Serious Games Catalogue
Note that the categorization of games is at best subjective.
A number of these games could be classified in a number of ways but only appear once on this list.
Click on the + sign to see a short description and on the name for access to the game or web site
for it. Some of these games are no longer available but the links point to
articles about the game. In particular, there are a lot of Flash games
that are no longer playable.
Links and games change. If you find an error on the page or have a recommendation for an addition or
reclassification, please submit this form.
Categories
Catalogues and Companies
Part ad, part game. Advergames are designed to promote a specific brand or product, usually outside the game industry.
Learn and teach correct strategic and operational responses to natural disasters or
terrorist attacks. Explore strategic,
nonviolent conflict techniques to break down repressive political regimes.
Use virtual reality environments to manage pediatric pain.
follow a virtual money trail to train financial auditors in risk assessment.
These are just some of the ways that game-based simulations from BreakAway, Ltd. are transforming training,
decision-making analysis, and strategic planning from the battlefield to the board room.
We create games focused on scientific discovery, discovering optimal learning pathways for STEM education,
cognitive skill training , and games that explore collective over individual intelligence.
Games that let you contribute to scientific research..
The Educational Games Database (TEGD) is a website catering to educators who want to learn more
about the educational potential of video games.
EverFi provides education technology platform to teach, assess, and certify students in financial literacy, student loan management,
digital literacy, and substance abuse.
A hub for learning through play! A disorganized “movement” of artists, coders & educators who want to reunite play and learning.
Games4Sustainability platform is a guide to making your sustainability message more compelling and accessible by employing games and social simulations.
Browse the Gamepedia and find a game from among 100+ games and simulations arranged by the Sustainable Development Goals.
Games for Change facilitates the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools
in humanitarian and educational efforts.
They aim to leverage entertainment and engagement for social good.
Since 2003 la Molleindustria has produced homeopathic remedies to the idiocy of mainstream
entertainment in the form of free, short-form, online games.
Their products range from satirical business simulations to meditations on labor and alienation,
from playable theories to politically incorrect pseudo-games.
LearningWorks for Kids uses popular video games to enhance learning opportunities for children.
Math games online that practice math skills using fun interactive content.
Over 1000 free skill testing apps and games - tablet and chromebook friendly.
The MIT Game Lab's mission is to explore, educate, and engage the public by creating groundbreaking games.
Games shown are propotyypes focused on a specific aspect of gameplay.
Business and Financial Games
Retirement is something everyone should plan for, but a vampire's got an eternity to consider!
Manage your very own vampire nightclub, while meeting your guests' needs,
re-"vamp"ing your space,
and DJing the night away.
Up and coming celebrities have got the talent to become super stars, if only they could watch how much they spend
as closely as they watch the Oscars! In their luxury world it's easy to run up charges
on their credit cards -- but definitely not easy to pay off that debt!
Play Financial Manager by balancing bank accounts, debit cards, and credit cards successfully!
Watching your crops grow is fun, but watch out for the hungry bunnies ready to munch
if your debt gets out of control! Quickly match the same kind of veggies in a row to cash
them in,
and save to plan for emergencies like time warps and other "natural" disasters.
Farming Simulator is a farming simulation video game.
The locations are based on American and European environments.
Players are able to farm, breed livestock, grow crops and sell all assets created from farming.
You're working with some pretty great dancers here. Unfortunately,
they aren't as graceful at budgeting as they are on the stage!
Use the music and the rhythm of the game to choreograph your clients,
then teach them what to do with the money they have earned.
Using real data from the markets, the trading occurs in context of a game,
which can involve joining an existing game or the creation of a custom game
that allows the user to configure the rules. Options, margin trading,
adjustable commission rates and other choices provide a variety of ways to
customize the games. From there, an easy-to-navigate menu lets users update
their profiles, review holdings, trade and check their rankings, research
investments and review their awards (which can be earned for completing
various activities).
Sim-Business in it's simplest form -- A virtual Lemonade Stand!
While originally being developed for youngsters to help stress good business practices,
it seems pretty popular among the "kids at heart", as well.
You will control all aspects of your Lemonade Stand, from pricing, to quality control,
to purchasing your necessary inventory,
all while dealing with unpredictable weather, picky customers, and inventory wastes.
There's also detailed help for most of the screens,
to help walk you through some of the decision making process.
Refund Rush is a game where you decide how clients should split their tax refunds.
You've inherited your grandfather's old farm plot in Stardew Valley.
Armed with hand-me-down tools and a few coins, you set out to begin your new life.
Can you learn to live off the land and turn these overgrown fields into a thriving home?.
RollerCoaster Tycoon is a simulation strategy computer game that
simulates theme park management.
Zoo Tycoon is a series of zoo simulation video games that put the player
in control of fictional zoo business.
The player must build, expand and/or upgrade a zoo by purchasing animals,
creating suitable living environments for each
and allocate staff and resources for their maintenance and care.
As the ultimate goal of the game is revenue, the player must also provide
for the visitors by building food and drink stands,
sanitary facilities, picnic areas and an aesthetically pleasing environment.
Higher revenue is generated by keeping both animals and visitors happy.
Advergames
Doritos Crash Course is a 2.5D sidescrolling platforming advergame.
Players must get their avatars through increasingly difficult obstacle courses.
The game consists of three different locales (USA, Europe, and Japan), each with five levels.
There are several other Dorito games as well:
Crazy Taxi is an open world racing video game developed by Kenji Kanno and his team at Hitmaker and published by Sega. It is the first game in the Crazy Taxi series. The game was first released in arcades in 1999 and then was ported to the Dreamcast in 2000. Gameplay is based on picking up taxi customers, and driving to their destination as quickly as possible. In addition to generic destinations such as the city's police station, rail terminal and lookout point, passengers may also request to be taken to Pizza Hut, Tower Records, the FILA sportswear store, Levi's store or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Crazy Taxi also featured vans on the roads with the WOW! logo on the side. Each of these chains are modeled as a location in the game. This is considered one of the most prominent examples of product placement in video gaming history.
"We’re often asked, ‘How do you say Viget?’"
Training Games
America's Army provides civilians with an inside perspective and a
virtual role in today's premier land force: the U.S. Army.
The game is designed to provide an accurate portrayal of Soldier experiences.
The game is an entertaining way for young adults to be educated about
the U.S. Army and see some of the career opportunities available to
Soldiers in the U.S. Army -- all this as a virtual Soldier.
America's Army emphasizes teamwork, values and responsibility as means
to achieving the goals.
BiLAT is a portable-PC based training program designed with a specific objective in mind:
to provide students an immersive and compelling training environment to practice their skills
in conducting meetings and negotiations in a specific cultural context.
