What to Play

I get asked all the time what games I'd recommend and it got to the point where I was rambling nonstop because there's JUST. SO. MANY. GOOD. GAMES. So instead of doing that I'll just send people here. All the games are divided by experience level with games since that seems to be the biggest factor in what I'd recommend you try playing.

All of these games are single player games I personally enjoyed. Obviously there are more good games out there but these are the ones that brought me enough joy to want to encourage others to try.

⭐ - GOAT
🏳️‍🌈 - LGBT Characters
📱 - Recommended for Mobile

Sections
Never Played
Some Experience
Fairly Advanced
Hardcore Gamer
Okay, hear me out...

Never Played

This is where to start if you have never played a single game in your life. They have relatively simple controls and won't expect you to react quickly at any point. (I'd still recommend this to experienced gamers, though, they're all excellent)

Florence 📱

Florence is more of an interactive graphic novel about young love than a game, but if this is your first time ever trying out games, it's my number one pick. The music and animations are lovely and it ends up teaching you a lot of basic gameplay elements you'll see in other games. It plays very well on mobile.

Oxenfree

If you liked the witty banter or paranormal mystery of Stranger Things, this is the right kind of game for you. Oxenfree uses a timed dialogue tree that you can select mid-conversation which can actually change the character's response if you cut them off while they're talking or wait for them to finish what they have to say. In practice, it feels a lot more like real-world talking than typical games that pause in between lines.

Hidden Folks

It's Where's Waldo but animated! There's not much more to say about it, but there's a lot here to find.

Untitled Goose Game

Play as a goose terrorizing the local English town! Your goals include stuff like "steal the farmer's hat" and "make the old man fall on his bum". It's incredibly funny and has a dedicated honk button.

Her Story

Her Story is crossed between a short film and a game. Your goal is to find clips based on dialogue said by the woman being interrogated. The only problem is you're limited in how many clips you can see, so you'll need to use unique words to find the clips that reveal the story of what's really going on. The acting and story here are top-notch and you'll be engrossed in solving the mystery after a few minutes in.

This is a very easy game to play as well. If you can type into a search box, you can play this game.

Donut County 📱

You get to control a hole that gets bigger as it hoovers up items! It creates a really interesting puzzle as you figure out what needs to be consumed first before it takes in the larger objects. Also there's a goofy raccoon.

Railbound 📱

A nifty little puzzle game of placing track down for cars that you need to place in the correct order. It's incredibly easy to get started on this and the game builds on itself over time with more complex puzzles. It can get fairly challenging at times but you won't be overwhelmed with complexity.

Thank Goodness You're Here

Similar to Untitled Goose Game except this time you'll be assisting instead of terrorizing a charming British town. If you're a fan of Monty Python style humor, I highly recommend this game.

Monument Valley 📱

Imagine if all those MC Escher drawings were turned into a video game.

Chants of Sennaar

Chants of Sennaar takes the experience of learning a brand new language and boils it down to its basest parts. It also conveys how different cultures use language in unique in different ways. For example, you may run into a puzzle where one culture shares "Love" and "Honor" with the same word while another might have "Love" and "Trust" as the same.

If you love puzzles and foreign languages, this one is for you.

Secret of Monkey Island

I played this game repeatedly as a kid and I still come back to it every once in a while. Monkey Island is the quintessential "point and click" adventure game and the clever comedic writing still holds up more than 30 years later. This special edition update the graphics and adds professional voice acting to the mix so it feels like a modern game now.

Stardew Valley🏳️‍🌈

This is a cozy farming sim game that provides a laid back and friendly environment to play in. The designer ensured that the game wouldn't punish players for failure of any kind so you'll never feel like you did something wrong.

That said, it's an incredibly deep game and you'll likely spend several hours playing it as you try your best to woo and marry one of the many characters in the game.

ABZU

Just an absolutely gorgeous sea exploration game. You'll traverse through several different biomes and swim with all kinds of sea life. There's no combat of any kind so if you're new to playing games with a controller, this would be a great first start.

Some Experience

Okay, you've beaten a few games and know what all the buttons on the controller do. Here's a set of games you can sink your teeth in to.

Infra ⭐

INFRA is a game where you play a structural engineer taking photos of crumbling infrastructure. Okay that sounds boring but it's really not. This is one of my all-time favorite games!

The game will have you moving through incredible recreations of abandoned buildings of all kinds and you'll need to solve real-world style puzzles to progress. Think trying to get to the third floor of an office building where the stairs and the elevator have collapsed. It's also set in Finland and you can learn just how seriously they take their saunas.

Sunless Skies🏳️‍🌈

If you're in to surreal paranormal stories (e.g. Welcome to Nightvale), this will be right up your alley. While docked in one of the numerous floating islands, you'll read through beautiful prose of your adventures in this fantasy victorian setting as you collect supplies, crew, and new quests. In between, you'll pilot a flying train as you try to survive the many surreal and cosmic horrors in the fog.

