Magnetic By Nature is a 2D platformer where you are generally using either attract or repel mechanics. I came across this game on the PAX East show floor, and it really wowed me. I may be one of only a few hundred people who ever played it. There’s a bonus chapter, after the credits, that was kind of bullshit, but the 7 or so hours of gameplay before it was fun, challenging, and unique. Initially available for like $15, it’s now down to $1, and it’s a steal at that price.

The Precursors.

A first person scifi FPS-RPG. Developed in Ukraine. Very unique experience wrapped inside of a concept that’s been done before. High slavjank tolerance required.

Sulphur Nimbus: Hel’s Elixir, a $6 (currently) game on itch.io. It started from the idea of an MLP fangame, but early in development evolved into an original setting.

This is a 3D physics platformer adventure with an unhindered flying character. Your hippogriff, Sulphur Nimbus, is an aerial photographer aboard a cargo ship, which is passing a mysterious atoll on the way to their destination. The crew want you to get pictures of the island, which has a castle that’s been abandoned for decades. Unfortunately, after flying over there, a nasty storm builds up and you get zapped by lightning. After a flashback tutorial on how to fly, you wake up on the island shores, your wing is injured, and you have to run to safety, finding out this place is dangerous… so dangerous a resident dogicorn (like a hippogriff, but it’s half dog and half unicorn instead of half bird half pony) has to rescue you when a lovecraftian horror tries to take you down into presumably Hel. Waking up in a castle room, your wing is healed, and you can fly again.

Now the game begins. Clear the boss monsters and rout them out of this island, area by area. Break the curse that binds you to this island. Find out what happened here.

What’s unique about Sulphur Nimbus is the movement. Running, fighting, and jumping has physics to it, allowing for some parkour stuff to be possible, like running up steep inclines and wall jumping. Flight is realistic. There are no arbitrary limitations, other than a regenerating “flap” stamina. If you can get enough speed to take off, and if there’s enough room to maneuver, you can fly. Level designs include lots of caves and enclosed spaces, but also lots of open areas, so being able to fly is a requirement to get through it, while also a challenge. While the game is designed for kb and mouse controls, honestly, a gamepad works very well with this game and is preferred. It also is cross platform, as it is made in java, and includes Windows, Mac, and Linux. The source code is on sourceforge and allows you to build the whole game yourself if you are so inclined.

There’s no other platforming adventure game that attempts this, and I have tried every “become birb” game out there. They all are either bird simulators or use flight as a fast travel, but not as a core gameplay mechanic like this.

Avorion - In which you command and build a spaceship designed by yourself (or others on the internet). Soon you have AIs you command and space stations you own. The game allows you to lean as much or as little as you want into the fleet command and economy aspects. If you want, you can just pilot one big-ass ship and do it all alone.

We Who Are About To Die

https://store.steampowered.com/app/973230/We_Who_Are_About_To_Die/

Physics based Gladiator roguelike. Work your way up, start fighting with boards dressed in rags in city crossroads for the amusement of peasants, and end a God of Blood fighting in gold in the Coliseum!

Or die along the way. You’ll die a lot along the way :)

Within a Deep Forest

The first game I ever completed and the first time I left a review for a game. The music, the atmosphere, the design, everything blew away. It was freeware from back in 2006. Made by a guy called Nifflas. It’s a sidescrolling platformer where you are an intelligent bouncing ball. I still think about it to this day.

I always like to give a mention to Your Spider. There are very few reviews (one of which are mine), but the game definitely deserves more attention.

Uplink

A classic from Introversion. It’s a bit older so it’s gotten over the review threshold by now, but I’d wager it’s relatively unknown.

Quest Master. Mario Maker meets Zelda dungeons, done well. It deserves way more attention than it’s currently getting, and it’s pretty fun with huge potential despite being early access.

Eternum (warning: NSFW) is an adult visual novel that keeps touching me with every new update. It’s completely free, and I can’t help but think of the creator as a master of the genre.

The characters are all well written and (those who are meant to be) lovable. The story is interesting, compelling even, and the humor is often hilarious. When you go to the website, you might think “Porn game!!!”, and not be entirely wrong, but Eternum is so much more. It’s a story about love, friendship, and a mystery.

Setting: Orion moves back to the USA after a long time. In recent years, a video game called eternum has been gaining traction, that allows going into virtual worlds, think full dive VR like in Sword Art Online. I’d say about 60% of the story happens IRL.

I can only recommend this masterpiece of a visual novel.

Gridworld - a simulation game made up of a grid, as the name suggests. You can control the size of the grid, and what spawns in it. The core of the game are these tiny creatures that each take up 1 square. They have varying nodes on them that represent traits and abilities. Under the hood the game says these have to be “wired” correctly by the neural network to make a creature act right. So basically you let this thing run for hours and eventually get little square creatures that eat plants and maybe each other to live.

Martha Is Dead is a grim psychological triller about twin sisters, set in Italy at the end of WW2. It’s not about war, however. This game left me with deep emotions no other game could do. Heed the warnings given by authors, though. It may come too disturbing to some people.

I think this is the only thread where I actually haven’t seen any of the games before.

Another game I enjoyed was The Eternal Castle (remastered). It’s a remake of a game from 1987. The animation is great and the visual style is really cool.

Underhero is a RPG. There is (bad) 2D platforming and an interesting blend between turn based and real time battles with decent amount of player expression, but I find most interesting the writing and scenarios you will find yourself in during the game. You play as an Underling after the Hero has an unfortunate accident after all, and while technically a silent protagonist, all entries in the journal/hint system/to-do list are just brimming with personality.

I swear I first saw this game in list of “Paper Mario-likes”, but I can’t find a single video with that topic that mentions it, and now I realize that it only has like 600 reviews on steam.

Occult Crime Police is a fantastic free offering for those looking for a bit more Ace Attorney. It mostly follows the gameplay of Ace Attorney games, in which you investigate murder scenes involving strange, paranormal phenomena, and then discover contradictions in people’s witness accounts to uncover the culprit. It’s a bit easy, but maintains some great humor and charming animation production value.