With more and more developers focusing on creating thebiggest open-world games, the story, gameplay, and overall quality of these games fall severely short of what’s expected from a title of that caliber. On a limited budget and working under narrow deadlines, there’s only so much a studio can do, and opting for a bigger world over other aspects of the game ultimately flops the game.
As it turns out, gamers never wanted bigger and more spectacular worlds in their video games, and oftentimes, a game with an extremely small world with a better focus on story and gameplay is much better received than a game with a very large but boring world.
An indie game developed by Lucas Pope, a former developer forNaughty Dog,Papers, Pleaseputs the player in the shoes of an immigration border inspector in his small cubicle. And the beauty of this title is that the entire game takes place in this very cubicle.
The world depicted is a dystopian dictatorship where strict border regulations have divided families and friends, and as much as people beg the player to let them pass without the right documents, letting the wrong people through will only make things difficult for the player.
And that’s where the secondary aspect of the game comes in. The protagonist is highly underpaid and trying to make ends meet, picking between feeding his family, buying medicines for them, or purchasing heating for the night.
As things at the border and at the player’s home get worse, there are somehard choices they will have to makethat could have potentially dire consequences.
One of the best recently releaseddeck-building roguelike games,Inscryptionis much more than what it looks like at the beginning, and quite a bit of the game is only revealed after progressing in the story.
The game begins at a table where a creepy-looking guy is forcing the player to play a card game. But it’s not just any card game, as some of the cards suddenly start talking. Soon, the player learns that they’re trapped inside a cabin with no way to escape, and it’s here that most of the game takes place and reveals its secrets.
A horror-stealth sandbox game similar to the likes of the various Slenderman games on PC and smartphones where the player has to run away from the enemy,Hello, Neighborbrings a twist to this genre by adding horror elements in the light of the day.
On the surface, thegame is pretty and colorful, and nobody would be able to guess that hidden in this colorful world, and behind this sunny neighborhood is a strange man who will get players to tremble with fear in broad daylight.
The game will have players trying to infiltrate this man’s home to find out what he’s up to, and while there are other houses on the street, the player can only enter this one house, which comprises the game’s entire world.
As the name of the game suggests, the entire game takes place in a few rooms where the player has to solve contraptions.The Roomis, at its core, apuzzle gamethat has a slightly creepy and mysterious aura to it that makes the puzzle-solving and the environment all the more immersive.
The protagonist’s friend, A.S. has been researching the Null, and he has called the player to his home, where these contraptions lie, asking for his help. It begins with a safe, and as the players keep solving the puzzles and contraptions, the story of the game continues to unfold.
A very popular game series that even got a movie released based on it recently,Five Nights At Freddy’sis a cultural phenomenon at this point, and it all started with the very first game in 2014.
The player takes a part-time nightguard job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza to ensure nobody breaks into the place and to keep an eye on the Animatronics. These creepy-looking machines were actually made to play around with kids during the day, but it turns out that they don’t stay stationary during the night.
Players will remain in one room for the entirety of the game, controlling the doors and checking the cameras again and again, making sure nothing goes wrong during the night.
1Aperture Desk Job
A Toilet Inspector Simulator
This short but hilarious, free tech demo for the Steam Deck takes place within the Portal universe, and because it’sdeveloped by Valveitself, players can expect the game to be unique and unlike any other title they’ve ever played.
The preface of the game is that the protagonist just got hired by Aperture, and for a couple of good minutes, it seems like the job is important. But soon, they find out that all they have to do, for the entire day, is sit behind a desk and quality check a bunch of toilets.
This desk is where the majority of the game takes place, and the star of the show isn’t the gameplay, but the dialogue and story of this roughly 30-minute long title.
