Move or Die20164 factsGame page →The announcer voices are a who's-who of internet celebrities: Game Grumps' Arin Hanson, ProZD (SungWon Cho), Cr1TiKaL (Charles White Jr.) and LilyPichu have all voiced official announcer packs.store.steampowered.comIts Switch version ships under a different name — "Move or Die: Unleashed" — while the PS4 release got a "Couch Party Edition".nintendo.comDeveloper Those Awesome Guys is led by Romanian designer Nicolae Berbece, whose free "controller prompts" asset pack from the studio is used across thousands of games — the studio open-sources tools alongside its friendship-ruining party game.moveordiegame.comThe game leans into community content: Steam Workshop mode support, developer- and community-made game modes, and 20-second rounds designed so "it's a quick game to pick up, but a hard one to put down".store.steampowered.comRead 2 more facts
Stranded Deep20155 factsGame page →You play a plane-crash survivor stranded across procedurally generated islands in the Pacific Ocean, managing hunger, thirst, sleep and health while crafting tools and rafts.en.wikipedia.orgBuilt in the Unity engine, it spent over seven years in Steam Early Access (launched 23 Jan 2015) before its full PC 1.0 release on 11 August 2022; console versions shipped earlier (PS4/Xbox One in 2020, Switch in 2021).en.wikipedia.orgIt contains Cast Away (2000) easter eggs, including a hand-printed volleyball and a FedEx-style mailbox.en.wikipedia.orgOnline co-op multiplayer was added in a September 2021 update, and a free PlayStation Plus offer in May 2021 helped push the game past 20 million downloads.businesswire.comA sequel, Stranded Deep 2, was announced in August 2024.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Lost Castle20163 factsGame page →Lost Castle quietly became one of China's first indie breakout hits on Steam: the original has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, and the series neared 3 million once Lost Castle 2 arrived.noisypixel.netThe sequel Lost Castle 2 entered Early Access in July 2024 and left it in June 2025 having already sold 700,000+ copies on its own.noisypixel.netIts signature meta-progression is grimly funny: you sacrifice your dead heroes' souls between runs to buy permanent abilities for the next treasure hunter in line.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Worms Crazy Golf20112 factsGame page →Worms Crazy Golf carries an 'original concept' credit for Andy Davidson — the creator of the very first Worms game in 1995.en.wikipedia.orgA decade after release it found a second life on Amazon's Luna cloud service in 2022 — without ever getting online multiplayer.en.wikipedia.org
Fran Bow20156 factsGame page →Fran Bow is deeply autobiographical: the story grew out of painful episodes in co-creator Natalia Martinsson's life and a fantasy world she invented as a child, so making the game became a form of emotional therapy for the couple.gameskinny.comThe game was crowdfunded on Indiegogo, raising $28,295 in August 2013; original development took about three and a half years.en.wikipedia.orgKillmonday Games is a two-person married studio — Natalia Martinsson (art/design) and Isak Martinsson (code/music); every visual in Fran Bow is hand-painted and it features 50+ unique characters.killmondaygames.comSwallowing the pill 'Duotine' switches Fran's perception into a gruesome parallel version of each scene — a core reality-shifting mechanic; the story follows 10-year-old Fran, committed to Oswald Asylum after witnessing her parents' murder and separated from her black cat Mr. Midnight.en.wikipedia.orgIt shares a universe with Killmonday's later game Little Misfortune (2019).en.wikipedia.orgFor the 2023 console release the game was rebuilt from scratch in Unity (the original 2015 PC version was built in GameMaker Studio).killmondaygames.comRead 4 more facts
Forza Horizon20123 factsGame page →Forza Horizon evolved from a scrapped Project Gotham Racing reboot pitch before becoming Playground Games' festival racer.en.wikipedia.orgIt is the only Forza game rated T by the ESRB — every other entry in the franchise carries a lower, E-family rating.en.wikipedia.orgThe fictional Colorado map was distilled from 30 real locations and over 50,000 reference photos; its online servers were finally shut down in August 2023.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Forza Motorsport 520134 factsGame page →Drivatar debuted here: anonymized telemetry from every player — braking points, cornering lines, aggression — was trained in Microsoft's Azure cloud into AI profiles that raced other players while their owners were offline.forza.fandom.comTop Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May narrate the career mode — the full trio, with Clarkson returning from Forza 4.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the first Forza with open-wheel racing — IndyCar and Formula One cars finally joined the garage.en.wikipedia.orgComposer 'DJ Drunken Master' is Lance Hayes — he called FM5 his final Forza soundtrack, sharing duties with British composer John Broomhall.djdm.comRead 2 more facts
