Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrisshroba | Hacker News Reader

> not to mention their full potential as an interactive medium has only barely started to be explored.

Any examples come to mind? I’d love to try (or at least read about) some games like this!

If you haven't played Rez/Rez Infinite yet, you owe it to yourself to. The game is 22 years old and it's still leagues ahead of most games in terms of what a game can do, what it can express. Rez is... difficult to describe but a start might be, it's Polybius (legendary arcade game) if it were developed by raver hippies. Its purpose seems to be inducing an altered mental state of "flow" and the joy that comes therewith.

Rez has the property of being so good that other developers (expectedly) made games that try to do what Rez did, missed the mark completely, and still ended up with really cool games. Thumper, Aaero, and Sayonara Wild Hearts come to mind, as does Jeff Minter's take on Polybius.

I've always joked that Sayonara Wild Hearts is a dimensional incursion from a reality where the Feel The Magic DS games never stopped coming out. It's interesting, the way influences collide in new works.

https://imgur.com/a/IzWkRjP.jpg

I'm hesitant to spoil anything, but Disco Elysium immediately came to mind for me.

Disco Elysium is more of a revival of the point and click adventure medium than it is an exploration of new territory, but art it undoubtedly is.

All pretty famous, but: Outer Wilds, Stanley Parable, Return of the Obra Dinn, Undertale

Paper's Please as well. Blows my mind that what look like a mundane puzzle game can evoke such a strong feelings in me. And that was the beta build of the game, barely any storyline just from the mechanics and design alone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com