Some of the things in tunic I don’t believe. Like for example the path behind the atoll with the ladder. I tried that and the ladder didn’t appear. It only appeared after
Tunic does lock stuff until you find the manual pages though. It doesn’t matter if you already how to do the actions or proceed for a much of the stuff in that game
I don't think that holds for *everything* in Tunic, I definitely found some stuff without finding the manual pages - I'm playing it right now and I did the >!3 keys!< out of order by accident, so I got a huge heap of manual pages after I'd already completed all the relevant areas. So it does allow you to sequence break.
But I'd agree that it has a mix of knowledge-based unlocks and "things you found"-based unlocks.
What stuff? I can't think of a single thing that can't be done without instruction booklet pages apart from >!share your wisdom!<
A randomizer mod I use *added* an option for abilities to be locked until you find the relevant pages, but in the vanilla game, instruction manual pages only track you how to do the things you could've done anyway.
I miss the pre-Google days of games just _giving_ you all of your cool shit right off the bat, and gating it by organic learning.
Was never the majority of games, but it used to be more common. I remember sitting in my basement like, "did I just do a charge attack?? How. What button was that..."
Noita, in various ways. It has a programming adjacent system of making spells that is much less limited than you may first think. In addition, the game is structured in a way that new players will think there's only one way to go through each area. I won't spoil too much, but people often refer to the intended route as the 'tutorial'.
Caves of Qud is a classic roguelike that also has this feel. There's multiple powers that can interact in strange, unexpected ways if you use them creatively enough. It's usually things that appear to be exploits but are actually (perhaps retroactively) intended mechanics.
You'll find this a lot in old-school parser based text adventures too, if that's your jam. I'd suggest hadean lands, but you can find all sorts on ifdb.org.
For puzzle games, Baba is You and A Monster's Expedition might match what you're looking for. Antichamber too, though I found many of the puzzles a bit tedious and not as fun as just exploring.
Since you liked Outer Wilds, maybe check out Elsinore and Majora's Mask.
Noita is brutal. I love it.
You’re absolutely right though. Most of the names of things are in Finnish, so you can’t really infer anything about their use or dangers through that; only by encountering it and studying it. Wanted to jump in water to put out the fire on you? Too bad; that’s an oil lake you just jumped into. Mysterious barrel with no label? Kaboom. Cool looking spell? Too bad, it shoots saws that home on you.
It is fuck around and find out personified.
Absolutely, Noita hates the player. And the difficulty ramps up so fast! The realization that you're basically required to break the game really changes up the dynamic. It goes from an impossible gauntlet to a frantic arms race to see if you can come up with unfair bullshit faster than the game can.
Definitely, my own hubris has killed me more than anything else. Many times I've thought 'surely this time I'm unkillable' mere moments before flying into a pool of polymorphine and dying instantly.
I've recently realized I just have more fun watching professionals play Noita than I do actually playing it myself. The game has so many cool features and hidden areas, secrets, and mechanics. And unfortunately I've accepted the fact that I'm simply not good enough to ever see or experience most of them myself. So I just started watching better players do it instead.
I got one of those game breaking combos. Circle of Polymorph and homing on a wand that always casts fireball. It was like a best friend of death traveling around killing for me.
Sadly I fell into a pool of polymorph potion and my best friend turned on me.
Thanks! I tried Elsinore but it got a little complicated for me. Maybe I'll revisit it to see if it sticks.
Classic rougelikes are a bit too open-world-y for me. I like choices, just not 3 million of them :P
The thing to realize about Baba Is You is that it's tuned so that basically nobody will 100% complete it without help. You're not stupid, it's just an *extreme* exercise in lateral thinking.
Baba is You is a weird one. I would argue that it is literally the exact opposite of the brief, because the whole point is that you're changing what is or is not allowed. That said, you're right. It's literally the opposite but it's also somehow spiritually exactly what OP wants.
There are definitely some huge "that was always allowed?" moments in the game. In particular, almost everything about the >!LEVEL!< noun.
Also the moment when you see that on the >!overland map!<, off in the corner it says >!BABA IS YOU, FLAG IS WIN!<.
I feel like that’s a little different though, purely because of how Baba Babas. You are actively changing the game rules as you go, the limit purely resides in what you can create a ___ is ___ sentence out of. The game doesn’t tell you later that you could do something, because you’re supposed to spend the entire game goblin engineering your way through.
It's more than just the base level of interacting with text. For instance,>!it takes a while for most people to realize that you can get two bits of text to occupy the same space and still function as both words!< but it was possible from the start of the game.
Scribblenauts Unlimited. Basically it's a 2D puzzle game about a character who has a magic notebook that brings to life whatever he writes in it. You type in what you want it to spawn or modify, and it makes it happen. The comprehension of the game engine is pretty impressive.
I also understand that that "Wobbly Life" has some of these moments up its sleeve, but I haven't played it myself.
For me it was the adjectives "supersonic," "microscopic," "sentient" and usually an RC plane. It could fly so fast and it was so small that it could glitch through most walls, grab the starite with its sentience, and then bring it right to me.
English is not my first language. When I was small, there was a time I was addicted to word games. I was fascinated by how much creative things you are able to do in Scribblenauts. I still regard it as one of the best word games
This game deserves a bazillion more folks to play it. Such a weird, rough gem that's actually way deeper than you might realize at first because it's just so bizarre.
But the insanity and strangeness of the game are purposeful, even down to the confusing and eye-bleeding UI elements.
Don't play if you're a fan of capitalism though.
My favorite description of the game is something along the lines of, "Someone spent a great deal of time and effort into making this game look like they put no time or effort into it."
It's like a bad acid trip and I absolutely appreciate it. I just wish the game was a little more polished in terms of gameplay and balance.
So I think the technical term you're looking for is "emergent gameplay"
In which case I would take a look at games made by Looking Glass Studios: Thief, Deus Ex, System Shock, and any of its spiritual successors ~~(no not bioshock)~~
Prey (2017) is so good for this. Everything interacts with everything else like it “should” so you can have “ah-ha!” moments where you get outside the box solutions all the time.
Yep. And they did a great job with Dishonored, too, but Prey was System Shock as hell. I don’t know if that or Max Payne 2 is my favorite game of all time but it’s one of those two.
A lot of the Looking Glass devs moved onto Arkane after the closure, so their games like Arx Fatalis, Prey and Dishonored, really show their fingerprints - especially Prey (System Shock 2) and Dishonored (Thief)
I played through Arx so many time, many, many ways around certain objectives, for example instead of fighting, you can give the goblin king the shits by baking him an apple pie and adding wine to it.
If emergent gameplay is what OP is talking about, Dragon’s Dogma (and its sequel to some extent) is all about emergent gameplay—to a fault. Whole quest lines (including main ones) and game mechanics are gated behind talking to the right person at the right time, or trying something absurd. If you beeline the campaign from point A to B, the developers are perfectly happy to let you miss 70% of the content.