Mordheim: City of the Damned20156 factsGame page →It is the first-ever video-game adaptation of Games Workshop's 1999 tabletop skirmish game Mordheim.en.wikipedia.orgIt is set in the ruined Empire city of Mordheim in the Warhammer Fantasy world, devastated by a twin-tailed comet that scattered warpstone and drew rival warbands to plunder its ruins.en.wikipedia.orgIt uses permadeath and persistent injuries — wounded warband members can be permanently maimed or killed, forcing ongoing recruitment and roster management between skirmishes.store.steampowered.comIt launched into Steam Early Access in November 2014 before its full PC release on 19 November 2015; console versions followed in October 2016.en.wikipedia.orgRogue Factor switched the game from Unity 4 to Unity 5 mid-development to upgrade its lighting, shadows and post-processing.mcvuk.comIt was the debut title of Montreal studio Rogue Factor (a branch of Cyanide), which later made Necromunda: Underhive Wars, another Games Workshop skirmish-game adaptation.pcgamingwiki.comRead 4 more facts
Killer Is Dead20133 factsGame page →Despite the 'a Suda51 game' branding, the credited director is Hideyuki Shin — Goichi Suda served as executive director and writer.en.wikipedia.orgThe optional 'Gigolo Mode' — wooing women with gifts while X-ray glasses let Mondo leer at them — became the game's defining controversy, widely panned as sexist even by otherwise positive reviews.en.wikipedia.orgOne-armed executioner Mondo Zappa is named after Frank Zappa — and his score comes from Silent Hill legend Akira Yamaoka, Grasshopper's in-house audio maestro.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
How to Survive 220163 factsGame page →The series' cult mascot Kovac returns — the survival-guide author now coaches you via grainy webcam broadcasts, and the game's DLC and Ultimate Edition carry his name.store.steampowered.comThe sequel swaps the first game's tropical archipelago for the swamps of Louisiana, and its structure shifts from a story campaign to a persistent camp you build and defend across multiplayer sessions of up to 16 players.store.steampowered.comIt spent nearly a year in Steam Early Access (from October 2015) before the full September 2016 release published by 505 Games.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings20116 factsGame page →It is based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, following the witcher Geralt of Rivia.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the first game built on CD Projekt RED's proprietary REDengine, later used for The Witcher 3.en.wikipedia.orgIts story branches so drastically that the entire second chapter takes place in a completely different location depending on whether the player sides with Iorveth or Vernon Roche.en.wikipedia.orgIt launched DRM-free on GOG.com, reflecting CD Projekt's anti-DRM stance.en.wikipedia.orgThe Enhanced Edition (April 2012) added around 10 GB of new content and brought the game to Xbox 360.en.wikipedia.orgIt won more than 50 awards worldwide, including multiple 2011 Game of the Year honors.thewitcher.comRead 4 more facts
God of War: Ghost of Sparta20107 factsGame page →A PSP interquel set between God of War and God of War II, developed by Ready at Dawn — the same studio behind the earlier PSP prequel Chains of Olympus.en.wikipedia.orgThe story follows Kratos's search for his long-lost brother Deimos and reveals much of Kratos's Spartan childhood.en.wikipedia.orgBy June 2012 it had sold almost 3.2 million copies worldwide, making it the 19th best-selling PSP game.en.wikipedia.orgIt was later HD-remastered and included in the God of War: Origins Collection (PS3, 2011) and the God of War Saga (2012).en.wikipedia.orgIt ran on Ready at Dawn's proprietary engine (evolved from Daxter and Chains of Olympus) and pushed the PSP to its technical limits.gamedeveloper.comKratos is voiced by Terrence C. Carson, who played the role across the Greek-era God of War games.en.wikipedia.orgIt was directed by Dana Jan, promoted from lead level designer on Chains of Olympus.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
