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)
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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
And probably Tears of the Kingdom too but I haven’t played it yet.
If you’ve played botw, you basically can’t play totk blind by the nature of the games’ similarities
I can at least try to wait a few years to forget as much as possible.
TotK makes BotW feel like a tech demo
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.
Factorio and Dyson Sphere Program. At least don’t watch people like Nilaus and Dosh Doshington play the game until you’ve tried to make your own solutions first.
Nobody said Firewatch yet?
I’ll also add To The Moon as well. I could list more, but almost any game where narrative is the main focus and gameplay is secondary.
Sorry if these have been said already. Note I suck at gaming and couldn’t finish either but I enjoyed my time with them:
Animal Well and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Doki Doki should be 90% blind. Players need to understand they’re going into a horror game.
But I’ll also add one, Detroit: Become Human. While it’s based on replaying it a massive number of times, going in blind makes the story a lot better.
My gf watched me play through all of Detroit, and then started to wonder “what would happen if x didn’t y?” Aaaand rabbit hole time.
David Cage gets lots of shit for his games, but If you experience them blind without spoilers ahead of time I find they’re pretty good interactive movies.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
An astonishingly good story line that can only be really appreciated blind.
For those of you who remember TotalBiscuit, he rated this as one of his favourite games.
Maybe literally the only game that’s ever done storytelling through gameplay mechanics-- really cool concept
Death Stranding would like a word…
haven’t played it-- how do the mechanics change with the story?
Honestly… I would say that the game fits with the theme of the original post, and explaining it would ruin the magic.
I will say that not only do the mechanics change based on the story, but there is an entire asynchronous online system where users help other users (that they will never see or meet in game) to construct be infrastructure to make travel for others (they will never see or meet) easier.
Then those mechanics feed back into the actual story. It’s kind of wild.
I know it’s a divisive game, but I will say it’s a masterpiece imo. Even if only for those mechanics.
And yes, the controls change based on how the load you’re carrying is balanced. I believe the definitive way to play is the Definitive Edition on PS5 with the DualSense controller since the adaptive triggers become harder to press as your load increases.
Subnautica. You can only play it for the first time once.
Absolutely this. I am jealous each time I recommend it to someone who hasn’t played it yet.
I’m glad there was a thread about Subnautica in here.
absolutely stunning, especially if one has any kind of decent audio system
I tried it a few years ago and gave up after an hour of not knowing what to do. But I had this week off and tried it again, it I’m really enjoying it this time. It’s not like anything else, and once that initial bump is passed its learning curve is really quite good.
Most of the really good games have been posted already, so here are three that you should play regardless if you’ve never heard of them before:
- Frog Fractions
- Duty Calls: The Calm Before the Storm
- GAME OF THE YEAR 420 BLAZE IT
Check them all out because they’re short and free
Just finished Frog Fractions.
I…what the fuck???
(honestly though, one of the best games I played this year)Dude you must be so good at fractions now!!!
I certainly know everything there is to know about the immigration process on Bug Mars now.
Hollow Knight
Warframe
Noita
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I think they’re all games that seriously benefit from not knowing the lore or mechanics beforehand… you didn’t even contribute aside from being snide to me so how about you explain what I did wrong?
The warframe lore is pretty complex, but its also great. Especially the way the game tells you the story. Can only recommend going into it blind.
Subnautica. Just bopping along, in my cute little submarine.
I had no background and nearly shat myself at a moment you can probably guess lol
A moment? I had a few during my first playthrough. PD, RL, W, T, DL. And many moments of forgetting to keep an eye on that oxygen meter lol.
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.
You should go into Nier: Automata thinking it’s a game about a hot chick fighting a bunch of robots. The only spoiler you should know is that the end isn’t the end, and you need to play it again.
You should go into Spec Ops: the Line thinking it’s a game about a cool special forces team fighting a bunch of terrorists or something. The only spoiler you should know is that it’s supposed to feel like a generic third person shooter.
Haha I stopped playing Nier Automata after finishing it once. Yeah, yeah I heard it’s not the end, but the gameplay really isn’t good enough to go through it again. Right now I’d give it a 7/10, but if you force me to do it all again I am going down to 3/10. I think it feels incredibly cheap to do this gimmick.
I love Nier! I’m thought the second play through would be a slog, but they kept it really interesting imo. And starting it up for a third time was wild. Even starting that game is part of the game mechanic, it’s so neat!
I would have to disagree about the second playthrough; I found it to be a very large slog. The third and subsequent playthroughs were amazing though.
To each their own! I enjoyed playing as
spoiler
9S
But I’m glad you like the other playthroughs!
Oh I enjoyed the gameplay. But the actual story of the second play through was a slog until about 75% of the way through.
I’m disappointed that nobody’s mentioned Pony Island yet.
Frog Fractions
What, and I can’t state this clearly enough, the FUCK did I just play?
I wasn’t prepared to have the history of punching explained to me on Mars in a frog platformer.I envy you.
