because you're both in the thick of it, and not having design meetings between rounds.
Pixeljunk Monsters 1 & 2. Cute, simple and very well balanced for a difficult experience that doesn’t feel like it’s cheating you. A great game to play with a non-serious gaming partner. You dance at towers to upgrade them for free or spend resources to do it instantly and my gf at the time got a lot of value out of that alone!
Not exactly what you're looking for, but CrossCode has a reasonably good tower defense mini-game in this style.
I really liked Dungeon Defenders (I think 2 is the one I played a lot of?). Haven’t heard great things about the newest entries to the series. If anyone knows of any new games that are in this genre, I’d love to know about them!
I have not played Sanctum or Dungeon defenders, but from your description I immediately thought of Mindustry. It bills itself as "a sandbox tower defense game". While there are enemies during the waves very little else changes: you can still build, collect resources, and attack the enemies.
In a way factorio has a component of this as part of a bigger factory mechanic. Does that count?
Engineering Games
This is somewhere between puzzle and simulation. I'd say this covers any game where you have to plan ahead quite a bit to come up with your own solutions to logistical or physics based challenges.
Factorio: Probably the most popular factory building game that most engineers can't pull themselves away from.
Spacechem: I suppose most Zachtronics games would fit the genre but this was the first of theirs I played that showed how coming up with your own solutions to the challenges was more rewarding than just finding the right sequence to solve a puzzle.
Clonk Rage: Much older physics based game that required careful planning to avoid chain reactions of explosions and fluids that could quickly end you. Clonk Legacy and OpenClonk have continued to run on modern systems.
I was going to get even more specific and say "Zachlikes" as a genre
Shapez is my personal favorite of these. It's factory building, but with unlimited resources, space, and no time limits. I couldn't get into Factorio because I was too stressed about everything being "correct", even when I turned off the aliens. With Shapez, you can just copy and past whole sections of your factory if you want. I ended up with several blueprints that I treated as functions and then combined them in different ways. I ended up "fully beating" the game by making a "build anything machine" without having to look up anything which was really satisfying. Definitely not the most efficient time-wise, but it's mine.
I didn't play the original but I tried the Shapez 2 demo and it felt pretty solid. My only complaint was the copy/paste required spending game credits which given how often I mess up felt rather punishing. I might try it again when it's out of early access, could be fun.
Mindustry is also pretty well designed, though the simple graphics take some getting used to.
They all seem to follow similar logistical challenges: build conveyors to move products around and improve them. I'm hoping to try more games that deal with structural challenges, the bridge building games aren't bad but most I've tried feel like set puzzle games with limited design solutions.
Satisfactory belongs on that list! Coffee Stain themselves call it "a factory building game" in their own synopsis while Steam tags often use Automation and Basebuilding which almost but not quite suffices.
Yeah, there's been a bunch of successful factory games like that. They often get lumped in with city simulators which are so much different.
I think the Incredible Machine series fits well here - it's aimed more at kids, and you have to build increasingly complex Rube Goldberg machines to reach the goal. I've only played Contraptions as a child, but I greatly enjoyed it and it left an impression on me. I would recommend it to any kids (or adults) that have an interest in puzzles, building, logical problem solving, or any combination of the 3. The lighthearted and silly design of it makes it appealing to a younger audience who may not be ready for more complex or "serious" games in the same vein.
That said, I'm not sure how accessible these are since they're on the older side. I'd imagine they wouldn't be very demanding to emulate, though.
That still had active development until 2014?!
I played that in the 90s. It was great!
'Controls' Games
Games where overcoming the controls is the main challenge of the game, but they are still meant to be mastered. This was the sub-genre that made me think about this topic. These games generally have unique control schemes that are usually very difficult to start playing with, but aren't necessarily "bad" controls, just require you to learn what they are trying to accomplish. This is not to be confused with "Rage Games" or "Silly Simulator" games like 'QWOP' or 'Surgeon Simulator.'
I've also found when these games are co-op games, they work great with people who don't usually play video games, since it evens the playing field as neither of you have the muscle memory for these types of games.
