It feels like new games are just more of the same, with no real meaning. However I recently started playing “Return of the Obra Dihn” and love open ended deduction in it. It feels like I’m actually figuring things out by myself without being handheld through it. Are there any other games that don’t coddle the player that you guys recommend?
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Personally, I really liked Papers, Please. You play as a customs agent checking people’s paperwork as they seek entry into your country. The idea of the game is very simple but it’s surprisingly good at telling a story and putting you in situations that are morally difficult.
Funny, that game is by the same creator as the game OP mentioned.
If you enjoyed that, I’d also recommend lil guardsman, similar responsibility, different mechanics and a lot more forgiving
I have not yet played Return of the Obra Dinn, but it is always high up on the list when I look for games like Outer Wilds. I’m a huge fan of Outer Wilds, so maybe the recommendation can work in reverse
From what I have heard, the deduction is not as intense as in Obra Dinn, but there is very little hand holding, and the whole game has been brilliantly designed so that it is driven entirely by your natural human curiosity. Once you get through the initial “tutorial” section (probably the roughest part of the game, push through!) the whole game is wide open. See something weird orbiting a distant planet? You can go straight there and start poking around. If you follow the leads that turn up there, you will eventually even figure out what it is, and why it is there. Do that enough and you’ll eventually figure out the strange mystery of your home solar system.
Can’t recommend it highly enough, but you only get to play it without knowing the secrets once, so go in as blind as you can. It took me 20-30 hours to “solve” the main game, maybe another 20 for the DLC, which is also well worth it
Also highly recommend. Want to add that you should not watch any videos or really even read about it.
This. Go into Outer Wilds knowing as little as possible. It’s an incredible experience if you go in blind.
To paraphrase a description I gave in another thread about this game, at first it will feel like you’re just fumbling around with no clear idea of what you’re doing and why. The game presents itself as just this sort of open ended sandbox with no real purpose. That’s OK, just explore and have fun for about the first half hour or so.
Because about half an hour in, more or less, is when The Event will happen. Do not ask what The Event is. You will know when it happens. It will be, clearly and unambiguously, The Event. And once it happens everything will click, and you’ll go “Oh, that’s what this game is about.”
After The Event, go look at the computer in the back of your space ship. That will become your most important tool throughout the rest of the game.
This is still kind of spoilery yo.
I really enjoyed the game until The Event. I played a few more loops and was constantly irritated at The Event getting in the way. Like, I get it. I understand that is the point. It just ruined it for me. I don’t want to race a clock when I am exploring.
I have nothing to add other than to also say it is an amazing experience. 10/10. You probably would like Obra Dinn though.
If you like Obra Dinn, you’ll love Outer Wilds
Antichamber really stood out to me even among other puzzle games
Superliminal is also a VERY good puzzle game that isn’t like others.
I was ready to replay antichamber and make it one of the few games I did every puzzle in, then the ending happened and I put it down never to pick it up again. Why the heck did they change everything up in the last 2% of the game?
I much prefer recommending lingo these days.
Chants of Sennaar - adventure/puzzle game where you need to learn the languages of the world. It’s not super difficult, but finding all the secrets was challenging.
Manifold Garden - no real story here, but a trippy 3d spatial puzzle to navigate.
Was waiting for Senaar
The Talos Principle - It’s pretty much purely a puzzle game with a nice dose of philosophy to drive the story along. Some of the later puzzles can get pretty difficult, and some of the optional challenges will likely take you a good while to figure out without guides.
The witness is a really interesting puzzle game that can be had for not that much.
Or if you are looking for something more actiony then I would recommend remnant: from the ashes or remnant 2. Described as souls like with guns, but they really change up the formula I found with semi random worlds and bosses.
I heard good word about Paradise Killer, in which you’re also a detective and must figure out the truth
The outer wilds is amazing. You should play it.
Specifically similar to RotOD is Heaven’s Vault in that its pretty nonlinear, not hand holdy and that you figure out (a foreign language in this case). But it is more adventure style than RotOD.
Another one already mentioned Outer Wilds (not Outer Worlds!) and I completely agree and recommend it as well!
In general I have to say I disagree that new games are more of the same. We are in a golden age regarding new games and game genres. It’s just, that there are so many games, that there are also many similar ones. And the big studios are the worst in that regard, just bury AAA and start to love Indie games!
As example, games which are different from others and not already mentioned in this thread:
- Eastshade (you are a painter exploring a fantasy world, solving quests by painting pictures)
- Rain World (you are a small animal trying to survive a hostile simulated world, you need to learn how the interaction between you, NPCs and the world works)
- INSIDE (nearly pure atmosphere & no gameplay, but still great!)
- Papers, Please (you are a government worker who has to check people coming over the border)
- Her Story (you try to figure out what happened to a person via searching videos from her interrogation by the police)
- What Remains of Edith Finch (part game anthology, part great story to connect those “mini games”)
- A Little To the Left (OCD in game form)
- Ancestors: Humankind Odyssey (you play a primate tribe and evolve it towards Homo Sapiens in an african tropical forest)
- Edit: and how could I forget: Disco Elysium, the greatest RPG! without combat, only social encounters and technical problems to solve in a wonderful world full of memorable and interesting characters.
