hello! do you have any complete/finished IF recommendations? preferably ones with lgbt romance options. no preference for paid or free games
Hi anon! Unfortunately, we can't put together a list for finished IF projects as they'll be repetitive to keep referring. But, simply put, all games hosted by CoG (CoG games, hosted games) are finished, if not waiting on their series installments. We suggest perusing their website for IFs that suits your taste. Itch.io also has an option for refining your searches with tags.
On top of that, we also invite you to go through our complete games tag here in the blog!
I'm going to put most of this under a read more, basically I'm going to write quick description of literally everything I played this year (including a bit from December 2021) all in one post. I'll make a separate one for demos I played as well as anticipated games coming in the next couple years. This is generally in order of completion, though a few entries may be slightly scrambled in the midpoint as I added some retroactively during periods where I forgot to update or played multiple games in the same time frame. Not everything I played was from 2021/2022, there's plenty of stuff I just finally got around to this year.
Daemon X Machina (2019): Weird Armored Core-ish mech game, I kind of hated the story and characters, totally lacked depth in ways that would have been far more interesting with more competent writers given the fairly simple premise. Solid, though mech on mech combat was a bit of a slog sometimes especially by the end game where it just felt tedious. The final boss is horrendous and soured my overall opinion of the game. I did not bother to 100% this game, far too tedious achievements.
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knight (2021): Fairly fun metroidvania, the bosses are great. It definitely draws a lot of inspiration from Momodora and such. Exploration is a little slow given the scale of the world, and it's far more combat oriented > puzzles. Still, the boss rush got a good amount of my time. I 100%ed this game.
Slay the Spire (2019): I've been playing this game since 2019 and 100%ed it last year, but I finally managed to beat an Ascension 20 run with every character this year, so I'm including it on this list. idk what to say about this game other than its probably one of my all time faves.
Inscryption: Kaycee's Mod (2022): The base game is fantastic, and honestly was my Game of the Year for 2021. This mod is more of the base game, though elaborating further would spoil the main; I 100%ed this mode, it's quite good, and compliments the base game nicely.
Death's Door (2021): A nice little game with less substance than I'd have liked, combat is fairly simple and puzzles also leave a bit to be desired. Its aesthetic design is very good though. I liked it enough to 100% it, though I had quite a few issues with it, definitely lacked a bit of substance. Minimal in some not-always-great ways.
Binary Domain (2012): What a ride. Janky arcade cover shooter action with a bizarre and charming cast of characters and story. I liked it a lot.
West of Dead (2019): A very mediocre game, honestly, but something about it was exceptionally gripping to me despite its jank. It has a really nice combat flow room-to-room that takes some getting used to, but has a lot of superfluous mechanics that lack a lot of depth and variety. I'm hoping they succeed with the Hellboy game they're working on.
Cave Crawler (2022): A fun little free to play platformer that takes about half an hour to finish at most. Not too special all things considered, but neat!
Gloom (2017): A weird indie side scrolling action roguelike clearly inspired by Bloodborne with a bit of visual inspiration from Limbo. Very RNG dependent for some of its tight time based achievements and such, overall quite janky, but it held my attention for a solid week or two.
Elden Ring (2022): What can I say, it's the Game of the Year, by many people's standards. It had me mesmerized by its world and scale so many times I could hardly believe it, it's sort a game you could only dream of, made real. I do have a few small complaints regarding its overuse of some assets in ways that its scale is a bit of a negative factor in retrospect (also just a handful of bosses have some design I dislike; it's a bit loose in ways something like Sekiro isn't, for example, which still remains my fave combat From has ever designed) but all considered, it's still exceptional. No game is perfect, but this was damn near close.
Neon White (2022): Honestly, this may be tied with Elden Ring for Game of the Year for me. I'm a defender of its cringe, which, all things considered, is a small portion of that game. The gameplay itself is something I never knew I wanted; single player arena shooter time trial speedrunning. It's like the Trackmania of FPS games, and good lord it is something special. I 100%ed this game and got every red ace medal.
Dicey Dungeons: Reunion DLC (free, 2022): An absolutely exceptional send off to an already exceptional game, the music for these episodes absolutely slapped, and the remixed mechanics for each character are maybe my favorite in the entire game, really the ultimate example of how to give a game a proper last hurrah.
Spelunky 2 (2020): I've been playing this game since 2020, but I just wanted to note here that I finally 100%ed this game, excluding having completed the Cosmic Ocean (of which there is no achievement for). Anyway, Derek Yu is a genius and that can never be stated enough, this game sincerely is a masterpiece.
