Time taken to play fully: 540
Release Date: 16/11/2018, updated in 2020
Platforms: Android, PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS
Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds
Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made
Among Us is a strategy game where crew-mates prepare their spaceship for launch by completing tasks. However, one of the players is an impostor intent on sabotaging the ship and killing the crew. As the game progresses in real-time the impostor...
Release Date: 05/04/2019, updated in 2021
Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch and Xbox One
Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds
Components: 3D Third-Person, Open World, Pixels and Weather
In A Short Hike you play penguin-like character Claire, who needs to climb a mountain in a beautiful national park to receive an important phone call. Presented in cute pixel graphics, the game invites you to explore the park, help other animals, find...
Release Date: 14/12/2001, updated in 2020
Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, DS, GameCube, Switch and Wii
Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds
Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night, Open World and Weather
You live on a small island teeming with life. Insects, fish, trees, vegetation and fossils are represented with cute cartoon visuals. Rather than the scale or grandeur of other game worlds, it’s the interconnected drama of the world and characters...
Release Date: 30/07/2019, updated in 2022
Platforms: Apple TV, Mac and iOS
Skill Rating: 5+ year-olds
Components: 2D Overhead, Cartoon, Day and Night, Hand-Made and Open World
Sneaky Sasquatch is an adventure game where you sneak around in campsites and try to find food from coolers and picnic baskets without getting caught. From this simple premise grows a game with endless ways to play and explore its open world: race, play...
Release Date: 02/11/2021
Platforms: Mac, PC, Switch and Xbox One
Components: 2D Overhead, Blocks, Hand-Made and Pixels
Unpacking is a meditative puzzle game where you unpack belongings into a series of spaces, each representing a stage in life. You get to know the owner of the objects by their possessions and circumstances. To finish a level you need to work out where...
Release Date: 08/04/2021, updated in 2022
Platforms: Android, PC and iOS
Components: 3D First-Person and Cartoon
Before Your Eyes is a narrative game about an 11-year-old boy revisiting his life before "crossing over" to the other side. You play by exploring scenes that represent snapshots of his life. Unusually, you make choices and interact with the game by...
Release Date: 29/10/2020
Platforms: PC
Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds
Components: 3D First-Person
Teardown is a strategic game where you plan and execute a heist in fully destructible environments. Your objective is to claim the key cards that are hidden around the map. However taking one triggers the alarm, giving you only sixty seconds before...
Release Date: 11/12/2020
Platforms: Apple TV, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS
Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon
Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is an adventure game where you play as a young girl who starts a wildlife conservation club. When Alba visits her grandparents on a Mediterranean island, she is excited for a summer of exploring with her friend Ines. But when...
Release Date: 08/12/2017
Platforms: Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch and Xbox One
Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds
Hello Neighbor is a stealth survival game with a horror feel. You try and sneak into the basement of their neighbour’s house to uncover a "horrible secret". The game responds to your strategy by setting traps along paths the player followed in...
Release Date: 14/03/2012, updated in 2019
Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4 and iOS
Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World
Journey is an adventure game set in a desert. Exploring the eerie sand-scape, you discover a world abandoned by the race that created it. The sense of space and scale evokes feelings of aloneness and being lost. But then the game pairs you with other...
Release Date: 01/09/2021
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S
Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds
Components: 3D First-Person, 3D Third-Person and Cartoon
Lake is a narrative adventure where you play Meredith Weiss on a career break in 1986 while she returns to her hometown and ends up delivering the mail. As you talk to locals, meet up with old school friends and even fan a few romantic flames from your...
Release Date: 30/06/2020, updated in 2021
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, Switch, Web, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS
Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds
Components: 2D Overhead, Blocks and Hand-Made
Townscaper is a town building toy. You pick colours from the range available and click to put down a house in the sea. As you continue to add houses of different colours the game automatically orientates the architecture for you.
