Tons of awesome games come out every month, but in the shadow of high-profile AAA titles, even the best ones can slip under our radars. Whether you’re a fan of surreal first-person adventures, disturbing visual novels, and other horror games in all their different shapes and sizes, there’s plenty to love in this month’s roundup.
For more, check out our list on the most-anticipated 2017 indie games, a love letter to the glory of weird, free web games, or dive into last month's must-play games roundup.
Giant stone faces line the highway up to the mysterious Norwood Hotel. Up on the hill, a glass window lets me peer at the neon cables snaking their way through the rocky innards of the cliffside. There’s a nightclub down one tunnel, and an aquarium down the other. Inside the hotel, I attempt to redeem a voucher I have for one room. The concierge won’t help me. He’s reading a book called SPIDERS. Everyone speaks in the swells and strums of different musical instruments. One desk clerk tells me, in the wailing voice of a jazz organ, to scan my ticket at the computer. I attempt to reset the building’s wi-fi and end up finding a skeletal hand in a desk instead. And this is all in about five minutes of playing. If you don’t count the full minute I spent admiring a chair in the library. (It was a really good chair.)
There isn’t a game out there that feels like The Norwood Suite. Everything from its color palette to its images to its characters is so fiercely outlandish that, after only a few moments in its world, I felt like I had made a wrong turn in Second Life and ended up in actual virtual hell. But a good kind of hell. A hell I can’t stop taking screencaps of. It’s a hell full of heart, a little rough charm, and a whole lot of secret places to lose yourself trying to find.
I also lied when I said there’s no game out there like it. The Norwood Suite is actually a sequel to creator Cosmo D’s surreal horror adventure Off-Peak, which was released last year. Both games brim with the garish allure of aging virtual worlds and the delightful, sometimes frightening people and places that occupy them. Silly conversations, digital sculptures, and a lot of awesome music await. If you’re not sure if you’ll enjoy The Norwood Suite, definitely download Off-Peak first. It’s free on Steam.
Play if you like: Second Life, Worlds.com, Crypt Worlds
Available:itch.io ($9.99), Steam ($9.99)
Detention debuted on Steam in January, and has remained one of the most underrated horror gems of the year. Like the best horror stories do, it explores something much larger and more terrifying than the ghosts and demons that lurk its dimly lit hallways: in this case, the uncertainty and violence of life under martial law in 1960s Taiwan. But it’s just as impactful when it does plunge us into the center of its surreal, mythological terrors, filling its beautifully rendered rooms and corridors with creatures inspired by Taiwanese folklore. A horror game’s atmosphere, pacing, and quiet nuance hasn’t evoked memories of Silent Hill this strongly in a long time. A must-play for any horror game fan.
Play if you like: Silent Hill, Lone Survivor
Available:PlayStation Store, Steam
Beneath the guise of FAITH’s simple, ZX Spectrum-inspired art is a truly eerie horror game. You play a priest, equipped with nothing but a golden crucifix and the will to rid a mysterious house in the middle of a forest of the evils that lurk within. Think Adventure on the Atari 2600, but Satanic — and with some creepy as hell sound design. According to developer Airdorf Games, FAITH first began as a neat challenge: make a game that looks like Number Munchers but feels like PT. It’s hard to say more without spoiling what makes FAITH so good, but it’s free, so there’s no reason not to try it if you’re looking for a good, short horror game.
Play if you like: Atari games, The Exorcist
Available:itch.io (FREE), Game Jolt (FREE), IndieDB (FREE)
Earth Atlantis is a charming side-scrolling shooter set on a flooded planet Earth. You control a series of specialized submarines, exploring the subaquatic wreckage of the world and hunting down huge sea monsters to fight. Its muted, handdrawn style makes it look like a sketchy adventure drawn in the margins of a school kid’s notebook, bringing an endearing simplicity and imagination to the action.
Play if you like: Luftrausers
Available:Nintendo eShop ($14.99)
The first hour or so of Doki Doki Literature Club plays like your average visual novel dating sim. Set in a Japanese high school, your neighbor and childhood friend, the “Bundle of Sunshine” Sayori, convinces you to join the Literature Club she’s in at school. The club’s members are four incredibly cute girls whom you must compose poems for to impress. The gameplay is simple, but the story and epic programming make it worth your while, especially if you want to "get shook."
