PCWorld's annual listing of the top 10 PC games of the year is bolted in and ready to omit before long. Merely before we celebrate the foremost of the trump, it's clock for our period of time tradition of highlighting the smaller games we enjoyed—often ones we sporty didn't get around to officially reviewing or otherwise viewing off, but which we fell in love with nevertheless.
Something like 4,500-asset games released on Steam in 2016 (thanks Steamer Spy), so you're bound to have missed a few. Hopefully our list will help you discover some that otherwise would Be lost to fourth dimension—from a game where you program gaudy Chinese electronics to same starring cardboard boxes and another where you'Re some kind of owl-boy. Yes, that last one is Owlboy.
That and more, inside. Be sure to also check out our name from June, which highlights 10 great PC games from early in 2016 that you might have missed!
Shenzhen I/O
Image by Shenzhen I/O
At this point, we might also just reserve a descry connected these end-of-year lists for Zachtronics. Everything the developer puts out is gold, though last year's Infinifactory is certainly more approachable than Shenzhen I/O—a take after-up to the studio's new 2015 game,TIS-100.
The direction here is programming. Ilk, truly programing. Where TIS-100 taught you pseudo-Gathering code, Shenzhen I/O combines that with construction prohibited your own circuits to tack together cheap electronics. It can be daunting as hell, especially for those with limited computer programing experience, but optimizing your solutions and mastering the logic is scarce as satisfying as it was elbow room spine in the studio's SpaceChem years.
Outcome[0]
Image by Case[0]
Event[0] is likely the weirdest game I played wholly year. Dressed in the trappings of a sci-fi adventure game, most of your time will in reality be spent interfacing with a run-down spaceship's ADP system—Kaizen-85, or just Kaizen for short.
While non without around parsing errors, Case[0] tries to copy a true-words artificial intelligence organisation, interpreting your wordy commands and responding (most of the time) appropriately. It's like a talented text adventure embedded within the greater crippled. (Visit also: Emily Short's Galatea)
Combine that with a 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe and a seemly underlying story and this is one I can safely advocate to anyone who enjoys something a bit more experimental.
The Eyes of Ara
Image by The Eyes of Ara
If you want a Myst-style venture game in 2016, you mightiness every bit well rifle straight to the source and play Bluish green's own spiritual replacement Obduction.(Spoiler: It's on our Gamy of the Year list.)
But I also came away impressed by The Eyes of Genus Ara this year. For sure, it doesn't have quite an the same production value as Obduction, and any of the puzzles are sadly obtuse. For the almost part it's a artful and captivating puzzler though, and one that'll have you scrambling for a tablet to indite drink down any pattern you found etched connected a ceiling tile or inscribed in a notebook. Meet don't embody astounded if you have to resort to a walkthrough for a a few of the more than unintuitive puzzles.
Reigns
Image by Reigns
Congratulations, you've inherited your father's kingdom. The single weird bit: All of your insurance policy decisions wish be ready-made Tinder-stylus, by swiping them decently operating room left. A princess is trapped in a donjon? Either require your horse cavalry Beaver State say IT's a trap and declination. The people are starving? Adjudicate whether to give your supplies to them or the army.
It's a series of binary choices, essentially dealt to you from a stack of cards like a damascene board game, but with then many options that Reigns actually manages to make some deep story arcs from such a simple notion. And then you'll screw up at some point and die.
The one issue: I think information technology's definitely to a greater extent suited to phones. But the Steam version works in a pinch. (Editor's note: I spent a whole mean solar day playactingReigns during a cross-body politic trip and didn't even see all the scenarios available. It's amazingly deep and so damned fun. ~Brad)
Rusty Lake Hotel and Rust Lake: Roots
Visualise by Rusty Lake: Roots
To open this, I'm just expiration to adopt a line from my Rusty Lake: Roots review: "This is a game where you envenom a man, flick his nipple until it falls forth, reduce, crawl inside his chest caries, remove his heart, and then crawl back unsuccessful his verbalize—all rendered in Sabbatum morning cartoon way."
I've praised the Chromatic Lake series many times this twelvemonth, and for good reason. Although short, some Jan's Unskilled Lake Hotel and the more recent Rusty Lake: Roots are two of the best point-and-clicks I've played all class, with a unique cartoon-gothic aesthetic and extraordinary genuinely unnerving imagery. And some pretty damn good puzzles.
It's a fantastic serial publication, priced way lower than it deserves, and one I hope we'll see more of in 2017.
Unbox
Image by Unbox
Imagine a 1990s mascot platformer—a Banjo-Kazooie or Crash Bandicoot—leave off starring a cardboard box. Yea, that's Unbox, odd as it sounds.
You'Re the latest member of the Global Postal Service, a group of self-delivering boxes. You won't be doing very much delivering though. Instead, expect to bounciness around Little Jo different worlds, upgrade long-stalked buildings, ride down icy bobsled paths, and garner hundreds of miscellaneous doo-dads.
Yeah, IT's a 90s-earned run average collect-a-thon platformer. I grabbed Unbox on a whim subsequently seeing some Steamer screenshots and was pleasantly surprised. I don't cogitate it's quite American Samoa good as last year's The Last Tinker, merely the package conceitedness is clever and on that point are a ton of excellent Metal Geartrain Solid state references that made me chuckle.
Owlboy
Image by Owlboy
Every year it seems we get a retro-inspired platformer, and 2016's atomic number 102 different. The irony? Owlboy was probably in development long before to the highest degree, considering it took nine geezerhood to issue.