Release Date: 27/08/1992, updated in 2018
Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, DS, GameCube, Switch and iOS
Mario Kart is a go-kart racing game on Nintendo systems. You race against other Nintendo characters around different circuits, picking up power-ups, attacks and speed boosts. It is frantic and chaotic, but still requires skills to do well.
Release Date: 28/08/2018
Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One
Components: 3D Third-Person
Drive futuristic cars to score goals with an oversized football. It’s another game that sounds ridiculous but is actually a huge amount of fun to play and requires a lot of expertise. What’s not obvious from the start is the level of control that...
Release Date: 19/11/2020
Platforms: PS5
Astro's Playroom is a running and jumping game that launched with the PlayStation 5. It not only showcases the PS5's new DualSense controller but offers a loveable adventure with novel interactions and considerable substance.
Release Date: 20/09/2016
Components: 3D First-Person, Cartoon and Open World
Firewatch is an explorative adventure where you play a fire lookout in America’s Shoshone National Forest. It has a relational and conspiracy undertone similar to the podcast/radio drama and Netflix show [link to...
Release Date: 14/02/2018, updated in 2020
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
Florence is a little puzzle game that tells the story of a relationship, following the usual stages of loneliness, meeting, dating, falling for and moving in with another person. At first, the puzzle interactions seem trivial and the game doesn’t...
Release Date: 16/09/2007, updated in 2021
Platforms: Mac, PC and iOS
Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On
Osu is a rhythm action game where you tap the screen in time to the music similar to the Elite Beat Agents games. This starts as a simple challenge but develops in speed and complexity. At higher levels, the games is an esport with people competing to...
Release Date: 26/05/2020
Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One
Components: 3D Third-Person and Blocks
Minecraft Dungeons is an action-adventure game that takes place in the Minecraft universe. You explore various dungeons to complete missions and collect new gear by exploring and finding treasure chests, or by defeating enemies....
Release Date: 06/12/2018
Components: 2D Overhead and Cartoon
Conduct Together is a strategy game where you control toy trains along the overlapping train tracks. Each train can be started and stopped with a specific button. Other buttons change different points. The aim is to transport the people from one station...
Release Date: 21/03/2017, updated in 2019
Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4 and Switch
Skill Rating: 3+ year-olds
Everything is an unusual game that simulates a world where you can become any object. It sounds strange and not much fun, but the enjoyment is in discovering how small or how big a thing you can become. From tiny atoms to whole planets and everything in...
Release Date: 02/11/2016, updated in 2018
Abzu is an adventure in a lush underwater world. You descend into the heart of the ocean to find ancient secrets and encounter majestic creatures. This combines the beautiful weightlessness of diving with an ancient story of meaning and place in the world.
Release Date: 12/02/2009
Platforms: PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4 and iOS
Components: 3D First-Person, Open World and Weather
In Flower you control the breeze blowing across fields of grass and blow petals into other flowers to make them bloom. Flower is simple and single-purpose in evoking the feeling of the wind. What starts as an awkward struggle to control the breeze soon...
Release Date: 24/08/2021
Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon
Hoa is an adventure game where you walk and jump through a hand-painted world as the mysterious main character. You solve environmental puzzles and meet magical creatures while trying to find your way back home. It's unusual because of its handcrafted...
Release Date: 08/02/2006, updated in 2014
Platforms: Wii and Wii U
Skill Rating: 4+ year-olds
Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Sports Club offer motion-controlled sports. Although these games are well known, the depth each of them offer is a best-kept secret. Games like bowling, tennis and boxing are easy to pick up but require considerable...
Release Date: 06/01/2015
Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and iOS
Components: 2D Overhead and Grid
Mini Metro is a game where you create an ordered, efficient underground train system. It sounds like hard work, but the simple Tube-map visuals, calm music, and streamlined interactions make this relaxing, like sudoku. Dip your toe in this strategy...
