I don't know why, but some gruff, gravely voice describing your character's inner thoughts can make even the most simplistic game seem epic. Games like that usually make me want to plant roots and play until the end, when I'm bleary-eyed, hungry, shaking with a full bladder, but weirdly satisfied. Probably my three fave examples are Nihilumbra (leave me alone, stupid void), Bastion and Thomas Was Alone. Anyone else know where I'm coming from, plus what are your favourites?
Narrator voice telling your thought / state of mind specifically? Nothing besides Bastion comes to mind. If "all" you want is great narration (with good voice acting), you will enjoy Transistor too: it's by the same folks who made Bastion. Not sure, but I think it's even the same VA. Unfortunately, there isn't that much great VA out there. Most is okay-ish, or worse. Same goes for narration alone (without VA): not many truly exceptional gems out there that I know of. I'm not into puzzle games. typically, but Nihilumbra looks very interesting, added to my backlog. UPDATE: Just went through my purchase list to look for more. Duet has an interesting way of - I think it's meant to be internal voice - storytelling, too. But a warning: it's a really difficult dexterity game, I couldn't complete it (never been good at those). I have a few more games that I consider exceptional/different in the way they do their story (e.g. Crow), but I'm not sure if these are of interest to you. And I vaguely remember a few audio only games, which might pique your interest. But I cannot recall their names, so maybe someone else can help out here.
Yeah, Duet and Papa Sangre definitely fit in here too. I mean, Duet could have easily just been a really good twitch game, but add in a few mysterious lines by that soft-spoken girl and it ascends to that I'M DOING SOMETHING IMPORTANT HERE level. Never played the first Papa Sangre- think that has Benedict Cumberbatch narrating, so it should be good- but the Sean Bean narration in the sequel is excellent. I like Crow. The gameplay's not mindblowing, but the whole way it's presented again makes it much more interesting. I'll get on Transistor. I'm like saphire_neo and still clinging onto ios 7 because I hate the idea of losing games I love (plus I like adding media with ifunbox too much), but there are more and more games which leave me tempted every day. It doesn't even have to be voice narration necessarily. IOS has a ton of indie games which tell stories in odd, beautiful ways (just finished Last Voyage, and that definitely fits the bill).
Transistor... It's from the same makers who did Bastion. A Blind Legend... This one is similar to Papa Sangre, and has you swinging a sword while being blind.
How about we start a list-style thread for those games? IDEA: How about we start a list-style thread for those games? Like undeadcow's RPG Listings? If more people are interested, I'll set it up and maintain it as my time allows. Dust is on my backlog, too About the audio games: The one(s) I vaguely recall are neither the Papa Sangre series nor Blind Legend, so there must be at least one more out there.
I'm all for that list. I know when I've been really hit by a game, I'll often come here, run a search for it, and read a few threads on it because I don't want it to end just yet. It's always good to see a big list in the results and find those games I missed out on. As to the audio-only game...the Papa Sangre dudes did make a more horror sci-fi audio game before they moved onto the afterlife. Let me look up its name. The Nightjar. And there was another one which lasted about ten minutes. Had something to do with escaping from a jail on a boat. Think it may have been made to raise blind awareness. No idea what it was called, though. For other games with odd ways of telling a story and cool narration: the controversial sort of follow up to World Of Goo, Little Inferno. It mostly tells its story in the form of letters and weather reports, in between burning stuff up. It ends up a really magical piece of satire about why we're doing this game-playing business to begin with, when we could be out doing cartwheels outside. Might give it a replay, actually, because I never saw the alt ending as I burned up a free hug instead of saving it.
Just stumbled on Cloud Chasers: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=273202 Looks like a worthy candidate, but I'd prefer to wait for some impressions/confirmation. The trailer music sure reminded me of Bastion. If I have some breathing room tomorrow (troubleshooting arcane errors in software you barely know is pretty time-consuming...), I'll start up the list thread.
Not a mobile game (to the best of my knowledge), but maybe The Stanley Parable? Definitely less "gruff" or "gravelly", but sort of fits with Thomas Was Alone.
Wow, a disgruntled ex-programmer once recommended me that game in the middle of a rant about how he wished more games could take narrative risks...or something (he was pretty drunk and angry). Completely forgot about it after he mentioned it until now. Thanks! And there's a limit to how much I can listen to narrators who sound like they have a ground glass, petrol and rusty nail smoothie for breakfast every morning. I can take a soprano every now and then for change's sake.
