Tell Me A Story
2022 has been an absolute stellar year for stories within games. Whether it’s hard hitting tales with great prose, experimental narratives with branching choices or poignant fiction meant to tug at your heartstrings, this year has it all - with quality writing that just continues to improve even further as the medium matures. And whadaya know - indie games are at the vanguard of the best storytelling in all of games.
Eyes Over Us
Tell me this isn’t a hell of an intriguing pitch: "Eyes Over Us is a surreal procedurally generated narrative strategy game were you will play as a Lovecraftian entity watching over two humans being experimented with.” a fascinating narrative game using the visual novel form in novel ways.
NORCO
A text based point and click based in a “surreal and distorted Louisiana”. Cutting edge narrative of the highest degree, easily one of the best and most evocative narrative fiction games just about ever, sitting right up there with the likes of Disco Elysium and Kentucky Route Zero.
Roadwarden
A text based RPG with just the right amount of extra flourish, thanks to its gorgeous pixel art and slight adventure game mechanics. You are the road warden, the traveler who walks the dangerous roads, trying to help local folk survive in this grim reality.
Citizen Sleeper
Jump Over The Age proving that sophomore efforts can absolutely blow you out of the water, this space station cyberpunk dystopia from the creator of In Other Waters is not one to miss. We’re even getting free episode content drops!
A Story Beside
Spend a lifetime as the innkeeper in a quiet mountain village, reflecting upon "a lifetime of poignant memories, heartwarming friendships, and bittersweet choices”. with inspiration from Life is Strange and To The Moon, you can’t go wrong.
Wayward Strand
An absolute brilliant narrative game set on a fantasy blimp off the coast of Australia. Set across a 3 day period, the story runs at a set schedule all across the ship regardless of your presence. You can read my full thoughts here, but in short - an absolute must play.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
A fascinating narrative RPG with a deck building element, where your cards are based around your memories and experiences. A clever take on choice based mechanics, with more than a few twists tied in.
Card Cowboy
A short, inexpensive and light deck building roguelike focused on creating funny wild west stories. a clever take on building out a fun narrative of your own with building blocks in the shape of cards.
We Are OFK
An episodic, interactive pop album that just screams millennial angst. Just listening to the beats of this gives me absolute vibes of being a brooding teen, in the all the best ways.
Immortality
Dive into footage from Marissa Marcel’s 3 classic films, all mysteriously shelved for unknown reasons. The deeper unsettling mystery behind everything here will have you scrubbing through footage like a madman.
Gerda: A Flame in Winter
A story rich RPG-lite game set toward the end of world war 2. Play as a young nurse searching for her husband, while balancing "difficult moral dilemmas and sticky situations”.
The Stone Cutter and the Mountain Spirit
A lovely philosophical game based on a Japanese folklore story tale. inexpensive and short, with a clear message and a beautiful art style.