The application was a winner of the U.S. Army Modeling and Simulation Awards for FY08
and has been deployed as part of a training curriculum for officers assigned to foreign posts.
BiLAT is available for download from the U.S. Army’s MilGaming website.
Step into the toughest medical field - the battlefield. In Combat Medic:
Special Ops you select your character's strength and quickness, then pack
just the right medical equipment needed for the mission. You will have to
decide when, where and how to treat your fallen comrades. Shoot the enemy,
drag the wounded to safety, call for back-up or MedEvac, while stabilizing
and keeping your buddies alive. Chaos rules...and every minute counts.
The U.S. Army is the most powerful ground force in the entire world.
The backbone of a ground invasion is the U.S. Army Infantry, and in the midst of combat,
their skills, courage, and teamwork are put to the test.
While readiness continues to be the U.S. Army's top priority, how it goes about its business is changing.
Full Spectrum Warrior began as a training aid for the U.S. Army to reinforce Army doctrine
and team effort within the troops.
It is the most realistic portrayal of Infantry-level urban warfare via unique tactical action gameplay.
Players become the Squad Leader, commanding Alpha and Bravo squads.
There is potential for danger down every alley, behind every window.
Incident Commander, released by BreakAway and the Department of Justice in 2007,
was a ground-breaking training tool that employed PC game technology to
allow first responders
to train anytime, anywhere to coordinate a multi-agency response to a
natural or manmade disaster.
We've enhanced training for over 30,000 first responders already - and
now we're about to transform it entirely.
A training game commissioned by Cold Stone to create fun, experiential learning to their front line employees through games. This first game focuses specifically on portioning and its affect on profitability. Players have to successfully serve customers during different shift scenarios. The game features a sophisticated ice cream simulation, including a viscosity model to make the different flavors of ice cream pull differently, in accordance with their actual physical properties.
The results of player performance affect customer service, speed of service, accuracy in portion sizes, and correct recipe recognition reflect in their overall scores. Through the use of a corporate Intranet, players can compete against one another, and to date has been one of the most popular training initiatives that Cold Stone has ever developed.
An army training game.
Tactical Iraqi™ is a computer-based, self-paced, learning program that in
about 80 hours teaches English-speaking people totally unfamiliar with
Iraqi Arabic how to speak
enough to accomplish tasks and missions in Arabic.
The Virtual Interactive Combat Environment (VICE) is a scalable,
commercial off-the-shelf product that is designed to train the cognitive skills needed
by military, homeland security, and law enforcement personnel in confronting and resolving potential
and actual conflict within urban, suburban, and rural environments.
VICE enhances individual and collective task training at the small unit level
as well as real world missions.
Music Games
osu! is a freeware rhythm game.
Game levels are called beatmaps. In each beatmap, a song will play and different rhythmic hit elements
(hit circles, sliders and spinners) will appear on the play field.
Players must use a pointing device to manipulate these elements in time with the playing song's rhythm
in order to earn points.
Rocksmith 2014 is a music video game produced by Ubisoft. It is a followup to the 2011 game Rocksmith, but has been described
as a replacement to the original game rather than a sequel. Like its predecessor, the games main feature is that it allows
players to plug in virtually any electric guitar or bass guitar and play along via the use of a USB adapter - removing the need
for any proprietary controller like other music games such as Guitar Hero. The game comes with 66 songs on disk, with thousands
more available to download in paid DLC packs.
Math Educational Games
A series of web-based drill and practice computer games designed to reinforce academic standards
for mathematics required by the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment.
Game no longer available but referenced in a number of studies.
Dimenxian is an educational game using a first person action adventure
engine, and focuses on algebra I teachings.
It has been designed primarily for middle and high school aged students.
The story line is that a bio-digital virus has been released on a remote
island and threatens to infect the world's eco-system and destroy mankind.
The player's goal is to disengage the virus while defending himself from
the Sentinels and to restore the island to its natural environment.
DimensionM is an immersive video game world that engages students in
the instruction and learning of mathematics.
Pre-algebra and algebra objectives are covered through a series of
missions that bring math into a world that today's students understand.
Students become so captivated in solving problems that they forget
they're learning but they don't forget what they've learned.
Available through Tabula Digita's DimensionU.
The educational game that secretly teaches young kids the basics of algebra.
Mobile educational game that teaches geometry to 9-11 year olds.
Math Blaster aims to create a fun learning environment for kids to develop their mathematical skills in an engaging way.
This game includes creatures and mutts that add the thrill to the learning process.
Math Slither is a free slither-style game. Take all of the slitherings around,
avoiding other snakes, and gobbling up glowing spheres of energy that you
love from other slither games and combine them all with math. All kinds of
math! This is a mission-based version of Slither. But this isn't a fetch
mission, a pick-up and deliver, protect, or destroy based mission. No, this
is all about the equations.
Math Munchers Deluxe reinforces kids math skills by encouraging them to solve problems
dealing with whole numbers, decimals, factors, and simple geometry.
A mob of math-hating zombies are about to invade your home!
Use your arsenal of math skills to zap different types of zombies before they break down your door!
Get ready to exercise your brains in this addictive, fun-to-play game that tests your addition, subtraction and multiplication skills.
A 1991 mathematics edutainment game.
Operation Neptune combines platform action with educational puzzles.
The game helps build a solid math and problem solving foundation with
whole numbers, fractions, decimals, ratios, and percentages.
Problem solving hints, calculator, and customization options are all
only a keystroke away.
Real-life problems such as using area, distance and volume to make
measurements help kids see how math can be used in the real world.
The Transformation Game uses the Desmos online geometry tool to provide a fun and
interactive way to explore translations, dilations, rotations and reflections in the
coordinate plane. Students can compete against each other or work collaboratively
as they map the game board pre-image onto
the final image in the least number of transformations.
Treasure MathStorm! is an educational computer game intended to teach children ages five to nine mathematical problem solving.
It is a sequel to Treasure Mountain!.
Physics Educational Games
Armadillo Run is a physics-based puzzle game.
You have to build structures with the purpose of getting an armadillo
to a certain point in space.
There is a selection of building materials, each with different properties,
which can be combined to form almost anything.
The realistic physics simulation gives you the freedom to solve each
level in many different ways.
Become an appraised bridge engineer and architect in Bridge Constructor.
Create and design your own constructions and watch the cars and trucks pass over them
or see them fall and crash while your inferior creations collapse due to weight and the laws of physics!
Combines the challenging puzzle gameplay of Bridge Constructor™
with the post-apocalyptic zombie universe of AMC’s The Walking Dead.
Use movable level objects, explosives and baits to your advantage as you
lure walkers into lethal traps and guide your survivors to safety.
