Darkest Dungeon
A wildly successful Kickstarter-funded dungeon-crawler, Darkest Dungeon has managed to gain a massive following despite not even being fully completed yet. In this turn-based role-playing game (RPG), you are the descendant of the owner of a once-revered estate. However, the house and its surrounds are now overrun by bandits and supernatural creatures, and it is your job to assemble a team of expendable heroes to explore various dungeons and defeat them.
Game of Thrones – A Telltale Games series
Episodic narrative-driven graphic adventures are the speciality of the game developers at Telltale Games. They have adapted the storylines of various movies, TV series and comic books, such as The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, and Law and Order, into innovative point-and-click adventures. Their rendition of Game of Thrones is no different. In the game, players make various choices, which influence the outcome of the game, in order to defend the members of House Forrester. The story takes place in the original Game of Thrones universe and even features some familiar characters.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Another turn-based RPG, the Shadowrun series of games takes place in a dystopian future in which the world is run by various corporations. Shadowrunners are, effectively, people who band together to do the dirty work of others – for a fee. In many cases, this unwittingly involves saving the world from a great evil. The Shadowrun games rely on well-written dialogue and expertly crafted narratives to form a game that grips the player from start to finish.
Her Story
Her Story is a unique full-motion video game based on fictional police interview clips. The game requires the player to sift through these clips in order to solve a case involving a missing person. Players who enjoy mysteries and crime thrillers in the style of shows like True Detective will be captivated by the creative and clever narrative of Her Story.
Undertale
In this quirky, humorous RPG, it is up to the player to decide whether they want to fight or negotiate their way through various combat situations. Shortly after its release, Undertale became the game with the highest rating ever on review aggregator Metacritic. Its distinctive gameplay allows players to become friends with bosses and be surrounded by any number of dogs at any given time. According to the creator, dating a skeleton is also one of the game’s many possibilities.
Illustration by: Asiphe Dlulane
