I’m a huge proponent of the interactive fiction of Ryan Veeder. He’s not exactly a hidden figure in the medium; his debut game, TACO FICTION, won first place in the Interactive Fiction Competition in 2011, and he’s been well-regarded ever since.
Despite this recognition, I feel like his works tend to be overlooked. People are hesitant to try the games in his Little Match Girl series or those from the Tales from Castle Balderstone or even a Crocodracula title because he made so many of them, and they naturally assume they need to be familiar with the earlier games in order for the later games to make sense—or they disregard them as goofy frivolities. I think they demonstrate a sophistication of form and, not infrequently, an improvisational flourish.
I have bought over 20 copies of Umbrella Corps: Resident Evil, gifted over a dozen of them, and played with only one other person who after 5 minutes said they needed to go hang out with their friend and never came back. I have a text document somewhere filled with gift codes where I did not track what was and wasn’t sent to someone already, but I’d be surprised if more than a few of them were actually claimed. Because who the heck wants Umbrella Corps: Resident Evil?
I’ll be ready to back you up on Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate if you should need to step away for a lunchbreak
hmmmmm.
Split/Second DEFINITELY fits the bill, it’s the game i would need to come up with if it wasn’t existing already.
aside from that, hmmmmmmmmm….
Alice: Madness Returns isn’t a good game, mind you, but one that left an impression on me for being different. Would recommend if somebody said “give me something DIFFERENT, PLEASE”
tarotica voodoo, an msx style flip note animation manipulation adventure in which you jump out of a falling plane in order to warn a family living in a resident evil house (with zombies and demons) about the same plane being on course to crash into them. there is no actual urgency and they aren’t leaving until everyone has woken up and had breakfast
i’m always Greylock Studio/Matt Larabee posting lately. no other developer makes the act of movement in 3d space so exhilarating imo
i used to think i was a path of exile sicko because the “your character build is an open ended engineering project” tickles the problem solving part of my brain but they keep shrinking the buildcrafting space to make the game challenging to nolife streamers and slowly lost me. if i do pick it up for a league i just play someone else’s build to avoid wasting a bunch of time on something that won’t scale to endgame. path of exile circa harvest league rip
because (realising as I type ths) the game maps feel dirty and messy. There’s junk all over the place and those lil guys have no business being there, running around like cute lil’ fever dreams. Every character has a unique weapon set. (This is why I cannot believe in the kart racing gaming as a genre, subsequently). Its like the special stage of Street Fighter 2 except you’re too small to destroy anything, you just are a dude. A running fighting game character dude. (All the characters have enough ‘tude* to be a fighting game character) Its a particularly UK kind of physical comedy that only Beano and Dandy B-Word Commonwealth kids would fully appreciate.
*This was how we used to spell the word ‘attitude’ in the 90s.
It has been way easier being the number 1 fan of something no one cares about since the last ten years, in which great games have been released into the void without meeting their audience every week
Literally Boku No Natsuyasumi from the Boku No Natsuyasumi team, with Breath of the wild climbing and a huge world. So much heart to it. 146 reviews on Steam
Feels like it comes from an alternate world where the Dutch have led videogame design. It is extremely cool and unique. I’m very eager to replay it with my kid
The dynamic soundtrack. hinky cell shading, the odd voice acting, easy shooting. Special gimmick segments, pulp spy tone.
It has all the markings of mismatched budgets and ambitions. Level design is all over the place. An excellent triple C gaming experience. I think ive been through it 2 or 3 times and I’m about due for another.
I had to stop playing this because of the weapon break mechanic. Having to play the game in a style where I break the weapon of every single boss in the game (who you only fight once each) if I want all the weapon designs was too much for my collectathon tendencies. I’m on board for chests in one-time dungeons, and stealing items from bosses, but having to functionally full parry every boss in the game for unique weapons is a step too far.
