Howdy! My name is Andrew (he/him). My all-time favorite game is still probably Undertale. I didn’t know anything about it beforehand and picked it up after my freshman roommate demanded that I play it without explanation. I’m usually not super interested in video games (moreso in books), so I really enjoyed the story and the tons and tons of character interactions. I didn’t leave the first tutorial area for a very long time (the tutorial character Toriel asked me to wait for her). And I’m not talking about leaving Toriel’s house, but that early part of the ruins where she says she needs to run errands on the cell phone. This frustrated my roommate, who was standing over my shoulder, observing my play style like a psych major. Eventually, and to my friend’s shock, the infamous annoying dog steal’s Toriel’s phone (and eventually deflects the phone’s signals entirely), creating a justification for the player to continue even if they’re insistent on following instructions (like me). My friend had thought he had 100%ed the game, so he was super surprised to see that play out. I was used to games being a lot more linear and having more forced choices, so I was pleasantly surprised that the game respected my insistence on following its own instructions despite the clear telegraph that I was supposed to rebel.
A game I enjoyed recently is Soma, where you have to escape an underwater research facility while pursued by nasty ghouls. It involves a lot of fun exploration and I thought the atmosphere was excellent. I’m a sucker for cool underwater settings (Subnautica is also rad)!
