 DonateMary B.
I LOVED Night in the Woods from: It’s a story focused, sorta spooky adventure game about coming of age! And there’s a scene where they use the microfiche at the public library!!!
A Short Hike (2019): A little exploration game about hiking up a mountain: cozy, soothing, and super charming.
Carto (2020): A really cute, story-focused puzzle adventure game with lovely artwork and lovable characters.
I Am Dead (2021): Another puzzle adventure video game with cool art, memorable characters, and a great story with great voice acting! And pretty poignant commentary on death and memory!
Borderlands 2 (2012): Combines multiplayer co-op with a looting system, with an array of different character styles and game play opportunities for all levels of gamers. It’s comical and doesn’t ever take itself too seriously, while having fantastic character development. Borrow here.
Pokémon Heart Gold (2009): Lets your Pokémon follow you and gives you countless opportunities to pursue nostalgia. It has unique gameplay to scratch that itch from childhood, while still adding a level of challenge and development.
Metroid Prime (2002): Samus Aran is back again and recently remastered. One of the gaming scene’s first and most established girl bosses. She take no mercy through the entire game, creating a unique experience for a lot of gamers. Taking on aliens galmore and implementing different game play functions to keep the game constantly fresh. It’s a classic with an audience of nearly everyone. Borrow here.
Katie
Overland: Available on XBox, Playstation, and Switch, this is a great game for those who enjoy strategic, apocalypse survival scenarios that don’t involve any jump scares. The turn-based system allows for customizable levels of difficulty, as you try to maneuver a group of survivors to the west coast across an increasingly alien and hostile landscape. (There is also an “all dogs” play option that replaces all the human characters with dogs, which is delightful, until you remember that this is a survival game, at which point it becomes infinitely more stressful.)
Cult of the Lamb: Available on PC, XBox, Playstation, and Switch, in this game you play an adorable lamb that is sacrificed to dark entities, but then brought back to life by an eldritch creature that imbues you with powers to start and lead your own cult. A sort of combination dungeon crawler and farming/city sim, the charming character design is a fun balance to some of the darker elements (not gruesome, but themes of death/murder are throughout). Borrow here.
Oregon Trail: Available on PC and Switch, this update to the educational computer game of times past is fun, challenging, and full of improvements. The game makes a point of acknowledging the devastating effect of westward expansion on Indigenous tribes, including side journeys that center Indigenous experiences and playable characters. Many of the classic elements remain the same (dysentery and broken wheels abound), but this version is more educational than ever.
Willow
One of my favorites is Dynasty Warriors 5 on Playstation 2. It’s a great game for releasing frustration. On the newer end, I really enjoyed CatQuest on Switch. Borrow here.
Tom Q
Sea of Thieves: A multiplayer game, available on Windows and Xbox, where you can team up with your friends as a bunch of goofy pirates. Borrow here.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: You get to play as a Jedi in hiding, trying to beat the Empire to whatever Star Wars thing they’re after. But you get fun Force powers, you can build your own lightsaber, and you can fling Stormtroopers around. There’s even a sequel coming out! Borrow here.
Firewatch: You are in a Firewatch out in Wyoming, and start to unravel a mystery in the forest. Single player, a little creepy (in a good way), and really nice scenery and music.
Donut County: You’re a racoon who controls a hole in the ground, which you use to swallow up stuff in the county. Super silly, super quick, and a lot of fun.
Verónica
Dragon Builders 2: Block-building, role-playing game with a single player campaign and a multiplayer building mode that supports up to four players online. You play a shunned builder helping others create communities while an evil cult tries to destroy and suppress all creativity. This is a cutesy world where even the monsters are silly and snarky. There’s a lot of dialogue, so you’ve been warned. Available: Steam, Microsoft 10, Xbox One/GamePass, PS4, etc. Borrow here.
My Time at Portia: Simulation RPG game where you get a workshop and a base. Your character moves into their dad’s neglected home to take over his position as a builder. Your job is to make Portia better (farm, go mining, discover artifacts, help build, cook, etc.), settle down, and build relationships with the community. This takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where technology destroyed the world a long time ago. The newest edition is called My Time at Sandrock and is available as Early Access via Steam. My Time at Portia is available through: Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox, Game Pass, etc. Borrow here.
State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition: The zombies have taken over and you’re helping your rag-tag team of survivors settle down while stopping the undead spread. Explore the world and keep everyone alive! Available: Epic Games, Steam, Microsoft 10, Xbox, Game Pass, etc.
No Man’s Sky: This action-adventure survival game is endless and is constantly being updated. You get to explore space and new planets while completing missions, creating bases, and leading a frigate fleet. It’s definitely open world and I’d say a mix between exploration and survival. If you played it when it first came out (2016), give it a chance since it has changed significantly with all the updates. Available: Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Steam, Microsoft 10, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Game Pass, etc. Borrow here.
Subnautica: Below Zero: You’re in space and your sister goes missing with her fellow scientists, so you secretly land in the planet she was last in which is freezing and mostly underwater. In this open-world survival action-adventure game, you get to build a base and investigate a team’s disappearance while fighting off scary creatures and discovering alien life submerged in the deep waters of the unknown ocean. Available: Steam, PS4, Xbox, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, etc. Borrow here.