Into the Breach: Advanced Edition DLC (free, 2022): A game I had already completed the year prior got an extremely good and well rounded patch with new enemies, mech squads, etc. I went in to 100% the new achievements as well as get a Hard Mode 4 Island clear with every squad for the hell of it. Also one of my favorite games of all time, I can't say much else about it.
Cult of the Lamb (2022): An incredibly addicting colony sim with roguelite-inspired elements, the rogue aspects left a lot to be desired to be quite honest, but the gameplay loop surrounding the cult carried it. If it weren't for that I'd have been disappointed honestly. The best analogy I can think of is ordering from a restaurant, getting a completely different order, but eating and enjoying it anyway. Not what I expected, but still enjoyable.
skorpulac (2017): a cool short retro inspired platformer by the guy who does Spelunky's music, a very interesting atmosphere with a fun little twist at the end, I loved it.
Super Hexagon (2012): A game I played back in 2012, but finally decided to get the 60 second achievement on the final mode. Peak "flow state" video game.
Carrion (2020): A neat and relatively short metroidvania-ish monster game. It's fairly linear despite its seemingly open ended nature of the hub, I enjoyed it but was never really totally enthralled. A very solid "good!" - the best compliment I can give it to its aesthetics and its very good design and guiding the player on where to go with environmental design while hiding its general linearity. Never in your face while guiding you on your way, devs could learn a thing or two from this game about how to lead players in the right direction without explicitly telling you in text.
Hand of Fate (2015): Truly the only game I hated this year, and I could tell it wasn't for me in just half an hour. I expected card game, I got mediocre action game hidden underneath a ""card game"" veneer. Simply not for me; it felt very dated, despite having a neat presentation.
Environmental Station Alhpa (2015): From the Baba is You and Noita developer, I basically took on this game as "homework" before diving into Noita, and I was not disappointed. Maybe one of the best Super Metroid inspired games that truly understood what made it good, and honestly, probably surpassed it, and that's not even a hot take. This game has absolutely absurd depth, underneath the skin of a fairly normal metroidvania is a monolithic highly esoteric cryptographic puzzle that can add on at least triple the time to complete, and the platforming/boss challenges do not mess around either. Comprehensive and deep, Arvi Teikari is, much like Derek Yu, basically a god damn genius of this craft.
Noita (2019): I'm not quite done with this game, but I'll add it here, since I've given it a long enough rest - I've only scratched the surface of what there is to do in this game, which might be saying too much. This game is loved by masochists and hated by people with little patience and/or imagination, I think your average person would consider it a wacky little game that is fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. For weirdos though, everything horrible about this game is good, actually, and everything good is sincerely genius. I fall in that camp.
Bananner Nababber (2022): Just an absolutely unhinged and beautifully ugly retro inspired platformer boss rush. It's free. If hitting your head against a wall to fight 6 3 phase bosses on par with some of the hardest NES/SNES hellspawns sounds fun, this is for you to waste an afternoon to.
Wow! This got so long I had to add a break!
Dead Cells (2018): This game just doesn't stop getting content, and I'm far from finished with it, but I have to add it to this list simply because I did much more this year after putting it down for a while. It's got ANOTHER expansion/crossover with Castlevania coming next year which is wild. Anyway, I like this game a lot even if it ends up being a bit of a visual clusterfuck at times and is a little oddly slippery with some progression systems I don't like as much as other games, but it's... cool. It's good. Not my favorite game or anything, but I like it enough to keep coming back a couple times a year for a few weeks at a time.
Spelunky HD (2008): Yep, I'm adding this one to the list, I decided to go back to this version to 100% it, though I still have a couple achievements to get, so expect this game to come up again in 2023 as I get around to that (or not, I dunno). Everything I said about Spelunky 2 applies here, except like, a decade earlier, slightly less refined but no less genius.
Tumbleseed (2017): Someone made Ice Cold Beer a video game except about a seed climbing a mountain, and it's good. It's frustrating, but it's good, and it feels good to get good. I still need to finish up a couple achievements that I got so close to finishing, but then life got in the way. I will return! Underrated as hell, though admittedly obviously niche and not very appealing to normal folks.
Gunfire Reborn (2020): I played a lot of this last year, but I also played more of it this year. It's fun, but more fun with others. That said, 80% of my time in it is solo to wrap up achievements, of which I'm fairly deep in on, but still have plenty to go. I have not paid for the DLC. Anyway, I like it, the guns feel good. It's like, if Borderlands were a short 1 hour run roguelike and instead of cringe dialogue it's just funny animal people who don't say anything except "hyaah" and such.
