sasaja

Just play it!! There isn't much I can say about Yume Nikki without spoiling it besides that it's amazing. Even ignoring the story that may or may not be there, all the surreal environments are beautiful. If you want to download game, I suggest downloading an english patch from the Yume Nikki Wiki (the yume wiki if you will hahahahaha dies instantly), it's also availible on steam but that version is WAY buggier and has some translation issues.
suicide

One of the first Yume Nikki fangames to become popular on its own and even get its own fandom... and it deserves it! It does everything Yume Nikki did good and possibly even better! It's a tiny bit less expansive than Yume Nikki in some ways, but there's a reason for that... there's a story being told through the game's symbolism! Atleast one that is more evidently present that Yume Nikki's... It also takes on a gorier aesthetic reflecting its narrative.
hospital themes, gore, suicide

THIS IS MY FAVOURITE GAME EVER!!! Just like .flow, it takes everything Yume Nikki did... and perfects it... The thing that differentiates 2kki from every other YNFG is the tremendous amount of content. It took me atleast half a year to see every area in the game and it still is constantly being updated! It is a collaborative project with atleast fifty developers on its team. Everything about this game is just amazing, the environments, the music and its entire atmosphere... I could go on and on but you should just play it yourself!
suicide

This game holds a very special place in my heart... The most prominent part about this game is the claymation art which gives it an unique surreal vibe I've never seen before. The game's soundtrack also compliments this, it being a guitar being played in a very slow fashion. This game is like a relaxing break from everything else.

The sequel to the game above, this one holds as much of special place in my heart as its predecessor, two halves if you will. It improves upon EVERYTHING the previous game did, rather than having static sprites for the enemies, they're ALL animated, along with their attacks, god DAMN eyecandy. The music is more... musicy? with a different composer, some of my favourite tracks being Gibby's theme and the normal battle theme. The game is also way longer too, being around 8 hours long rather than 3 with lots of optional content too. It will also KICK YOUR ASS in ALL enemy encounters. It makes you THINK even in the easiest fights.

FOR SURE ONE OF THE BEST RPGS I'VE EVER PLAYED. Everything about it feels so... raw. The dialogue, the music and most importantly of all, the story. This game's story is simply amazing and very well-written, to give a quick summary, in a desolate post-apocalyptic world absent of women, Brad, the game's protagonist, suddenly finds a baby girl in the middle of the wasteland that is Olathe, he takes care of her along with some of his friends until one day where she gets kidnapped with Brad's pals mauled to pieces, it is now up to him to find her and protect her. Going back to the music... almost all tracks have such raw power to them... I've not heard a single remix to properly do them justice. And lastly the gameplay, it's surprinsly innovative for an RPG, grinding has been eliminated and the only way to level yourself up is to fight completely unique minibosses, as the common enemies give close to no XP. There is also a clever designed combo system that Brad can use to perform special moves during fights.
drugs, alcohol abuse, sexual assault, suicide

The sequel to LISA: The Painful, the story continues off from the last game's ending, with you controlling the kidnapped girl, Buddy. Not much I can really say... the game is ALMOST as good as the last... the only place it really falls short is its gameplay, in that the combo system Brad had has now been replaced with a system where you must time your key presses like in a rhythm game, making battles feel somewhat more sluggish.
this is the sequel to lisa the painful.

A french (wow!) freeware (WOW!) RPG with lots of charm and amazing world building... If someone were to ask me how to get into RPGMaker games, I'd most likely suggest this game! It's simple yet effective with a classic RPG battling system with one unique twist, every character has a cooldown on their turn, meaning enemies can attack you during your turn, so thinking on your feet is a necessity! LUCKILY... there's an also an automatic fighting feature which is a very neat addition :O.

One of the pioneers of the Metroidvania genre, and it shows! It's my favourite Castlevania game and it redefined the genre of all the upcoming mainline games in its franchise to have a similar playstyle to games like Super Metroid. I love how the RPG elements are implemented here! Getting random weapons and other things from enemies is fun and of course, I can't just ignore the original's voice acting... it's... surely something.

The first Castlevania game on the DS, it's really good!... aside from the unnecessary touchscreen QTEs(?), I played a patch without them. The only other gripe I have with this game is the tedious unlock method for the final boss. And also this game made Soma Cruz UGLY !! Why they ever changed to an anime artstyle for the portraits on the DS games is beyond me.

This was my first ever Metroidvania! A flash game about snails shooting stuff! It's really really good for what it is and even on my first playthrough it surprised me a lot... I don't think I have a lot else to say about it besides that it's very charming and cute and has a nice story!

