Play these they're good

ooooh you wanna play them so badddd

• Inscryption

  Extremely replayable card game with a lot of weird stuff going on. Go in blind! Trust me on this one I was obsessed with it for like two months straight. Still am, a bit.

• The Pathless

  Explore, solve puzzles, go extremely fast. Really cool main villain, lore hidden all over the world Dark Souls style, and a very fun open world. You have a bow, the reincarnation of a newly-dead eagle goddess, and a plan. The soundtrack and the little details of the island paint a vivid picture of the culture that existed until recently. This game feels like home, in a weird way.

• Mindscanners

  This game seems to have gotten very little attention for some reason, but it's worth it. You're a psychiatrist in what I would describe as a hypercapitalist cyberpunk dystopia. Cyberpunk games are usually about the same stuff, but this one in particular is more about psychiatry as an institution. The government stole your kid because she keeps doing weird shit with her brain. You can only get your kid back if you become a professional shrink and cozy up to the government enough to see her. The people you treat on the way are becoming unprofitable, but if you don't treat them fast enough you'll run out of money and be kicked out into the wastes yourself. It's mostly dialogue and minigames, but they're oddly engrossing and you end up connecting to a lot of the people you meet. (I, for one, connected to the speaker drone.)

• The Stanley Parable

  One of the games I was obsessed with in high school. The Narrator is my friend and I love him. Just you, a man named Stanley, and a weird guy in the ceiling somewhere who keeps giving you orders in order to tell you a story. There has to be a story.

• Owlboy

  Beautiful, beautiful game. It has pirates, it has ancient technology, it has a bunch of characters that make me froth at the mouth with thoughts and opinions and analyses. The soundtrack is gorgeous, and all of the gameplay was obviously well thought out.

• The Hex

  Six video game characters walk into a bar. Someone dies. Another one you should go in blind for.

• Pony Island

  This game had an Effect on me in high school, awakening me to a love of a certain character type. Doesn't look like much, but its fun and not too long.

• Wandersong

  You're a little guy of indeterminate gender trying to sing so the goddess who created your world doesn't destroy it and start over. Makes me cry.

• Portal/Portal 2

  First Portal is really good. Second Portal? A masterpiece. It's Portal, dude. It has a really crunchy soundtrack and extremely lovable robot enemies/friends(?). For some reason when I played it as a teen I became better at math immediately, despite my lack of studying and the game not containing math whatsoever. It's physics puzzles. A lot of them!! And getting insulted! I love GLaDOS. A lot.

• Destiny 2

  Play the first one if you can I guess (I haven't been able to ;-;) but despite the grindiness of it (being an MMORPG and all) it's delicious. Incredible volumes of lore, complex characters, and a constant stream of one of the most interesting stories I've ever played. The combat is fun and fast, making you feel powerful without making it too easy. The playerbase is oddly nice, too. (Possibly because almost no one actually uses the chats. Nearly everyone communicates by shooting at things they want you to look at, crouching, and emotes.)

• Borderlands 2

  Another high school favorite. It's grungy, silly, and has kinda dated humor, but its cozy. Fun guns, lots to kill, and my little man Claptrap.

• Just Shapes and Beats

  Makes me cry, for some reason? I still listen to the soundtrack on a near daily basis. It's a fun, bright rhythm/bullet hell game full of loud EDM and fun bosses.

• Undertale

  Undertale.

• Psychonauts/Psychonauts 2

  Funky as hell collecathon platformer. I remember reading about it in Game Informer when I was a kid, and then I finally got to play it in high school, and then I spent over a year patiently waiting for the second one once I was an adult. A cast of weird guys, some odd humor, and fun level design. You remember it for its looks and guys as much as you do the gameplay.

• Ultrakill

  Kill kill kill bite bite stab punch punch punch snarl kill bite shoot shoots hsotos

  Jump a lot. Shotgun a lot. Go really fast and destroy things like a wild animal. But you're a robot in hell punching a giant asshole with a sword so much he gets angry and goes twice as fast. The soundtrack is half gentle classical music, half breakcore.

• Inch by Inch

  A short one, but it appeals to my interests specifically (those interests being mad science experiments and being shrunk). You accidentally shrink yourself and have to come up with the antidote before you're too small to do anything and disappear. I figured out how to use a mug to super jump up to the ceiling in this one. It's fun to be a tiny little guy in a room interacting with giant objects and I wish there were more games like this.

The Nintendo (and HAL) Game Section

• Super Paper Mario

  Incredible story. The gameplay is pretty standard, but the story is etched into my brain forever. I still think about it at least weekly.

• Every Single Kirby Game.

  All of them. Any of them! Take your pick tbh. They're all good. I haven't played every single one (yet) but the fundamentals are the same from game to game, and the fundamentals are Solid. But especially Triple Deluxe, Star Allies, and Forgotten Land. Nightmare in Dreamland has a soft spot in my heart as well.