Enjoy the physics-based frenzy and ragdoll animations as walkers succumb
to the forces of gravity.
A 2D physics puzzle / sandbox game, in which you get to experience what it would be like
if your drawings would be magically transformed into real physical objects.
Solve puzzles with your artistic vision and creative use of physics.
Gran Turismo 6 is a comprehensive racing simulator that allows players to drive on famous racetracks around the world,
while learning physics and vehicle dynamics in doing so.
Players get to familiarize themselves with global race tracks, over 1000 different vehicles to drive,
and hundreds of vehicle upgrades and car parts.
Ludwig adventures across a beautifully designed world as he tries to find parts to fix his broken spaceship.
In order to do so, Ludwig must come to understand the complex physics that govern this strange world called "Earth".
Through a series of upgrades to his mechanical body,
Ludwig unlocks more robust tools to analyze and understand an ever growing knowledge base of physics concepts and
renewable energy sources.
When whirlwind picks up the leaves, flow of the wind is visible and interesting.
Simulation game that reproduces such phenomenon with powder (dot)!
Let's vote by playing various uploaded works.
Velocity Raptor must travel near the speed of light to save the world.
Have you ever wondered what happens near the speed of light?
Well, leave your Special Relativity textbooks at home,
because in this game you'll experience the real thing.
This is a place where objects shrink before your eyes,
colors shift across the spectrum, and bullets travel in strange paths.
Can you gain some relativistic instincts and navigate this strange world?
Other Science Educational Games
ElectroCity is an online computer game that lets players manage their own virtual towns and cities.
It teaches players all about energy, sustainability and environmental management in New Zealand.
Moonbase Alpha is a NASA-funded multiplayer game scenario with 20 minutes of play set on a hypothetical lunar
outpost in 3-D immersive setting.
This is a proof of concept to show NASA content - lunar architecture in this case -
and a cutting edge game engine could be combined to produce a fun game and inspire interest in STEM education.
In the space-colony simulation game Oxygen Not Included you’ll find that
scarcities of oxygen, warmth and sustenance are constant threats to your
colony's survival. Guide colonists through the perils of subterranean
asteroid living and watch as their population grows until they're not
simply surviving, but thriving...
Plasma Games's mission is to instantly inspire the next generation of science leaders.
Their educational games are designed to meet students' and teachers' diverse needs, with the belief that the most powerful
force in education is a sparked connection between a student and their teacher.
SpaceChem is loosely based on the principles of chemistry and chemical bonding.
In the game, the player is tasked to produce one or more specific chemical molecules
via an assembly line by programming two remote manipulators (called "waldos" in the game)
that interact with atoms and molecules through a visual programming language.
Language Educational Games
Elegy for a Dead World gives kids an audience and an absorbing premise:
the player visits alien planets (each inspired by a Romantic poet)
with long lost civilizations and must act as the storyteller of that world,
drafting poetry and prose that brings to light possible pasts.
This writing can then be shared with others.
nfluent is a Language Learning Game focusing primarily on vocabulary
acquisition and pronunciation while giving players the freedom to
learn what they want without pencils or books!
Kotodama is an RPG video game for learning Japanesse language and culture.
The full version of Kotodama is a role-playing game in which players
must master concepts of Japanese language and culture to gain in-game abilities.
Through speech recognition input, players use spoken Japanese to
accomplish game goals.
Kotodama is targeted towards high school age kids with an interest
in videogames and Japanese anime.
Logic Educational Games
A tile-based, puzzle video game that teaches logic.
The game consists of a series of 148 two-dimensional levels that feature
the player character,
Nerdy Chip McCallahan, often called just Chip, and various game elements
such as computer chips, buttons, locked doors and lethal monsters.
The game was developed for a broad range of systems and was first
released in 1989.
The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis was the first title to be released
in the series.
The game is set out as a series of puzzles split into legs of three
which increase in difficulty as the game is played.
Zoombinis' captivating gameplay features math without numbers.
Solving Zoombinis puzzles uses the process of mathematical thinking.
This process includes organizing information, reasoning with evidence,
and testing systematically.
History Educational Games
A combination of strategy, tactics and a trio of mini-games about the war between medieval factions(Normans, Vikings, English) in the 1066.
Basically the aim of the game is to defeat your enemy's army by killing of scaring off as many them of possible!.
Real-Time Strategy game based on history of the colonization of the New World.
Learn about the military, economic, and cultural histories of different civilizations
during the Age of Exploration (European and Native American)
through game-play and campaign
Crusader Kings II explores one of the defining periods in world history in an experience crafted by the masters of Grand Strategy.
Medieval Europe is brought to life in this epic title rife with rich strategic and tactical depth.
Empire Earth, also known as EE, is a real-time strategy computer game.
The game requires players to collect resources to construct buildings, produce citizens,
and conquer opposing civilizations.
Empire Earth spans 500,000 years of world history, which is divided into 14 epochs,
beginning with the prehistoric age, and ending with the nano age.
Frequency 1550 is a city game that uses mobile phones to let pupils of secondary schools
actively learn about medieval history instead of passively absorbing knowledge.
The aim was to bring the Middle Ages alive for pupils, within their history lessons.
Never Alone sets a precedent for respectful representation of indigenous people.
It was co-developed with native Alaskans, and it illuminates Inupiat stories,
themes and values, weaving into play important concepts like interconnectedness
and valuable skills like cooperation.
Best of all, it features documentary-style videos of the Inupiat people
who provide first person context for the conceptual and cultural learning embedded in the game.
Mario's Time Machine is an educational game based on history.
Bowser and his minions have stolen 15 artifacts from history and it's
up to Mario to retrieve them all,
by answering questions based on that artifact and return them to their
owner by using Bowser's time machine
A 1994 edutainment game intended to teach history.
Primarily of historical interest.
Try taking a journey by covered wagon across 2000 miles of plains, rivers, and mountains.
Try!
On the plains, will you slosh your oxen through mud and water-filled ruts
or will you plod through dust six inches deep?
How will you cross the rivers?
If you have money, you might take a ferry (if there is a ferry).
Or, you can ford the river and hope you and your wagon aren't swallowed alive!
What about supplies?
Well, if you're low on food you can hunt.
You might get a buffalo... you might. And there are bear in the mountains.
At the Dalles, you can try navigating the Columbia River,
but if running the rapids with a makeshift raft makes you queasy, better take the Barlow Road.
If for some reason you don't survive -- your wagon burns, or thieves steal your oxen,
or you run out of provisions, or you die of cholera -- don't give up!
Try again... and again... until your name is up with the others on The Oregon Trail Top Ten.
Sid Meier's Civilization 5 is a computer strategy game in which you are in charge of any one
of a vast number of civilizations.
