KUCI: Publisher Not Needed

Hate

Hate is a pernicious thing. It seeps between the cracks of human conversation, taints all it touches, replicates in the hearts of those hurt. All of these games touch upon hate in different ways, how it hurts those around us, how it so uniquely makes us human.

Return of the Obra Dinn

Papers Please, Mindscanners

While living under the crushing weight of an authoritarian regime, outright resistance is suicide. The best any one person can do is very little. It's a fine that's not enforced, a free piece of food, any momentary kindness. In both games, you serve as one arbiter of these momentary kindnesses. You have no choice but to act as a hand of the state, but you have the liberty to reach out with an open palm, instead of a clenched fist.

Journey

Multiplayer games are, more often than not, pretty hellish. They are havens of cruelty and spite, places to curse someone out for some perceived slight, and then go to bed angry. By restricting communication, Journey entirely sidesteps this issue. And as a cooperative game, you have little choice but to form a bond with your nameless companion.

Outer Wilds

Video games have a nasty tendency towards worlds crafted just for the player. Nothing happens outside of their watch, everything waits upon their actions. Outer Wilds cares not for that. The world moves without you, and your life is no more important than that of anyone else. And this unique viewpoint is what makes Outer Wilds so beautiful and unique.

Hypnospace Outlaw

Hypnospace Outlaw begins as some idyllic reimagining of the early internet, full of heart and a deep care for community... but slowly and insidiously transitions into something more resembling our highly centralized and deeply hateful modernity.

Cruelty Squad

Decay follows death. And life follows decay - a simple cycle, interrupted in Cruelty Squad. Decay is gone, death is constant, the value of life is in the negative, and everyone suffers.

Disco Elysium

Disco Elysium puts the player into a real, heartfelt, fully realized world. An RPG world that allows an exceptional degree of freedom, yet which has no fear of the full repercussions of those actions. The first episode, and one of my favorite games...