THIS GAME IS FILLED TO THE BRIMMITY BRIM WITH CONTENT! THE ART TOO!!!!! IT'S ALL HAND-DRAWN!! This game is very well designed, has an amazing story (which I only know off from a youtube video...) and it's just... everything about it is GOOD. Team Cherry did a fantastic job on this game... The only part where I'd say it falls a bit flat is the optional area in Godhome where you can fight any boss with only one hit point, though it's very tedious doing as such as there is no way to retry quickly.

THIS IS HONESTLY ONE OF THE BEST ROGUE-LITES I'VE EVER PLAYED!! I have nearly 400 hours in it and the "progression" is done in an interesting way, beating a major boss with a character will unlock an item or sometimes even something else... I've not even mentioned the story yet, Isaac's mom being a religious fanatic, which causes her to want to rid herself of her son when she hears the voice of God claiming that he is sinful, seeing the final FINAL (final) ending almost made me cry. Something else that makes me cry is how HARD this game can be sometimes, not to imply it's poorly balanced though, it's great in that aspect, but in some runs you just won't get good items and probably end up very very slow, making the game a slog, at which point I sometimes just restart. Lastly, for some reason Repentance is also sort of unfinished? There's lots of unimplemented items and dumb bugs but I heard it's since gonna be updated so that's good.
religious fanaticism, suicide

This is like the only other rogue-lite I got actually into since it also was a smart phone game! A very well designed one at that... I've only gotten so far on the computer version despite that but this is still a great and easy to pick up game that even features some easier(...?) modes to play as it is quite challenging too... I unfortunately cannot play it on my pc at all unless I change my monitor's refresh rate to 60hz which honestly is a bit of a pain in the back to do each time I wanna play just one game, so while I do recommend this game, watch out for this bug if you're gonna buy it on Steam.

This is a really impressive and well made puzzle horror game fully contained in a single website! And it comes from Japan! One thing that definetly caught my eye before I even played it was the style of the game itself... it's like... semi photo-realistic? Because of that it's INCREDIBLY creepy, atleast to me. Visuals aside, it's surprisingly game-like even for a website... the puzzles are very clever and I wish more people knew about this site! jumpscares, lots of gore

A very unique visual novel telling its story through diary entries of both the protagonist, Lain, and her psychiatrist, with some ocassional cutscenes and audio entries. Its since been fully remade and also translated in HTML5 over at laingame.net, adding subtitles to all the Japanese cutscenes and audio entries. There also exists a more simple version of the game on the site, removing all the "game" here even was in this game, over here, which IS how I've read it and I think I'd also recommend this more?? The "game" version feels really sluggish. And lastly, to clarify some things, this game is based on an alternative universe parallel to the one from the anime, in which Lain doesn't get any love, resulting in a much darker story.
suicide, murder, themes of neglect

This was my first proper "introduction" to the rhythm game world (hell), with me having played it back in 2020, soon to become one of my favorite Rhythm games ever for just being really fun! The only real difficulty I had on this game was trying to do PlayStation button inputs with an Xbox controller... with me having played it on an emulator... No matter, VERY fun and cute game. Even in its harder difficulties, the game isn't extremely difficult like almost every other game in this genre, it even allows you to miss some inputs and "freestyle", even encouraging it! So if I were to introduce someone to rhythm games, I'd definetly recommend this game first! And I've not mentioned the music itself yet... ALL of it is very charming, the whole game is just very silly and isn't afraid to show that.

This was the first visual novel I've ever read and Woah turns out this genre is pretty good, huh. I've always had trouble reading books and such, but it turns out having music and pictures is much more engaging.
About the game itself though now, it is a very lengthy series spanning across eight games, with each taking around 12 hours to complete. A completely non-spoilery way to explain the story would be that it stars Keiichi Maebara, a young boy who has moved into a mysterious village named Hinamizawa, and with the help of his new friends, he uncovers its past and its dark secrets.
It uses the fact that it's a visual novel to the fullest extent, spare the lack of choices, the sound design is amazing and so is the character art. On that note, for the love of god, play with the original character art, the new sprites are TERRIBLE.
suicide, murder, very meticulously described gore, I would look up a proper content warning if you actually wanna read these.

LAIN! What else is there to be said about Lain that hasn't already been said?? An innovative sci-fi show that was significantly ahead of its time. Its portrayal the Internet, known as "The Wired" is fantastic, and while it seems to start off in an edgy way, it's an AMAZING show!! and I wish i could say so much more but as other things on this page, it's best experienced blind, so go check it out if you haven't already!!