If you're not sure if the writing style is for you, I'd recommend trying out Fallen London. It's free and made by the same creators.

Portal 1 and 2

Solve puzzles with portals! This game is considered to be a masterpiece by many and it's not hard to see that in its incredibly polished sets, clever puzzles, and very funny and well-acted voiceovers. I almost placed this in the Never Played category, but since this plays in first person, that may be rough for some people.

Strange Horticulture

A lovely game about identifying magical plants and combining them together to make potions for your customers. It has a wonderful story and the artwork is just plain beautiful. Also a lot of fun and out-of-the-box puzzles to solve

Animal Well

This game is a programming marvel. It's clocked in at 36MB and contains a massive world full of secrets and abilities. The old school style creates an eerie and mysterious world with lots to discover.

Slay the Spire 📱

There's a lot of card-games-turned-video-games out there but Slay the Spire is considered to be the best. It's a great start to the roguelike genre as you start each run with a basic deck and build it up over time. Sometimes you'll die right away and other times you'll create a deck so broken then you'll breeze all the way through to the final boss.

With an absurd amount of cards to collect and combinations to play with, you'll never get bored of this game for a long long time.

Life is Strange ⭐🏳️‍🌈

The story of Max and Chloe has stuck with me now for nearly a decade. It's hard to convey just how incredible the story is and the twists and turns it takes you through Max's time-bending powers. With some powerful voice acting by Hannah Telle and Ashley Burch, a beautiful soundtrack that holds up today, and a script that could have won an Oscar in screenwriting if it was a movie, this game and its characters will stay with you for a very long time.

Oh, and there's an excellent comic to follow-up on as well as a sequel coming soon!

Guardians of the Galaxy

Dude...okay, this game goddamn rocks! If you are a fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies at all, this is a must play for you. It feels like a solid 4th iteration with these quintessential characters but does better than any of the movies as it's allowed more time to build a deeper lore and relationship with the characters.

The worlds they create for every level are massive and vibrant. Plus the gameplay is pretty great, too!

What Remains of Edith Finch

Traverse through a dense and beautifully rendered home as you explore what happened to all the ancestors of the main character. There are some incredibly beautiful set-pieces here and a lot of innovation in ways to tell a story.

Bugsnax 🏳️‍🌈

This game is basically "what if all the Pokemon were also food?" You'll spend most of the game exploring the island and trying various ways to capture all the creatures that roam this island. You'll also perform quests for the goofy muppet-like characters and solve the mystery of where the island's leader disappeared to.

CONTROL

Remedy is famous for pushing the limits of what a video game can portray, as well as crossing borders between games and cinema. CONTROL in my opinion is easily their best endeavor here. You'll be searching through an office building very reminiscent to the SCP Foundation as you try to contain all of the crazy paranormal items that this organization has tried to store.

That being said, the game is NOT scary and largely plays out like an action film.

Marvel's Spiderman

It became a trope for a while when reviewers said "this game makes you feel like spiderman" but dude that is as accurate of a description you'll get for this game. Zipping through Manhattan as the web-crawler is an experience unlike any other and the combat here is fast and smooth while never being overwhelming. There's also hours of side content here and almost all of it is fun to go through. And with a spin-off, a sequel, and another game in the works, you'll never run out of fun spinning those webs.

Fairly Advanced

Alright, you have some experience under your belt and are ready for a challenge.

Outer Wilds ⭐

This is the greatest game of all time. There is so much I want to say about it but anything I tell you will just diminish the magic of this absolute masterpiece. If you can handle games that involve moving through zero gravity space then this is an absolute must-buy. Be sure to get the Archeologist Edition because the DLC is just as incredible as the base game

God of War

Red Dead Redemption 2⭐

Jedi Knight: Fallen Order

Baldur's Gate 3⭐🏳️‍🌈

Subnautica

HITMAN Word of Assassination

Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

Hardcore Gamer

Ready to put yourself to the test and die a lot? These games are for you!

Hollow Knight

Lies of P

Noita

Celeste 🏳️‍🌈

Elden Ring

Enter the Gungeon

Spelunky 1 and 2

Hotline Miami

Okay, hear me out...

These games are definitely an acquired taste. They take a little bit of patience to get in to and may have some jankiness, but you won't regret it if you put in the work and looked past some flaws.

Creaks

The Case of the Golden Idol

Immortality 🏳️‍🌈

Unavowed

Dave Gilbert is known for making some very mature and story-rich point-and-click adventure games of incredibly high quality. Unavowed is easily his best game so far.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Thief Gold: The Black Parade

This is a mod for an old stealth game called Thief: The Dark Project. It adds 10 news levels and is a VAST improvement from the original game. Despite the older engine, Thief still holds up and the use of modern day hardware allows the designers to create some absolutely MASSIVE maps. You can get a copy of Thief here.