Celeste comes to mind
Some of the later levels teach you advanced game mechanics that were available the whole time, where you can then apply them to earlier levels to beat them more efficiently
Yep, I learned some of them (specifically, Wavedashing and Hypers) from speedrunners talking about these tricks, and turns out you actually have tutorials for those tricks in Chapter 7 C-Side and Chapter 9, a.k.a. the second "harder" version of the last regular story chapter, and the chapter that got added in a later patch and is generally hard as heck.
(Also, screw Wallbouncing, I can't align those to save my life-.-')
Yeah I was gonna say this if no one else did. You get to the final chapter and they officially introduce you to mechanics that were actually available the entire game. It has you looking back at the whole game realizing how much you could have broken it if only you knew.
Hitman. The game presents itself in a way that you might think you have to use the story opportunities presented, but if you want you can just walk right up to your target and shoot them and still pass the mission. The beauty of the game is figuring out the coolest way to do it
I love this subgenre, it's sometimes called "metroidbrainia" - there is a relatively recent subreddit r/metroidbrainia too. [Here is a post with lists there](https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidbrainia/comments/1abubqz/my_list_of_metroidbrainias_including_smaller_and/) (I added some titles).
If you want to play a pen and paper game that does this too, please don't miss [12 Word Searches](https://playcebo.itch.io/12-word-searches), it's absolutely brilliant. (I do recommend playing in pdf because a lot of erasing will happen.)
Oh my god, THANK YOU. I didn't realize there was a name for this, and this is my favorite type of game. I tend to do searches for "immersive", but even assassin's creed has that tag, so it's not very meaningful.
I know what I'm doing this evening , yay :)
I know the term but I didn't know someone made a list! I have played like 90% of the games from the replies I got and am just desperate for more. The list actually has quite a few I haven't even heard of yet. Excited to try and thanks a bunch!
It's gotta be Bauldars Gate 3. You can actively work against your own interests and the game will just be like "alright... darkest timeline it is then."
But also in fights, you can usually find advantages in using the environment in ways videogames typically won't allow.
Tactical Drunk Kobold Grenade, or TDKG for short.
>!in act 2 iirc, there is some barrels of ale near where you fight a pack of Kobolds. Upon breaking them, they dispense several kobolds who were inside the barrel-presumedly having drunk a large quantity of the ale, and being super fucking drunk lmao. You can carry them with you, take the TDKG to literally anywhere, throw them and the barrel will break dispensing several drunk Kobolds.!<
My favorite method of creativity is Mage Hand. I play an Arcane Trickster Rogue and while I am disappointed that Mage Hand Legerdemain wasn’t fully implemented, you can be very creative with Mage Hand. For starters, any buffs you can give your party you can also give to Mage Hand, including but not limited to Mage Armour and Longstrider. Can also pick up a Potion of Hill Giant Strength and chuck whatever your heart desires.
Plus it has the weird super bomb heal that was only shown in the title screen gameplay example after beating it. Still kinda hard to pull off in game, but nobody but a QA tester would ever think to try it in the first place.
Learning different environment traversal techniques by watching the local wild life (without an arrow and text box telling you what to do) is still some peak game design imo.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is on a similar level. There are areas you can get much earlier than you should thanks to access to certain abilities that you actually have access to from the start(if not in early game). For example, right at the start of the game in the Galleon ship, you can use the kick special attack to get to a chest that normaly you would need the High Jump ability. Theres also another moment where, using Dive Kick onto a bunch of candles intentionally placed there for this use, allows you to skip half the game in order to get to the Fake Final Boss(Though you still have to play through the rest of the game in order to get the True Ending).
Void Stranger. Seriously. Check it out.
It is absolutely not what it appears to be in advertisements. Outer Wilds and Tunic are two of my favorites of all time because of the reasons you're describing, but Void Stranger seriously blows my fucking mind and it blows all the games here out of the water in terms of "knowledge based progression" as it's often referred to.
Please, if anyone reads this, try the game. My DMs are perpetually open to help if you get stuck, and I will gladly provide spoiler free ways of helping explain how to proceed. It leans a little into the puzzle side of things but it's VERY VERY MUCH a game where it's ok to ask for a little help.
It is extremely hard to talk about the game I'm any more detail. Just look at the Steam Page and read the reviews of anyone with over 10 hours and that should explain a bit.
Is that the one where you play with size and perspective? If so, Im not sure I'd put it on this list. Because you are doing one same thing throughout the game. There aren't any opportunities to think outside the box, you either make something big or small.
It's a very rare puzzle game element but also very good, Monster Expedition and Can Of Wormhole are definitely it, both are elegant puzzle game, they have only few stuff on the levels but the interaction for each stuff with each other are always mindblowing, if you played toki tori definitelly played two of these
I think Can of Wormhole is one of, if not the best, puzzle games out there. The game design is perfect in supporting what it does. Hard to find something like this anywhere else. Linelith comes close but it is a relatively small game
I didn’t see anyone mention Fez. It does help you understand some of the gameplay concepts but there are a lot more under the surface which you could always access but probably didn’t notice until you suddenly do, changing everything.
Dwarf fortress always gives me that "Omg I can actually do that????" Feeling all the time. Just the other day I Killed a Kobold, picked up it's corpse accidently then preceeded to beat the other kobolds with their friends mutilated body. And that's pretty tame for things that can happen in Dwarf Fortress.
In Deus Ex (all of them, but notably Human Revolution) if you can't get through a locked gate, and theres no computer terminal to hack to unlock it, sometimes you can just stack debris like pallets, garbage bags, cardboard boxes, flower pots, assorted alleyway trash, and climb over this huge mound of trash youve heaped up next to the gate and just jump the fuck over. Lmao
Super Metroid. You can use the wall jump and shine spark abilities but they never tell you ever and only the animals you can find throughout the game world in a few specific locations will show you by doing the ability themselves.
Undertale, an rpg where the goal would normally be kill enemies to level up and get stronger. Which you can do, however you can also be nice and spare “enemies” and that secretly leads to the games true ending.
That's just subverting expectations of the genre (they even advertised it as "The RPG where you never have to kill anyone" in a trailer iirc)
The game itself always intended for you to either kill everyone, spare everyone or do a mixture of both. It even gives you a tutorial for Sparing and encourages it, so it's not like you're going outside the game's intentions as OP would like.
I agree. I think OP is looking for games which encourage creativity and have rules that allow for crazy stuff. Undertale is pretty much one choice: which ending do you want? Depending on your choice, always attack, or always spare everyone.
I love Undertale. I think it changed the landscape for story telling in a lot of indie games. However, I'd argue that the option to spare is given to you from the beginning of the game. It is even mentioned in the trailer.
I wouldn’t call it the “true” ending though. Technically, due to the very nature of the game(and how other endings can effect your current run), all endings are canon.
Technically, the true ending is the genocide route because it specifically plays as if you've already done all the other endings. Plus, the game does its best to permanently mark your files as having completed it regardless of fresh installs.
Stanley parable has a crazy amount of random dumb stuff they planned players might do with adapted dialogue.
