Living with the gap between wanting sense and finding none.
EarthBound is a 1994 Nintendo RPG that rejects the genre’s conventions: no overworld map, no random encounters, no top-down grid. Instead, it builds a seamless, oblique-projection world where enemies are visible NPCs, combat begins with spatial positioning, and progression is deliberately unstable. It asks players to read the environment, not the menu.
Bulletstorm is a first-person shooter built around one idea: make killing absurdly creative, then reward it instantly. Its design forces constant verticality, slow-motion decision-making, and weapon-specific improvisation. It has no narrative weight, no competitive layer, and no ambition beyond its loop. It succeeds precisely where it narrows its focus—and fails where it tries to widen it.
Grim Fandango (1998) is LucasArts’ first 3D adventure game. It replaces UI cues with Manny Calavera’s head-turning and inventory management with coat-jacket animations. Players solve puzzles by collecting and combining objects, talking through dialogue trees, and navigating pre-rendered environments — all without death or unwinnable states. Its strengths are its writing, voice acting, soundtrack, and stylised world. Its weaknesses are stiff movement, fixed-camera disorientation, and repetitive environmental feedback. It rewards patience and attention. It resists speed and muscle memory.
SSX Tricky is a 2001 arcade snowboarding game developed by EA Canada for PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox. It builds on SSX with twelve characters, Uber Tricks triggered by adrenaline, a rivalry system activated by knocking down opponents, and progression tied to medals and trick books. Tracks include remixes of Merqury City and Tokyo Megaplex, plus Garibaldi and Alaska.
The Stanley Parable is a narrative-first game about obedience, authorship, and the fiction of player agency. It offers no combat, no progression, and no persistent world — only walking, pressing, opening, and listening. Its design is a provocation: every choice you make is anticipated, narrated, and contained.
ToeJam & Earl is a 1992 Sega game that turns Earth into a stack of floating islands. Players control alien rappers searching for 10 spacecraft wreckage pieces. Movement is in 3/4 perspective. Islands are randomly generated and linked by elevators. Falling off an island drops the player to the layer below, requiring elevator relocation. The game supports single-player and cooperative two-player modes. In two-player mode, proximity unifies the screen and unlocks exclusive dialogue; separation splits the screen. Presents deliver temporary power-ups, but their contents are unknown until opened — and the 'Randomizer' power-up scrambles effects. Earthlings act as unpredictable NPCs, some hostile, some helpful.
BurgerTime is a 1982 Data East arcade game where chef Peter Pepper walks across oversized burger ingredients on platforms and ladders to make them fall and stack into complete hamburgers while avoiding anthropomorphic hot dogs, fried eggs, and pickles. A limited supply of pepper can be thrown forward to briefly stun enemies. It was Data East's first major hit after abandoning the DECO Cassette System for dedicated arcade cabinets.
Day of the Tentacle is a 1993 LucasArts point-and-click adventure built on the SCUMM engine. It uses time travel as a structural puzzle mechanic, splitting three protagonists across past, present, and future. Players switch between them and move items across eras using Chron-o-Johns or temporal placement. It features voice acting — a LucasArts first — and relies on cause-and-effect logic over reflexes or narrative choice.
Disco Elysium is a narrative RPG where dialogue and skill checks replace combat. Its 24 skills — grouped under Intellect, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics — speak autonomously during interactions. Checks use two six-sided dice and can trigger negative effects or quirks. Clothing modifies skills. The Thought Cabinet lets players internalise thoughts over in-game hours, granting benefits but occasionally drawbacks.
Escape from Monkey Island is the fourth Monkey Island game and LucasArts’ final original adventure title. It is a narrative-driven Caribbean island-hopping game built on dialogue, puzzle-solving, and novel input schemes.
Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform game developed by Valve and released in 2011. It builds on the original Portal's portal-gun mechanic with new tools—gels, lasers, tractor beams, and launch plates—and introduces cooperative play with two robot characters. All gameplay occurs in discrete test chambers inside the decaying Aperture Science facility.