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Tunic received its Switch port on September 27 and is already making waves with the Nintendo crowd. The charming visuals and familiar gameplay loop may not break the bank, but the strange learning mechanics and bubbling darkness beneath the veneer of cuteness make it stand out from the crowd.
Tunic is fantastic at telling not only its story, but its gameplay through visuals alone. Players must dig deep and understand the complexity of the game for themselves. For fans of games like this, thankfully, it’s far from the only one.
10/10 Return of the Obra Dinn
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In 1802, a ship known as the Obra Dinn set out for the Orient. Sixty people manned it and everyone thought it was just like any other trip. Nothing more is heard of the ship for five years. No contact was ever responded to. It was declared lost at sea until it mysteriously returned in 1807. It’s up to the player to find out what happened to him in The Return of the Obra Dinn.
The core of the game is a pocket watch called “Memento Mortem”, which mimics an image of a person after death. It is through this unique mechanism that the game forces the player to really figure it out. This is a detective game that expects the player to behave like this, all with the stark black and white aesthetic that further upsets the player. It also has a compelling story told in an unorthodox non-linear way. Each player will see the story unfold in the way they chose to investigate, so that no two experiences are exactly the same. Of course, all the answers will be once the players reach it.
9/10 The sexy brutal
Every year, the casino mansion known as “The Sexy Brutale” throws a masquerade ball that invites only a select few into its halls. One fateful night, however, the event takes a dark turn when the staff brutally murder the ten guests at the ball. With the help of a strange woman, the player travels back in time to indirectly rescue all ten guests and solve this mystery.
The sexy brutal essentially has the player as a guardian angel. While they can’t intervene directly due to the nature of time travel, they can find other ways to change history. Something as simple as moving a chair to the left can change the course of people’s lives forever Tunics sense of gameplay through its visuals. It’s up to the player to find the solution to this tantalizing mystery amid the charming, cartoonish gameplay.
8/10 unseen
At the end of a grueling war between androids and humans, the androids are practically running on fumes. Anima, the energy that gives robots life, is quickly running out. The player takes on the role of Alma, an amnesiac android who must traverse the ruins of Arcadia before time runs out for all of her ilk.
The game takes notes of the Metroidvania gameplay style and the game gives free rein to the player with creativity. The player’s style for traversing the castle or fighting their enemies is entirely up to them. Puzzles have more than one solution and abilities can be changed as more of Arcadia is explored. It’s an action-packed adventure with plenty of replayability, and it takes a little more planning to play than the usual action-oriented affair of other Metroidvanias.
7/10 Nobody saves the world
The world needs to be saved and there is no better person to step on the board than Nobody. Pale, androgynous and inexplicably naked, they come across a mysterious magic wand that can transform them into all kinds of shapes. Now they must go out and save the world, in their own confusing way.
Nobody saves the worldThe main mechanism is aimed at obtaining new forms and skills to better save the world. The game encourages the player to experiment with different shapes to solve the puzzles and defeat the monsters scattered around the world. It also helps that the game is absolutely adorable with its animated art style, similar to mid-2000s cartoons. For fans of the developers’ previous game, Guacameleethis will also scratch that itch.
6/10 Rain World
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The surface has become habitable. Heavy rainfall plagues the earth intensely, making it virtually inhospitable during the wet seasons. The dry seasons aren’t much better, as creatures from all over fight for food in the barren wasteland. The player is a nomadic snail in search of their family, whose cuteness is the only respite in this brutal post-apocalyptic platformer.
The most unique feature of the game is its ecosystem. There are few, if any, scripted events throughout the game. Everything that happens is the result of other creatures, like you, trying to survive. Sometimes they are the predator chasing smaller creatures to regain health. Other times they are prey and sneak away from much larger predators. The puzzle is figuring out how to balance these two sides. It’s a brutal game, but the challenge is its own reward for more determined players.
5/10 Inscryption (do not correct spelling)
encryption is not an easy game to pin. In fact, talking about something spoils the fun. From the developers behind the cursed Pony Island, it’s to be expected that the story takes so many twists and turns that any casual player’s head would spin. The game also continues to give the player new things from a gameplay point of view, but it’s best experienced blindly.
At least the premise of the game is good enough to spoil. The player is locked in a mysterious hut, where a murderous creature asks them to play a card game. If they win, they get to play another game. If they lose, there isn’t much “game” left to play. They are also allowed to explore the hut to find a way out, but going beyond this spoils the surprise. All we need to know is that the game will mess with players’ minds in ways they wouldn’t expect from other games.
4/10 Outer Wilderness
The player is an astronaut tasked with uncovering the secrets of the Nomai, an ancient alien race that mysteriously disappeared long ago. Just as the player begins his journey, the sun explodes. Suddenly they are back on their home planet, the morning before this catastrophe. Now, with limited time, the player is thrown into the solar system to find a way to save their solar system, by revealing more secrets of the Nomai.
Yet another video game best experienced blind, Outer Wilderness is at least much less terrifying than encryption. The gameplay is also very much focused on exploration and visual storytelling, exploring each planet, all with their weird quirks and mechanics, to find answers to the anomaly. It’s a beautiful but melancholic experience, because a lot of like Majora’s maskall characters and places the player visits are doomed to die over and over again.
3/10 Baba are you?
Baba are you? is very different from all Block Puzzle games that gamers are familiar with. At first it looks like any other block puzzle, until they realize that the “rules” of the level are also blocks. The game revolves around breaking and bending the rules to win and challenges the player’s logical thinking skills to the limit.
In essence, Baba are you? turns the player into a programmer. By taking blocks and words apart and then putting them together into new ones, they find a solution to a problem. Essentially, it’s a nice way to learn the basics of actual block programming. The game also has a great sense of humor where non-sequiturs and even puns are solutions for different levels. Plus, like indie gaming tradition, there’s something darker lurking beneath the charming exterior.
2/10 Hyper Light Drifter
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The player is simply known as “The Drifter”, a nomad with a laser blade and a mysterious drone that can activate old-fashioned artifacts. They go out into the world to find a cure for the disease that plagues them every step of the way. The disease also works like a ticking clock in terms of narrative and gameplay, as too much running means The Drifter’s heart breaks completely, leading to a game over.
Hyper Light Drifter is a relentlessly frenetic game that nevertheless looks beautiful thanks to its vibrant neon aesthetic. While Tunic Known for its puzzling mechanics, it’s still an action-adventure and among the perfectly paced puzzles is skill-based combat against different types of enemies. This aspect is what Hyper Light Drifter excels at, though with a lot more emphasis on combat. As cool as The Drifter is, they’re still vulnerable to their own hubris, which is what balances the whole experience.
1/10 Fez
Fez is a seemingly traditional 2D platformer that follows Gomez, a cute little humanoid thing who gets a fez from an old man. To his surprise, the fez allows him to perceive the 3D world, and with it he can shift across dimensions, although he still only moves in 2D planes. With this power, he sets out to collect the magical MacGuffin cube that is tearing the land apart.
Fez is a game that was clearly in the mind of Tunic‘s developers as they made the perspective puzzles. Basically a secret room in Tunic is a direct reference to Fezbecause it temporarily changes the perspective from isometric to Fezthe unique perspective. Together with Hyper Light Drifterthis game should be thanked for inspiring Tunicunique identity. Fezinspired an entire generation of indie games that would break the mold and really push the medium of video games. With games like Tunic still get a lot of love, that inspiration remains true to this day.
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