• From 3D platformers with a twist to genre
mashups of two unlikely choices, we count 15 amazing games that you’ve never heard
of and can play right now. 15 - Grapple,
• A 3D puzzle platformer, where you’re an orb flying through space with the help
of your stickiness as well as your grappling hooks, all in order to reach a Black Hole,
which doesn’t destroy you and instead takes you to the next level. • The downside and possible upside of the
game is that it’s not going to let you fail, there are unlimited lives and numerous checkpoints
that help you through to the end. • Luckily the challenge comes from the speed
run mode and all of the secrets that you need to find, as well as the fact that there are
some puzzles that will stump you for quite a while. 14 - Zerahypt,
• An open world exploration game that is less of a game and more of an playable alternate
reality in which you take on the role of Pirizuka, an alien exploring sunny mountains, gloomy
dark lands, vast deserts and interstellar space using countless vehicles like trucks,
tanks, aircraft and military cruisers • The developer of this game, SYRSA, has
been developing the lore of this world since he was a little kid and it's a project he's
planning to spend his whole life working on • You can download this game for free, but
don't expect any linear objectives and missions to complete - just explore the world and discover
things for yourself • He's constantly updating the game, and
he's always open to feedback - there is a link below that'll show you the latest update
and the current progress of the game 13 - Orbit,
• This game is casual fun, it’s what I like to play when I’m listening to a podcast
or something like that. • The purpose of the game is to use the
gravity of planets moons and other natural satellites to adjust the orbit of your comet
without losing all of your mass. • You can level up your comet by collecting
stars (not the stellar kind), which you then use to increase the speed or durability of
your comet. • While this is a fun little game, it doesn’t
have much replay-ability, but for the low price point it’s hard not to recommend this
game to anyone looking for a bit of relaxing fun. 12 - Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils,
• Now moving on from the casual to the incredibly difficult, this game will probably frustrate
you more than trying to put on underwear that’s two sizes too small whilst underwater in the
middle of a public pool. • Well maybe not that much, but it is a
hard game, the genre is officially known as an Action Platformer but is better known by
fans as Metroidvania, if you’re not familiar it’s a game where you navigate a large map,
find power ups, kill bad guys and do some platforming. • This game features time control, which
is a fun mechanic, but it also features some iffy controls where you have to wait for an
animation to end before beginning a new action, in a game with platforming this might be a
deal breaker for an otherwise great game. 11 - Parallax,
• This game is pretty similar to Antechamber, so if you like one you’ll most certainly
like the other, the other game it’s similar to is Portal; except instead of placing portals
you’re trying to solve puzzles by swapping between 2D and 3D dimensions. • Sound confusing? It is at first but I’m confident you’ll
get used to it pretty quickly. • Despite the indie budget the game feels
polished, with few bugs and great level design, the whole game is longer than Portal but shorter
than Portal 2, however, the mileage will vary greatly depending on your ability to solve
the puzzles. 10 - Frog Fractions,
• This game is free, runs on a browser and isn’t what you think it is, so if you’ve
got a computer made within the last decade chances are you can play this game. • I don’t want to spoil the best parts
of this game, so I won’t tell you everything you need to know to be motivated to play it,
however, if you’re expecting a game that teaches you about fractions you’ll be pleasantly
surprised. • Well, that is unless you like learning
about fractions in which case you’re probably disappointing to all of your friends. • All I’ll tell you is that it is in fact
possible to afford the Chinese New Year Dragon Warp Drive, from there I’m sure you’ll
find your way, just be wary that the game has no tutorials.
