PASSAGE

A genuine piece of art, this game excells at unravelling the entirety of human existence and eliciting a strong emotional response in a player in just 5 minutes of its running time. During these 5 minutes the main character gets to live his life, find his significant other (or not) , attend to his livelihood (or not), witness the passage of time and die. Different lifestyle choices yield different results  and affect aging, physical and emotional decay, though naturally, the end result is uniform and unavoidable. Looking at its rudimentary graphics and controls one has to acknowledge the skill in the game designer  to make a bold statement from such a finite gaming experience. It's free to download, it questions the preconceptions in gaming and leaves you thinking. It's among the first 14 games  included in MoMA's permanent collection for its artistic statement. Try it.

SEAMAN

With my senior year of high school came the NATO bombing and a somewhat late fad for those pocket-sized pet sim clones every girl had attached to their wallet chain. Absolutely convinced  that no pet sim could ever be put to good use I came to one of my rich friend's Belgrade apartments two or three months afterwards and realised that Sega proved me wrong. Rearing a fish-like creature through its philogeny/ontogeny until a fully formed surly young man-fish starts conversing with you and making you feel like a failed father was confusing and wonderful at the same time. For a pre 00s game to have controls that primarily consist of talking into a special microphone, a life-like facial expressiveness of the main character, the impression you're left with that your character gains experience and wisdom as you talk to him on a number of serious and ludicrous topics (don't know what algorithms they used , but they did a great job here), and being able to hear some Leonard Nimoy on top of it all was a huge breakthrough for a simple game. And I still often think about the underlying themes or viewpoints the author might have wanted to express- why the fish, why the face, whether it has to do with Christianity, conformity, Creationism vs Evolutionism, a failed deiurge  or if it's just about the absurdity of family life and the distorted view that different generations might have of one another.

I wish other titles followed suit and explored  it more, maybe even develop a genre in its own right. This way we're left with AI assistants who are simly boring, and tell on you.

PAPERBOY

They don't make them like they used to. Ok, not true, but still - 80s and 90s are replete with oddities that made your usual genre of preference a unique gaming experience. Paperboy does exactly what it says on the tin, and not only will it cater to those Generation Xers who knew exactly what it meant to flip a burger or deliver newspapers to "learn to appreciate the value of money" and afford a new 8bit or 16bit gaming system, but it will also appeal to Millenials, and not just to those Millenials who  search for gaming document of days gone by.

The premise is simple- a paperboy has to deliver his round and throw papers to as many houses of subscribers without being bit by dogs, or hit by a myriad of moving objects, cars, carts, raving neigbours, breakdancers, toys  etc. With some time needed to get acquainted with controls and the scrolling, it plays well and you slowly grow to like evading death traps while trying to keep Daily Sun's readers happy. Even if you do get fired , you get fired to an awesome soundtrack playing in the back.

One can easily of a counterpart from the 90s it inspired. Less death and less guns , though.

And, uhm, don't play the Commodore 64 version , it's really bad.

PARADROID

Though it was later ported to several systems and its life was prolonged well into the early naughties, this gaming phenomenon is largely associated with the good-ole c64. It is still regarded by many as the greatest c64 exclusive ever  to have graced the screens of our TV sets.

Hostile service robots have "gone mad" and taken over a spaceship killing its entire human crew. Your robot is beamed aboard  with a mission to sweep the ship clean deck by deck, removing the unruly robots and investigating everything before pressing the ship's self-destruct button. Unlike many c64 multidirectional shooters, Paradroid doesn't overdo it on desperately trying to make  the best possible shooting experience for a player ,and  makes up for graphic limitations with suspense and nervous anticipation instead, as other units become visible only after you've entered a room. The in-game puzzle of invading other robots CPUs and busting their circuits is a great complement to the shooter and makes this one of the most intriguing gaming experiences of old. Body snatching and destruction  never had a level of sophisticated presentation that high in a game up to that point. The beeping sounds adding to the nervous anticipation and the cold hollowness of an abandoned ship  and the conscious decision to not include in-game music  further highlight  the masterful presentation and enrich the gaming experience.