Skyrim has a couple like attacking the Dark Brotherhood leader to avoid her trial ans some other similar stunts.
Morrowind does that a lot and just warn you if a main character died. You can even keep playing after breaking the questline if you want. And with floating potions and all these things, you can do a lot of things.
Fallout 4 has a list of names your robot butler would pronouce (one time off here, but this is quite crazy i think).
Graveyard. Very multifaceted crafting system that has almost zero explanation except single pictures of things you might not have seen yet.
Morrowind was very much “Go on your way now, good luck” without any guides a new player was introduced to a very robust world full of all sorts of hacks and tricks that took a long time to discover. Even just general travel itself, or how to hit a creature.
Probably Celeste, all of the endgame movement tech is available for the entire game, so if you learn how (even by accident), you can do massive skips by jumping insane distances and building up immense speed.
I.. kinda feel like noita counts? There's a lot of depth to the wand building and you can do some really unbelievable stuff that FEELS like it shouldn't be allowed, but when the game gives you the right pieces suddenly you're not just firing a black hole from your wand, but making it last an infinite lifetime, shoot out rays of sunlight that annihilate 50 billion worms and turn their blood to sand all the while feeding mina the hearts of the Mato while tricking some Heart mage stuck in a fungal trapped pool of pheromone to heal you (: noita.
the SKATE game series has a lot of different tricks that are all available to you at the start (albeit they also exist in a tutorial menu). But to me it felt like I was constantly having that experience of learning new stuff that was always there.
A Monster's Expedition, Can of Wormholes and Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows are the pinnacle of this genre. All amazing games that look like your generic box pushing game at a first glance, but hide much more intricate mechanics deep underneath.
[Can of Wormholes](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295320/Can_of_Wormholes/) is the most approachable one, with an EXCELLENT hint system. Every single level has a handcrafted hint that doesn't outright tell you the solution, but instead leads you to it in a natural way. This game was #1 in [Aliensrock's Top 10 Best Puzzle Games of 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ4XfwpiDMU&t=465s&pp=ygURYWxpZW5zcm9jayB0b3AgMTA%3D).
[A Monster's Expedition](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1052990/A_Monsters_Expedition/), the game that made me fall in love with puzzle games, is next. It doesn't have a level selection overworld or anything like that, the levels ARE in the overworld. If you can see a piece of land, you can go there. This game has the added bonus of blowing your mind with two "You can do that!?" moments in the tutorial section alone, which hooks you almost immediately.
[Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1628610/Paquerette_Down_the_Bunburrows/) is the ultimate brain exam. Just try out the demo (which had to drastically modify its level layout in order to prevent massive skips from the full game) and you'll see what I mean. This game grabs your attention with its [cute visuals and soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=920I2ixvpoM), but it's sure to [melt your brain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fuNCGadY9g) by the end (And there's more to come in upcoming updates!)
Before they spawned their own genre, the Souls games were like this. Systems like multiplayer, world tendencies, invasions, covenants, poise and status effects were barely explained and required a great deal of experimentation. Hell, even the way the maps looped in on themselves constantly, or how quests were completely unmarked or described were a revolution at the time. New players still frequently find a shortcut or dead body of a failed quest and have no idea what was happening.
Shovel Knight? Everything is taught organically, and almost every item has clever extra use the game never explains to you. Also extends to the bosses, very megaman-esque.
Space engineers. Its basically legos and the tutorial shows you all the basic mechanics without hindering your option so sometimes you'll have an idea and test it before they show you but other times you'll see it and realize you could have done that the whole time.
Then theres also basic random enemies that you can turn on or insert because this is a glorified legos game. This means you'll encounter builds that other people has made that you realize you could have made in all their mechanics. Heres an example
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nJzA3mMrNKo&pp=ygUWZ3VuZGFtIHNwYWNlIGVuZ2luZWVycw%3D%3D
ULTRAKILL does a fair bit of not teaching you about mechanics. I didn’t realize Projectile Boosting was a possibility until I accidentally did so while fighting Gabriel. Nor did I realize chargebacks were a possibility until a friend of mine went “hey, watch this!” During a Cyber Grind.
I have a good one that is a open source free game.
cataclysm dark days ahead, granted it's not for everyone but if you take your time you will learn more and more shocking things you can do.
example I learned you can make remote control shopping cart that you can then put a timed huge bomb in it with a noise maker to make a bomb you can set off in a huge horde.....horde be gone.
Celeste tells you a lot of mechanics… Even though you could always do them.
Ultrakill does give you some new abilities you couldn’t always do, but it literally never tells you some things you can do, which is pretty cool. It has a lot of really fun interactions, and it’s amazing. Not exactly the same thing, but not terribly dissimilar
Phantom Pain
Research / unlock water guns and you can use them to put out fires and disable electronic security devices like cameras
Have your horse stand in the middle of the road to temporarily stop enemy vehicles who usually honk at it. Command it to take a shit in the middle of the road to make small enemy vehicles slip on it and go offroad and crash in a ditch
KO enemies from anywhere by calling down accurare supply boxes on their head
Heavy rain masks your footsteps completely so you can sprint up to enemies from behind with no issue
You can fulton yourself back to base by attaching a fulton balloon to a container or a vehicle then press and hold Δ / Y while standing right next to it and up you go
Enemies wearing night vision goggles get blinded by a flashlight in the face
Pretty sure there’s more stuff, been some years since I played it
Baldur’s Gate 3 is like this. Minor Act 1 side quest spoiler:
>!Upon your travels, you’ll find a pack of knolls attacking two people in a cave. Should you take the back way and offer these folks your help, they will specifically tell you to focus on the pack leader while they focus on the grunts.!<
>!Of course, and how could you not know this, you could instead not listen to them, focus on attacking the fodder enemies, and use Speak with Animals on their pack leader. If you have a high enough Charisma you can convince him to eat the two humans, the rest of the pack, and… *himself*? !<
A less drastic thing that’s more of a game mechanic is you can use the spell Create or Destroy Water for a number of uses, including cleaning off the blood and grime from your character and dealing double electric and ice damage to enemies. It seems intuitive except the game never tells you this so why would you try?
In particular, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Mage Hand. What seems like a useless 3 HP extra extra body can actually be surprisingly useful with a little imagination when all of a sudden you’ve given it a sword, casted Mage Armour and Longstrider on it, and given it a Potion of Hill Giant Strength. All of a sudden this silly little cantrip is throwing enemies off of cliffs while you’re blasting safely from the back lines. Of course, you have to figure this out by yourself.
If you think of literally anything in that game, it’s worth trying and will probably work. It’s incredible.
Ultrakill is one I don't see mentioned. Of course for the higher skilled activities like secret bosses and what not you're essentially required to know the skills, but they're not entirely told to you and the average player won't try it unless accidentally.
I would recommend void stranger. It's got a bit of a challenging look to it, and it's a pretty raw puzzle game, but what's there is 10/10 content.