You lead your civilization from the bronze age all the way to modern times,
researching technologies, building cities, raising armies,
and conducting foreign affairs with other civilizations.
This game involves the player finding ways to raise money to support a military,
fund technological research and maintain building upkeep.
This game also involves military strategy through a use of various land,
sea, and air units with given strengths and weaknesses to defend oneself or attack another civilization.
Valiant Hearts doesn't try to simulate World War I or overwhelm the player with facts;
instead, it tells a deeply affecting story that builds empathy, contextualizes the war,
and, most importantly, offers a thought-provoking critique of war itself.
And when it does offer facts and primary materials, they're extensions--collectibles, really--that
end up being far more palatable to players given the story-first approach that
invests players in finding out more.
The 1989 version of Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is a multiplatform video game where players have
to travel through time to collect the clue and the warrant necessary to capture Carmen Sandiego
or one of her henchmen. The goal of this game is to track Carmen's villains through history and
arrest them and ultimately arrest Carmen herself.
Computer and Technology Educational Games
Exapunks is a programming game developed by Zachtronics. Exapunks takes
place in an alternate timeline in the year 1997. The fictional world of
Exapunks is heavily computerized, and a disease called Phage is ravaging
the population, turning the bodies of those affected into computerized
components. The player takes on the role of Moss, a hacker who breaks
into computer systems in order to afford a $700/day drug to slow the
progress of his Phage affliction. His hacking missions are given to him by
a mysterious artificial intelligence known as EMBER-2.
CyberCIEGE enhances information assurance and cyber security education and training through
the use of computer gaming techniques such as those employed in SimCity™.
In the CyberCIEGE virtual world, users spend virtual money to operate and defend their networks,
and can watch the consequences of their choices, while under attack
In Minecraft's built-in Redstone system,
players can use redstone dust and other items to create in-game versions of electrical circuits
which can interact with the world.
This allows the game to educate players about circuits and
lets them build some really cool things like computers, calculators,
or complex train systems that can route traffic by themselves.
Other Educational Games
Antichamber is a puzzle game that challenges the player's observational skills and sense of pace,
likening puzzles and their solutions to the struggles of daily life and
the ways in which we find ways to manage or solve them.
Non-Euclidean geometry is a significant part of the game
(the "compound" you traverse should be physically impossible in 3d space,
and much of the time the world behind you is a different place than it was a second ago),
requiring the player to "think outside of the box" in a new sense of the expression.
It is a mysterious and clever game designed to make the player ultimately feel wiser
as well as more observant.
The Atlantis Remixed Project allows students to travel to virtual places to play
educational adventures, talk with other users and mentors, build virtual personae,
and eventually create their own games. Game activities comprise both online and
off-line learning activities,
with a storyline inspiring a disposition towards social action.
LittleBigPlanet is a puzzle platform video game series that
has a strong emphasis on user-generated content
based on the series' tagline "Play, Create, Share".
The tagline represents the three core elements of the series;
Playing alone or with others online or on the same console,
creating new content using the in-game creation tools and
sharing creations and discoveries online with other players.
Plague Inc. is a strategy-simulation game in which the player controls a plague which has infected patient zero.
The player can choose between various plagues and viruses,
and infect and kill the whole world population by evolving the plague and adapting to various environments.
However, there is a time pressure to complete the game before humans, the opponent, develop a cure for the plague.
In Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, you journey across the globe
while solving brainteasers themed to their environments.
The goal of the game is to uncover the mystery surrounding the ancient Azran civilization?
A hybrid of FPS style and a new genre of spatial brain teasers,
Portal offers hours of totally unique gameplay.
Set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories,
players must solve physical puzzles and challenges by opening portals,
maneuvering objects, and moving themselves through space in ways that used to be impossible.
An educational massive multi-player online game (MMOG).
Quest Atlantis (QA) is a learning and teaching project that uses a 3D
multi-user environment to immerse children,
ages 9-12, in educational tasks.
Building on strategies from online role-playing games,
QA combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with
lessons from educational research on learning and motivation.
It allows users to travel to virtual places to perform educational
activities (known as Quests), talk with other users and mentors,
and build virtual personae.
A Quest is an engaging curricular task designed to be entertaining
yet educational.
See also
Atlantis Remixed.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or Sangokushi in Japanese, is a series of turn-based tactical role-playing simulation
strategy wargames.
The games are based on events that took place in China during the 2nd and 3rd centuries,
when the land was divided between the Shu Han, Cao Wei and Eastern Wu kingdoms.
Transistor is a sci-fi themed action RPG that invites players to wield an extraordinary weapon of unknown
origin as they fight through a stunning futuristic city.
The game seamlessly integrates thoughtful strategic planning into a fast-paced action experience,
melding responsive gameplay and rich atmospheric storytelling.
During the course of the adventure, players will piece together the Transistor's mysteries
as they pursue its former owners.
Treasure Mountain! is an educational computer game published by
The game is intended to teach children reading and basic math skills.
The Typing of the Dead is a fun and addictive typing "game" from SEGA,
essentially taking House of the Dead 2
and replacing the player's gun with a keyboard.
Typing Of The Dead is a crazy, irreverent game, and such madness needs
to be cherished whenever it appears.
There's definitely an intrinsic, enjoyable quality to blowing off a
zombie's head by typing the words "Rhythm Method."
While some may not immediately see the appeal or value of a game that
is played by typing, all it takes is five minutes on the keyboard
to turn a crowd of naysayers into party people having a good time.
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego is, of course, a very simple game
at its core.
At the start of each game, you learn that some member of the
Villains' International League of Evil (V.I.L.E.)
has stolen some priceless world treasure (an ancient Aztec calendar,
the Stanley Cup, the Eiffel Tower elevators, it's all up for grabs),
and it's your job as a member of the ACME detective agency to run out
and steal one of your own, quick track down the criminal and
bring him or her to justice within a certain time limit.
The World Peace Game is a hands-on political simulation that gives players
the opportunity to explore the connectedness of the global community
through the lens of the economic, social, and environmental crises and
the imminent threat of war.
The goal of the game is to extricate each country from dangerous circumstances
and achieve global prosperity with the least amount of military intervention.
As "nation teams," students will gain greater understanding of the critical
impact of information and how it is used.
Citizen Science Games
Foldit is a game designed to tackle the problem of protein folding.
Proteins are small "machines" within our bodies that handle practically all functions of living organisms.
By knowing more about the 3D structure of proteins (or how they "fold"),
we can better understand their function, and we can also get a better idea of how to combat diseases,
create vaccines, and even find novel biofuels.
