Cloudpunk
Cloudpunk is a game about delivering things (which is apparently a running theme in the kinds of games I like, lol), but that’s just the surface. I’d call it cyberpunk taken to the absolute brim. The whole story unfolds in a colossal city so overloaded with AIs building other AIs that people have long forgotten the core technologies the city even runs on - turning it into a jungle of neon and metal.
You play as a small-town girl with a janky flying car and her dead dog’s consciousness uploaded as the onboard computer, starting her first night at a semi-official delivery company. (Legal jobs are basically impossible to get - corporations, obviously. It’s cyberpunk.)
From there, it unravels into one of the coolest, surprisingly complex emotional stories, throwing meaningful choices at you again and again - all built on simple mechanics: flying your car through the city, sometimes walking, talking to people. And dogs.
Death Stranding
Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the celebrity cast, and I’ve never shared Kojima's views on cinematography anyway.
Still, Death Stranding stays on my list of favourites purely for its gameplay and its portrayal of loneliness. You’re a courier in a semi-post-apocalyptic world where humanity hides in dense cities and bunkers, leaving you alone in vast landscapes - carrying everyone else’s weight.
The game is mostly about traversal, and somehow it perfects it. The terrain becomes a character. You start reading slopes, rocks, rivers - subconsciously optimising every step, like in real hiking, trying not to trip, fall into a ditch, or wreck your ankle and your day.
I know many players dismissed that as boring, but oh well, I like *boring*
And the online system seals it: you see traces of other players - footprints, ladders, ropes, abandoned bikes - but never the people themselves. Your own traces appear in someone else’s world the same way. It’s a strange kind of secondhand warmth. Collective presence without company.
CrossCode
Where do I even begin with this one? CrossCode is one of the best games for me for two very different reasons: gameplay and story delivery.
Despite its 16-bit, SNES-era look, it completely breaks free from those old stereotypes and formulas — especially in how combat feels and how progression works. Levelling up happens through a tree-like node system that unlocks different abilities and leads to vastly different playstyles. The game squeezes so much depth out of its combat system that, for a top-down 2D action RPG, it honestly feels kind of absurd.
And then there’s the story.
I’ve always loved the idea of MMORPGs - the feeling of playing with friends, shared adventures, inside jokes - but never had the time or patience actually to dive in and find non-toxic people to play with. CrossCode somehow recreates that social MMO magic while being entirely single-player.
You play as an outsider in a sci-fi MMORPG set on a private island, where temporary matter forms into fantasy environments and characters, and people log in via VR connections. It’s weird, layered, and surprisingly emotional. The story gets complex - but in a good way.
You should just play it.
Diaries Of A Spaceport Janitor
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is a relatively short and simple game that I love for how perfectly it captures the loneliness of emigration. You’re almost always surrounded by crowds, but the foreign languages of locals - and travellers just passing through the spaceport - sound like complete gibberish. You have no tools to truly connect with anyone here.
On top of that, you’re stuck. Forced to work as a janitor just to maybe earn enough money for a ticket out. I’ve been stuck in emigration myself - living in a tent with no money - so this one hits close to home.
And don’t be fooled: working as a janitor won’t realistically get you that ticket. It barely covers basic expenses. You’re constantly digging through trash for things you can resell, then trying to figure out who might buy what you’ve found.
There’s also a subplot about a curse that manifests as a skeleton head floating behind you, constantly screaming. It’s not hard to read it as depression - something that follows you everywhere. Though, while playing, I eventually started seeing the skeleton as my only companion in that foreign world.
Spiritfarer
Imagine Animal Crossing, but first of all — it’s not freaking Nintendo. The characters actually have personality, it’s executed in stunningly beautiful 2D animation, and it tells a story about Death.
In Spiritfarer, you take over the job of the one who sails souls to the afterlife. Within this unique game loop, you get to know — and love — each character aboard your boat. You learn their secrets, their regrets, their unfinished business. And just when you’ve grown attached, when they’ve finally made peace with themselves, you have to sail them to the afterlife and let them go forever.
As you can guess, it’s an emotionally charged game — maybe one of the most painful and beautiful gameplay loops out there. The entire time, you know how it ends: eventually, you’ll have to disappear too, passing the job on to whoever comes next.
It even supports local co-op on the same screen, so you can cry together with someone else.
ATLYSS
ATLYSS is definitely an unexpected pick for this list, but hear me out.
It’s a genuinely great MMO/single-player dungeon-crawling experience, executed in a charming low-poly style - which I’m a huge sucker for. As you probably know, I make a lot of low-poly stuff myself, and I just love the liminal, magical feeling that pixel-textured low-poly environments create.
Movement and combat feel really good, too - those systems are remarkably polished. It’s still in early access, and the story quests aren’t finished yet, but this isn’t the “early access” big companies abuse as a marketing phase. As far as I know, it’s a genuine solo-dev project, which makes the whole thing even more impressive.
And yeah, I can’t ignore the fact that the game revolves entirely around furry characters who are… somewhat sex-coded. Nothing explicit — it just has this subtle “sexy aura” around it. I actually appreciate that it approaches NSFW themes gently instead of going full lewd.
Also, I used to be a furry. I even own a fursuit somewhere in my parents’ house. And I guess once a furry, always a furry, right?