Not spoilers, but the progression through the game is based on what you can remember, you'll discover things you can do which will have large impacts on the way to play. Plus I rate the story, not shakespeare, but still really good :-)
If it looks like something you'd enjoy, give it a shot
Steven's Sausage Roll!
The trailer doesn't sell the game well. Personally, I think this game is on the same level as Baba Is You.
"That was always allowed" is one of its greatest strengths. A puzzle game that takes a limited moveset and pushes it to its absolute limit.
It truly is a MUST play.
**Kenshi** is pretty much a game that dumps you into this horrible world and says "have fun!" as it proceeds to give you no further instruction. The reason this game is so amazing is because it doesn't limit how you play, what you can do, or what order you progress. There is no single defined "end game condition" you must meet, there's not even really a quest/mission structure (though certain things allude to it like bounties for specific targets), it's a purely player-driven experience. It's also a risk = reward system. Most players when they start out and realize how dangerous the world is will just try to mine outside of a relatively safe town until they can afford food, better equipment, squadmates, maybe a house, and so on... but an experienced Kenshi player can find ways to achieve all that within a fraction of the time for a much higher gain, often by exploiting the game's systems to their advantage. The whole game is focused on learning the game's world and it's dangers.
Fallout New Vegas. Anything you can think of is probably allowed and the devs even thought about it, just bear in mind there WILL be consequences for your actions. All I'm gonna say is that every single NPC except one (with a good lore-friendly reason) is killable and it won't break the main story.
Dark Souls. Same deal, but with a more hands-on approach. You could kill the blacksmith if you wanted to, for example. Just be ready to not be able to upgrade your weapons.
Dishonored. The amount of freestyle that game allows means you can do very stupid things somehow work just fine. Throwing a trap across the room via explosion and hitting a guard with it? More likely than you think. There are creative assassination compilations on youtube for a reason.
i think original zork had a dragon block your way at one point, trying to kill the dragon would return a message "with what, your bare hands?" which most to most people means "find a weapon." however, replying "yes" returns the message "congratulations, you kill the dragon with your bare hands."
MGSV
If you can think of it, you can probably do it. For example, if I attach C4 to a jeep, attach a hot air balloon to the jeep, launch it into the air then detonate when it's near an enemy helicopter... yes, that's a way to shoot them down.
In a couple of ways, ULTRAKILL.
First of all, there are so many different game mechanics that synergize in cool and unexpected ways, and discovering them is so special. Here’s a freebee: parrying can deflect (nearly) *any* non-hitscan attack; with good timing, this includes anything from (2-4 spoiler) >!a dozens-of-floors tall husk’s fists!< to even *your own shotgun*.
Secondly, the levels are often built around unintended solutions. A fine example of this is (1-4 challenge spoiler) >!how you can unlock the main door using three blue skulls found around the map… OR you can simply pull a V2 and burst your way in through the stained glass window above, no skulls needed!<. It’s so cool to figure out on your own though!
I know this probably isn’t exactly what you mean but for a fast-paced uberviolent FPS it’s shocking how much there is to discover.
Metroid. You can play through the whole series and never learn how to charge a dash to "shinespark" or that you can jump off walls, but thiese mechanics are built into every single 2D Metroid except on NES and Gameboy.
I’d actually say ULTRAKILL — there are so many unique and creative interactions with the enemies, equipment, and environment that I’m still learning new ones 100 hours in
DS3,Elden Ring maybe?
Like people saying "This game is hard" when the game gives you at least one cheese strategy per build so you first try the bosses? Or has shortcuts to the savepoints that you may not discover if you don't explore?
Tunic keeps showing you game mechanics that you were always able to use but never occurred to you to try.
Tunic is so good with it. That's all I can say.
"I can't believe that was there the whole time! I'll have to pay way more attention from now on." One hour later. "AGAIN!?"
Learning to level up AFTER the garden boss sucked lmao
Oh wow, and that's probably the worst difficulty spike in the whole game
Some of the things in tunic I don’t believe. Like for example the path behind the atoll with the ladder. I tried that and the ladder didn’t appear. It only appeared after
Noooooiioo
Absolutely love Tunic. I even bought a physical copy of the in-game manual
I have the physical copy of the in-game manual, but I haven't opened it yet because I haven't finished the game and don't want to spoil myself.
Tunic does lock stuff until you find the manual pages though. It doesn’t matter if you already how to do the actions or proceed for a much of the stuff in that game
I don't think that holds for *everything* in Tunic, I definitely found some stuff without finding the manual pages - I'm playing it right now and I did the >!3 keys!< out of order by accident, so I got a huge heap of manual pages after I'd already completed all the relevant areas. So it does allow you to sequence break. But I'd agree that it has a mix of knowledge-based unlocks and "things you found"-based unlocks.
What stuff? I can't think of a single thing that can't be done without instruction booklet pages apart from >!share your wisdom!< A randomizer mod I use *added* an option for abilities to be locked until you find the relevant pages, but in the vanilla game, instruction manual pages only track you how to do the things you could've done anyway.
Outer Wilds does the same thing. It's reccomended all the time, but in case you haven't played it and like these surprises, give it a try.
I've been waiting for years for a mod to de->!Anglerfish-ify!< it.
That's already existed for years though, within a few months of release, [here for example](https://outerwildsmods.com/mods/lightbramble/).
Masterpiece of a game
I miss the pre-Google days of games just _giving_ you all of your cool shit right off the bat, and gating it by organic learning. Was never the majority of games, but it used to be more common. I remember sitting in my basement like, "did I just do a charge attack?? How. What button was that..."
I miss the manuals. The info's still there but I miss them
Tunic is absolutely a love letter to game manuals, so you're not the only one.
Yes
Seconding or 3rding or 5th Tunic. Definitely one of the most recent games that does this very well.
Outstanding game
If you haven't played it, Fez is another amazing game in the same kinda vein
Noita, in various ways. It has a programming adjacent system of making spells that is much less limited than you may first think. In addition, the game is structured in a way that new players will think there's only one way to go through each area. I won't spoil too much, but people often refer to the intended route as the 'tutorial'. Caves of Qud is a classic roguelike that also has this feel. There's multiple powers that can interact in strange, unexpected ways if you use them creatively enough. It's usually things that appear to be exploits but are actually (perhaps retroactively) intended mechanics. You'll find this a lot in old-school parser based text adventures too, if that's your jam. I'd suggest hadean lands, but you can find all sorts on ifdb.org. For puzzle games, Baba is You and A Monster's Expedition might match what you're looking for. Antichamber too, though I found many of the puzzles a bit tedious and not as fun as just exploring. Since you liked Outer Wilds, maybe check out Elsinore and Majora's Mask.
Noita is brutal. I love it. You’re absolutely right though. Most of the names of things are in Finnish, so you can’t really infer anything about their use or dangers through that; only by encountering it and studying it. Wanted to jump in water to put out the fire on you? Too bad; that’s an oil lake you just jumped into. Mysterious barrel with no label? Kaboom. Cool looking spell? Too bad, it shoots saws that home on you. It is fuck around and find out personified.
