I'd look at Telltale-style games. They're roughly 10 hours each ( five 2-hour ish episodes) and are almost entirely story driven. The gameplay is usually very simple. You choose dialogue choices to drive the story.
The best Telltale games are in my opinion: The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, The Walking Dead, Batman: The Telltale Series and its sequel, Batman: The Enemy Within. They're also releasing the first episode of The Expanse (based on the TV show since the character Camina Drummer does not exist in the books) later this month.
Another series that is very much that same style but by different devs is the Life is Strange series. I've played the first one and the prequel called Before the Storm. They are very emotionally heavy stories so I'm taking some time before I can go into the sequels but I absolutely love that series and will preach it to anyone who will listen.
10 hours is definitely short but it also helps that they are all done in 2-hour episodes so you can easily take breaks.
Lingo (109 reviews) - A word puzzler with inspirations from Antichamber and The Witness. This has taken several sessions of getting the gang together to work on it, and after 20 hours, we still have more to do!
I almost included Lingo on my list because I’m playing it right now and loving it. But I’m only 6 hours in so I didn’t want to make presumptions about anything I’ve not experienced in it yet. What I’ve played though has been fantastic. I like it quite a bit more than The Witness.
Here are two 3D platformers I haven’t really heard a lot of but still had very fun with last year.
Demon Turf - 335 Reviews What pulled me in initially was the art syle, the games looks a bit like the cartoons from my childhood. This one got combat, exploration, bosses, collectables. A bit of a problem is that the game tried to do a lot of things at the same time, resulting in a bit uneven quality overall. There are also leaderboards if you into speedrunning.
Demon Turf: Neon Splash - 105 Reviews Some kind of standalone DLC/spinoff to the first game. In this game everything is more streamlined and the design feels more focused. Combat have been cut in order to give the platforming more time to shine and a reason to simplify the controls. The focus is on repeating the same levels for better a time on the leaderboard. Speedrunning is not really my thing but I still found enjoyment in the game. Much cheaper and short than Demon Turf.
The Age of Decadence is CRPG set in a post-apocalypse ish, in which an analogue to the Roman Empire ruled most of the world until the collapse of civilisation, now it’s mostly city states struggling to survive and reclaim the old magitek of the empire.
Underrail: Life on earth’s surface has been made inhospitable ages ago, and the remains of humanity now live in the metro system called underrail and the caverns around it.
Both are isometric, turn based games that focus on combat and exploration. And they are hard. Builds are incredibly important, almost min maxing but they have a wide range of viable builds, especially the first one where you can play the entire game without fighting a single battle, all through alternative solutions and skill checks.
Have you played Colony Ship, by the same devs as Age of Decadence? I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while and looks to be real close to its 1.0 release, but I’ve not heard or read a lot about it.
Fantastic super hard puzzle game from the person who would later create the more well known (and equally amazing) Stephens Sausage Roll (1001 reviews).
Both are graphically very basic but mechanically incredible and really well designed!
I recently watched my friend beat stephen’s sausage roll, a game that I have not been able to beat in 10 years. That game is bonkers hard. My arbitrary guess is that the number of people who have beaten the game is under 5,000. If anyone is looking for a puzzle game that will make your brain hurt, that is the game for you.
This is probably my favorite game, it’s going through a rough patch right now because development had halted for about a year and was then sold to another company last year who are still in the process of transferring everything over. I’m hoping for new development within another year because it’s an awesome game, but it’s been stagnant for a long time. It’s not on sale, but they’ve discussed a lower price for it openly after they get things rolling. We’ll see.
Been mostly playing ToTK on switch like some here, though I think I’ll have to give a few more attempts at P ranking some bosses in Pizza Tower soon, or perhaps try to 100% Hifi Rush
Sorry for the late reply! It’s really a question of how you approach postgame content. It’s a fairly short “linear campaign” with hidden challenges for level replays. For me the story was fun and the mechanics engaging enough to enjoy beyond the short playtime.
I still enjoy turning it on to do a few fights and enjoy the rhythm mechanics, might do a new play through.
A metroidvania with time travel elements, you are a robot that can see the future investigating a planet, every time you save it creates a vertice in a timeline tree where you can jump around. I wish it was more ambitious but with the small team and budget, it did what it wanted pretty well, with my critique being a lack of polish in a few areas.
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Aktywne