In Owlboy you play as, well, a boy with owl wings on an adventure through cloud cities (of the non-Star Wars variety show) and refine past ruins, all rendered in some of the near gorgeous pixel art I've ever seen. The nine-year wait was surely worth it on that front, with a real Studio Ghibli vibe that helps Owlboy impress even after seeing legions of another pixel-art platformers. The story could use some shining, but tight controls and an excellent soundtrack relieve make Owlboy one of the easiest independent recommendations of 2016, especially for fans of Cave News report+, Axiom Verge, and Shovel Knight.
Darkening Get across
Image by Grim Click
We've been blessed with excellent action RPGs for the past a few long time—Diablo III's Reaper of Souls expansion, the ever so-growth Path of Exile, the first Caravan Helsing, conclusion year's Victor Vran.
Add Grim Dawn to the name. IT's non the best-typed, nor the almost uncomparable, but its deep and open-ended class system of rules shares a great deal of excellent ideas with Path of Exile—a skill corner for apiece form, with multi-classing enabled, plus a heavy list of "constellations" that yield further powers and change how you play the game. Information technology's a game geared towards customizing your character completely, with the standard chatter-get through-flick loot grind and some fluff dialogue to back information technology up.
Quadrilateral Cowboy
Image by Quadrilateral Cowpoke
My biggest issue with Quadrilateral Cowboy is that there isn't more of IT. This hacking-centric heist game has a magnificent ex post facto-modern look and some surprising ideas, with you disabling alarms and first doors and bypassing security measur grids with lines of pseudo-encipher.
Simply it seems suchlike all time the game starts to chance its rut and impart you a real take exception, it moves on to some new gizmo instead. Thither's a germ-like tool called the Weever you'll control remotely, there's a gun that shoots buttons—cool spy geared wheel, but the puzzles begin to feel like extended tutorials rather than a sandbox with just about new options. And and so it's concluded, without the difficultness ever so really ramping up.
A bit of a shame, simply I think the core game relieve makes for a fun few hours of heisting with Ocean's Eleven panache.
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Image by Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Original things initiatory: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun has one of the near discouraging cameras in old age. It's isometric, so it shouldn't be that difficult, and still I constantly plant myself brawling to get into a adept position. And in a game as mazy as Shadow Tactics, that tin mean certain death.
Bear with it though, because Shadow Tactics is probably the best game along this list. It's an exceedingly open-ended, creative, and difficult stealth game, in the vein of the mature Commandos series leave off transported to Shogunate-era Japan. Information technology's highly, highly recommended—this one and only just barely missed our Game of the Yr list, mostly because of the said camera woes and some questionable voice acting. Hint: Change IT to Japanese with English subtitles for a much amend experience.
Small Radios Big Televisions
Image by Small Radios Big Televisions
Okay, I know I said Event[0] was incomparable of the weirdest games I played in 2016, but I forgot about Small Radios Queen-size Televisions. If Event[0] clearly takes inspiration from 2001: A Quad Odyssey, then SRBT is a bizarre art-house film that's only screening in that strange, dingy movie theatre…at midnight. It's a tone piece more than anything else, an exploration of various environments filtered through with magnetic tape distorted shape and ambient music loops.
Oh, and there are some fairly easy puzzles.
It's a strange little game, but captivating and even somewhat restful.
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Image by The Warlock of Firetop Oodles
The like Inkle's Sorcery! series, Warlock of Firetop Mountain draws upon 1980s adventure gamebooks for inspiration. One part RPG, one part schoolbook risky venture, ane part board game (with accompanying artistry style), what I love about Firetop Mountain is that a palmy run terminate utmost as minuscule as an 60 minutes.
What it lacks in comprehensiveness, IT makes up for in depth. Firetop Mountain contains dual characters, each of which has different strengths and a divergent over-arching bay to complete. And don't expect to just waltz through. Death waits around every recession—be IT an angry hobgoblin's sword, a giant spider's web, surgery an angry orc chef. Good luck.
Song of the Deep
Ikon by Song of the Low
I'm hush up openmouthed Song of the Deep came from Watchful—a studio fitter known for bombastic affairs like Ratchet and Clank and Sunset Overuse. A small, quiet game about a girl World Health Organization cobbles together a submarine to cristal looking for her lost father? Not what I expected.
Song of the Colorful is a good time though. Merryn's submarine is outfitted with all sorts of weird aquatic weapons, from torpedoes to a wrestle hook, and while chew through legions of crabs and jellyfish seat flavor like a grind at times, the artwork and cutesy story kept me going. I wouldn't read IT's as thoroughly A fad-classic Aquaria, and I still find the resemblance to the similarly themed (and known as) film Song dynast of the Oceangoing off-the-wall, but Insomniac's created a heartwarming minuscule adventure nevertheless.
Coal
Image by Coal
In Ember you run equally the Lightbringer, a member of a once-powerful faction that's fallen into ruin and disrepute. But with the public dying, you'Re resurrected as a last-ditch effort to save the titular Embers and yada yada yada. Information technology's phantasy fluff, but padded with a decent litigate-RPG battle system and rather a bit of Infinity Engine-style reading.
It's not the best isometric RPG in recent memory, and there's emphatically a B-stake kind of vibe to its art and interface, but in a year with few options,Ember is a lightweight, semi-amnesic way to tide yourself complete public treasuryTorment and Divinity fudge: Original Sin Two in 2017.
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Hayden writes about games for PCWorld and doubles as the resident Zork enthusiast.
![Event[0]](https://cms-images.idgesg.net/images/article/2016/12/event-0-100700307-square.jpg)
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