video game producer, terminal lurker. maybe cohost will unleash the peast (posting beast)
I'm trying to hunt down interesting game releases that I missed this year. You're allowed to recommend one (1) video game in the replies to this post. Tell me, in as few words as possible, why everyone should play it. You ARE allowed to self-promote.
You must not recommend something someone has already named. It must have come out in 2023.
Go.
I would like to recommend Mask of the Rose, a visual novel set in the Fallen London universe. Whether you're new to the series or a veteran play, MotR has something for everybody – romance, a murder mystery, giant bats.
I'll recommend TRAUMAKT~4.SEXE, https://dominoclub.itch.io/traumakt4
Weird and horny with a mashup of various engines, A delightful messy soup of a game
Before the Green Moon. Sort of an anti-cozy farming sim, that my mind still nonetheless keeps turning back to as though it was a place I once lived in and loved my time there. Community beyond the end of the world.
Small Saga! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1320140/Small_Saga/
It's a lovely little RPG about a secret civlization that exists beneath London... but this one is populated by tiny anthropomorphic animals!
El Paso, Elsewhere. A pitch perfect sadsack central performance and writing to bolster it anchors this Max Payne-alike that feels like a lost PS1 game. The vibes are i n c r e d i b l e.
Mars First Logistics is the best contraption/vehicle building game I've seen, and hell I've made one
Lunacid is a fantastic immersive sim/rpg inspired by early fromsoft games (Kingsfield specifically). Steal back your life as you attempt to escape a massive cave system full of varied biomes and dark secrets.
Moonring is my pick. taps into that enjoyment i get from walking around runescape and just seeing intersting things, talking to people, and taking in the world. the risk of death is nigh everywhere but the respawning is generous anywhere besides the high level dungeons. the soundtrack is also perfectly mood setting.
Amarantus is a visual novel about a rag-tag group of fuck-ups trying to depose the local lord. It's short, but has highly mutable dialogue and story paths and some of the best paced writing I've seen in a Western visual novel. Review here.
Currently obsessed with the recent release of Worldless (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898500/Worldless/). A metroidvania-lite experience, with remarkably intense & unique turn-based combat. The visuals and animations are brilliantly done, especially in how every "type" of enemy is visually themed, and how the game plays with that later on. Seldom any dialogue, and yet manages to contain secrets within secrets.
Have you heard of the small indie game Dave the Diver?
Final Profit punched very far above weight. There's no good reason a RPG maker game should be this interesting. No combat, just shop management that is a good idle game economy engine on its own wrapped up in fun storytelling.
Absolutely Dredge.
What if fishing game, but with a day/night cycle and at night shit gets weird. Plus, a new DLC just came out with haunted narwhals. GOTY contender for me.
i am i supposed forced to endorse the only new game i played this year that wasn't armored core 6, PARANORMASIGHT
fortunately i am happy to endorse it because it's great. its doing the classic visual novel trick of letting you control multiple characters with interweaving stories in the style of yu-no, 428 shibuya scramble, or 13 sentinels: aegis rim. it's not quite as good as any of those but the writing and characters are fun and the art and music and general presentation style is a blast.
Cobalt Core is my favorite non-Slay The Spire roguelite deckbuilder. It has all the charm of that team's previous spaceship-building-puzzler Sunshine Heavy Industries, while making meaningful changes to the Spire formula in allowing you to maneuver your ship across the playfield and build a "crew" who each bring specific card types to bear.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1430680/Clash_Artifacts_of_Chaos/
Zeno Clash was an absurd, jagged, and overwhelmingly evocative and strange first person brawler that released in 2009 back when being on Steam period was enough to get noticed. This semi-sequel has the same aesthetic and unflinching design ethos but with much smoother combat and a genuinely emotional story that does the over-represented 'sad dad' trope in the best way I've ever seen.
Void Stranger! A sokoban-type puzzle game by way of Tunic, or maybe La-Mulana: a rabbit hole of secrets and surprises and more cryptic kinds of puzzles that’s best experienced as blind as possible (ideally with a friend who can point you in the right direction if you need it). Also, the story is great (and gay), there’s a bunch of fun lore, I really dug the GameBoy-looking pixel art, and the soundtrack is full of bangers.
Shadows of Doubt - a procgen immersive sim detective game. Break into crime scenes, piece together the clues and ask the neighbours to find the perp. And then just submit a form to the police, I'm sure they'll handle the arrest with grace.
Escape from Castle Claymount! Only takes ~1 hour to play, and it's a browser game so no download required! Wonderfully crafted puzzle box/escape room, with a lovely toy-box and clay model art style!
https://www.coolmathgames.com/0-escape-from-castle-claymount
Gonna throw in the anime fan large commercial game reply for Fate/Samurai Remnant a Musou/Warriors-adjacent action-RPG from Omega Force and Koei Tecmo that happens to be probably the best Fate franchise game made that isn't a gacha title and a particularly strong introduction to the franchise at large, with an original cast, story, and setting, but enough bits here and there to be someone's ideal non-visual novel Fate game. My review and thoughts are linked here.
also cassette beasts because i can’t believe nobody else has said it yet. it’s a pokemon-like that’s good
Xenotilt is the followup to Demon's tilt and it improves it a ton. It's a combination of pinball and bullet hell. Great music, cool level design, and fantastic art. If you like the flashing lights and numbers going up of pinball it'll satisfy that in spades. It's doing something no other pinball game is doing and I believe it's developed by a single person.
Spirited Thief: It's a turn-based heist game featuring characters with distinct mechanics. The initial phase involves scouting out an environment with a ghost who can do things like mark particular guards and set up various tricks ahead of time. Then you go in with a thief or gang of thieves to try and steal everything not nailed down, and lastly try to escape past whatever mess you made on the way in.
It's interesting, has a good story so far, and is definitely replayable.
If anyone enjoys it, I'm sure the devs would appreciate a review on steam: the algorithm seems to be keeping them pretty invisible.
Planet of Lana is basically Limbo or Inside, but with a less dreary tone and some of the most incredible environmental art I've ever seen. Honestly worth playing for the art alone, but the gameplay (largely puzzle platforming) is solid and totally holds its own.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew - sadly, the last release by German devs Mimimi Games who announced their closure weeks after its release. It is the third in their run of real-time stealth tactics games which revive the genre pioneered by Commandos in the late '90s. Build up a crew of cursed pirates, infiltrate a chain of islands, defeat religious fanatics. The two DLCs coming out on 6 December will be Mimimi's swan song.
corru.observer, at the titular url. neural interfacing with a weird alien biotech computer orb to discover its secrets, with a consistent ditherpunk aesthetic
in stars and time by @insertdisc5 is a game about an RPG fantasy character stuck in a time loop which is also a metaphor for/explores themes of depression! it's gorgeous art and good character writing. I'm only a little bit in but having played the prototype (start again start again start again) I'm really hype to see where ISAT takes it.
A Space for the Unbound is an indonesian magical realism game with lovely presentation, atmosphere and music and is the first story, in any medium, that made me cry by the end.
Can I recommend video game mods/fan missions? Because I've been very impressed by "Thief: The Black Parade".