Tharsis20164 factsGame page →Tharsis was co-designed by Zach Gage, the indie designer behind SpellTower and collaborator on Ridiculous Fishing and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, working with Bit.Trip studio Choice Provisions.en.wikipedia.orgThe game takes its name from the real Tharsis region of Mars — the volcanic plateau home to the largest volcanoes in the solar system — where the crew's distress signal originates.en.wikipedia.orgInstead of an original score, the soundtrack licenses tracks from Dutch electronic duo Weval's Half Age EP.en.wikipedia.orgA full run lasts anywhere from five minutes to an hour depending on the dice — and the infamous cannibalism mechanic (eating dead crewmates to reroll) became the game's most-debated feature at launch.gamingnexus.comRead 2 more facts
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier20123 factsGame page →The PC version was outright CANCELED in December 2011 over piracy concerns — then quietly re-announced a month later after backlash.en.wikipedia.orgThe Xbox 360 version let players customize weapons in the 'Gunsmith' with Kinect voice and gesture controls — a 2012 showcase for the peripheral.en.wikipedia.orgIts multiplayer servers ran for over a decade before finally shutting down on 1 October 2022.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Arma Tactics20133 factsGame page →It launched first on NVIDIA SHIELD and Tegra Android devices in May 2013 as 'Arma Tactics THD' — a launch title for NVIDIA's handheld — months before the PC release.en.wikipedia.orgDespite the Bohemia Interactive label, it wasn't made by the Arma team — development was handled by Bohemia's Prague subsidiary Centauri Production, in Unity rather than the series' Real Virtuality engine.en.wikipedia.orgIt holds the unfortunate distinction of being the worst-reviewed Arma release — 47/100 on Metacritic for PC, with reviewers hammering the lack of mid-mission saves.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Cookie Clicker201315 factsGame page →Creator Julien "Orteil" Thiennot built the first version in about four hours of what he calls "spaghetti coding and bad pixel art" on a sleepless summer night, intending it as "a dumb little toy for a laff."orteil42.tumblr.comThe game went viral within hours of being posted as a link on 4chan's video game board on August 8, 2013, attracting roughly 50,000 players almost overnight.en.wikipedia.orgAt its August 2013 peak the site logged about 1.5 million hits in a single day, and the game still averaged around 225,000 hits per day five months after launch.en.wikipedia.orgOrteil has said the game "wasn't meant to be fun" — its psychological pull on players (the satisfaction of "getting something done") was largely accidental.vice.comThe developer-stated inspiration was the "strangely enticing lollipop-farming mechanic" of the 2013 browser game Candy Box! by aniwey.orteil42.tumblr.comThe game hides a cosmic-horror subplot: the "Grandmapocalypse" corrupts the friendly grandmas into an eldritch hive mind, spawns cookie-devouring wrinklers and turns golden cookies into wrath cookies.en.wikipedia.orgThe Steam version's soundtrack was composed by C418 (Daniel Rosenfeld), the composer of Minecraft; his five-track OST shipped on Steam launch day with the deadpan artist note "I ate a cookie once."c418.bandcamp.comWhen it hit Steam on September 1, 2021, Cookie Clicker drew more than 60,000 concurrent players, briefly ranking in Steam's top 15 most-played games ahead of Rainbow Six Siege and Rocket League.pcgamesn.com"True Neverclick" is one of the game's notorious shadow achievements: bake one million cookies without ever clicking the big cookie even once.cookieclicker.wiki.ggLate-game cookie counts grow so large they can exceed JavaScript's maximum representable number (~1.8×10^308), at which point the counter simply reads "Infinity."cookieclicker.fandom.comFor the game's 10th anniversary in 2023, update 2.052 added the 20th — and, per Orteil, final — building; he said future updates would focus on minigames for existing buildings instead.steamcommunity.comAfter more than a decade as a browser game, Cookie Clicker reached PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch on May 22, 2025, published by Clicker Heroes studio Playsaurus.en.wikipedia.orgDashNet has always been a two-person operation: Orteil makes the games while "Opti" — his best friend and roommate, whom he met in Second Life — handles the servers, finances and community.cookieclicker.wiki.ggDespite being an idle game, Cookie Clicker has a genuine speedrunning scene and was featured at the charity marathon RTA in Japan Winter 2022; the game now counts 637 achievements.en.wikipedia.orgWith around 4 million daily active users, it is widely credited with establishing the idle/incremental genre; IGN called it the "greatest Idle Game."en.wikipedia.orgRead 13 more facts
