Viscera Cleanup Detail
Okay, so I need you to bear with me on this one. This game is not necessarily something everybody will enjoy. In fact, you either have to be a relatively hardcore gamer OR have an understanding that satire can appear in more than just movies and television shows. Viscera Cleanup Detail is a bizarre and strange game that falls outside the realm of what you would expect when playing a video game. Many of us have played games like DOOM, Wolfenstein, and other shooters. Others have played games where they’re simple gore fests of nonstop action and blood splattering violence. One of the questions we’ve never really asked is who cleans all of that up after it goes down? Who has to go in there and clean up the blood, bullet casings, body parts, pieces of gore, and broken amenities? Well, in this case, you are that person. Viscera Cleanup Detail is a game where you take on the role of a janitor tasked with cleaning up a location after a blood soaked battle took place. Spread among the various locations are blood splattered walls and floors, mutilated body parts, bullet casings, bullet holes, broken pieces of furniture, and a myriad of other destructive aspects. They provide you with an incinerator, an unlimited supply of mop buckets and water, hazard bins to store body parts for cremation, and item releases for med packs, large flashlights, and more. There’s no time limit (unless you want to play the Speedrun version where you’re trying to finish the level as fast as possible). Instead, you simply throw on some music, a movie on another monitor/phone, and start cleaning up the area. It’s surprisingly relaxing and even helps settle nerves or calm ADHD cases. It has ragdoll physics, tons of blood and gore, and leaves you feeling supremely satisfied when you see the difference between the messy location and the finished, clean product.
Viscera Cleanup Detail was developed by RuneStorm and is available on PC.
The Room
In the Board Game Night post for Azul, I spoke about my love of puzzles and how their simplistic and relevant inclusion in games is something I love. The Room offers me everything I want in a puzzle game while providing excellent storytelling and excellent critical thinking skills. Have you ever been to an Escape Room? Escape Rooms are enjoyable for all ages and really help you appreciate the intricacy of designing and implementing those kinds of puzzles. The Room basically puts you inside of an Escape Room, however, because it’s a video game, the options for how everything plays out is limitless. The mechanics, puzzles, and difficult solutions are all heavily implemented due to the unlimited ways the mechanics and visuals can be instituted into a video game. There are several sequels to the game, and each one is more difficult and provides a more complex depth. The story is riveting, the puzzles are difficult, and the ambiance is breathtaking. I like to go back and play the game every now and then once the solutions to the puzzles have worn off and I’ve forgotten some of them. The Room never gets old, its sequels never get old, and I will forever love the puzzles and rich storytelling in such a short and simple game.
The Room was developed by Fireproof Games is available on PC, iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch.
Valley
Valley is one of the most serenely beautiful games I’ve played in recent memory. The gameplay is very simple: you explore a world called Valley using a L.E.A.F (Leap Effortlessly through Air Functionality) suit. The suit is an amazing exoskeleton that gives you unbelievable speed and agility. You can also manipulate the life and death of all living things with the suit. There’s no real combat or fighting that takes place within the game. Instead, you use the powers of life and death to alter the landscape and surrounding areas to solve small puzzles and adventure through the game. The graphics, the music, and the story are simply incredible. It’s a very short game without much replayability, but it holds a small piece of intrinsic artistic value that puts the game above many others. Sometimes it’s about quality instead of quantity, and the quality is outstanding. I’ve never felt more or at peace or intrigued by such a world as with Valley. It’ll be a while before I experience anything this breathtaking again.
Valley was developed by Blue Isle Studios and is available on PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator
This one is a bit of an interesting and different take on the types of video games I like to play. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional simulator game such as Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Animal Crossing. However, I came across this game as part of a Steam sale a few years ago, and I’ve had an absolute blast watching stuff in this game play out. UEBS isn’t really a game. It’s a simulator. It says it right there in the title. The entire schtick of the game is that you set up a large battle between competing armies, hit a button, and watch the battle unfold. You can have the Roman legion battle against musketeers from the Revolution. You can have an army of Deadpools fight off an army of Orcs from Lord of the Rings. I once put 1,000 Jedi against 1,000 Space Marines and watched the carnage unfold. It’s ridiculous, it’s stupid, and it’s downright funny. UEBS is one of the most hilarious games I’ve played because you’re not playing a game; you’re watching a bunch of digital dudes beat up other digital dudes that you placed on a fake battlefield…but I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s even a sequel slated to come out in the Fall of 2021. How you make a sequel to this game, I’m not sure, but man am I psyched to play it!
Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator was developed by Brilliant Game Studios and is available on PC.
Random Ramblings of a Redheaded Nerd 