cat denied

There was dumb as hell campaign in Shadowrun Returns (or maybe Dragonfall) some guy made that does have a lot of what should be cringe, like requiring used condoms to make a potion, but the self-aware stupidity was played just right to be really fun (like a part where you fist fight a band of brainwashed cyber-strippers while high on mega-drugs) and still managed some interesting concepts. If I remember correctly, the story was about a corp messing with a soul tree and causing people to get trapped in a nightmare dimension and that part was properly and horrifically played straight.

It helps the guy loved writing flavor text and has a clear love for chaotic neutral coded writing.

The Stanley Parable started life as a Half-Life 2 mod, and the original mod version was just as fantastic as the final game.

I haven't played it but apparently the EarthBound Halloween Hack (which is a direct ancestor to Undertale) was similarly phenomenal.

idk if the writing is 'good' as opposed to merely pretentious, but the deus ex mod the cassandra project shows you some pre-comics kieron gillen if you like his shit. tbh all the best stuff was in the post-team-breakup megathread where he laid out where the story was going and the meta shit he was totally gonna do

I'm on about it all the time, but the X-COM Files mod for the original X-COM:UFO Defense has some great and (to my knowledge) pretty original writing for all of its new creatures and conspiracy plots and cults and how they all relate back to the original aliens.

The whole zombie lifecycle and plot is honestly amazing and the most fascinating and original take on zombies I've ever seen. You'll start out dealing one or two stray zombies in strange creature missions, then some zombie outbreaks in the early days, soon you'll study the parasites and figure out how their infection works, but a few years later by you're fighting psychic mummies commanding advanced vampire hordes from cities of the dead inside the hollow earth.

The zombie stuff is my favourite and to my knowledge (there's so much in the mod I ahven't even touched) the most detailed, but there's really interesting stuff in everything the mod adds. There's a whole dreamscape world you can do missions in where your dogs can manifest as werewolves to fight by your agents sides, an evil internet plot I think, DOOM happens I'm pretty sure even if that's not totally original. Exceptional mod with a real breadth of stuff to it.