Heave Ho is probably my favorite, and is a great party game up to 4 players. 2d platformer, but each stick controls an arm, and you pull the left or right trigger to close that hand. You then monkey you way through the levels, and with multiple players, you can grab hands to form chains to make sections easier, or you can just fling yourself off platforms and hope for the best (or have a friend catch you)
Biped Similar to Heave Ho, coop only, but only two player, and way less silly. Top down puzzle game Each stick controls a leg of your little robot and the shoulders decide if you foot is attached to the ground or not. Also has the ability to just glide when you need to move forward, but for most of the puzzles, you will need to be controlling each leg one at a time and you have to work together to solve. Main game is doable by non-gamers, but the challenge levels require way more coordination.
Getting Over it With Bennet Foddy Climbing a mountain as a man in a pot, using only a sledgehammer. Portrays itself as a rage game, but I feel is somewhat more accessible than others (although definitely not for people who don't play games at all). It is super cool when you play through it a second time, and you realize how good you've gotten at the controls, as first runs usually take 4-6 hours, and then the second run takes 30-45 minutes. I actually wrote a super long comment on about why I like this game so much.
Octodad is probably the one that most people know about. You flounder around controlling each limb individually as you solve little puzzles, and the enjoyment is more about the chaos. There is a coop mode where each person controls different limbs, but I've only played single player.
Human Fall Flat 3d Physics Puzzle Platformer with co-op, with an emphasis on the physics. Another game where you open and close your hands with buttons, and then the arms are either up, or down. Lots of big levels with fun things to explore in them beyond just making it to the end of the level. I feel like this one actually spawned it's own mini genre, with games like Gang Beasts and Totally Reliable Delivery Service having similar blobby physics characters that fumble around trying to do simple tasks.
Mount Your Friends Similar to Heave Ho, except it's a competitive game, and you control all four limbs as a human. Goal is to climb the human tower and then lock it in, so the next person has to beat the current best height until eventually someone fails to do it in the time limit given. This one is definitely more difficult, especially considering the time limit and competitive nature.
I am Bread Game in my library I've seen but never actually played. Another entry in the "hold a button to grab" but instead of hands, you have 4 corners of a slice of bread and you traverse through a house. Definitely more in the silly/rage game genre.
Heavenly Bodies Another game similar to Heave Ho, but in zero G fixing a spaceship. I actually haven't played this one yet, but is in my library and I'm mostly just trying to find time with a friend to play it couch coop.
Honorable Mention: Regular Human Basketball technically your character is really easy to control, as it uses standard 2d platforming controls. But, what isn't easy to control, is the giant robot your character/team is controlling. There are two titanic robot basketball players that you control by moving around inside to push buttons to make it move forward/back, rotate arms and activate ball magnet, rotate and activate rockets. Couch competitive for up to 10 players on two teams and is a ton of fun, highly recommend. Managing to get a flying dunk or purposely blocking a shot is some of the coolest moments I've had playing couch co-op games.
Just want to let you know that heavenly bodies was incredible. I left wanting more.
Super fun game for local coop!
Your previous comment made me go back to that accursed mountain and do 100+ more climbs... seeing you mention it again prompted the need to brag that I got my personal best time down from 9:50 to 4:16. Using a speed-running timer the sum of my best segment splits is down to 2:28 but there's no chance I'll ever get a perfect run to claim that time. Heck, if I ever get sub 4 I will retire from that game fully satisfied.
If you haven't seen it already there recently was a new Foddy-like game released that you may be interested in: A Difficult Game About Climbing
As well as a new game from Bennett himself slated for release sometime this year: Baby Steps
That's awesome! After having that experience of doing a ton of runs, I've been going back to it about every month or so, usually to somehow mark occasions. I climbed on my birthday, climbed in the new year, or just as a cherry on top of a nice week that I've had. I feel like I'm pretty happy with my sub-8 that I got and have no desire to push it further.
Definitely going to checkout 'Difficult Game About Climbing' it looks so good. My secret 'controls game' that I like that I didn't list is actually another of Foddy's games: GIRP (game crashes on foddy.net). It was a fun game, but only had one truely "dangerous" part at the very end. And Baby Steps is already on my wish list for when it comes out :)
It's interesting that you now climb it for that reason but I totally get it, it's strange how a place that started as something that could instill a sense of dread has now become a reward in itself. For me it's become somewhere that I can disconnect from my mental-self and as tacky as it sounds... become one with the hammer.
After your comment when I went back to continue my climbs it wasn't so much to improve my time but more to obtain that golden cauldron and become my first and probably last 'perfect' game, which is odd in itself as I'm not one to care about game achievements. Having previously thought my skill had plateaued, it was very gratifying to see my technique improve over these climbs. Each successive climb became more enjoyable than the previous run, even if the time hadn't improved I felt that I was making progress.
