Which games blow your mind, but only if you know nothing about them in advance?
Best examples I can think of are:
- Outer Wilds
- Doki Doki Literature Club
- The Stanley Parable
What are yours?
(please no spoilers)
You must log in or register to comment.
Sauna2000 (it’s not out yet, but there are some demos floating around).
Squirrel stapler
Cruelty Squad - depends on the kinda person you are. If you’re super open-minded about game presentation then I’d tell you to go into it blind. If not, then I’ll happily try to sell you on it. If it helps, the game looks the way that it does because of how fucking confident it is in itself; and that confidence is fully justified. Give it time, even if the first level doesn’t hook you, give it time because in my experience it will eventually hook you and reel you in and leave you thinking it’s one of the best games of all time.
Undertale
Hypnospace Outlaw
Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Give the first two a try, and if you don’t like either one, skip BRC; it’s a spiritual successor to JSRF and if you didn’t like JSRF then you probably won’t like BRC.
Hylics. If you liked that and wanted more, Hylics 2. Hylics 2 actually does something throughout the game that I’ve only ever seen as a gimmick in other games. It’s really cool and it’ll probably catch you off-guard every time it does it.
Katamari Damacy. If you liked that, there’s also We <3 Katamari.
Myst. The newest version has VR support. If you liked that, the recent Riven remaster also has VR support.
S C O R N (if you like Myst, give it a try. It feels very myst-like)
Hrot (boomer shooter, but if you like boomer shooters then you should give it a go).
If you’re at a place in your life where you’re trying to still find yourself: Night in the Woods. Especially if you’re a furry. This game is really fucking good. It’ll make you laugh. It’ll make you cry. It’ll make you miss home but also be glad you aren’t there anymore. It’ll make you question your place in life and who you are. Also, you can interact with things multiple times, make sure you don’t miss out on dialogue, you’ll regret it.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl - This is hard to go into blind because it’s buggy as fuck and most people recommend some form of community patch even for your first playthrough. That said, play it on the highest difficulty. It’s unironically more fun once you get used to it. If it’s too hard though, don’t be fooled into thinking that dropping the difficulty will make it easier, the hardest difficulty is special (you can only take a few hits, but the same is true for most enemies), and dropping it down will result in enemy difficulty scaling becoming more traditional (buffing health and damage).
Portal (and Portal 2).
Bugsnax.
If I can throw in a movie too:
Willy’s Wonderland. It’s a Nicolas Cage movie and that’s all I’ll tell you. DO NOT LOOK UP THE TRAILER. I wouldn’t have watched it if I hadn’t seen the trailer, but the trailer also has huge spoilers. I’m not a huge movie person and I had to watch it after seeing the trailer, but again the trailer has spoilers. It is on my top-10 movies list now.
Portal 2 has, hands-down, the most hilariously-written dialogue I have ever seen in a video game. That alone is worth playing the game, but it’s also a fun puzzle game to boot.
I was gonna mention Bugsnax, but you beat me to it. That game starts so innocent.
Nethack / Cdda / coq…
Because going blind Is the game
What happened to Edith Finch
What Remains of Edith Finch
Yeah. That one. I’m just going to stick with calling it Edith Finch.
What’s up with Edith Finch
Dude, where’s Edith Finch?
The Edith and the Remains: Tokyo Finch
beautifully absurd 😂
Omori and Disco Elysium
I actually think an argument could be made for Disco Elysium not being one of these games actually. I’ve seen people bounce off it because they went in with the wrong expectations. The game doesn’t really market itself correctly: it claims to be an isometric RPG and a detective game, but it could be argued the game is actually neither. Also lots of people miss out on a lot because they weren’t aware of the fail-forward design principle.
Yeah I decided to run away when asked to pay the bill. Failed the roll and while jumping and giving a double bird to the manager crashed into and old lady in a wheelchair. Manager was so upset he gave me a huge discount on the bill.
10/10 would play again.
And that’s very deliberate! There are a couple of key rolls very very early that have positive outcomes if you fail them. They’re supposed to teach the player that failure is okay. But it turns out many many people are too afraid of the dangerously red button and the low percentage number so they never even try in the first place, thus also missing the lesson.
Also that sequence you’re talking about is one of my favourites in the game, it’s so damn funny. Another classic failure is the ice-cop-hat-fuck-show.
It really is the best book I’ve ever played.
Although the trailer captures the essence of OMORI very well.
Not as good as the examples you listed but subnautica imo
The Beginner’s Guide
It’s by the same guy that made The Stanley Parable, but it’s more serious.
It’s the same themes from Stanley Parable except made into an actual story instead of one long recurring joke.
I’m not saying the long recurring joke is bad - someone will probably hate that I said that - but they’re just two different things that both do their different things very well. The Stanley Parable explicitly never builds to any kind of conclusion.
Tunic. Knowing how to do the puzzles defeats the fun of the game.
+1 Loved every time I learned a new mechanic through the game.
Someone already mentioned Disco Elysium, system shock 2 and BioShock are also very good
I’m gonna go with Skyrim, the more unoptimized and aimless your playthrough is, the more fun you’ll have.
Just started playing Skyrim for the first time last week.
My character is optimized for ending fights before they begin – by liquifying the opponent’s noggin’ with one swing of her 2-handed warhammer.
Other than that, she travels the world collecting ingredients to cook, brew and smith stuff with.
I suspect that’s not an optimal build, but it’s fun.Perfect, I wouldn’t change a thing.
ANIMAL WELL
Detroit: Become Human
Gris
Stray
Subnautica I guess
Saved this for sure.
I don’t think this one is even vaguely possible anymore, but “I Wanna Be The Guy” would be my suggestion for this question. That first encounter with the game is one of the most special moments in all of gaming.
Ooooo play Syobon Action if you like IWTBTG!