Grounded: You’re a kid who’s been shrunk by scientists and you’re trying to survive giant insects in someone’s back yard in this first-person survival adventure. This is “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” in game form – and very fun! You have to build a base to survive the yard wilderness while making tools, looking for the shrunk scientist in charge of this dangerous technology, and figuring out what exactly happened that left you ant-sized. If you hate spiders, you can opt for a spider-free experience. Available: Windows 10, Xbox One, Game Pass, Xbox Series X, Steam, etc.
The Long Dark: Your survive a plane crash after an unknown force hits your plane. You now have to find your ex-wife who was traveling with you and figure out what happened while fighting off the wilderness, finding supplies, and staying warm enough to prevent hypothermia. The game’s graphics have a storybook quality with beautiful illustrations that contrast sharply with the apocalyptic scenario. Available: Steam, Epic Games, Xbox One, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, etc.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance: This is a story-driven, open-world RPG that immerses you in an epic adventure in the Holy Roman Empire. I really got into playing the son of a blacksmith stuck in the middle of a 15th century European war trying to survive a war sparked by siblings after a mercenary army massacres everyone in his town. Available: Steam, Xbox, PS4, etc. Borrow here.
Honorable mentions (I love these games, but I’m trying to find new content): Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 3, The Witcher: Wild Hunt, The Outer Worlds, The Last of Us (Part 1 and Part 2), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Susan B
These are largely on Steam or Nintendo Switch or both (honestly, I’m listing a lot of games, but the most awesome one is Engare):
Games I haven’t played lately but would strongly recommend:
Stardew Valley: Farming/village RPG, has been out about seven years now.
Hades: Rogue-like monster-fighting game, with excellent voice acting / story / music. Borrow here.
Oxygen Not Included: City building game in space.
Heaven’s Vault: An SF narrative RPG (very heavy on conversations and player decisions) game involving translation puzzles, archaeology, levels of privilege, timelines and history. I have not managed to finish it, but it is excellent.
Baba Is You: Puzzle game where you push around nouns and verbs and objects to change the map and the rules until you win. I can’t describe it well but it’s great!
Engare: Ok, Engare is something really different and awesome. It’s a puzzle game where you learn to create geometric patterns with rotating circles, oscillating lines, pendulums, and other moving mechanical elements and you end up with beautiful patterns like in Islamic art and architecture. The game designer and the composer are both Iranian. It’s like advanced spirograph with a relaxing upbeat soundtrack. There’s also a sequel, Tandis, which deals with transformations between 2D and 3D shapes, and I can’t play it for more than a couple of levels before either my brain gets tired or I just grab some paper and pencil and start drawing. Actually, there’s something to be said for a video game that gets you to put down the computer and make stuff.
Nethack: Classic roguelike dungeon crawler from Back In The Day (created 1986). Available free at nethack.org or https://alt.org/nethack/ to play free online!
Caves of Qud: A massive roguelike SF RPG that is still in early access and is massive, story-rich, and difficult to describe succinctly. Sorry!
Dwarf Fortress: Actually, I would dis-recommend this because it can eat your life. It’s a really fun and complex city building and management game with dwarves who you can’t actually make do anything! There is also a solo adventuring mode I haven’t tried, but the one where you’re trying to have a functional dwarven fortress is definitely not something I should start playing again any time soon.
Games that I have been playing lately, mostly early access/in development:
City/base building games:
Wandering Village: (On steam, early access) – Building a city on the back of a giant creature you also have to take care of.
Timberborn: (On steam, early access) – Building a city by beavers, for beavers.
Littlewood: Light farm/village RPG.
Strategy games:
Kingdom Two Crowns: Literally one-dimensional strategy game.
Games my household has been playing lately:
Vampire Survivors: A rogue-lite, shoot-em-up game.
They Are Billions: Zombie-fighting, base-building strategy game.
Splatoon 3: An online team third-person shooter game that’s cute and kid-friendly (you are a bunch of tweenage squid/octopus people who run around shooting ink) and has excellent music. Borrow here.
Animal Crossing: It’s Animal Crossing, you know it. 🙂 Borrow here.
Chicory: Adventure RPG where you are an anthropomorphic dog with a magic paintbrush painting the world and earnestly trying to help your artistic idol who’s fallen into a deep depression. It’s really sweet, and the player and character both get better at painting as you go along.
Subnautica (and sequel Subnautica 2: Below Zero): Base-building, first-person 3D SF RPG where you’re stranded alone on a mostly ocean planet. There’s a lot of plot. Borrow here.
Lee
Sims 2: Quirky, funny, and timeless! Played for years, then stopped and picked it up again during the pandemic.
Sims 2 was released in 2004 and the website is no longer live. Sims 4 is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mac operating systems, and Microsoft Windows.
Stephen
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: A now-classic adventure that brings traditional Zelda flair to a truly massive open world, I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel Tears of the Kingdom in a few months! Available: Nintendo Switch. Borrow here.
Stellaris: A science fiction grand strategy game that allows the player to create and guide an interstellar empire through hundreds of years of galactic exploration, trade, diplomacy, development and war. Available: Steam, Microsoft, Xbox, PS4, etc.
Crusader Kings III: This fascinating strategy game puts you in the shoes of a medieval noble dynasty, navigating a complex web of feudal relationships to grow from the ruler of a petty county to the sovereign of vast empires. Available: Microsoft, Steam, Xbox Series X, PS5, etc.
Battletech: An engaging turn based tactical game set in the universe of a long running tabletop game, the player takes on the role of a starfaring mercenary captain dedicated to restoring a deposed queen in a neofeudal future dominated by giant military robots. Available: PlayStation, Steam, Xbox/Xbox Game Pass, etc.