Paradroid remains a ground-breaking classic and it's easy to realise its value once you've tried it.

THRUST

Does what it says on the tin.It's neither about its minimal design and simple graphics, nor about the unnervingly monotonous sounds of an engine thruster.The plot doesn't affect the gaming experience at all. It was done by one man from start to finish. But it's about physics and inertia and breaking a sweat while grapling the controls of your spacecraft, avoiding cave walls and thinking about your movements before you moved. It's graceful and addictive. it's timeless and unique.The cold design of the world traversed gives the player a common feel of a dystopian world without the usual   landscape and machinery visuals.It's truly an inspiration to hundreds of games that came afterwards. A game that could do with more in-game sounds and music, but hey- Rob Hubbard's title theme for the c64 version still rocks hard enough to make you ignore the above mentioned thruster sounds.

EVERYTHING

When I was 9 I thought it would be great if someone made a game in which you could be a platform, a sprite, a boulder,a trap, a contraption, the hero's arch enemy or anything else but the hero. Someone beat me to it (Tim Winsky http://indianastone.twinskygames.com/ ) and the result is wonderful. I recently realised , though, that there are people who went way further than what I thought leaving the confines of your average video game concept could mean. What if you could play everything within a game and be a microorganism, a plant, an animal, a boulder, an island, a natural phenomenon, a celestial body, a galaxy and so forth, all within a single game? Add some metaphysical humour and unease ,beautiful music and passages of recorded narration by the inimitable Alan Watts and you got EVERYTHING the game. It rewards reflection and patience, and as you ascend or descend by experiencing the interconnectedness of forms in the pool of  universal consciousness you realise you can listen to its thoughts, receive and sing its vibrations, and become a vibrating sequence yourself. Entering and leaving forms (even those such as oil rigs, boots and snowmen) as you gain knowledge through experience of being leaves you asking "What am I supposed to want here?" (Alan Watts again). Playing it over and over again, I suppose.

This is the best game I've ever played. Period. Nothing comes even close.

CUPHEAD

There's been a lot of nitpicking about this game. It's nothing more than a collection of bosses, the Cuphead character lacks character, we've all waited too long for this and it doesn't live up to the hype etc.Forget that.

From an era of animation that produced hundreds of cartoons that are now banned for their social,racial,chauvinist undertones  comes a game celebrating the years of uncertainty and fear dressed in cuteness and duelling with the devil.The distorted world Cuphead's living in is a map, a menu for the voracious and lost,  depicted with faded colours. Characters are monomaniacal and blind to anything around them.The authors have they even toned down  the racial  and chauvinist stereotyping of  some of  Max Fleischer and Tex Avery's cartoons  (Mexicans, East-Europeans, Italians).They softened it down but still retained the characteristic physical features for characters and bosses. The fact that the devil is also entitled to the souls of the bosses you fight with to free your soul of smelling your own flesh roast till there's no tomorrow only goes to show you how thorough the game makers were in outlining the story. Why go there? Why not?An era that had dance marathons  deserves to be presented in the form of a game as it is eerily similar to contemporary experience.There's almost an educational value to this game.

But there is so much more to this than making a threnody for the Roaring 20s and the frightening 30s - it's a fun and highly addictive game  requiring skill and alertness acquired through trial and error, just like the favourties from the 80s and 90s we loved as kids. If nothing else , Cuphead should be praised for all the love, painstaking exploration and creativity put into it.