Health and Exercise Games
The game is a collection of five mini-puzzle games commonly used on psychometric exams
and IQ test: Odd one out (find shape which is different from all the rest),
Shapes (find a shape that completes the sequence),
Building Blocks (count the number of blocks in the picture),
and Dominoes and Number Sequences (choose a domino / number that completes the sequence).
This is a story about the struggles and conflicts with fear; the guilt and the shame;
but also about perseverance and healing. Autumn is about the aftermath of an attack and sexual assault.
Autumn has been designed to take people through the looking glass, using Oculus Rift to step into someone else’s reality.
We ask of our players to experience something terrible,
but also to be part of the healing process and empathize with the vulnerability of a rape survivor.
Bounden is a mobile dancing game choreographed by the Dutch National Ballet
The Brain Age games feature activities designed to help stimulate your brain
nd give it the workout it needs
like solving simple math problems, counting currency, drawing pictures
on the Nintendo DS touch screen, and unscrambling letters.
BrainGymmer offers 25 different exercises in the form of brain games,
across the most important cognitive categories:
working memory, concentration, visual perception, logical thinking, speed.
All games are based on well-known tasks and tests used in neuroscience.
Bravemind (Virtual Irag/Afghanistan)
Bravemind combines exposure therapy and a VR head mounted display.
xposure therapy, in which a patient - guided by a trained therapist - confronts their trauma memories through a
retelling of the experience, is now endorsed as an "evidence-based" treatment for PTS.
The game leverages art assets from Full Spectrum Warrior and
the scenarios are specifically designed to represent relevant contexts, including Middle-Eastern themed city
and desert road environments.
Other stimuli including vibrations and smells can be delivered into the simulation.
Years ago, meteors struck San Saurian, filling the air with thick and filthy dust.
So a mighty wind machine was made to help everyone breathe.
But Mr. Rexo has stolen the parts for the machine, forcing other
dinosaurs to guard the pieces!
You must help Bronkie and Rexo find the lost machine pieces by blowing
away dust with your lungs, and hitting enemies with your dusters,
before the dust returns and everyone chokes on the dust!
But don't run into cigarrette smoke or dust storms,
otherwise your vision will get darker,
and you'll have a hard time finding out where to go,
running into enemies all around!
Along the way you'll learn about asthma and how to prevent it,
as well as how to react if you're suffering from an asthma attack.
Dance Central is a music rhythm game for the Xbox 360 released in 2011.
Gameplay involves the player performing given dance moves that are tracked by Kinect and represented on the screen by one of eight in-game avatars.
Dance, Dance Revolution (DDR)
created a fun and healthy way for children and adults to
become more active and realize the benefits of physical activity.
In this game your dog has type 1 diabetes.
This is a very serious disease.
With proper treatment, however, your dog can live a happy life for many years.
When we eat, the blood sugar level in our blood rises,
and the hormone insulin is released into the blood stream to regulate the sugar level.
A diabetic dog does not produce or properly use insulin and
therefore has to get it through injections.
Your mission is to take care of your dog and
try to avoid letting him/her reach to high or to low levels of blood sugar -
the more succesful you are the more money you will get for which you can buy food
and upgrade your dog's foodbowl or doghouse!
EASe Offroad is an exciting driving game that takes the player through
a lush landscape in
search of glowing 100 and 500-point targets, while EASe music plays
automatically in the background.
EASe Games represent a revolution in the development of software f
or children on the Autism spectrum
and all other children diagnosed with Auditory Hypersensitivity, Hyperacusis,
Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) or Sensory Integration Disorder.
The player must outwit the nefarious king Etes and his guards to return
to the golden city.
A virtual reality-based, 3D undersea exploration adventure that enables
players to
virtually swim with sea turtles and tropical fish as they hunt
for hidden treasure.
The game has been shown to distract children suffering from chronic pain
or undergoing painful operations
in real life with a calming underwater virtual reality.
Habitica is an open-source role-playing game
designed to help the player keep track of and remain motivated by overlaying game mechanics onto a player's life goals.
The player collects items such as gold and armor to become more powerful.
Rewards are achieved through maintaining real-life goals.
Heart Failure Coach is a patient engagement game, administered by nurses, where patient players interact with and guide Simon,
a character with CHF who was recently released from the hospital, for a virtual week.
iSpectrum is a European project which aimed to improve the work based social interaction skills of people with Autism, Aspergers
and other related special needs through a virtual work environment.
Users were able to play, learn, understand and act out different social roles as an employee in a variety of
work environments.
The game was designed to promote the understanding of body language and facial expressions,
social relations, conversation skills and dealing with abstract concepts.
Just Dance is a dance video game
first released in 2009
where players mimic the motions of an on-screen dancer's choreography for a selected song.
The Let's Face It! program is a series of engaging games designed to improve face recognition abilities
of children with autism.
MoodGYM is a free, fun, interactive program consisting of five modules, which help you to explore:
why you feel the way you do,
changing the way you think,
knowing what makes you upset, and
assertiveness and interpersonal skills training.
MoodGYM aims to
help you identify and overcome problem emotions and
show you how to develop good coping skills for the future so that you can enjoy good mental health.
Mystic Isle is a virtual reality game-based technology designed to improve performance and participation for persons
receiving rehabilitation services.
The game quantifies and tracks patients’ movement in space as they tackle a series of rehab exercises.
Rats and mice have invaded diabetes summer camp and it is up to our diabetic elephant heroes, Packy & Marlon,
to find food and diabetes supplies to save the camp.
In four simulated days in a side-scrolling adventure game with 24 game levels,
players guide their elephant to meet game challenges and to stay healthy enough to win by
keeping blood glucose in a normal range through blood glucose testing, taking insulin,
and eating appropriate foods.
PlayMancer is an EU initiative to develop a video game prototype for treating specific mental disorders
(namely EDs and impulse control disorders).
The game introduces the player to an interactive scenario named Islands,
where the final goal is to increase emotional self-control skills.
Re-Mission (featuring Roxxi, the intrepid nanobot), is a challenging,
3D "shooter"
with 20 levels that takes the player on a journey through the body of
young patients with different kinds of cancer.
Created by leading video game developers and animators in collaboration
with scientific and medical consultants and HopeLab staff,
this state-of-the-art game is designed to be cool and fun,
while helping players to increase their personal knowledge about cancer
and improve their confidence in their ability to manage their cancer.
Ring Fit Adventure is an exercising action role-playing game developed and
published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. The game comes with two
physical components: the Ring-Con, a Pilates ring that the user holds and
one Joy-Con slots into, and a Leg Strap, a piece of fabric affixed to the
user's leg that holds the other Joy-Con. The game's main mode has the
player complete a turn-based role-playing game, where player movements and
battle actions are based on performing certain physical activities using
the Ring-Con and Leg Strap, with the motion controls within the Joy-Con
sensing the player's movement, and a strain sensor in the Ring-Con
detecting bending of that accessory.