09 - Isbarah, • Easily the hardest game on this list,
this game takes two genres, platformers and bullet hells, takes the hardest aspects of
each and puts them together in a seamless way whilst taking advantage of the precision
gained from a mouse. • Like all bullet hell games you have to
learn the patterns of your enemies to beat them, which isn’t easy and to some people,
isn’t fun. • My favourite part of this game is the
additional mechanics that make it work, first there’s platform drawing which you’ll
need a mouse for, and the time slowing which allows you to make up for your mistakes by
giving you more time to dodge, create a barrier or draw a platform. 08 - Divine Divinity,
• Another game that will probably run on your toaster, it’s an old one, but a good
and mostly forgotten one; the game is what happens when Dragon Age: Origins (or more
accurately Baldur’s Gate 2) gets real close with Diablo 2, like, super close. • There’s a lot of fun dialogue and the
seemingly generic setting gets interesting eventually, on top of that there’s very
few boring side-quests, one of my favourites includes the murder mystery quest. • The combat is challenging to the point
where you might feel that it’s bullshit, but worry not there’s a reasonable solution
to every scenario, for instance your consumable items and seemingly useless spells will come
in handy. 07 - Void Destroyer,
• In this game you have the option to play dogfight or to control a fleet in an RTS fashion,
you’ll almost certainly need to dabble in both but for the most part you can choose
which one you like better and stick with it, or just go with both, it's mostly up to you. • The parts that will frustrate you are:
the gigantic difficulty spikes, the fact that the game forces you to replay levels to progress
and the frustrating fleet grouping mechanics. • One the plus side, fast developer support,
full mod-ability, a map editor, the ability to command pretty much anything you own, Newtonian
style physics, as well as the creation of your own ships makes the game completely worth
it. 06 - Reassembly,
• This game does vector based graphics well, which isn’t all that common to be honest,
it also has procedurally generated levels, which again has positives and negatives. • But where the game truly shines is the
character creation, where you take parts and make a space ship, designing the spaceship
takes a more ‘realistic’ style in that you don’t just add parts with +Speed to
get a faster ship, instead you balance your thrust and mass by choosing the right parts. • The other great part of the game is the
AI, which can and will brutalise you, but also impress you with its complexity. 05 - Grim Dawn,
• An early access game that is actually worth it before it comes out, crazy huh? This game has solid combat that feels like
it has impact, with enemies rag-dolling all over the place and animations that aren’t
ridiculously quick. • It’s another Diablo-like, so you’re
there to kill enemies to collect loot so you can kill more enemies to gain more loot
• There’s a few ways the developers spiced up things to make the game different from
its obvious inspirations, for one they have a similar health system to Minecraft, where
your health regenerates very quickly out of combat by depleting your ‘constitution’
bar, which you refill with food and potions. 04 - NeonXSZ,
• This game was made by a whopping one person, albeit it is someone who used to work for
Rockstar North, but that doesn’t mean that this game isn’t an impressive feat for anyone
man to make. • The game is similar to Descent in that
you’re flying around in a space ship in tight corridors, however, where it differs
is that there’s a cool progression system where enemies drop upgrades based on their
own stats, instead of just having an XP system. • There’s seven and a half square kilometres
procedurally-generated areas of open world to explore each time you start a new game,
so the game stays fresh with the sacrifice of deliberate level design, which admittedly
is usually preferable. 03 - Grow Home,
• A 3D platformer where you help a giant alien grow up and off of the planet until
you can reach your spaceship and go home. • This is a game that you’ll definitely
want a controller for, because the analogue movement adds some much needed precision to
move from platform to platform. • At first it’s mostly a 3D platformer
with a gimmick, but as you progress the plant growing aspect becomes more and more important
and powerful until you really feel like you created the land you’re standing on. 02 - Hand of Fate,
• Yet another genre mash-up is a bad way to describe Hand of Fate, because yes it combines
several genres but it does it well. • Take the joy you get from building a unique
and powerful deck in a TCG or a CCG like Hearthstone, add it to the fun of making decisions based
on risk and reward and fill the rest with a hack and slash style combat. • Notice I said fill, because despite how
good the rest of the game is the hack and slash elements feel mediocre, not bad in anyway
but it definitely isn’t the best or most satisfying combat there is. 1 - BLACKHOLE
• An indie developed, two dimensional platformer that has a ‘deep’ story, can’t get much
more vanilla than that, however, that doesn’t mean the game isn’t great and the story
isn’t interesting. • Its difficulty is much in the same vein
as Super Meat Boy, so it’s hard (to say the least) but it also feels fair, like every
mistake you make is your own and not the cause of the developer’s poor choices. • This game was made in GameMaker, which
makes it impressive that it feels so polished, however, using such a limited engine does
give some drawbacks that become more apparent as you play.