FLOW

It's a game about a microscopic being going about its daily business in a water-like microworld, eating other microscopic organisms or using them to cross to other planes, growing and evolving and becoming more complex as it goes further into the deep, arriving at a black mass where its journey ends. Simple and cute, I know. But the sensation you're left with way surpasses the game's premise, same as with JOURNEY - it's about the trip itself more so than anything else, but unlike Journey where I traversed sandy expanses with ruins left behind long-gone civilization and felt the journey  reflected a uniquely human existence at its core, Flow  finds you in a primordial soup where you're every living being that ever lived rising from and giving itself to the cycles of matter. It's about  womb, water, blood, fear of Microcosm and Macrocosm intertwined. You can't die in this game. Everything's in flow.

FAÇADE

This game recreates the feel of a dinner invitation you unwillingly accept only to find yourself amidst serious marital quarrels and ugliness that a stale relationship gives birth to at times. Nobody wants you to be a marriage councellor, but you  have to simply turn into one for the sake of your own mental well-being. Fake it through  uncomfortable theatrics and jabs at topics like parents, money, careers, personal traits etc  and steer the couple towards a reconcilliation of some kind. Or pick a road more frequently travelled nowadays and  ruin the dinner even further with insults and bad words, budding in  and neglecting your guests' feelings, all leading to Trip and Grace seeing you out and continuing their quarrel behind closed doors. Either way, you clearly see the effect of your comportment.
 This game is a beacon of light for all the wannabe interactive dramas that put too much emphasis on  graphics and too little emphasis on the story and the way it unfolds. And yes, the visual side reminds me of "Waking Life" and "Scanner Darkly"

EPISTORY - TYPING CHRONICLES

There have been other typing games so far, yes, but none so elaborate, original and as beautifully programmed as Epistory.You do get incrementally better at typing  as you progress with this title, but the way the game unfolds  and the joy you get from playing the game is magical! You help the narrator of the story by running a girl riding a 3-tailed fox using only your keyboard. By following the narrator and helping the story unfold, new terrains and landscapes reveal themselves and your wisdom and magical abilities increase. You engage the enemies and manipulate  objects by typing out letters of the words that appear above them, and it plays a hundred times more exciting than it sounds. If you look at a game while it's played by someone else you do not get the feeling of experiencing a typing game at all.

Papercraft and origami designs were a clever addition to the "search of knowledge" premise behind the game, though largely introduced due to Unity's Tiled Map Editor's limitations.The exploration is easy, battles pose a real challenge to your  typing skills and you're presented with many tactical choices at each point in the story.

The fox/kitsune character  derived from Chinese/Japanese mythology was an incredibly clever thing to introduce, as the general non-conformity of available tales and myths surrounding kitsune through ages lend themselves beautifully to using the 3-tailed fox as a more generalized symbol. With a hundered years for each tail to grow, our fox has grown much wiser and powerful  and has already unlocked a number of magical powers that come of age (mouths or tails generating fire , lihtning, ice) , yet she has a lot to go to see all of 9 tails  grown on her, and this makes her a suitable companion to the main character.Kitsune also manifests itself in dreams and create illusions one cannot tell apart from reality. Should this be taken into account while playing Epistolary? You could , but being completely igorant of the story behind kitsune won't spoil the enjoyment of playing this wonderful game for you.

Oh, yes- the game's available in 9 languages and supports different keyboard layouts.

OPERATION WOLF

I was so impressed by this game and played the proots out of it and dreamt it and dreamt of taking it back home with me (or at least  ripping out the massive machine gun and taking it home).All other FPSs I played never got even remotely close to this gem in terms of their hold on me. The detailed graphics, the moving screen and the magnificent sprites, a difficulty level on a par with Green Beret's- any one of these characteristics would have won me over. It had the 80s-Rambo-like-soldier-plowing-through-some-third-world-country-boondocks grit and exaggeration written all over it, and an impressionable kid like myself was instantly hooked (Little did I know my country was going to become a third-world country in just a few years after that). There are 6 stages  the completion of which bring their respective goodies, with  on-the-go energy and ammunition boosts you would snatch off the screen as you enjoy the feel of a cold machine gun in your 8-year old hands.Lovely. All the Dooms,Bloods,Quakes, Half-Lives appeared  after the novelty wore off for me. I'd still pay for the arcade cabinet to own and have displayed in my room today - a subtle reminder that wargames leave a nasty taste in one's mouth after shite hits the fan and  the war appears on your doorstep when you're a teen.

