Which games blow your mind, but only if you know nothing about them in advance?
Best examples I can think of are:
- Outer Wilds
- Doki Doki Literature Club
- The Stanley Parable
What are yours?
(please no spoilers)
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Subnautica. You can only play it for the first time once.
I tried it a few years ago and gave up after an hour of not knowing what to do. But I had this week off and tried it again, it I’m really enjoying it this time. It’s not like anything else, and once that initial bump is passed its learning curve is really quite good.
It is one of my all-time favorite games. I have unfortunately played it to death; I’ve run out of stupid challenge runs. The game has a story and uniquely for survival games it has an ending, there’s a Win The Game button. But the game is as much about the story you’re going to create; the way you choose to go about things, the order you decide to explore in, the happenstances of your adventure are maybe more important than what the wiki says the story is. Savor that.
I will offer this hint. I don’t think it’s a spoiler; I think there is a strong possibility this hint will prevent you from alt-tabbing out to look up the wiki and accidentally encounter a spoiler. But I will tag it as a spoiler anyway.
spoiler
If you find yourself without an immediate goal, you’re milling about the ocean thinking “well now what?” Go deeper.
Absolutely this. I am jealous each time I recommend it to someone who hasn’t played it yet.
I’m glad there was a thread about Subnautica in here.
absolutely stunning, especially if one has any kind of decent audio system
Surprised I haven’t seen Undertale yet. The online fanbase is hilariously toxic, (seriously, don’t go looking for any extra details about the game after you finish it) but it’s a solid game that should be experienced 100% blind. All I’ll say is that it’s a game that is written to subvert expectations; If you go into it expecting to play it like a traditional RPG, you’ll be in for a big surprise.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
An astonishingly good story line that can only be really appreciated blind.
For those of you who remember TotalBiscuit, he rated this as one of his favourite games.
Maybe literally the only game that’s ever done storytelling through gameplay mechanics-- really cool concept
Death Stranding would like a word…
haven’t played it-- how do the mechanics change with the story?
Honestly… I would say that the game fits with the theme of the original post, and explaining it would ruin the magic.
I will say that not only do the mechanics change based on the story, but there is an entire asynchronous online system where users help other users (that they will never see or meet in game) to construct be infrastructure to make travel for others (they will never see or meet) easier.
Then those mechanics feed back into the actual story. It’s kind of wild.
I know it’s a divisive game, but I will say it’s a masterpiece imo. Even if only for those mechanics.
And yes, the controls change based on how the load you’re carrying is balanced. I believe the definitive way to play is the Definitive Edition on PS5 with the DualSense controller since the adaptive triggers become harder to press as your load increases.
Subnautica.
Survival. But you’re in the middle of an ocean. Good luck!
The way the game drip feeds you information. I love it!
Is it available for android?
Sorry if these have been said already. Note I suck at gaming and couldn’t finish either but I enjoyed my time with them:
Animal Well and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Subnautica. Just bopping along, in my cute little submarine.
I had no background and nearly shat myself at a moment you can probably guess lol
A moment? I had a few during my first playthrough. PD, RL, W, T, DL. And many moments of forgetting to keep an eye on that oxygen meter lol.
ANIMAL WELL
What a treat of a game. That feeling of discovery made me feel like I was 10 years old
Hollow knight. The exploration of that game is absolutely the pinnacle of world layouts
Subnautica I guess
The real answer will always be Outer Wilds.
But also…
Fez. It definitely inspired Animal Well and Tunic.
Way to make me feel old, I don’t know any of those games.
Where’s my late 90s early 2000s gamers at?
I’m going to nominate:
- Fallout (1997) for plot twists and introducing (to me at least) open world role playing.
- Fallout 2 (1998) for further plot twists
- Max Payne (2001) for stealing bullet time from the matrix and putting it in a game
- Mafia (2002) for being a kick ass game that would blow your mind, by making 6 hours of your night disappear, and not lifting the lid on that plot twist before you heard the birds start singing, and realize that you should probably hit the shower and get to school.
If Fallout introduced you to open world RPG’s, that means you missed Daggerfall.
Arguably the greatest open world RPG of all time.
That was the game that absolutely, completely blew my mind with its openness, freedom, and scale (none of which were matched by any following TES game).
Well worth blocking the phone line for an entire night and running up a phone bill that’ll get you yelled at by your parents, to download the 140MB installer.Luckily today, it’s available for free:
https://www.gog.com/de/game/the_elder_scrolls_chapter_ii_daggerfall
Undertale, but at this point you’d have to have lived in a cave for the last decade to not know most of the spoilers by now.
Doki Doki should be 90% blind. Players need to understand they’re going into a horror game.
But I’ll also add one, Detroit: Become Human. While it’s based on replaying it a massive number of times, going in blind makes the story a lot better.
David Cage gets lots of shit for his games, but If you experience them blind without spoilers ahead of time I find they’re pretty good interactive movies.
My gf watched me play through all of Detroit, and then started to wonder “what would happen if x didn’t y?” Aaaand rabbit hole time.
Inside. Made by the same company as Limbo, but Inside is much more “don’t look up a single thing”
Thanks for the recommendation. Just bought both for $3 lol
Awesome! Inside is far better than Limbo in my opinion, but they are both good games
Hollow Knight
Warframe
Noita
The warframe lore is pretty complex, but its also great. Especially the way the game tells you the story. Can only recommend going into it blind.
I don’t think you understood the assignment…
I think they’re all games that seriously benefit from not knowing the lore or mechanics beforehand… you didn’t even contribute aside from being snide to me so how about you explain what I did wrong?