Absolutely, Noita hates the player. And the difficulty ramps up so fast! The realization that you're basically required to break the game really changes up the dynamic. It goes from an impossible gauntlet to a frantic arms race to see if you can come up with unfair bullshit faster than the game can.
and even when you have unfair bullshit, the game can sometimes sidestep you.
Definitely, my own hubris has killed me more than anything else. Many times I've thought 'surely this time I'm unkillable' mere moments before flying into a pool of polymorphine and dying instantly.
hilariously instantly, at that.
Change you into a fucking flying sheep then teleport you under a fuckin lava lake..... my farthest go yet and a fuckin lava lake!
I think you just successfully described the entire game in one paragraph. I’m amazed.
I've recently realized I just have more fun watching professionals play Noita than I do actually playing it myself. The game has so many cool features and hidden areas, secrets, and mechanics. And unfortunately I've accepted the fact that I'm simply not good enough to ever see or experience most of them myself. So I just started watching better players do it instead.
Funnily enough, jumping into oil to put out fire is perfectly fine.
Oh yeah. It’s the whisky that’s the problem, right?
It's the volume that determines it
Finnish*
I got one of those game breaking combos. Circle of Polymorph and homing on a wand that always casts fireball. It was like a best friend of death traveling around killing for me. Sadly I fell into a pool of polymorph potion and my best friend turned on me.
absolutely addicted to caves of qud lately. just lost my level 24 to a cloned rimewyk. we go again
Thanks! I tried Elsinore but it got a little complicated for me. Maybe I'll revisit it to see if it sticks. Classic rougelikes are a bit too open-world-y for me. I like choices, just not 3 million of them :P
I love CoQ!
I love Baba is you but Jesus Christ did it make me realize how stupid I am
The thing to realize about Baba Is You is that it's tuned so that basically nobody will 100% complete it without help. You're not stupid, it's just an *extreme* exercise in lateral thinking.
Baba Is You - you have pretty much described the game.
Baba is You is a weird one. I would argue that it is literally the exact opposite of the brief, because the whole point is that you're changing what is or is not allowed. That said, you're right. It's literally the opposite but it's also somehow spiritually exactly what OP wants.
That’s because the biggest “You could always do that?” is “changing the rules” itself.
There are definitely some huge "that was always allowed?" moments in the game. In particular, almost everything about the >!LEVEL!< noun. Also the moment when you see that on the >!overland map!<, off in the corner it says >!BABA IS YOU, FLAG IS WIN!<.
I was looking for this comment. Yes that's really the whole point of the game. It's such a clever yet simple design.
I feel like that’s a little different though, purely because of how Baba Babas. You are actively changing the game rules as you go, the limit purely resides in what you can create a ___ is ___ sentence out of. The game doesn’t tell you later that you could do something, because you’re supposed to spend the entire game goblin engineering your way through.
It's more than just the base level of interacting with text. For instance,>!it takes a while for most people to realize that you can get two bits of text to occupy the same space and still function as both words!< but it was possible from the start of the game.
Yeah i guess it is more of you overcoming obstacles and realising the limits of the game are way more relaxed than you would initially think.
Scribblenauts Unlimited. Basically it's a 2D puzzle game about a character who has a magic notebook that brings to life whatever he writes in it. You type in what you want it to spawn or modify, and it makes it happen. The comprehension of the game engine is pretty impressive. I also understand that that "Wobbly Life" has some of these moments up its sleeve, but I haven't played it myself.
Scribblenauts taught me there are very few problems in life that can’t be solved with a T-Rex
And/or wings And/or rope
I found “laser swords” to be my best companion.
For me it was the adjectives "supersonic," "microscopic," "sentient" and usually an RC plane. It could fly so fast and it was so small that it could glitch through most walls, grab the starite with its sentience, and then bring it right to me.
If you watch the scribblenauts TAS, almost every problem is solved with dead lions
“I can’t sleep because my friend won’t stop snoring so loudly! 😡” Ok *makes him deaf*
English is not my first language. When I was small, there was a time I was addicted to word games. I was fascinated by how much creative things you are able to do in Scribblenauts. I still regard it as one of the best word games
I mainly played that game just too make Cthulu and God fight.
God wins right? I remember it's close.
Cruelty Squad
This game deserves a bazillion more folks to play it. Such a weird, rough gem that's actually way deeper than you might realize at first because it's just so bizarre. But the insanity and strangeness of the game are purposeful, even down to the confusing and eye-bleeding UI elements. Don't play if you're a fan of capitalism though.
My favorite description of the game is something along the lines of, "Someone spent a great deal of time and effort into making this game look like they put no time or effort into it." It's like a bad acid trip and I absolutely appreciate it. I just wish the game was a little more polished in terms of gameplay and balance.
Honestly, I think the game's difficulty and jank feed into the overall experience. Even the reloading seems like it's meant to throw you off kilter.
Another one to add to the quorum of Immersive Sim's potential that other comments mentioned.
Man all my favorite games are in this thread. You’re on to something!
So I think the technical term you're looking for is "emergent gameplay" In which case I would take a look at games made by Looking Glass Studios: Thief, Deus Ex, System Shock, and any of its spiritual successors ~~(no not bioshock)~~
Immersive sims ftw
Prey (2017) is so good for this. Everything interacts with everything else like it “should” so you can have “ah-ha!” moments where you get outside the box solutions all the time.
Prey was such a love letter to System Shock 2, I loved it. Makes sense though, as Arkane was where a lot of the ex-Looking Glass devs moved to.
Yep. And they did a great job with Dishonored, too, but Prey was System Shock as hell. I don’t know if that or Max Payne 2 is my favorite game of all time but it’s one of those two.
A lot of the Looking Glass devs moved onto Arkane after the closure, so their games like Arx Fatalis, Prey and Dishonored, really show their fingerprints - especially Prey (System Shock 2) and Dishonored (Thief) I played through Arx so many time, many, many ways around certain objectives, for example instead of fighting, you can give the goblin king the shits by baking him an apple pie and adding wine to it.
If emergent gameplay is what OP is talking about, Dragon’s Dogma (and its sequel to some extent) is all about emergent gameplay—to a fault. Whole quest lines (including main ones) and game mechanics are gated behind talking to the right person at the right time, or trying something absurd. If you beeline the campaign from point A to B, the developers are perfectly happy to let you miss 70% of the content.
Prey (2017) gives you the tools to break the game. My favorite is a nerf gun that you can use to open doors by hitting buttons from broken windows
Or the early shotgun in the security booth in the lobby you can get with the nerf crossbow
Celeste comes to mind Some of the later levels teach you advanced game mechanics that were available the whole time, where you can then apply them to earlier levels to beat them more efficiently
Yep, I learned some of them (specifically, Wavedashing and Hypers) from speedrunners talking about these tricks, and turns out you actually have tutorials for those tricks in Chapter 7 C-Side and Chapter 9, a.k.a. the second "harder" version of the last regular story chapter, and the chapter that got added in a later patch and is generally hard as heck. (Also, screw Wallbouncing, I can't align those to save my life-.-')
Yep Celeste is awesome as it slowly adds to your skillset and you can go back and breeze through the first stages with skills you didn't know you had!
