Games You Might Not Have Tried

Game Dev Tycoon ideas
#1

If you’ve ever watched Extra Credits on PATV you will be familiar with this.
The idea is that people post games they know of that are interesting, but flew under the radar.

I love doing this on different forums because it really helps find gems hidden by all the noise.
I’m going to contribute a few games to this and hopefully you guys will roll with it.
As in the show, there is no guarantee these games are good, just that they are different in an interesting way.

-Papers Please, An indie title currently in Open Beta, you play as a checkpoint clerk on the border of the Communist State of Arstotzkan, your job is to check passports for validity and confirm or deny access to the State, each day you will receive certain instructions on who to let through or who to stop. Each day you will earn a salary for each person you serve and you must then decide what to do with the money, for example sometimes your child may become ill and you will have to choose between heat and saving your child. The moral choices and dark atmosphere of the game makes it an interesting and deep experience. The beta is free now at http://dukope.com/

-The Avernum Saga, what to say about Avernum… Avernum is an old school rpg, similar in style to Baldurs Gate, the key selling point of Avernum is just how much content there is, there are a total of seven games and each have provided me with at least 80 hours of gameplay. With so many choices and options Avernum is almost infinite. The full saga is available at GOG right now.

-Star Control 2, it’s a rougelike in space with hundreds of paths to follow and upgrades to acquire, if you liked FTL or the space exploration in Mass Effect, but wish there was a little more depth then Star Control is for you. There is a storyline to follow, but with so many worlds to explore and things to do, you’re probably gonna want to deviate from the main storyline. You could end up a rouge bandit or a cargo carrier or a fully fledged soldier unit. As you land on populated planets there’s lots of dialogue options and diplomacy to explore. I’m starting to lose focus and ramble here, so basically, go play Star Control 2, there was a follow up a while ago, but stick with Star Control 2 for now.

I have lots more to recommend, but I will save that for if we ever do this again. I cant wait to hear your suggestions and see if I cant expand my game library.

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Fun game suggestions
#2

Very good idea. Thanks for starting this! Will have to come back here and post my list but just wanted to say that Papers, Please! is truly excellent. Such a great idea and so well executed. Can’t wait for it :slight_smile:

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#3

I agree, “Papers, Please!” was an excellent indie game. Sadly I’m brainstorming and I just can’t think of a game most people haven’t heard about. I would say Starforge but then that was heavily promoted by whom you probably already know. Ah.

Theme Hospital

Hospital / Simulation

A game a lot of old gamers would probably remember, it was an absolutely awesome game. You play as the manager who organises the construction of rooms and the hire of staff to thrive in the busy and exciting world, competing against other businesses to get the most patients and the lowest mortality rate. This game also had qualities that are now sadly lost in most games, silly names and real world references, it’s what the game made even more worthwhile to play. It’s on GOG as well, for a dirt cheap price. I would pick it up if you haven’t already.

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#4

I love Theme Hospital, picked it up on GOG a while ago and have played for several hours straight without even noticing. Thanks for your addition to the list. I hope more people go and play Theme Hospital.

#5

I tried this and liked it. :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

I’m glad you liked the game. It’ll hopefully see a full release in the future so keep your eye on the site.

#7

I think we should really revive this topic, especially with so much attention at the moment.
We are not the only developers who could do with some help!

@Danny24SAO If you are not tired of the forum already (thanks for your contributions), maybe you can list some of your favorites…

#8

Sure i’d love to revive the topic. Sorry i’m running a little late. Time zones are a little different. I will put together a post and see if we can’t get this thread going.

#9

So here is my second batch of games. Anyone who has a game they think others should try post it here. I’d love to get a big list going. It would be great if we could boost the sales for some other devs.

-Thomas was Alone. You’ve probably seen this around. Thomas was Alone is a great example of using mechanics as a metaphor. At it’s heart the game is about loneliness and friendships. Throughout the game you will be moving four key characters around to get them each into their own portal with each others help. It’s amazing how much depth the devs pulled out of simple mechanics. It’s also a great example of subtle tutorials. This game delivers on both purpose and gameplay. It has a deep meaning and simple, but incredibly effective mechanics. It’s also pretty funny at times. I could ramble on for hours about everything this game does right, but I will let you play it instead.

