Personally, I really liked Papers, Please. You play as a customs agent checking people's paperwork as they seek entry into your country. The idea of the game is very simple but it's surprisingly good at telling a story and putting you in situations that are morally difficult.
Funny, that game is by the same creator as the game OP mentioned.
I have not yet played Return of the Obra Dinn, but it is always high up on the list when I look for games like Outer Wilds. I'm a huge fan of Outer Wilds, so maybe the recommendation can work in reverse
From what I have heard, the deduction is not as intense as in Obra Dinn, but there is very little hand holding, and the whole game has been brilliantly designed so that it is driven entirely by your natural human curiosity. Once you get through the initial "tutorial" section (probably the roughest part of the game, push through!) the whole game is wide open. See something weird orbiting a distant planet? You can go straight there and start poking around. If you follow the leads that turn up there, you will eventually even figure out what it is, and why it is there. Do that enough and you'll eventually figure out the strange mystery of your home solar system.
Can't recommend it highly enough, but you only get to play it without knowing the secrets once, so go in as blind as you can. It took me 20-30 hours to "solve" the main game, maybe another 20 for the DLC, which is also well worth it
Also highly recommend. Want to add that you should not watch any videos or really even read about it.
This. Go into Outer Wilds knowing as little as possible. It's an incredible experience if you go in blind.
To paraphrase a description I gave in another thread about this game, at first it will feel like you're just fumbling around with no clear idea of what you're doing and why. The game presents itself as just this sort of open ended sandbox with no real purpose. That's OK, just explore and have fun for about the first half hour or so.
Because about half an hour in, more or less, is when The Event will happen. Do not ask what The Event is. You will know when it happens. It will be, clearly and unambiguously, The Event. And once it happens everything will click, and you'll go "Oh, that's what this game is about."
After The Event, go look at the computer in the back of your space ship. That will become your most important tool throughout the rest of the game.
This is still kind of spoilery yo.
If you like Obra Dinn, you'll love Outer Wilds
Antichamber really stood out to me even among other puzzle games
Superliminal is also a VERY good puzzle game that isn’t like others.
I was ready to replay antichamber and make it one of the few games I did every puzzle in, then the ending happened and I put it down never to pick it up again. Why the heck did they change everything up in the last 2% of the game?
I much prefer recommending lingo these days.
Chants of Sennaar - adventure/puzzle game where you need to learn the languages of the world. It's not super difficult, but finding all the secrets was challenging.
Manifold Garden - no real story here, but a trippy 3d spatial puzzle to navigate.
The Talos Principle - It’s pretty much purely a puzzle game with a nice dose of philosophy to drive the story along. Some of the later puzzles can get pretty difficult, and some of the optional challenges will likely take you a good while to figure out without guides.
The witness is a really interesting puzzle game that can be had for not that much.
Or if you are looking for something more actiony then I would recommend remnant: from the ashes or remnant 2. Described as souls like with guns, but they really change up the formula I found with semi random worlds and bosses.
I heard good word about Paradise Killer, in which you're also a detective and must figure out the truth
The outer wilds is amazing. You should play it.
Specifically similar to RotOD is Heaven's Vault in that its pretty nonlinear, not hand holdy and that you figure out (a foreign language in this case). But it is more adventure style than RotOD.
Another one already mentioned Outer Wilds (not Outer Worlds!) and I completely agree and recommend it as well!
In general I have to say I disagree that new games are more of the same. We are in a golden age regarding new games and game genres. It's just, that there are so many games, that there are also many similar ones. And the big studios are the worst in that regard, just bury AAA and start to love Indie games!
As example, games which are different from others and not already mentioned in this thread:
If you're liking the feeling of solving a mystery with no handholding, give Shadows of Doubt a look. 1920s detective noir set in an alt-history retro cyberpunk 1970s where the Coca-Cola corporation is the president of the USA. Yeah, that's a mouthful, but what you get is a proper hard-boiled detective story where you are in total control of how you pursue every case. The game gives you an honest to God murder board with string and sticky notes. There's no "detective mode" bullshit where you scan for clues and then the game solves the mystery for you. It's completely on you to find the evidence, follow leads, canvas witnesses, scrub through security footage, stake out a suspect's apartment or place of work, and finally make an arrest (and hope like hell you didn't finger the wrong person). This all plays out in a fully simulated city district. Every room in every building can be entered. Every NPC has a complete life; a partner (maybe), a home (usually), a job, a medical history, a shoe size, fingerprints, the works.
The voxel graphics aren't for everyone, and there's some areas where it's less complete than others, but those only really stand out because of how shockingly complete the world is in so many other ways. All in all, it's a brilliant game, and like nothing else out there.
I've tried it, but couldn't really get into it. Didn't feel like there was much deduction, but more just evidence collecting. However I didn't play for too long and I'm planning to try again. I assume it takes same time to get invested
Maybe you should try a more chaotic approach to solving the crimes in that game, like Josh does in this video
Man. I've been staring at this box trying to find the words for why you should play Pathologic 2. It's hard, especially without spoiling anything. It is a game about a surgeon named artemy burakh who is tasked by fate to save a town from a plague. It is as if Russian Literature grew legs and used them to kick you in the dick. It is emotionaly a lot. It is skillfully a lot. It is mentally a lot and you are on a time limit and it is not fair. But it has a message for you. There is a beauty to that message and if I could I would force every person on this planet to experience it.
