It feels like new games are just more of the same, with no real meaning. However I recently started playing “Return of the Obra Dihn” and love open ended deduction in it. It feels like I’m actually figuring things out by myself without being handheld through it. Are there any other games that don’t coddle the player that you guys recommend?
I am not sure how handholdey it might seem to you, but Danganronpa 1-3 were pretty good at keeping me guessing what would happen next, but it is also good at giving the player the illusion of actually solving what was happening themselves. V3 was both the best and worst in this regard IMO. There are very few times where something is obvious or very easy, and likewise few times where a huge leap in logic is made or something is very obtuse/hard to know.
If you haven’t tried them, maybe look intonthem to see if you’d like them?
I remember distinctly Danganronpa’s problem with shock value.
I finished the first case of the third game, and thought “Wow! That was incredible! I hadn’t anticipated that ending at all!”
And then, once the dust on the case had settled, because of the effects of that change in circumstance, I had no interest in playing the rest of the game.
That’s unfortunate. But I suppose not every game is made for every person to enjoy. The first was a game of its time, and the rest followed the first.
Maybe you might like Master Detective Archives RAIN CODE a bit better, since it has some elements of similar gameplay, but also has, perhaps less “shock value” than when the dust settles on cases in Danganronpa.
EDIT: I didn’t see you were talking about V3. Yeah, lots of people don’t like V3 for various reasons. I wasn’t a fan of the end of the first case either, but I still played through and it was okay, but then the ending I just didn’t like at all.
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I heard good word about Paradise Killer, in which you’re also a detective and must figure out the truth
The outer wilds is amazing. You should play it.
Journey beyond the edge of the world.
It’s not out yet, but there’s a demo and it’s really good!
Hide the sausage.
The Witness is a good puzzle game where they give you the same kind of puzzle, but different areas have their own rules. They don’t tell you how the rules work, but they’re fairly intuitive and the ramp up in each area is good. Eventually you have to recall rules from previous puzzles. There are extra puzzles that go beyond the mold as well, but those are well hidden.
Check out Fez if you haven’t already. Also Tunic does a great job of starting out basic & breaking precedent.
I watched a fascinating video describing Tunic, Outer Wilds, and Sekiro as knowledge based rougelikes. Where in playing the game you learn information (or enemy patterns in Sekiro’s case) that make additional playthroughs vastly different.
If you haven’t, watch some Tunic speed runs, as once you know where certain things are you can almost break the game without actually breaking it.
There’s 4 puzzle games called The Room that I found really interesting. It starts with a puzzle box that opens up with each solved puzzle to eventually reveal spaces within the box that are bigger than the box itself. There’s something supernatural about these puzzle boxes and you get little clues about where it came from and who made it.
I have those. I haven’t gotten to them yet, but it is great to see someone who actually played them and enjoyed them
Awesome! Hope you enjoy them
If you like Obra Dinn, you’ll love Outer Wilds
The Painscreek Killings sounds like the open ended deduction that you’re describing. You play as a journalist who goes to an abandoned town to try to solve a cold case murder. The game doesn’t tell you where or what to do next, or how to do it. I liked it because it was just me trying to figure the story out and what to do, not the game telling me “Put x and y together. Oh, look, it leads you to z!” (Also it’s currently on sale on Steam for like 5 bucks.)
The witness is a really interesting puzzle game that can be had for not that much.
Or if you are looking for something more actiony then I would recommend remnant: from the ashes or remnant 2. Described as souls like with guns, but they really change up the formula I found with semi random worlds and bosses.
Patrick’s Parabox - Single developer, unique idea, mind bending - think outside and inside the boxes inside boxes.
Played through hifi rush recently. I can’t think of a game that’s done anything like it, I cannot recommend it enough. Was truely one of the best games I’ve ever played
Antichamber really stood out to me even among other puzzle games
I was ready to replay antichamber and make it one of the few games I did every puzzle in, then the ending happened and I put it down never to pick it up again. Why the heck did they change everything up in the last 2% of the game?
I much prefer recommending lingo these days.
Superliminal is also a VERY good puzzle game that isn’t like others.
I personally found the Inscryption scratched the same itch, albient in a different way. Its a very different game, being a sort-of narrative driven, Slay the Spire inspired card game. I won’t go into too much detail, given that spoilers, mechanical or narrative, take away a lot from the game, but I found that Inscryption did a great job of juggling a bunch of different mechanics to ensure I constantly had new tools to master, while also encouraging more lateral exploration through its plethora of secrets, and drip feeding story fragments to be peiced together as I progressed.
I quite liked the vibe, but got frustrated about the artificial progress blocks. If you’re a competent deck builder it’s pretty easy to build a deck that beats the game master, but then you get to a point where he just throws infinite enemies at you and you are forced to lose.
I get it, the gameplay requires you to lose a number of times, but it just turned me off from finishing the game.
Did you get past the part where you beat him? Things… get…
Tap for spoiler
Different.
The main thing to know about Inscryption is that you wanna know as little as possible about Inscryption before you play.
Also if Inscryption works for you, check out the other Daniel Mullins games. He’s got mould-breaking down to his own quirky idiosyncratic science.
I loved Inscryption and thought there’s no way his other games could top it, but holy shit… The Hex is an absolute MASTAPIECE. I’m so psyched for his next Pony Island game.