As the warning states on Doki Doki Literature’s website and start-up screen, “This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.” When Doki Doki takes its turn, it’ll keep you on edge for the remainder of the game. It’s an experience, for sure, that does things differently than your usual psychological horror, and also broaches on incredibly sensitive topics. Play at your own risk. - Casey DeFreitas
Play if you like: Hatoful Boyfriend, School Live
Available:Steam (FREE)
Maybe one of the most colorfully erratic and strange creations this year, Everything Is Going to Be OK presents itself as a digital zine full of one-off scenes and interactions that all seem to be about one thing: being an emotional wreck. With the unrestrained neon of an MS Paint palette and the shrill vulgarity of an old Newgrounds cartoon, Everything Is Going to Be OK shatters expectations with its ability to be both genuinely funny, annoying, gruesome, somber, and human all at once. Each page explores some new theme, whether it’s anxiety about the state of the world, awkward attempts to make friends, or being too depressed to feed yourself. It’s the kind of thing that needs to be experienced to be understood. You can pay what you want for it on itch.io or download for free on Game Jolt.
Play if you like: Don Hertzfeldt cartoons, zines
Available:itch.io (FREE), Game Jolt (FREE)
For a medium that sees hundreds, if not thousands of NPCs die over the course of one single-player campaign, video games are really poorly equipped to handle death. It’s precisely because of the fact that death is shrugged off as a goal, a high score, a fail state that can be reset. A Mortician’s Tale is a small point-and-click adventure that aims to explore death and the grieving process in a more meaningful way. It puts you in the shoes of a mortician responsible for preparing bodies for funerals and running the business. While it’s been criticized for its short length, it’s still a heartfelt look into a world few of us are familiar with.
Play if you like: Six Feet Under
Available:Steam ($14.99)
Math is beautiful. Few places is this more apparent than the mesmerizing geometry of Islamic art. Engare is one part puzzle game, one part drawing tool focused on exploring the art of motion and the patterns that emerge from nature itself. In the beginning, your goal is to recreate symbols by marking a point on a moving object and observing the marking left by its movement, adjusting until it matches. Sometimes the movement is repetitive, like a sea of dots shuffling in uniform rhythm. Other times, it exists in brief sequences, replaying on steady loops until you get it right: stacked 2D wheels rolling to the ground, a whip-like pendulum, a tower of shapes crumbling in on itself. It’s a lot of trial and error, but at some point, geometry becomes a language you learn to read within the dynamics of Engare’s machines.
The patterns and transformations that emerge from its formulas are hypnotic, as is the unlockable drawing tool that gives you the freedom to experiment with new shapes and designs. If you’re familiar with the beauty of Islamic architecture, Engare feels like a joyous celebration of a rich, artistic history. If you’re not, let Engare serve as a door to a stunning world you might not have known existed.
Play if you like: Architecture, puzzle games
Available:Steam ($6.99)
A fun game about 3D dogs.
Play if you like: Fun games, 3D dogs
Available:itch.io (FREE)
The sequel to Yomawari: Night Alone features improved gameplay over its slightly clunky predecessor and an even darker story. Its marriage of cute and weirdly scary feels reminiscent of homebrew horror Yume Nikki, but that’s mostly where the similarities end. Still, fans of small cult horror games should find something to enjoy in the Yomawari series.
Play if you like: Yume Nikki, Fran Bow
Available:Steam ($29.99), PlayStation Store - PS4 ($29.99), PlayStation Store - Vita ($29.99)
AER Memories of Old is a beautiful open-world adventure that lets you explore a fantastical world on foot or transform into a bird and fly around a sea of floating islands. On the islands, secret temples and dungeons house puzzles and other mysteries to unlock, but even if you’re not concerned with that, just soaring through its world feels worth it.
Play if you like: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Owlboy, Rime
Available:Steam, PlayStation Store
Bury Me, My Love is the story of a Syrian woman named Nour, who leaves behind her husband Majd, as he cares for elderly family, to seek refuge in Europe until he can join her. Nour’s journey and connection to Majd are communicated entirely via a text messaging app, as the two attempt to navigate these new circumstances. It’s a story woven together from the stories of many Syrian migrants and refugees around the world who have experienced and are experiencing the same hardships today.
To demonstrate the kind of complex situations refugees find themselves in, the creators wanted to focus on three things specifically: time and how it relates to money, the ever-changing roads and roadblocks on their journeys, and the limited valuables they can take with them — not just material, either. Morale, and bonds with family and friends who aren't present, are at the core of everything. By framing Nour and Majd’s stories as a text message-based interactive narrative, Bury Me, My Love can remain sensitive, nuanced, and respectful of the perspectives and subject matter explored, hopefully shedding some light on the weight of the international refugee crisis for an audience that might be unfamiliar with it.
Play if you like: Papers Please, 1979 Revolution: Black Friday
Available:App Store, Google Play Store
Chloi Rad is an Associate Editor for IGN. Follow her on Twitter at @_chloi.
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