This game has now given me my most empowering and equally devastating moment in all of my gaming history. I was somehow on pace to finish under 3 minutes, and normally I don't do well on the tower but in this run I astonishingly flew up it in 3 pulls, even skipping the first dish... only to take the worst possible bounce off the first space rock above. I floated listlessly sideways for an agonizing minute and a half staring at the timer helplessly before finally reaching the next rock. It was a simple reminder that not only can I far exceed my greatest expectations but also that in one horrible moment everything could be taken away and all I could do is watch. It was wonderful and terrible at the same time.
A Difficult Game About Climbing certainly seems like it's taken inspiration from GIRP for sure. GIRP was a game that I always wanted to try but it never worked for me previously, so now I'm stoked that the link you sent does work. Thanks for that, I know what I'm doing tomorrow!
I fully believe that both Single Player and non-massive MMORPGs can exist. I also believe that is not a contradiction in terms. The reason for that is that MMORPG may be technically an acronym but it functions like a regular word. It holds a number of concepts that not only go way beyond the expansions of its letters, it can also go without some. Essentially, the notion of MMORPG is more complex and nuanced than it seems. The fact that its name is also an acronym works as a conversation stopper, empoverishing the debate on an interesting group of games and ideas.
A game could tick all the letters of the acronym and not be an MMORPG, while another that misses some could embody all that is essential about the genre.
I wish to find another name for those games.
Care to give some example games or game play mechanics? It's clear that you are trying to preempt the obvious quip that "an MMORPG without the MMO is just an RPG" but a definition apart from semantics would help me better understand what you are describing.
I think a game like Dragon's Dogma, where it is a single player game, but you can play with other players pawn. Or a game like Dark Souls, where other players can invade you or help you. Basically any single player game that has online features that you can turn off or take advantage of, is what, I think, @lou is referring to.
I think Erenshor fits what he is talking about.
My views on MMORPG are probably overcomplicated and highly idiosyncratic, I have played this demo and it could definitely fit the bill. Doesn't feel like a great game yet, though.
I was just thinking a lot about MMORPGs these days, I'm gonna need to take some time and write a real article about this at some point.
Complex Communication Games
Alternatively "Asymmetric Co-Op" based on a bundle when looking to see if I could find anything else on steam.
@Wes's comment made me remember another sub-genre: Games where the challenge comes from asymmetric information known by different players that needs to be shared quickly. I think all of the games they mentioned in their comment probably also fall into this sub-genre as well.
Space Team: Where everyone's phone has a randomized control panel for a space ship, as well as an instruction for someone else (or potentially for yourself). Very fun, silly game with everyone trying to shout over each other with technobabble instructions like "Set the flexible steamprobe to 4!" "Engage the flux capacitor!" The game is level based, with each level getting harder and harder with how much time you have, as well as different modifiers to make the levels more challenging. Sometimes, the levels will have symbols instead of words, or the various components on your panel will start to fall off, held on by only a single screw so you need to swipe it back into place before using it.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes: Another fun party game, but I haven't actually played this one yet. One player has control of a bomb box that has several different puzzles on it, like having 5 different colored wires and they need to cut one. All of the other players have a PDF (or a printed out binder if you're fancy) with instructions about all of the puzzles. Often times there are different version of the puzzles, so there will be some back and forth required (e.g. "If there are 2 red wires, cut the blue wire, otherwise cut the yellow wire). Also has a VR version!
Operation Tango: Agent and Hacker tag team game. One player is the Agent moving around a 3d world, while the Hacker player hacks into various systems to help out. Lots of communication between the two when the hacker needs specific passwords/clues, or vice versa when the Hacker needs to inform the Agent the correct sequence of buttons or tiles to step on.
We Were Here Together: Own this but haven't played it. Two characters facing a blizzard together and communicate through a walkie-talkie with each other to solve puzzles.
Tick Tock: A Tale For Two: Found this one via the Asymmetric Co-Op bundle that the non-phone games were all in together, so I don't know much about it. Another two screen puzzle game that looks like an escape room type game.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is heaps of fun!
I went and paid for a local print shop to make binders for the manual years and years ago, and just a few months ago I got the VR version (I got the Quest 3 on launch) and it used the same manual, so I was able to play an incredibly chaotic game where 8 of us were in the same room, and after every defusal, we’d hand the headset to someone else and they’d play the next (and slightly more advanced) level! Loads of fun!
