Ask Lemmy

During lockdown I played ECHO, which had been in my backlog for a few years after a stray recommendation I saw on MetaFilter. It was a surprisingly tight integration of beautiful and intriguing environmental/UI/sound design, gorgeous music, compelling yet minimalist storytelling (and voice acting), and a really strong gameplay loop of stealth, puzzle-solving, and the occasional panicky run-and-gun. Imagine my surprise when I read up on it after and learned it only sold a few thousand copies!

I strongly recommend playing it blind, but this trailer gives a good overview of the style and mechanics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(1981_video_game)

An old game that never really took off, Orbz.

I was one of the best players in the world while it lasted.

Simple little game, you're a ball and you throw yourself at stars. The more you hit in a row without missing, the better your combo and score.

Essentially pong, but you play the ball, and it's on a landscape rather than somewhere you fall off and die.

I made a few levels for it.

Another was Triptych, which my friends and I called jelly tetris. Imagine tetris but the bits are springy and bounce a bit. It was a blast. Both were commercial games available on Linux at the time, early 2000s.

Balloon Fight. Amazing game with great controls.

I have good memories of LAN parties playing a game called DEFCON which is basically the Thermonuclear War game from the 80s movie Wargames. The game itself is fairly basic but was a blast to play with a group and I am a sucker for the retro vector atheistics.

Beyond Good and Evil

Full Throttle.

The Witness. It might have had its moment but it feels like it's probably pretty forgotten at this point. It's a first person puzzle game where you're on an island ... and it's not Myst, Riven, or ... that other game that was a puzzle game where you were on an island? At least as far into it as I've played, it's pretty low stakes and there's very little in the way of videos or audio narration. It's spooky but in bright daylight. There's quite a lot of game there, too.

Star Tropics for the NES.

Druidstone! It's a really great indie tactical RPG. Very fun and I never hear anyone talk about it.

Some more recent ones:

• Hammerfight (2009)
• Brigador (2016)
• CrossCode (2018)

Epistory and Nanotales

Both fantastic games with beautiful graphics and good for typing practice.

Sauerbraten FOSS FPS, available in your repo. Single player racemaps are fun. Get to the podium in the quickest time.

Try these servers:

-Racing#1 2021 [rev]-

or

Racing Reloaded

--//--

0AD FLOSS RTS, also available in your repo.

Excellent theming and challenges.

Still no love for my babe Cubivore. Shit slaps

also Frolf. I miss the gamecube era :(

I love the little known MMO Dofus. Ive been playing it on and if for almost 20 years now. Lots of very different classes, gathering and manufacturing, and a very lovely art style. The combat is grid & turn based, kind-of like Final Fantasy tactics.

• Hacknet, it's almost like a detective game in a way
• The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, weird gary told me to add this but it's good in it's own right
• Flight (flash game), fly a paper airplane, buy upgrades, it's kinda like the Learn To Fly series

The Finals.

I love it, it's also among one of the most popular games right now.

Never see anyone talking about it.

Wiz n'Liz