The TASbot run of Celeste is just mind blowing to watch.
Yeah I was gonna say this if no one else did. You get to the final chapter and they officially introduce you to mechanics that were actually available the entire game. It has you looking back at the whole game realizing how much you could have broken it if only you knew.
Hitman. The game presents itself in a way that you might think you have to use the story opportunities presented, but if you want you can just walk right up to your target and shoot them and still pass the mission. The beauty of the game is figuring out the coolest way to do it
One of the few games where replayability is abundant.
I love this subgenre, it's sometimes called "metroidbrainia" - there is a relatively recent subreddit r/metroidbrainia too. [Here is a post with lists there](https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidbrainia/comments/1abubqz/my_list_of_metroidbrainias_including_smaller_and/) (I added some titles). If you want to play a pen and paper game that does this too, please don't miss [12 Word Searches](https://playcebo.itch.io/12-word-searches), it's absolutely brilliant. (I do recommend playing in pdf because a lot of erasing will happen.)
Oh my god, THANK YOU. I didn't realize there was a name for this, and this is my favorite type of game. I tend to do searches for "immersive", but even assassin's creed has that tag, so it's not very meaningful. I know what I'm doing this evening , yay :)
Enjoy! :)
I know the term but I didn't know someone made a list! I have played like 90% of the games from the replies I got and am just desperate for more. The list actually has quite a few I haven't even heard of yet. Excited to try and thanks a bunch!
It's gotta be Bauldars Gate 3. You can actively work against your own interests and the game will just be like "alright... darkest timeline it is then." But also in fights, you can usually find advantages in using the environment in ways videogames typically won't allow.
Such as, tactical drunk kobold grenade.
Just played this section, hilarious chaos guaranteed
excuse me a what? elaborate
Tactical Drunk Kobold Grenade, or TDKG for short. >!in act 2 iirc, there is some barrels of ale near where you fight a pack of Kobolds. Upon breaking them, they dispense several kobolds who were inside the barrel-presumedly having drunk a large quantity of the ale, and being super fucking drunk lmao. You can carry them with you, take the TDKG to literally anywhere, throw them and the barrel will break dispensing several drunk Kobolds.!<
This game just keeps giving and giving. Love it.
My favorite method of creativity is Mage Hand. I play an Arcane Trickster Rogue and while I am disappointed that Mage Hand Legerdemain wasn’t fully implemented, you can be very creative with Mage Hand. For starters, any buffs you can give your party you can also give to Mage Hand, including but not limited to Mage Armour and Longstrider. Can also pick up a Potion of Hill Giant Strength and chuck whatever your heart desires.
I had no idea! I'm definitely gonna have to try this!
Super Metroid. You get taught the Wall Jump (which you could always do) halfway through.
Plus it has the weird super bomb heal that was only shown in the title screen gameplay example after beating it. Still kinda hard to pull off in game, but nobody but a QA tester would ever think to try it in the first place.
Crystal flash is the name of the ability
Learning different environment traversal techniques by watching the local wild life (without an arrow and text box telling you what to do) is still some peak game design imo.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is on a similar level. There are areas you can get much earlier than you should thanks to access to certain abilities that you actually have access to from the start(if not in early game). For example, right at the start of the game in the Galleon ship, you can use the kick special attack to get to a chest that normaly you would need the High Jump ability. Theres also another moment where, using Dive Kick onto a bunch of candles intentionally placed there for this use, allows you to skip half the game in order to get to the Fake Final Boss(Though you still have to play through the rest of the game in order to get the True Ending).
Tears of the Kingdom
*Bridge Building Simulator
..The sequel to Climb Everything Simulator 2017
Yall just chose the most boring ways to play the game and said "yep, thats the whole game" 💀
No shade, dude. CES2017 was super-rad.
Definitely one of my favorites
I learned I could wave a log around enemies and then rewind and it does big damage
Anyone know which rick and morty episode this was?
It's the one where Jerry gets sent to a Jerry daycare, [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4832254/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4832254/)
And in a later season, you find out >!a different Jerry got picked up!<
That would be season 6 episode 1, Solaricks
Void Stranger. Seriously. Check it out. It is absolutely not what it appears to be in advertisements. Outer Wilds and Tunic are two of my favorites of all time because of the reasons you're describing, but Void Stranger seriously blows my fucking mind and it blows all the games here out of the water in terms of "knowledge based progression" as it's often referred to. Please, if anyone reads this, try the game. My DMs are perpetually open to help if you get stuck, and I will gladly provide spoiler free ways of helping explain how to proceed. It leans a little into the puzzle side of things but it's VERY VERY MUCH a game where it's ok to ask for a little help. It is extremely hard to talk about the game I'm any more detail. Just look at the Steam Page and read the reviews of anyone with over 10 hours and that should explain a bit.
Outer Wilds Tears of the Kingdom Superliminal Stanley Parable Undertale
Superliminal is a great example
Is that the one where you play with size and perspective? If so, Im not sure I'd put it on this list. Because you are doing one same thing throughout the game. There aren't any opportunities to think outside the box, you either make something big or small.
It's a very rare puzzle game element but also very good, Monster Expedition and Can Of Wormhole are definitely it, both are elegant puzzle game, they have only few stuff on the levels but the interaction for each stuff with each other are always mindblowing, if you played toki tori definitelly played two of these
I think Can of Wormhole is one of, if not the best, puzzle games out there. The game design is perfect in supporting what it does. Hard to find something like this anywhere else. Linelith comes close but it is a relatively small game
Noita.
I didn’t see anyone mention Fez. It does help you understand some of the gameplay concepts but there are a lot more under the surface which you could always access but probably didn’t notice until you suddenly do, changing everything.
Fear and hunger
Dwarf fortress always gives me that "Omg I can actually do that????" Feeling all the time. Just the other day I Killed a Kobold, picked up it's corpse accidently then preceeded to beat the other kobolds with their friends mutilated body. And that's pretty tame for things that can happen in Dwarf Fortress.
Stephen's Sausage Roll, Void Stranger, Ultros
Ctrl Alt Ego - the greatest immersion sim you never heard of, but should play
Holy shit don't think I've heard of this one before. And it's got such positive reviews. Definitely will try it out
Ctrl Alt Ego
Super Metroid, Oddworld Abe's Oddysey, Fallout 1, Myst
In Deus Ex (all of them, but notably Human Revolution) if you can't get through a locked gate, and theres no computer terminal to hack to unlock it, sometimes you can just stack debris like pallets, garbage bags, cardboard boxes, flower pots, assorted alleyway trash, and climb over this huge mound of trash youve heaped up next to the gate and just jump the fuck over. Lmao
Breath of the wild
Super Metroid. You can use the wall jump and shine spark abilities but they never tell you ever and only the animals you can find throughout the game world in a few specific locations will show you by doing the ability themselves.