I have played Keep talking and nobody explodes. It's great game in manylanguages and can be played via phone call. Theother person needs just web browser/PDF file.
We were here series are great! They are coop for two where each character is in different part of game world/map and both must, well, cooperate to solve puzzles. I have finished 3 out of 5 (I think) of those games and they really are great!
Interface Horror
I mentioned this in the rec thread, and I'd kill to know if there are more examples
These are games that play off of their primary forms of interaction changing as the game moves along to try and create a sense of dread or scare the user. Messages don't read what you expect; music isn't playing right; a repeated action doesn't trigger the same way every time; menus come up sopping in blood without warning or explanation; the game throws nonsensical or ominous errors; the game abruptly switches genres, or from 2D to 3D... Or flat-out crashes at very opportune times. They're often heavily metafictional and reference their nature as a medium or program.
There are a ton of games that implement pieces of this to enhance a story - Undertale, the Metal Gear Solid series, Dead Space and its sequels, Ao no Oni, Omori, etc. - any game can screw with its interface for narrative effect. But these are games that are primarily a different genre; or, if they're horror, they're mainly using another source of horror as the primary narrative element (survival, chase, psychological, etc). I really love when people have that kind of human factors understanding of affordances and how to create behavioral expectations to wrap the whole narrative around breaking them.
Doki Doki Literature Club (a plucky romcom harem story goes off the walls) is probably the poster child for this. Visual novels are a good medium for this, as the only general interaction point is click -> dialogue with occasional choices. Slay the Princess (you are here to slay the princess) and Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi (a slice of life romance between you, a strange girl, and a clingy childhood friend) are other good examples.
Eternal Darkness (third person horror with Cthulu mythos) on the GameCube is the other one people bring up, with a sanity meter dedicated to messing with your interface and your character's perception of events as it goes down. (The mechanic is patented by Nintendo, as I learned, and presumably locked somewhere in a vault to rot. Thanks, Nintendo! )
Pony Island (a happy game about ponies!) and Kinitopet (totally Bonzai Buddy!) are games under the guise of a fictional program, which rapidly change rules about how they are to be interacted with. I'd argue Inscryption (roguelike deckbuilder, in which you're basically chained to the table) belongs as well, what with the GM threatening the player as it moves along to keep winning. It's also why I don't blame the mixed reaction some people had, it gives the game an unexpected mixed genre... Though I loved it.
I remember seeing your comment in that thread also being interested. But I just remembered watching a Jacob Geller video about a game called Who's Lila which I think might fit this pretty well, but it may fall too much into your description of games that mainly use another source of horror. Link to video with spoilers. First part is just a general description of the game, but kinda seamlessly transitions into spoiler territory as opposed to having a specific spoiler section. I'm generally not a big horror game person, but loved DDLC and Inscription (and also enjoyed Pony Island), and I still want to play this game after being spoiled on some of the big twists from the video, so I'll give a description with less spoilers.
It's a narrative horror game but instead of choosing dialogue, you interact with it by manipulating a portrait of your character's face like the menu screen from Super Mario 64 to express different emotions. You apparently do different playthroughs with more locations being unlocked in later ones, as well as giving you different options on how to react to what people say (E.g. instead of looking sad when someone says a character has gone missing for several days and no one has seen her, you can give a shit eating grin). To tie it into some of the sub-genre elements you mentioned, it has some 2d/3d shifts and also has some elements of running separate programs alongside the game that change things up (among a few other things, but I think any more would maybe ruin your enjoyment if you want to go in as blind as possible).
Edit: Put MGS here and didn't realize you put it in your comment
Christ, played this last night and what an experience. Got some minor nitpicks about repetition and some kinda clumsy design, but absolutely worth it. Thank you!
I'm glad my suggestion hit the mark! After posting and rereading your comment, I wasn't sure if it would since it definitely advertises itself as more of a horror game than the others. I also just grabbed it along with a few other games people mentioned since the summer sale started, so now just need to find some time to play it.
I just thought of one: Buddy Simulator 1984
Logistics Games
Games where you both plan a journey and then execute it, with Death Stranding and Snowrunner being the main ones I put in that tiny subgenre. It maybe extends to some of the ____ simulator type games, like Euro Truck Simulator and Construction Simulator. It's definitely distinct from factory/supply-chain/tycoon games where the focus is more on planning the journey and scheduling repeated routes, since a lot of the fun with these games comes from dealing with mistakes or unexpected things that happen during execution of a plan.