LEMMINGS

Ported to a number of different systems, Lemmings proved to be one of the biggest video games success stories of the 90s. A simple, unique and addictive concept of successfully guiding a number of lemmings to the level's exit by assigning 8 different tasks to 8 of them while paying attention to all the others in order to get as many of them to the exit gate by navigating and changing the levels' landscape became an instant iconic title in the  Amiga universe and one of the games most readily associated with Amiga. It inspired clever games across different gaming eras, from The Lost Vikings to Max and the Magic Marker and beyond.
120 beautifully designed and well-structured levels (or 20 in a 2-player mode) with ascending difficulty level throughout are still an eye-candy and still bring genuine joy to the player.
The music could have been given greater care with arrangements and sounds, but again it was the era of the unfortunate 16bit OGTs.However, this is insignificant compared to how great this game was and still is.

HIDDEN FOLKS

This is a unique hidden-object game  with beautiful, hand-written  animated scenes you interact with  while searching for characters, animals and objects. Using previous experiences  of picture books that teem with life as opposed to the often bland visual aspect of a standard hidden-object game allowed this title to come to life like no other in this genre. The layered drawings you click on are exclusively accompanied by recorded mouth noises and voices which  I find absolutely dazzling and adds to the vastness of the drawned surroundings. Now, these are the OGTs people should be making!

Even those who cringe at the very idea of ever playing another hidden-object game should have a go at this gem.

NOBY NOBY BOY

This is an experimental game, a game which stretches your character to fantastic proportions, and in which stretches your our understanding of what a game is or could be. Is the absense of  a clear objective , a discernible goal within a game allowed in games? Can we call such games games?

You control a pink four-legged creature called Boy who's in direct communication with the Sun who sends Boy's regards to the Girl. Wierd pop tunes that verge on being annoying to an unaccustomed ear are wonderfully paired with odd controls and camera views and randomly generated sandboxes that inhabit a unique and odd-looking world the Boy lives in. Boy eats  people and objects and stretches and that's pretty much what he does all throughout the game.

The Girl's directly linked to The Boy, and she stretches whenever somebody playing the game stretches.The randomly generated sandboxes unlock planet by planet to all the players as they collectively play a giant single-player game and help Girl reach another planet in the Solar system, unlocking new sandboxes. The author of the game thought it would take years and years to unlock all the planets  and that the interest in the game would wane without gamers ever unlocking all of them, but it only took 2489 days  for the Girl to connect all the planets in the system and get back to Earth . That's how engaging this game was/is to those who played it.

Is this a game about love and finding your significant other? Is it about loneliness and our voracious appetites? Is it about evil in this world , as some might suggest? The critics view the game as a non-game, as an experiment in form  and to some degree I can relate to that. But shouldn't each new  game challenge us and not be just another eye candy to waste time on? It has interesting gameplay, odd mechanics and it's immature, childish, absurd and fun. You should definitely give it a try.

ROGUE

I've been a fan of roguelike games for a while now, but it wasn't until the local computer magazine ("Svet Kompjutera")  went into the nature and the origins of the genre  that made me go back and try the game the whole genre was named after. Boy was I  surprised! What I thought was the result of an amassed experience of a history of titles within the genre basically boiled down to one single game. Everything one loves about a roguelike is here: permadeath, text terminals, procedurally generated levels, ludicrously hard gameplay, procedurally-created levels,suspense,looting and dungeon crawling, sprites positions etc. Let go of your thirst for the graphically demanding games and try this gem, you'll enjoy it immensely. The rudimentary ascii graphics will spark your imagination beyond anything you've seen in this genre  so far.