Rogue Legacy 2 (2022): It's more Rogue Legacy, but unlike Nioh being for better and worse, it's all for the better. Vastly improved visuals, movement mechanics, enemy variety, progression, etc. While I ultimately dislike the not-very-rogue persistent upgrades, it is what it is, and they make it work. The challenges are hellish, and I still have some to wrap up, I'd like to 100% this game next year.
Devil Daggers (2016): I have not done everything I wanted to do in this game quite yet, but I'll add it to this list regardless. I'll say it how I summarized it on a Tweet; this game feels like a creepypasta about a haunted arcade game that takes over your brain and forces you to keep playing as it gets weirder and more grotesque as it goes along, except it actually exists. Horrific Overstimulation. I still need to get around to Hyper Demon, I'll see that one in 2023, which just seems like this game on crack (I hate to have written that, but it's true).
Monolith (2017): What an absolutely underrated gem of a game, it's a more shmup-y Isaac. I love it. I wish I could say more, it's just cool as hell. Sometimes that's all that needs to be said.
Vampire Survivors (2022): I don't know how to describe how I feel about this game. It's amazing, but it sucks. I don't even feel bad being low key a hater; it lacks a lot of sincere depth, it's repetitive and the challenge absolutely melts away once you're given access to meta tools, but I can't deny that it's addicting as all hell and charming in almost every other regard. It does a handful of cool things here and there, and is almost taking over the world. I refuse to call things "overrated" on principle, but this is damn near close. The devs are good people and they deserve every bit of praise they get, but man did this game start to wear down on me in my attempt to 100% it.
Floppy Knights (2022): As of writing this, there's still one more piece of promised final DLC, so expect to see this on my 2023 list as well once I complete that. This game is good! As with quite a few others on this list, I wrote a lengthy Steam review about it. It's a really good puzzle tactics game! Emphasis on puzzle - this will leave a lot to be desired for RPG tactics fans, which initially disappointed me, but grew on me as I started to understand it as an open-ended puzzle game. The challenge modes (with set decks you're forced to play with) really nailed this aspect and were honestly more fun and rewarding to complete than the base game which ultimately ended up a bit cheesable by the end (albeit the way its progression works, was always balanced, so I have to give it credit for that) Anyway, soft recommend for PUZZLE fans who happen to also like turn based tactics. I would tell RPG tactics fans to give it a look too, but to expect a generally slower paced and more methodical game style.
Nioh 2 (2020): It's more Nioh! For better and worse. What an absolute nightmare of a grind with totally superfluous loot treadmill mechanics that it absolutely does not need, needlessly complicated marginal stat gains across weapon and character skill trees, armor, weapons, and trinkets, etc. etc. But at the end of the day, the core mechanics surrounding its combat are absolutely exceptional, the boss fights are some of the most fun in any action game of this style I've fought, and that's even in competition with the Souls games that inspired it. It's SO fun, here's hoping Wo Long is at least a little less grind-y than this.
Umarangi Generation (2020): Retroactively one of my top 5 2020 games probably, it's got a sincere understanding of what makes the PS1 era visuals and level design that inspired it good. Mildly janky in a few areas that don't affect the overall experience, this is one of those games I'd recommend to any visual artist honestly. The photo editing is really well implemented. If I ever get around to the DLC, I'll include it in my 2023 list.
Higurashi When They Cry Chapter 1 (2006/2015): Felt the need to get around to some Ryukishi07 work in light of the announcement of Silent Hill f. Gripping and chilling, honestly, immaculate pacing and sense of tension. Admittedly required putting on some blinders to its grosser elements (mostly in the, y'know, teenage boy protag surrounded by girls premise and the weird writing that often leaves me wishing to NOT be in the protag's head) but aside from that it's still really good. You just have to be an anime trope immune person to enjoy this sort of stuff. I'll give a full opinion on the entire story as I complete it in 2023.
Mortal Shell (2020): A very souls inspired short game that was thoroughly enjoyable, save a few oddities with its character progression and are designs. There were a few stand out positives, and just a couple glaring negatives, but overall I like it a lot. I still have the expanded roguelike "Virtuous Cycle" mode to sink my teeth into, so I'll update my thoughts in 2023 on that.
Good lord, I wish there was more I could say about each game (in some cases there was, in which case I put up a likely private Steam review for, sorry)
“If we lived forever, maybe we'd have time to understand things. But as it is, I think the best we can do is try to open our eyes... and appreciate how strange and brief all of this is.”