I have "Sci fi narrative game set on a sci fi space station where you're left to uncover the mystery of what happened", which is so specific that it weirds me out there's more than one.
(To a lesser extent)
Games from Sam Barlow/Half Mermaid (Her Story, Telling Lies and Immortal) are in a genre all their own as far as I know. I'm not aware of any games that are remotely similar in mechanics or presentation.
And maybe this is the wrong thread for it, but I've been looking for a proper term for this genre for a while: games like BioShock, Prey 2017, (modern) Deus Ex in some ways, and Atomic Heart (for as bad as it was, it still showed promise in ways). Immersive Sim isn't quite right, and neither is RPG, though both work well enough. What I love about these games is that you can upgrade powers and weapons how you please to fit your style, you can approach the game from 100 different angles so that no playthrough is the same, you can use the environment as part of your strategy, and they are narrative driven.
Dishonored 1 & 2 would also probably fit here.
Interesting, are there any immersive sims that you feel don't fit the sub-genre you're thinking of? I have only read about most of them, although I guess the differing approaches don't necessarily relate to a growth in power. Maybe the old Thief games as immersive sims that don't fit?
If you like those games though, you should check out Ctrl Alt Ego. Immersive sim game where you are a consciousness that can hop between robots. You get to choose which new power you buy, as well as choose where you spend your limited upgrade points into. Has a free demo on Steam.
Well I think that's the thing -- no one really agrees on what defines an immersive sim. Some people really only mean that small window of games from the late 90s to the early 2000s with the original Deus ex, system shock, etc. Some people wouldn't call BioShock an immersive sim. Other people might include Breath of the Wild or even walking sims like Firewatch and Gone Home because of their audiolog/journal entry approach to storytelling and environment.
I'm not necessarily interested in rigidily defining the genre, but the specific niche I love are games exactly like BioShock 1&2, where you've got a weapon in your left hand and a power in your right hand and you're free to choose whatever style you want with both. If you want to play through the entire game with only your wrench, you can. And not only can you, there are specific powers and abilities which encourage you to do so, if you choose to follow that path.
How would you describe Into the breach? It is almost chess-like turn-based strategy/tactical game.
Thinking about that... What is FTL: Faster tha light? I really don't know how to categorize that one.
FTL is a node-driven roguelike, which is a category that a few other games fall into (slay the spire, darkest dungeon, dungeon of the endless, etc). These games have a semi-random "map" or node structure that the player can progress through, either freely (FTL) or unidirectionally (StS).
Into the Breach is more of a classical "Tactics" game, in the vein of traditional Japanese tactics games like Fire Emblem, FF:Tactics and Disgaea. Maybe "grid-based tactics" would be a more-specific moniker to differentiate it from non-gridded tactics games like XCOM.
I have a personal spot for ASS games or Automatic Shooter Survival games and I think they fit your request perfectly.
I would argue the 'genre' got popular with Vampire Survivors but also includes games like Survivor.io and Halls of Torment.
They are basically a spin off of a rogue lite and not too many of them so far even with VS' crazy success.
Aren't they considered "bullet-heaven" games? That's how I hear them being referred to iirc.
Yeah that's another name but I think it's less good.
I generally call those "horde survivor" games, but ASS definitely fits how I feel about them ;)
Haha, fair enough. Great for mindless gaming or if you only have 30 minutes but definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
Yeah, they're definitely popular and successful, and clearly the way roguelite trends were developing. I wouldn't mind them much if there just weren't so many (I track Steam roguelites, and there's a lot of new ones every week, and generally doing so little with their ideas).
I personally distinguish between twin-stick shooters and top-down shooters, which are taken as synonymous by many (because both are top-down and both are shooters using one stick to move and one to aim), so I think that kind of fits what you're asking. To me, a twin-stick is a game like Devader, Assault Android Cactus, and Waves, where the play is focused on directing a stream of shooting at generally many enemies. A top-down shooter is the kind of game where you place your shots specifically as you move around.
The roguelite space is one that has several critical distinctions that people don't really make with labels. One split that's very important to me is between normal gameplay-focused games and what I call "passive stacking" games, where you pile upgrades that act automatically, often until they overwhelm much of the gameplay. Horde survivor games take this to the extreme, where most of the moment-to-moment gameplay has been removed and you mainly make upgrade decisions.