Release Date: 19/02/2015, updated in 2018
Platforms: Android, Apple TV, Mac, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS
Components: 2D Side-On, Day and Night and Weather
Descend beautiful mountains, dunes and canyons on a snowboarding journey full of serenity and secrets. All you have to worry about is tapping to jump to avoid chasms, rockfall and other hazards. It’s simple and moreish due to the stunning landscapes...
Release Date: 25/03/2021, updated in 2022
Platforms: PC and Switch
Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Hand-Made
Dorfromantik is a peaceful village-building strategy puzzle game for one player inspired by tile-based board-games like Carcassonne. You have a stack of hexagonal tiles and work to match their edges while creating areas of towns, forests and fields to...
Release Date: 30/11/2012
Platforms: Wii U
Components: 3D First-Person and 3D Third-Person
Nintendoland is a collection of Nintendo games was created for the Nintendo Wii U launch. It uses the console’s tablet screen to create specific roles for different players. In Mario Chase, the hiding player uses the tablet controller screen while the...
Release Date: 29/09/2017, updated in 2019
Components: 2D Side-On, Cartoon and Hand-Made
Cuphead is a running, jumping and shooting game that looks like an old Mickey Mouse cartoon. You play on your own or with someone else and work across the screen, jumping gaps, shooting enemies and avoiding projectiles.
Release Date: 04/03/2019
Platforms: Apple TV, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS
Mini Motorways is by the same developer as Mini Metro but tasks you with planning a road network rather than subway. You lay down roads, traffic lights and motorways to ensure enough cars can get to the buildings that pop up in your city as time passes....
Release Date: 12/08/2015, updated in 2016
Platforms: Mac, PC and PS4
Components: 3D First-Person and Open World
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture lands you in a fictional deserted English village in 1984. As you walk the streets of another era you discover bright human forms who re-enact events like a radio play. Through their eyes, you see a web of fear,...
Release Date: 21/11/2019, updated in 2020
Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S
Components: 3D Third-Person, Blocks and Open World
The Touryst is a puzzle based adventure, where you seek to unlock the mysteries of an archipelago of sun-drenched islands. That's if you want to of course, because the adventure can wait if you'd rather soak up the sun and make the most of your time...
Release Date: 02/06/2021
Platforms: Android, PC, Switch and iOS
Skill Rating: 13+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On, Hand-Made and Text
Overboard is a murder mystery narrative game played in reverse. You murder your husband at the start of the game and then try and get away with it. It's played on a ship where the characters are affected by your choices and change their actions...
Release Date: 23/03/2023
Platforms: Mac, PC and Switch
Storyteller is a puzzle game about building stories. You use a set of icons to match what is happening in each frame of the story. It's a simple challenge that gets the mind-stretching as you construct some of history’s greatest stories using building...
Release Date: 20/01/2021
Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night and Hand-Made
Nuts is an adventure game where you play a rookie field researcher. You use your camera, caravan, GPS and map to investigate the depths of the enigmatic Melmoth Forest. As you study the local squirrel population you uncover a strange mystery.
Release Date: 31/01/2023
Platforms: PC, PS4 and PS5
Season: A Letter to the Future is a narrative adventure about a road trip as the weight of history turns. You play a young woman leaving a secluded community to explore the world for the first time. Your task is to collect artefacts, record sounds and...
Release Date: 06/08/2020
Drink More Glurp is a wacky sports game where you take turns to play athletic challenges. The twist is that you have to control your over-long arms with a separate joystick and your body is a wheel you can roll along on if you lift your arms right up....
Release Date: 30/01/2013
Platforms: Mac, PC, PS Vita and PS3
Components: 3D First-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night, Open World and Weather
This game takes you to a pixelated island. As you explore you discover that your presence changes the seasons and time of day. Delving deeper, there are rudimentary interactions with the creatures that inhabit the land, and rain clouds that blow in from...
Release Date: 23/06/2006
Platforms: PS Vita, PS4 and PSP
This creates a world of plants and creatures to investigate. The novelty, besides the character’s singing and cute aesthetic, is that you control the game with just two buttons, tilting and bumping your characters through each level.