-Bit.Trip Runner, again you’ve probably seen this around. Bit.Trip Runner is incredibly fun and addictive as well as brutal. The levels don’t have checkpoints, if you die you start again, but this is actually incredibly beneficial. The more you play a level, the more it becomes engraved within your brain. If you play for long enough you can begin to run these levels with your eyes closed. Also it has a great aesthetic. I can’t say enough about how fun Bit.Trip is. There was a sequel recently, but I am yet to play it.

-Real Lives, this isn’t really a game. It is more of a life simulator. You roll a random character and your birthplace, gender and culture is determined using real world statistics. This is actually a great tool to see how tough life can be outside the US. Being based of real statistics, this can get pretty brutal. You begin to get attached to your character and your family. Then when the day comes that you die, just like real life you don’t get to see where your family goes from there. You just die and it strikes with almost real pain. The game ends with your obituary and your legacy. It’s a pretty brutal, but fun retrospective on how unpredictable and sudden life can be.

-Galactic Civilizations II, this game is beautiful. Think Endless space, but with a little more depth to diplomacy and exploration. Full ship customization and unit customization. It’s easy to sink 1000+ hours into this game. It’s hard to convey the excellence of the game, so just go play it. If I were to put it in a simple manner, its like Civ in space, but that really doesn’t do this game or Civ justice.

-XCOM, the most recent installation in the franchise, you’ve probably heard of it or played it. It’s a strategy title where you command a squad of soldiers through missions to save cities and stave off the alien invasion. Beyond that there is a huge open progression path. You choose what you research and which countries to help. The most interesting mechanic is the permanent death of your squad. You name these people and you see them through their career, but if they die, they’re gone. It’s actually pretty interesting to see just how much this can affect your judgement in the battlefield.

-Tropico. a strategic government sim where you play as a leader of an island paradise similar to Cuba. You can lead a democracy or a dictatorship. Assassinate troublemakers, imprison protesters and much more. It’s a government sim with a lot of humor and personality. The Glorious leader says “Play Tropico now!”

-Recettear, I really hope I spelled that correctly. Ever play a JRPG and think ‘I wonder what its like to run the item store.’ Well then Recettear is for you. You play Recette, the owner of an item shop who owes money to an loan shark fairy named Tear. As you can probably guess, there’s a lot of personality here, it’s shop sim meets action rpg. Recettear is well worth the money. Try the demo first though, just to see one of the best ingame pleas not to pirate the game.

That’s all for now. I have some more, but I’m saving those for later. Please post your own suggestions in the thread!

#10

You listed Avernum but not Escape Velocity; are you crazy? Escape Velocity is a wonderful shareware title by once game developers Ambrosia Software, who now seems to specialize in publishing a handful of other peoples games while not actually developing anything of their own. And it’s basically a top down 2D Wing Commander: Privateer. The latest version, EV Nova, has the best engine, although it is missing two or three minor features from earlier ones, but it has the worst storyline and campaign design of the lot*. Thankfully, they’ve released remakes of the the first two games as plugins for Nova, so if you decide to buy the game then you can also play the best versions at no extra cost.

It’s also very easy to mod, since the first game was designed back in the 68k Mac days and the resource fork format seems like it was designed to be used for modding. (Don’t worry, EV Nova runs on OS X and Windows.)

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

*The plot for EV Nova tends to be on rails and the writers ascribe actions and motivations to your character without giving you much choice about it, and one of the most annoying to play plot threads is also the easiest to start accidentally. The first two games and the remakes don’t have these problems. This is especially grievous since all three games involve open world exploration.

#11

Do you know where we can buy this?

#12

Sadly, the sellers of the game only put the newest version up to buy. The new version (2010) has some polish, but I prefer 2007, also the only official version is $30 which is very expensive for what it is, but 10% of this goes to charity. This is the only case where I would say it is acceptable to torrent due to the fact it cant be bought, but make sure you buy the 2010 version at some point to help the developers here.

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#13

Hey I really like the look of EV, but do you have a link to where I can buy the original, would like to play these before the first installment. Or is it like Real Lives where the old versions have been lost to history.

#14

They still sell them, much like Spiderweb still sells Exile, but the originals are 68k/PPC Fat Binaries and need to be run on an old school Macintosh or an emulator. All of their old games are here: http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/old/

EV (The Original): http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/ev/
EV Override (The Best, Except the Sprites are Horribly Dithered): http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evo/

If you like old-school arcade vertical shoot’em ups the Mars Rising and Deimos Rising games are good too, although they are again classic Mac only.

Oh, and the EV Nova plugin versions of EV and Override are almost exactly the same as the originals. So your not missing much if you can’t run the originals.