You wake from an accident into a new world with new challenges, new threats, and some guy with a huge head.
It's a strange world. One filled with senile grandparents, animals with shrunken green heads, and looming ominous music.
You must build your strength, stay fit, defend your stuff,
and investigate the strange happenings in the small town of Unnamed, USA.
SnowWorld reduces the pain of wound care and other hospital procedures.
Clinical trials show dramatic reductions in pain,
plus patients report feeling less anxious when they have VR to help them through the painful procedure.
SnowWorld transports the patient through an icy canyon filled with snowball hurling snowmen,
flocks of squawking penguins, woolly mammoths and other surprises.
Patients are drawn in, throwing their own snowballs as they fly through the gently falling snow.
Often they become so engaged, they don't realize their procedure is already over!
SnowWorld may no longer be available to play.
SPARX (Smart, Positive, Active, Realistic, X-factor thoughts) is a free online computer program for New Zealand residents
only, intended to help young persons with mild to moderate depression, stress or anxiety.
Through the game, this e-therapy will teach them how to resolve their issues on their own,
according to a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach.
SuperBetter helps you achieve your health goals -- or recover from an illness or injury
-- by increasing your personal resilience.
Resilience means staying curious, optimistic and motivated even in the face of the toughest challenges.
Treasure of Bell Island is a Treasure Hunting Island Survival Adventure Game.
In this role playing game, the player must manage four characters energy,
location and rest while searching for the missing Prof. Swan.
Each character has a unique skill-set that is used at various times during game play.
Deciding when to play the characters is the key to surviving long enough to discover the treasure on Bell Island.
Doing so efficiently, lowers the player’s score while challenging their attention, memory and executive function skills.
Treasure is a product that challenges attention, memory,
visual perception and executive function.
Zombies, Run! is an immersive running game. Players act as the character "Runner 5" through a series of missions,
during which they run and listen to various audio narrations to uncover the story.
While running, the player collects supplies such as ammunition, medicine and batteries,
which can be used to build and expand their base.
Social Change Games
3rd World Farmer lets you experience some of the hardships of farming in a poor country. Will you prosper despite corruption and lack of
basic neccessities? Or will endless wars, diseases, droughts, and unreliable markets perpetuate your economic disadvantage and spell your ultimate doom?
3rd World farmer is a serious game, developed on a very slim budget. It is not precise in all details, but covers a wide range of topics.
It is meant to be both educational and slightly provocative, with the sole intent of making people think about these topics and, hopefully,
realize that each of us can make a difference in helping to end poverty.
Amnesty - the Game is a serious game which supports the efforts of Amnesty International to globally abolish The Death Penalty.
It’s a volunteer project by members of the HGDA (the Hellenic Game Developers Association), in association with Amnesty International’s Greek section.
You have taken up the torch of Amnesty International’s cause and charged yourself with the task of influencing key countries towards
abolishment of Capital Punishment. As you progress through Amnesty, you will have to perform your actions in a way that influences government
opinion against the Death Penalty with the aim of saving the lives of certain prisoners who, without your help, will be executed!
The Beginner's Guide is an intensely personal game framed as an exploration of a game
developer's unfinished work.
It states that it has "no traditional goals, mechanics, or objectives,"
and instead tasks the player with forming an opinion of a person they have never met
solely by examining what they attempt to convey through their work.
Explores the anxiety and loneliness that goes hand in hand with creativity,
and also explores the difficulty of truly knowing another person.
A large part of the power of the game comes from knowing
little about it ahead of time.
Bioharmonious is a game with artistic graphics that explores the relationship between
nature and machinery and how to achieve a bioharmonious planet
Braid is a platform and puzzle video game.
The basic story elements unfold as the protagonist, Tim, attempts
to rescue a princess from a monster.
Text passages laid throughout the game reveal a multifaceted narrative,
giving clues about Tim's contemplations and motivations.
Blow designed the game as a personal critique of contemporary trends in game development.
Cyber Manhunt is a story-oriented puzzle game focusing on big data, hacking, citizen privacy, and social workers.
It focuses on social issues such as cyber violence and privacy breaches.
Darfur is Dying is a web-based, viral video game that provides a window into the experience of the 2.5 million refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan.
It is designed to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur and empower college students to help stop the crisis.
Students at the University of Southern California, winners of mtvU’s Darfur Digital Activist contest, created the winning prototype.
The game was developed in cooperation with humanitarian aid workers with extensive experience in Darfur.
Every Day the Same Dream is a short, 2D art game that puts the player
in the role of a man whose life is about to change.
The game has been described as "a beautiful game with a very bleak outlook."
The creator claims it is
"a short existential game about alienation and refusal of labor."
Façade is an artificial-intelligence-based interactive story.
Façade puts the player in the role of a close friend of Trip and Grace,
a couple who recently invited the player to their home for cocktails.
This pleasant gathering, however, is somewhat damaged by the clear domestic confrontation between Grace and Trip
upon the player's entry.
Making full use of the incorporated language processing software,
Façade allows the player to type sentences to "speak" with the couple,
either supporting them through their troubles, driving them farther apart,
or being thrown out of the apartment.
Flower features simple gameplay, accessible controls and a medium to explore emotional chords.
The surrounding environment, most often pushed to the background in games, is pulled to the forefront
and becomes the primary "character."
The game exploits the tension between urban bustle and natural serenity.
Like in the real world, everything you pick up causes the environment to change.
Food Force is an Edumarket game published by the
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in 2005.
Players take on missions to distribute food in a famine affected country
and to help it to recover and become self-sufficient again.
At the same time they learn about hunger in the real world and the
WFP's work to prevent it.
What did you throw in a trashcan today? You probably did not give it much thought.
But every week you and your fellow New Yorkers throw away 64,000 tons of garbage.
That comes out to almost 7 billion pounds of garbage every year -- and that does not even include what gets thrown away in offices,
factories and construction sites.
Whisking off the detritus of our daily lives costs the city government more than a billion dollars a year.
More than 5,000 trucks carry our banana peels, batteries, battered tennis balls and discarded deli containers from one part of the city to another,
belching diesel fumes all the way. Trucks, trains and barges haul our waste to
landfills and recycling centers in other states -- and even other continents.
Ingress is an augmented reality massively multiplayer online role playing GPS-dependent game.
The game has a complex science fiction back story with a continuous open narrative.
The gameplay consists of establishing "portals" at places of public art, landmarks, monuments, etc.,
and linking them to create virtual triangular fields over geographic areas.