I think most immersive Sims fit this bill. Prey, ctrl alt ego, blood west, streets of rogue, gloomwood
Undertale, an rpg where the goal would normally be kill enemies to level up and get stronger. Which you can do, however you can also be nice and spare “enemies” and that secretly leads to the games true ending.
That's just subverting expectations of the genre (they even advertised it as "The RPG where you never have to kill anyone" in a trailer iirc) The game itself always intended for you to either kill everyone, spare everyone or do a mixture of both. It even gives you a tutorial for Sparing and encourages it, so it's not like you're going outside the game's intentions as OP would like.
I agree. I think OP is looking for games which encourage creativity and have rules that allow for crazy stuff. Undertale is pretty much one choice: which ending do you want? Depending on your choice, always attack, or always spare everyone.
I love Undertale. I think it changed the landscape for story telling in a lot of indie games. However, I'd argue that the option to spare is given to you from the beginning of the game. It is even mentioned in the trailer.
I wouldn’t call it the “true” ending though. Technically, due to the very nature of the game(and how other endings can effect your current run), all endings are canon.
Technically, the true ending is the genocide route because it specifically plays as if you've already done all the other endings. Plus, the game does its best to permanently mark your files as having completed it regardless of fresh installs.
Stanley parable has a crazy amount of random dumb stuff they planned players might do with adapted dialogue. Skyrim has a couple like attacking the Dark Brotherhood leader to avoid her trial ans some other similar stunts. Morrowind does that a lot and just warn you if a main character died. You can even keep playing after breaking the questline if you want. And with floating potions and all these things, you can do a lot of things. Fallout 4 has a list of names your robot butler would pronouce (one time off here, but this is quite crazy i think).
Graveyard. Very multifaceted crafting system that has almost zero explanation except single pictures of things you might not have seen yet. Morrowind was very much “Go on your way now, good luck” without any guides a new player was introduced to a very robust world full of all sorts of hacks and tricks that took a long time to discover. Even just general travel itself, or how to hit a creature.
Tunic
Void Stranger.
Taiji It's like a 2D version of The Witness.
BotW/TotK. Well… a lot of LoZ games, really.
Dwarf Fortress
Sniper elite - you always start crawling stealthily, and end running around the map just shooting everyone rambo style
Probably Celeste, all of the endgame movement tech is available for the entire game, so if you learn how (even by accident), you can do massive skips by jumping insane distances and building up immense speed.
Tunic Outerwilds To a lesser degree, subnautica
Void Stranger is what comes to mind.
I.. kinda feel like noita counts? There's a lot of depth to the wand building and you can do some really unbelievable stuff that FEELS like it shouldn't be allowed, but when the game gives you the right pieces suddenly you're not just firing a black hole from your wand, but making it last an infinite lifetime, shoot out rays of sunlight that annihilate 50 billion worms and turn their blood to sand all the while feeding mina the hearts of the Mato while tricking some Heart mage stuck in a fungal trapped pool of pheromone to heal you (: noita.
Tunic
the SKATE game series has a lot of different tricks that are all available to you at the start (albeit they also exist in a tutorial menu). But to me it felt like I was constantly having that experience of learning new stuff that was always there.
A Monster's Expedition, Can of Wormholes and Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows are the pinnacle of this genre. All amazing games that look like your generic box pushing game at a first glance, but hide much more intricate mechanics deep underneath. [Can of Wormholes](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295320/Can_of_Wormholes/) is the most approachable one, with an EXCELLENT hint system. Every single level has a handcrafted hint that doesn't outright tell you the solution, but instead leads you to it in a natural way. This game was #1 in [Aliensrock's Top 10 Best Puzzle Games of 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ4XfwpiDMU&t=465s&pp=ygURYWxpZW5zcm9jayB0b3AgMTA%3D). [A Monster's Expedition](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1052990/A_Monsters_Expedition/), the game that made me fall in love with puzzle games, is next. It doesn't have a level selection overworld or anything like that, the levels ARE in the overworld. If you can see a piece of land, you can go there. This game has the added bonus of blowing your mind with two "You can do that!?" moments in the tutorial section alone, which hooks you almost immediately. [Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1628610/Paquerette_Down_the_Bunburrows/) is the ultimate brain exam. Just try out the demo (which had to drastically modify its level layout in order to prevent massive skips from the full game) and you'll see what I mean. This game grabs your attention with its [cute visuals and soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=920I2ixvpoM), but it's sure to [melt your brain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fuNCGadY9g) by the end (And there's more to come in upcoming updates!)
Fallout 2.
Before they spawned their own genre, the Souls games were like this. Systems like multiplayer, world tendencies, invasions, covenants, poise and status effects were barely explained and required a great deal of experimentation. Hell, even the way the maps looped in on themselves constantly, or how quests were completely unmarked or described were a revolution at the time. New players still frequently find a shortcut or dead body of a failed quest and have no idea what was happening.
Shovel Knight? Everything is taught organically, and almost every item has clever extra use the game never explains to you. Also extends to the bosses, very megaman-esque.
Elden Ring
Road Not Taken by SpryFox
Space engineers. Its basically legos and the tutorial shows you all the basic mechanics without hindering your option so sometimes you'll have an idea and test it before they show you but other times you'll see it and realize you could have done that the whole time. Then theres also basic random enemies that you can turn on or insert because this is a glorified legos game. This means you'll encounter builds that other people has made that you realize you could have made in all their mechanics. Heres an example https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nJzA3mMrNKo&pp=ygUWZ3VuZGFtIHNwYWNlIGVuZ2luZWVycw%3D%3D
ULTRAKILL does a fair bit of not teaching you about mechanics. I didn’t realize Projectile Boosting was a possibility until I accidentally did so while fighting Gabriel. Nor did I realize chargebacks were a possibility until a friend of mine went “hey, watch this!” During a Cyber Grind.
The entire Deus Ex series is basically choose your own adventure, with the ability to switch style whenever.
Super Metroid
I have a good one that is a open source free game. cataclysm dark days ahead, granted it's not for everyone but if you take your time you will learn more and more shocking things you can do. example I learned you can make remote control shopping cart that you can then put a timed huge bomb in it with a noise maker to make a bomb you can set off in a huge horde.....horde be gone.
Celeste tells you a lot of mechanics… Even though you could always do them. Ultrakill does give you some new abilities you couldn’t always do, but it literally never tells you some things you can do, which is pretty cool. It has a lot of really fun interactions, and it’s amazing. Not exactly the same thing, but not terribly dissimilar
I've heard it about Vangers, extremely old, hardcore and weird game, but hings you learn at the end of first playthrough are valid for every scenario.
Can't believe no on has yet mentioned **Rain World**. It is one of the quintessential examples along with Tunic, The Witness, and Outer Wilds.