#15

You can play it for free btw. Different name though: The Ur-Quan Masters

Again free alternative (the oldschool kind): UFO: Alien Invasion

-Bastion, well I’m not good in describing games so either someone else does a good description or you check it out yourself.

-Project Zomboid, still in alpha so be nice to them. Zombie survival in pixel art with dwarf fortress ending. Meaning: you will die.

-OpenTTD, do you remember transport tycoon deluxe? :-). Again its free. Some years ago you still needed the original Transport Tycoon files (which you can still use) but now they offer art/music/sounds in packages for free too (cc license I think).

-Arx Libertatis, a first person role-playing game / dungeon crawler, needs data files of Arx Fatalis.

#16

Some semi-popular indie type games I’ve been playing lately:

Defender’s Quest: I don’t really enjoy Tower Defense, but this one has loads of RPG elements that make it a solid and fun title.

Legend Of Grimrock: Didn’t give this brilliant ode to Dungeon Master a proper try when it came out, but have been enjoying it a lot now.

Antichamber: It will blow your freakin’ mind, man.

Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble: Somewhat minimal on it’s lite-RPG mechanics and gameplay, but a fantastically written story. This is not a game for everyone. That should be stressed. But easily one of the most memorable I’ve played in 25+ years of gaming.

Orcs Must Die Series: Also Tower Defense (I swear, I’m usually not a fan) but you play from a 3rd person perspective, and it’s just very fun and entertaining.

Spec Ops The Line: Newer game. The best description I can give for it is a military shooter for people who don’t like military shooters. OR Apocalypse Now the video game.

I can keep going, but will stop there. I will give a shout out to the already mentioned Recetear. That game rocks.

#17

Yeah…found the site and it’s high. lol

#18

Thanks for your contribution. I love bastion and plan to check out Project Zomboid.

#19

Great thread here. Saw some really interesting games that I must try out at some point!

I’m going to delve into my past here and suggest some C64 games.

Paranoid is a top down action/stratagy game where your job is to clear each deck of s spaceship of hostile droids. The stratagy comes as you start out as a lowly 001 droid and face others who are much more powerful than you - up to 999. As a droids number increases, so does their power. However, you can take control of these droids via a minigame and then use their weapons against other droids in order to clear the level and head to the next deck. There were also similar games released such as Quazatron for the Spectrum and Magnetron from the C64, which were similar but used an isometric perspective rather than top-down.

Creatures 1 and 2 Creatures was a side scrolling platformer released for the C64. It was fairly bog-standard, but every second (?) stage you had to rescue one of your fellow “Fuzzy Wuzzies” from a demon who had constructed an ingenious torture device in order to off them. In these ‘Torture Screens’ it is your job to stop this, using the environment and your flame breath. Think part platformer, part action game and part puzzle game and you get some idea.

Creatures 2 did away with the side scrolling platformer sections and focused more on the torture screens, adding several other mini games alongside it.to split up the gameplay (Such as a stage where you must usher several fuzzies from one side of the screen to another via a trampoline you and your fellow fuzzy you rescued are holding, or a boss stage where you must defeat huge demons by kicking little slimes into a suction machine which shoots them out at weak points, whilst avoiding the demons pattern of attacks. Great fun, with a wicked sense of humour.

Ricochet is a bat-and-ball game in the style of Arkanoid, where you must clear each stage of bricks with your bat and ball. You gain different powerups from the coloured blocks you destroy to help you in this task, with each stage being progressively harder and more intricate. What differentiates this from other similar titles, however, is its toughness and it’s humour. Even the opening music and initial title sequence, aswell as the little messages as you start each stage had me giggling as I played. Very stylish, even today.

Ok. That’s me done waffling for now!

#20

Creatures is also a series of games for the PC which had some VERY complex artificial life simulations. The main selling points were the DNA-modelling which meant you could breed your Creatures together to get better (or worse) traits, and the ability to teach your creatures to speak English (slowly, but for real, not in a faked way like Furbies)

Richochet is available on Steam as Ricochet: Lost Worlds as is Valve’s Ricochet, which is more of a Tron-like Disc game.

One classic game that deserves to be remade and updated is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. The recipe system alone makes this game worth playing, since you can effectively craft any weapon or spell you can think of by combining various parts. Want to turn your trusty 6-shooter into a long-range clockwork repeater? Find a metal pipe, a broken watch, a magazine chamber, and a looking glass and craft your automatic sniper rifle with ease :tongue:

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