Sorry, the greatest Rpg remains planescape Torment.
Both are among the greatest RPGs.
Planescape suffers from it’s zeitgeist and that it “needed” the fighting to be considered a RPG. I imagine it would surpass DE if they could have focused only on the story, the world and it’s inhabitants.
DE could only reach it’s high because PT existed first and showed what was possible and that the fighting only distracted.
If you haven’t played Disco Elysium yet, I highly recommend it. Since you like reading long texts, that part of the game will not bother you as it does some other players.
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut adds full voice over, so no reading required. Also the voice work for the inner thoughts is done by Lenval Brown and it is incredible. Like, seriously, go look up some gameplay footage on this. That man has a voice that you can listen to all day.
Also, Mike Goodman now voices the Horrific Necktie in the final cut and its the best thing ever.
I wholeheartedly agree, the voices in this game are all awesome and fitting. I just didn’t mention that because you either read the texts or sit even longer hearing them. Both ways you need a certain patience to enjoy this game. (Which not everyone has and that is okay as well)
The Case of the Golden Idol, can’t believe no one mentioned that…
It uses the same puzzle solving mechanic as Return of the Obra Dinn in diorama style scenes.
Fantastic game.
I personally found the Inscryption scratched the same itch, albient in a different way. Its a very different game, being a sort-of narrative driven, Slay the Spire inspired card game. I won’t go into too much detail, given that spoilers, mechanical or narrative, take away a lot from the game, but I found that Inscryption did a great job of juggling a bunch of different mechanics to ensure I constantly had new tools to master, while also encouraging more lateral exploration through its plethora of secrets, and drip feeding story fragments to be peiced together as I progressed.
The main thing to know about Inscryption is that you wanna know as little as possible about Inscryption before you play.
Also if Inscryption works for you, check out the other Daniel Mullins games. He’s got mould-breaking down to his own quirky idiosyncratic science.
I loved Inscryption and thought there’s no way his other games could top it, but holy shit… The Hex is an absolute MASTAPIECE. I’m so psyched for his next Pony Island game.
I quite liked the vibe, but got frustrated about the artificial progress blocks. If you’re a competent deck builder it’s pretty easy to build a deck that beats the game master, but then you get to a point where he just throws infinite enemies at you and you are forced to lose.
I get it, the gameplay requires you to lose a number of times, but it just turned me off from finishing the game.
Did you get past the part where you beat him? Things… get…
Tap for spoiler
Different.
If you’re liking the feeling of solving a mystery with no handholding, give Shadows of Doubt a look. 1920s detective noir set in an alt-history retro cyberpunk 1970s where the Coca-Cola corporation is the president of the USA. Yeah, that’s a mouthful, but what you get is a proper hard-boiled detective story where you are in total control of how you pursue every case. The game gives you an honest to God murder board with string and sticky notes. There’s no “detective mode” bullshit where you scan for clues and then the game solves the mystery for you. It’s completely on you to find the evidence, follow leads, canvas witnesses, scrub through security footage, stake out a suspect’s apartment or place of work, and finally make an arrest (and hope like hell you didn’t finger the wrong person). This all plays out in a fully simulated city district. Every room in every building can be entered. Every NPC has a complete life; a partner (maybe), a home (usually), a job, a medical history, a shoe size, fingerprints, the works.
The voxel graphics aren’t for everyone, and there’s some areas where it’s less complete than others, but those only really stand out because of how shockingly complete the world is in so many other ways. All in all, it’s a brilliant game, and like nothing else out there.
I’ve tried it, but couldn’t really get into it. Didn’t feel like there was much deduction, but more just evidence collecting. However I didn’t play for too long and I’m planning to try again. I assume it takes same time to get invested
Maybe you should try a more chaotic approach to solving the crimes in that game, like Josh does in this video
- That’s a link to a video from Let’s Game it Out. Josh’s thing is playing games the “wrongest” way possible.
I love the concept but honestly I can’t solve shit. I even got a side mission once to take a picture of a vague description of a person who lived on the 4th floor of an apartment. Thankfully there was only one apartment on that floor. Unfortunately there were two people who lived there. And neither matches any of the descriptors.
And that’s the side jobs. Murder? Forget about it, I got no clue.
Any idea where I could learn?
Yeah, hit up YouTube, look for tutorials. There are some great guides to things you really should know (the game’s tutorial is minimal at best) and handy tips for crime solving. Some of this stuff you can figure out in game with some intuitive leaps, like looking for security footage, or checking sales ledgers in stores to find out who bought a murder weapon. Other stuff is a little more obscure.
The game is still early access (or only just recently left it) so you also probably ran into some bugs. There are/were some missions that just spawned wrong and couldn’t be completed.
Patrick’s Parabox - Single developer, unique idea, mind bending - think outside and inside the boxes inside boxes.
Forgotten City is another interesting game, that like Outer Wilds, has you piecing together a mystery. Hadn’t seen it mentioned yet.
For an older classic in the mystery/no coddling space there is the Myst series. I’ve only played the first, but they’re challenging puzzles/mystery point-and-click games.
Not the same, but Into The Breach has become the one game I regularly return to. The ruleset is so simple and everything is laid out, including anticipating opponent moves. Just a great series of small puzzles
Slice and dice is similarly fun.
