5punk

I reckon we all have a game that we like, maybe even love, but that nobody else likes. Either everyone remains unconvinced of its merits, or maybe some people actively dislike it. Either way, you remain alone in your appreciation.

Mine, I would say, is Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. If found it on the iPad first but later bought it on Steam. It's not a particularly deep game, as its mobile roots would suggest, but to me it's very replayable. The premise is just to explore the stars on a 2D map, collect booty in the form of upgrades and valuables, then get home before the deadline. The exploration is pretty basic, the combat fairly poor, but the random element means every now and then something interesting will happen. There are a few plot lines that occasionally appear, and they're pretty hard to beat. They're not mandatory, and they rely a lot on luck, but fortunately the core gameplay is entertaining enough to make it enjoyable with or without the story arcs. Which is fortunate, because I'm not sure I ever beat one of them.

Thing is, nobody else has ever expressed any interest. Maybe it's because it's a mobile game, maybe it just doesn't look that good. Maybe I'm shit at explaining it. It doesn't really matter, it's not a sales pitch, but I enjoy it.

So what's yours?

Oxenfree

I suspect that people are not picking this up because its £15 for a pretty short game. I would say that even at only about 7 hours long it is worth that much. It looks a bit like a platformer, and is best controlled by pad rather than m+k, but its actually an adventure game. Its also one of those games thats really hard to talk about without getting into spoilers, because despite being quite short its rammed full of genuinely surprising moments. Best played after dark, with headphones on. Its pretty creepy and strange.

The closest I will get to a spoiler: Its a story based, point and click style adventure game that has a "new game plus" mode that lets you play through again, and its totally worth doing. Brilliant little game.

I'm so keen on talking to someone about it that I'm tempted to just buy it for someone.

For the love of god, if you are interested in it at all just get it and go in blind. Dont watch trailers, dont read reviews, just play the game.

I'm actually very interested in Oxenfree as I love story-driven games and I'd have already bought it were it not that £15 is two days worth of food for us. I'll keep an eye out for it in the halloween sales. Can't say I've ever heard of weird worlds though.

The games I like are usually liked by someone else though, the only recent one that I can think of is the banner saga. I pledged to it on kickstarter because I was enamoured by the hand drawn graphics and the viking world it's set in. Made by a studio of three guys, it does lack a bit in content but what it does it does really well. It's a story with some turn-based fights spliced in where occasionally you have to make decisions that influence the outcome of the game. How much it actually affects things I don't really know because I never finished it. Not that I lost interest, but the turn based combat is so brutal and unforgiving that a single mistake can cost you the fight, which happened quite a few times to me. In a weird way I did enjoy that level of difficulty though, when a game doesn't hold my hand I'm forced to actually sit down and learn how it works, and that's the best way of learning for me. That said, I couldn't get past a particular bit of combat and gave up. I started playing it again in the last few weeks because my internet was down and managed to get through it a lot more easily. Maybe they lowered the difficulty?

So if you like a simple game about vikings, rotoscoping and tough strategic combat, give the banner saga a go. It's not a bad game.

Also, if you're selecting a banner in the menu and you stumble across a plain brown banner with an aardvark on it, that's my banner. I made it in 10 minutes because I forgot I pledged for it and quickly slapped it together in photoshop before the deadline.

Also also, I mysteriously acquired the banner saga 2 but do not remember buying it. It just showed up in my steam inventory.

EDIT: It was included in my tier from the kickstarter campaign.

I thought Oxenfree was a platformer and bought it when Joose told me it wasn't. I don't really like platformers

I think I've listed games I thought I liked but no-one else did before perhaps in an unsung classics or secret shame thread but someone popped up every time and said "what, I like that too, it's great". So, I have impeccable taste and all the games I like are brilliant and universally acclaimed.

I have been buying a lot of story/puzzle type games recently. Partly because I am a little tired of shoot man games and with half an on eye on controller-playable slower-paced games with which to make more use of the Steam Link. They include Firewatch, The Vanishing of Ethan Cater (redux), Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Talos Prinicle, Gone Home, Among the Sleep, The Long Dark, Kholat, The Turing Test, Fran Bow and today, Homesick. All are pretty good games, too.

Joose wrote:For the love of god, if you are interested in it at all just get it and go in blind. Dont watch trailers, dont read reviews, just play the game.

The shitting titfuck is going on? am I having a stroke?