But you will have to bleed for it. Please play it.
Is this playable for someone who is a bit sensitive towards blood, but really sensitive towards arteries?
Blood plays a very large part in both the story and game
Arteries also play a very large part in both.
The game would definitely make you think and confront those sensitivities directly and often.
Thanks for the answer. Seems like I need to skip this one. Shame since it looks really cool
Patrick's Parabox - Single developer, unique idea, mind bending - think outside and inside the boxes inside boxes.
Not the same, but Into The Breach has become the one game I regularly return to. The ruleset is so simple and everything is laid out, including anticipating opponent moves. Just a great series of small puzzles
Slice and dice is similarly fun.
I personally found the Inscryption scratched the same itch, albient in a different way. Its a very different game, being a sort-of narrative driven, Slay the Spire inspired card game. I won't go into too much detail, given that spoilers, mechanical or narrative, take away a lot from the game, but I found that Inscryption did a great job of juggling a bunch of different mechanics to ensure I constantly had new tools to master, while also encouraging more lateral exploration through its plethora of secrets, and drip feeding story fragments to be peiced together as I progressed.
The main thing to know about Inscryption is that you wanna know as little as possible about Inscryption before you play.
Also if Inscryption works for you, check out the other Daniel Mullins games. He's got mould-breaking down to his own quirky idiosyncratic science.
Check out Fez if you haven't already. Also Tunic does a great job of starting out basic & breaking precedent.
I watched a fascinating video describing Tunic, Outer Wilds, and Sekiro as knowledge based rougelikes. Where in playing the game you learn information (or enemy patterns in Sekiro's case) that make additional playthroughs vastly different.
If you haven't, watch some Tunic speed runs, as once you know where certain things are you can almost break the game without actually breaking it.
There's 4 puzzle games called The Room that I found really interesting. It starts with a puzzle box that opens up with each solved puzzle to eventually reveal spaces within the box that are bigger than the box itself. There's something supernatural about these puzzle boxes and you get little clues about where it came from and who made it.
I have those. I haven't gotten to them yet, but it is great to see someone who actually played them and enjoyed them
Other wilds as already suggested Is a must play. But a strong second contender for me Is cocoon. Logic/environment puzzles, with no hand holding in any way, you have to figure out everything but the level design Is sooo good.
Honorable mention for Tunic.
Forgotten City is another interesting game, that like Outer Wilds, has you piecing together a mystery. Hadn't seen it mentioned yet.
For an older classic in the mystery/no coddling space there is the Myst series. I've only played the first, but they're challenging puzzles/mystery point-and-click games.
Not a puzzle game, but Noita throws you right in without any explanation or tutorial. Everything is trial and error to the point where people complain that you can't figure things out without the wiki. Love the game though, one of the most unique games I know.
The Souls games never really held your hand either.
Hollow Knight, The Binding of Isaac and Elite Dangerous are other games I can think of that want you to figure things out.
It's not difficult but I really enjoyed Super Liminal. Very short but fun.
I am not sure how handholdey it might seem to you, but Danganronpa 1-3 were pretty good at keeping me guessing what would happen next, but it is also good at giving the player the illusion of actually solving what was happening themselves. V3 was both the best and worst in this regard IMO. There are very few times where something is obvious or very easy, and likewise few times where a huge leap in logic is made or something is very obtuse/hard to know.
If you haven't tried them, maybe look intonthem to see if you'd like them?
The Painscreek Killings sounds like the open ended deduction that you're describing. You play as a journalist who goes to an abandoned town to try to solve a cold case murder. The game doesn't tell you where or what to do next, or how to do it. I liked it because it was just me trying to figure the story out and what to do, not the game telling me "Put x and y together. Oh, look, it leads you to z!" (Also it's currently on sale on Steam for like 5 bucks.)
chronoark lets you die and counts your deaths for you.
anything agatha christie/ hercule poirot is light detective work (good for kids and or newbies) with optional handholding
i remember there's some good mystery modules with neverwinter nights
morrowind quests don't coddle at all. they all look like journal entries.
The Long Dark
Survival game set in the cold Canadian wilderness. Most "survival" games are actually just boring crafting games but TLD is very different for me as it is mostly about exploring in the freezing cold with natural predators around to keep you on edge.
I enjoyed Carto and Paradise Killer, as far as "different and creative" goes.
Journey beyond the edge of the world.
It's not out yet, but there's a demo and it's really good!
It's hard to beat Obra Dinn, but The Witness is another of my favorite puzzle games.
Edit: "hard to beat" meaning it's a good game, not that it's difficult (although it is in fact pretty difficult).
The Witness is a good puzzle game where they give you the same kind of puzzle, but different areas have their own rules. They don't tell you how the rules work, but they're fairly intuitive and the ramp up in each area is good. Eventually you have to recall rules from previous puzzles. There are extra puzzles that go beyond the mold as well, but those are well hidden.
Dread Delusion:
Played through hifi rush recently. I can't think of a game that's done anything like it, I cannot recommend it enough. Was truely one of the best games I've ever played
Hide the sausage.
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