Progress in the game is measured by the number of "mind units" (MUs),
i.e. people nominally controlled by each faction.
Ingress has attracted an enthusiastic following in cities worldwide.
Journey is an indie video game developed by Thatgamecompany for the PlayStation 3.
In Journey, the player controls a robed figure in a vast desert,
traveling towards a mountain in the distance.
Other players on the same journey can be discovered, and two players can meet and assist each other,
but they cannot communicate via speech or text and cannot see each other's names.
The developers sought to evoke in the player a sense of smallness and wonder,
and to forge an emotional connection between them and the anonymous players they meet along the way.
Life Is Strange is a five part episodic game that sets out to revolutionise story based choice
and consequence games by allowing the player to rewind time and affect the past, present and future.
You are Max, a photography senior who saves her old friend Chloe by discovering she can rewind time.
The pair soon find themselves exposed to the darker side of Arcadia Bay
as they uncover the disturbing truth behind the sudden disappearance of a fellow student.
Meanwhile, Max begins to have premonitions as she struggles to understand the implications of her power.
She must quickly learn that changing the past can sometimes lead to a devastating future.
newsgame about the war on terror
McDonald's Video Game is one of a new genre of games known as "anti-advergames."
The new titles satirize big companies and question corporate polices
ranging from how cattle are raised to low pay for workers.
Making money in a corporation like McDonald's is not simple at all!
Behind every sandwich there is a complex process you must learn to manage:
from the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management
to the branding.
The Migrant Trail is an Oregon Trail-esque web game that allows the player to play from the perspective of a
migrant crossing the border from Mexico to the United States.
Oiligarchy is a satirical management game.
You are the CEO of a major international oil company,
your job is to make money:
Democracy, environment,
and global economic health are irrelevant.
Explore, drill, corrupt governments, hire mercenaries, engage in covert
operations,
fix elections (which are clearly broken without you) and most of all:
have fun.
One Chance is a game about choices and dealing with them.
Scientist John Pilgrim and his team have accidently created a pathogen that is killing all living cells on Earth.
In the last 6 remaining in-game days on Earth, the player must make choices about how to spend his last moments.
Will he spend time with his family, work on a cure or go nuts?
Papo y Yo is the story of a young boy, Quico, and his best friend, Monster.
Monster is a huge beast with razor-sharp teeth, but that doesn't scare Quico away from playing with him.
That said, Monster does have a very dangerous problem: an addiction to poisonous frogs.
The minute he sees one hop by, he'll scarf it down and fly into a violent, frog-induced rage
where no one, including Quico, is safe.
And yet, Quico loves his Monster and wants to save him.
As Quico, players will build their friendship with Monster by solving puzzles together
and adventuring through a magical, surrealist world.
Players will need to learn to use Monster's emotions, both good and bad,
to their advantage if they want to complete their search for a cure and save their pal.
The communist state of Arstotzka has ended a 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia and
reclaimed its rightful half of the border town, Grestin.
Your job as immigration inspector is to control the flow of people entering the Arstotzkan side of Grestin from
Kolechia.
Among the throngs of immigrants and visitors looking for work are hidden smugglers, spies, and terrorists.
Using only the documents provided by travelers and the Ministry of Admission's primitive inspect, search,
and fingerprint systems you must decide who can enter Arstotzka and who will be turned away or arrested.
PeaceMaker challenges you to succeed as a leader where others have failed.
Experience the joy of bringing peace to the Middle East or the agony
of plunging the region into disaster.
PeaceMaker will test your skills, assumptions and prior knowledge.
Play it and you will never read the news the same way again.
People Power is about politics, about strategy and about social change.
As a leader of a popular movement you fight against tough adversaries who control the police,
the army and bureaucracy, even the media.
The only weapon in your hand is your strategic skill and ingenuity.
Pokèmon Black and Blue is a parody of Pokèmon Black and White released by PETA
that focuses on animal fighting and experimentation.
In role-playing-style battles, the player controls a Pikachu who escapes its Trainers, Cheren.
Pikachu first fights Cheren and then moves on to other Trainers in order to rescue their Pokèmon from ownership.
An educational simulation.
Real Lives 2010 is an empathy-building real world, real life simulation
that challenges your life skills as you make difficult,
high-stakes choices that lead to your success, or failure.
You might be born anyone, anywhere on Earth.
You might die as an infant, you might make it to old age.
You might be able to marry the person of your dreams,
and have a rewarding job, or you could be stuck in poverty.
Be born, live an exciting life, and die.
Then do it again.
And again.
Learn about the world as you live your Real Lives around the world,
one life-altering decision at a time.
Shadow of the Colossus is often regarded as an important example of video game art due to its minimalist landscape designs,
immersive gameplay and emotional journey.
Focus: Why do we kill?
SPENT is an online game about surviving poverty and homelessness created
for the Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD), whose mission
"is to provide food, clothing, shelter and supportive services to neighbors in need".
Players must make the difficult decisions necessary to live for one month on $1000,
often having to choose between equally disagreeable options.
The lingering question—that grand burning query so many have tried to answer—is one I believe this game allows
us to at least access in a more honest way.
Beyond the simple platitudes and panaceas of gun control, media ratings/censorship, bully prevention programs,
and parental supervision remains a glaring possibility: that the society we have created is deeply moribund.
This game asks more of its audience than rudimentary button-pushing and map navigation; it implores introspection.
This is why the game’s forum was equally important to the SCMRPG project.
Through it, people from six continents and all walks of life discussed the game itself and the incident it is based on.
Some of them confessed childhood pain or share personal feelings on the shooting.
Some of them sustained vulgar diatribes or accused the creator of wrongdoing.
Some of them discussed the game’s social implications in a broader context.
At the end of the day, the understanding of the Columbine school shooting is deepened and redefined.
That is the real object of the game.
This War Of Mine provides an experience of war seen from an entirely new angle.
For the very first time you do not play as an elite soldier,
rather a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city.
During the day snipers outside stop you from leaving your refuge,
so you need to focus on maintaining your hideout.
At night you get a chance to scavenge nearby locations for items that will help you stay alive.
Make life-and-death decisions driven by your conscience.
Try to protect everybody from your shelter or sacrifice some of them to endure the hardships.
During war, there are no good or bad decisions; there is only survival.
The sooner you realize that, the better.
In Undertale, players control a human child as they navigate the fictional Underground:
a large, secluded region underneath the surface of the Earth.
The inhabitants of the Underground are called "monsters",
a diverse and intelligent group who have been banished from the surface following
a war with humanity.
The child interacts with many monsters on their quest to return to the surface,
with the player making decisions on whether to kill or befriend them.
