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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t think it’s fair to call it a cult classic just yet since the game is rather recent, but eventually i think Kenshi. It’s a really fun game although very grindy and i’m not even sure which genre it belongs to. Also it’s very moddable to fit even more to your preferences. It’s been quite a while since i played it, but i’ll share a little story: I started the game for the first time and i wanted to make a “waifu squad” consisting of only women so i did. Worked my ass of mining copper and selling it in order to hire more ladies. Eventually my two ladies started to build a base near where i was mining copper and then one day, the “prayer day” (or whatever it was called) came and an army of crusaders came to spread the word of god. The bishop asked my main lady if there was any men in this settlement and of course i answered no there is none. To them it was blasphemy to not have any men in a settlement and the army slaughter my two ladies like it was nothing. Too bad i lost this save since i’ve gotten a new PC because i would’ve wanted to go on with my vengeance story, but maybe i’ll fire it up again.
I used to go to a local PC parts store which had gaming machines you could rent by the hour and play there. With my brother and some friends we would play Giants LAN multiplayer. Good times man.
Gothic 1 and 2. Weird control scheme you have to get used to, but very good games world building snd character wise. Can be quite challenging with the combat, but quest allow tons of ways to solve problems.
I don’t know if Gothic 1 and 2 qualify as true cult classics or not, but clunky controls and interface aside, these are two of the best games I have played in my life. Gothic 2 especially. The games offer an atmosphere like nothing I’ve ever played. The soundtrack, themes, and overall color pallete provide this rich and stirring ambience that always manages to make me feel as though I’m exploring an ancient pine forest on a dark, rainy day. See for yourself.
You can feel the spirit of the entire franchise contained within the first two minutes of that audio track, perfectly encapsulated. It was an entire world apart and years ahead of its time. If it resonates with you, then these games are absolutely worth the initial difficulty of figuring out those ridiculous keyboard controls. But if you’re really struggling with them, just read up on the Gothic 1 storyline and then skip straight to Gothic 2. It picks up right where the first leaves off. You won’t miss a tremendous amount, and the controls and gameplay are infinitely improved. However, sticking G1 out long enough to figure out what you’re doing will make G2 far more rewarding when you reunite with various characters and revisit previously explored areas.
A studio is remaking Gothic 1, but everything I’ve seen of it so far is about as faithful to Gothic 1 as The Dark Tower movie was to the books. They’ve massacred it. So stick with the originals.
To latch on to this: the first Elex, a game by the same studio as the Gothic series, is, despite the average reception by critics, THE definition of a flawed masterpiece! So many things to criticize (too difficult early in the game, bad cut scenes, flawed combat) but the main focus of the game, the open world filled with tons of monster and people to interact with, is just great! I loved how exploration is encouraged and rewarded, how there are meaningful desicions and characters that can be killed off. The world is huge and all though the general atmosphere is post apocalyptic, the developer somehow managed to fit a middle age type fraction and a science fiction type (Clerics) fraction in to the game. Also smaller groups you can’t join.
Elex has a very special place in my gamer heart and all though I can’t flat out recommend it to everyone I would say if you have a soft spot for open world games that do not play like the average Ubi game and don’t hold your hand the whole time, I say: check it out, it’s pretty cheap in most places!
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