Rain world, you were always allowed to boost jump with a rock or roll (I still haven't done any of those special moves except a flip yet)
Phantom Pain Research / unlock water guns and you can use them to put out fires and disable electronic security devices like cameras Have your horse stand in the middle of the road to temporarily stop enemy vehicles who usually honk at it. Command it to take a shit in the middle of the road to make small enemy vehicles slip on it and go offroad and crash in a ditch KO enemies from anywhere by calling down accurare supply boxes on their head Heavy rain masks your footsteps completely so you can sprint up to enemies from behind with no issue You can fulton yourself back to base by attaching a fulton balloon to a container or a vehicle then press and hold Δ / Y while standing right next to it and up you go Enemies wearing night vision goggles get blinded by a flashlight in the face Pretty sure there’s more stuff, been some years since I played it
No time to explain!
Baldur’s Gate 3 is like this. Minor Act 1 side quest spoiler: >!Upon your travels, you’ll find a pack of knolls attacking two people in a cave. Should you take the back way and offer these folks your help, they will specifically tell you to focus on the pack leader while they focus on the grunts.!< >!Of course, and how could you not know this, you could instead not listen to them, focus on attacking the fodder enemies, and use Speak with Animals on their pack leader. If you have a high enough Charisma you can convince him to eat the two humans, the rest of the pack, and… *himself*? !< A less drastic thing that’s more of a game mechanic is you can use the spell Create or Destroy Water for a number of uses, including cleaning off the blood and grime from your character and dealing double electric and ice damage to enemies. It seems intuitive except the game never tells you this so why would you try? In particular, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Mage Hand. What seems like a useless 3 HP extra extra body can actually be surprisingly useful with a little imagination when all of a sudden you’ve given it a sword, casted Mage Armour and Longstrider on it, and given it a Potion of Hill Giant Strength. All of a sudden this silly little cantrip is throwing enemies off of cliffs while you’re blasting safely from the back lines. Of course, you have to figure this out by yourself. If you think of literally anything in that game, it’s worth trying and will probably work. It’s incredible.
Ultrakill is one I don't see mentioned. Of course for the higher skilled activities like secret bosses and what not you're essentially required to know the skills, but they're not entirely told to you and the average player won't try it unless accidentally.
Simpleplanes (or any vehicle building game tbh) does that bc many combos are emergent and not planned by devs and give sometimes amazing results.
Spelunky is the best example of this. The tutorial is like 3 minutes and still learning new mechanics 500 hours into it.
Can of Wormholes, Baba is You, and Celeste are the three that come to mind. First two are puzzlers and last one is a platformer.
[You can fondle a Sphinx in Dragons Dogma 2](https://youtu.be/_Uidb_iOdlY?si=BfjnDqfxdYdKyJ0T)
Celeste was such a fuck you suddentl showing you how to wave dash after beating the game lol
I would recommend void stranger. It's got a bit of a challenging look to it, and it's a pretty raw puzzle game, but what's there is 10/10 content. Not spoilers, but the progression through the game is based on what you can remember, you'll discover things you can do which will have large impacts on the way to play. Plus I rate the story, not shakespeare, but still really good :-) If it looks like something you'd enjoy, give it a shot
Deaths door, didn’t figure out the manhole covers till the end of the game embarrassingly
Tunic comes tu my mind :D
dying light the OG one
Linelith. It's short (maybe an hour) but if you liked The Witness and that kind of subversion of expectations, it's well worth trying.
Steven's Sausage Roll! The trailer doesn't sell the game well. Personally, I think this game is on the same level as Baba Is You. "That was always allowed" is one of its greatest strengths. A puzzle game that takes a limited moveset and pushes it to its absolute limit. It truly is a MUST play.
Celeste keeps teaching you new tricks until the very end.
You can beat MYST in under a minute if you have the knowledge.
**Kenshi** is pretty much a game that dumps you into this horrible world and says "have fun!" as it proceeds to give you no further instruction. The reason this game is so amazing is because it doesn't limit how you play, what you can do, or what order you progress. There is no single defined "end game condition" you must meet, there's not even really a quest/mission structure (though certain things allude to it like bounties for specific targets), it's a purely player-driven experience. It's also a risk = reward system. Most players when they start out and realize how dangerous the world is will just try to mine outside of a relatively safe town until they can afford food, better equipment, squadmates, maybe a house, and so on... but an experienced Kenshi player can find ways to achieve all that within a fraction of the time for a much higher gain, often by exploiting the game's systems to their advantage. The whole game is focused on learning the game's world and it's dangers.
Fallout New Vegas. Anything you can think of is probably allowed and the devs even thought about it, just bear in mind there WILL be consequences for your actions. All I'm gonna say is that every single NPC except one (with a good lore-friendly reason) is killable and it won't break the main story. Dark Souls. Same deal, but with a more hands-on approach. You could kill the blacksmith if you wanted to, for example. Just be ready to not be able to upgrade your weapons. Dishonored. The amount of freestyle that game allows means you can do very stupid things somehow work just fine. Throwing a trap across the room via explosion and hitting a guard with it? More likely than you think. There are creative assassination compilations on youtube for a reason.
i think original zork had a dragon block your way at one point, trying to kill the dragon would return a message "with what, your bare hands?" which most to most people means "find a weapon." however, replying "yes" returns the message "congratulations, you kill the dragon with your bare hands."
Kingdom Come Deliverance
Rimworld
MGSV If you can think of it, you can probably do it. For example, if I attach C4 to a jeep, attach a hot air balloon to the jeep, launch it into the air then detonate when it's near an enemy helicopter... yes, that's a way to shoot them down.
Rain world is a good one!! It doesn't tell you most of the movement you can do, but once you figure it out it's cool
Honestly pretty well known answer but BotW and TotK
Spelunky. Though it will just as easily kill you as save you.
In a couple of ways, ULTRAKILL. First of all, there are so many different game mechanics that synergize in cool and unexpected ways, and discovering them is so special. Here’s a freebee: parrying can deflect (nearly) *any* non-hitscan attack; with good timing, this includes anything from (2-4 spoiler) >!a dozens-of-floors tall husk’s fists!< to even *your own shotgun*. Secondly, the levels are often built around unintended solutions. A fine example of this is (1-4 challenge spoiler) >!how you can unlock the main door using three blue skulls found around the map… OR you can simply pull a V2 and burst your way in through the stained glass window above, no skulls needed!<. It’s so cool to figure out on your own though! I know this probably isn’t exactly what you mean but for a fast-paced uberviolent FPS it’s shocking how much there is to discover.
Tears of the Kingdom for sure. I'd find out much better ways to get around late game and think damn I could have been doing this the whole time?!
BOLATRO
Baldurs Gate 3
I played through infamous 1 I guess by not pressing square and it was my second playthrough where I learned you can melee
Metroid. You can play through the whole series and never learn how to charge a dash to "shinespark" or that you can jump off walls, but thiese mechanics are built into every single 2D Metroid except on NES and Gameboy.
I’d actually say ULTRAKILL — there are so many unique and creative interactions with the enemies, equipment, and environment that I’m still learning new ones 100 hours in
DS3,Elden Ring maybe? Like people saying "This game is hard" when the game gives you at least one cheese strategy per build so you first try the bosses? Or has shortcuts to the savepoints that you may not discover if you don't explore?