These choices affect the outcome of the game to a large degree,
with the dialogue and story outcome changing based on their decisions.
Art Games
400 Years is the tale of a mysterious, sentient stone idol that becomes aware of a catastrophe brewing.
It knows only a vague location and it is due to occur in 400 years.
It is up to the idol to explore the world, find out where the crisis is brewing, and stop it.
The key is that, as a stone, the idol is unable to jump, float,
or do many of the other things we’re used to doing in platformers.
But what it can do is wait. And wait. And wait.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a survival horror adventure video game
developed and published by independent Swedish game development studio
Frictional Games. The plot of The Dark Descent follows the amnesiac
protagonist, Daniel, as he explores the dark and foreboding Brennenburg
Castle while trying to solve various puzzles, maintaining his sanity,
and avoiding monsters. Throughout the game, more and more of Daniel's
past is revealed. Instead of fighting, Daniel's main tools for survival
include running and hiding.
An especially well put together game, known for its music, narrative, and gameplay.
BioShock is set in 1960, in which the player guides the protagonist, Jack,
after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that
leads to the underwater city of Rapture.
BioShock includes elements of role-playing games,
giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth,
as well as moral choices of saving or killing characters; additionally,
the game and biopunk theme borrow concepts from the survival horror genre.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a story-driven puzzle-platformer adventure video game.
Guide two brothers on an epic fairy tale journey.
Control both brothers at once as you experience co-op play in single player mode.
Solve puzzles, explore the varied locations and fight boss battles, controlling one brother with each thumb stick.
Dear Esther is a ghost story, told using first-person gaming technologies.
Rather than traditional game-play the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of the island,
of who you are and why you are here.
Fragments of story are randomly uncovered when exploring the various locations of the island,
making every journey a unique experience.
Digital: A Love Story is a visual novel, or interactive fiction game,
where the game's story is told primarily through text.
The game's story is linear, with the player's actions unable to significantly change the course of the plot.
Set "five minutes into the future of 1988", Digital tells the story of the protagonist's online relationship
with a girl and their attempts to solve a mystery surrounding the deaths of several artificial intelligences.
The game is presented entirely through the interface of a 1980s computer with online Bulletin Board System posts
and messages from other characters;
the protagonist's own messages are implied but never shown.
Fez is a stylized puzzle platform game
designed as a tribute to 1980s gaming.
The player-character Gomez receives a fez that reveals his two-dimensional (2D) world to be one of four sides
of a three-dimensional (3D) world.
The player rotates between these four 2D views to realign platforms and solve the game's puzzles.
The object of the game is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe.
Hotline Miami is a 2D top-down action video game.
The game blends top down perspective with stealth, extreme violence and surreal storytelling,
along with a soundtrack and visuals influenced by 1980's culture.
L.A. Noir is a neo-noir detective video game set in Los Angeles in 1947 and challenges the player,
controlling a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer, to solve a range of cases across five divisions.[
Players must investigate crime scenes for clues, follow up leads, and interrogate suspects.
The players' success at these activities will impact how much of each cases' story is revealed.
The game draws heavily from both the plot and aesthetic elements of film noir
Joel, a ruthless survivor with few moral lines left to cross,
lives in one of the last remaining Quarantine Zones.
These walled-off, oppressive cities are run by what’s left of the military.
Despite the strict martial law, Joel operates in the black market of the city,
smuggling contraband for the right price.
Limbo is a 2D sidescroller.
The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister.
The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution.
Playdead called the style of play "trial and death",
and used gruesome imagery for the boy's deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions.
The game is presented in black-and-white tones, using lighting, film grain effects and
minimal ambient sounds
to create an eerie atmosphere often associated with the horror genre
Okami is an action-adventure video game.
Set sometime in classical Japanese history, the game combines several Japanese myths,
legends and folklore to tell the story of how the land was saved from darkness by the Shinto sun goddess,
named Amaterasu, who took the form of a white wolf.
It features a distinct sumi-e-inspired cel-shaded visual style and the Celestial Brush,
a gesture-system to perform miracles.
The forest of Nibel is dying. After a powerful storm sets a series of devastating
events in motion, an unlikely hero must journey to find his courage and confront a
dark nemesis to save his home. Ori and the Blind Forest tells the tale of a young
orphan destined for heroics, through a visually stunning action-platformer crafted
by Moon Studios for Xbox One and PC. Featuring hand-painted artwork, meticulously
animated character performance, and a fully orchestrated score, Ori and the Blind F
orest explores a deeply emotional story about love and sacrifice,
and the hope that exists in us all.
The Path is a short horror game inspired by older versions of Little Red Ridinghood, set in modern day.
The Path offers an atmospheric experience of exploration, discovery and introspection through a unique form of
gameplay, designed to immerse you deeply into its dark themes.
Every interaction in the game expresses an aspect of the narrative.
The six protagonists each have their own age and personality and allow the player to live
through the tale in different ways.
Most of the story, however, relies on your active imagination.
The Path is designed with accessibility in mind.
Shin Megami Tensei (literally "True Goddess Reincarnation") is a role-playing video game.
The story begins with a dream sequence as the nameless Protagonist is led through a formless hallway
to meet a crucified man, a man tortured by demons, and a beautiful woman bathing who pledges to be
with him eternally.
Upon waking, the story begins in Tokyo as the Protagonist checks his email to learn that a mysterious man
calling himself Stephen has sent out a suspicious 'Demon Summoning Program' to all those willing to use it.
Intrigued, the Protagonist downloads it onto his laptop before going out on an errand for his mother.
The Stanley Parable is an exploration of story, games, and choice.
There are no combat or other action-based sequences.
Instead, the player guides Stanley, the game's protagonist, through a surreal environment while the narrator
delivers exposition.
The player has the opportunity to make numerous decisions on which paths to take,
and because at times the narrator says what Stanley will do next,
the player can choose to ignore the narration and make a different choice.
Superliminal (previously Museum of Simulation Technology) is a 2019 puzzle
video game released by Pillow Castle. The game, played from a first-person
perspective, incorporates gameplay elements around optical illusions and
forced perspective; notably, certain objects when picked up can be moved
towards or away from the player, but when placed back down, scale to the
size as the player had viewed them, enabling the player to solve puzzles
to complete the game
The Swapper is a puzzle-platform video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
In this science fiction-themed title, the player controls a spaceman stranded aboard an abandoned research station,
and discovers a strange device that allows them to create clones of themselves switching their consciousness between these clones.
The player uses this ability to solve various puzzles and learn about the fate of the station's researchers.
Focus: ethics of cloning.
To the Moon is an indie Adventure RPG, about two doctors traversing through the memories of a dying man to fulfill his last wish.