Super Mario Galaxy 220109 factsGame page →Development began as a mere expansion of the first game, nicknamed 'Super Mario Galaxy 1.5', before Nintendo decided to build it into a full sequel.en.wikipedia.orgYoshi, playable for the first time in a 3D Galaxy game, was actually an idea cut from the original Super Mario Galaxy and revived here.mariowiki.comIt was directed by Koichi Hayashida and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, with development taking roughly two and a half years.en.wikipedia.orgThe game contains 242 unique Power Stars in total — 120 standard Stars, 120 Green Stars, plus 2 extra — the most of any 3D Mario at release.en.wikipedia.orgIts final challenge, 'The Perfect Run' in the Grandmaster Galaxy, is widely cited as the hardest level ever in a Mario game — a checkpoint-free gauntlet.mariowiki.comIt holds a Metacritic score of 97, making it one of the highest-rated video games of all time and the highest-rated game on the Wii.metacritic.comThe orchestral score was performed by the roughly 60-piece Mario Galaxy Orchestra — ten more musicians than the first game used.en.wikipedia.orgIt introduced the Cloud Flower power-up (Cloud Mario), letting Mario create temporary platforms in mid-air.en.wikipedia.orgIt won the BAFTA for Best Gameplay (2011) and Best Wii Game at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards.nintendolife.comRead 7 more facts
Submerged20155 factsGame page →A combat-free, fail-state-free exploration game: you play Miku, a girl who navigates a flooded, post-apocalyptic city by fishing boat, scaling drowned skyscrapers and scanning with a telescope to find supplies for her wounded brother Taku.en.wikipedia.orgUppercut Games was founded by veterans of Irrational/2K Australia who worked on the BioShock series; Submerged was made by this ex-BioShock team in Canberra, Australia.pcgamer.comThe developers cite Journey, Shadow of the Colossus and a Grand Theft Auto IV mod that submerged Liberty City as key inspirations.en.wikipedia.orgThe score by BAFTA-winning composer Jeff van Dyck won Best Audio at the 2015 Freeplay Awards.kotaku.com.auIt received a full sequel, Submerged: Hidden Depths, launched on Stadia in December 2020 and other platforms in March 2022.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game20112 factsGame page →It was nominated for Best Family Game at the 8th British Academy Games Awards (2012), losing to LittleBigPlanet 2.en.wikipedia.orgThe game compresses all four Pirates films into LEGO form and launched day-and-date with On Stranger Tides' cinema release in May 2011.en.wikipedia.org
Blood Bowl 220154 factsGame page →Blood Bowl 2 is a video-game adaptation of Games Workshop's Blood Bowl, a satirical tabletop game that mashes American football together with the violence of the Warhammer Fantasy world.en.wikipedia.orgMatches are narrated by the returning commentary duo Jim Johnson — an immortal vampire play-by-play announcer — and his blood-thirsty analyst Bob Bifford, whose Cabalvision studio doubles as the game's main menu interface.pcgamer.comIt is the sequel to Cyanide's Blood Bowl (2009) and part of the studio's long-running Blood Bowl series, later followed by Blood Bowl 3 (2023).en.wikipedia.orgCombat is turn-based and resolved by dice rolls, and players can be knocked out, seriously injured or permanently killed during a match — including star players.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
A Valley Without Wind20123 factsGame page →When A Valley Without Wind 2 shipped in 2013, Arcen gave it FREE to every owner of the first game — and bundled the original with the sequel — an almost unheard-of apology-and-thank-you for the divisive original.arcengames.comIt was Arcen Games' first big swing after AI War: Fleet Command — trading grand space strategy for a procedurally generated post-apocalyptic 2D world that stitches together an effectively infinite continent.en.wikipedia.orgThe game spent development under the working title 'Environ' before Chris Park settled on the more evocative A Valley Without Wind.arcengames.comRead 1 more fact
A Valley Without Wind 220133 factsGame page →Arcen gave A Valley Without Wind 2 FREE to every owner of the original — and vice versa: buying either game gets you both, permanently.arcengames.comStung by criticism of the first game's visuals, Arcen commissioned a complete art overhaul for the sequel — new character art, tilesets and animation replaced the original's much-mocked mismatched look.en.wikipedia.orgThe two AVWW games shipped only nine months apart (April 2012 → February 2013) — a full sequel turnaround faster than most games' DLC schedules.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia201611 factsGame page →Russia is the first playable video-game appearance of Nikolai Orelov, a Russian Assassin who debuted in the 2010 comic 'Assassin's Creed: The Fall.'assassinscreed.fandom.comThe story is set chronologically between the comics 'Assassin's Creed: The Fall' and 'Assassin's Creed: The Chain,' making it the most comic-tied entry of the Chronicles trilogy.assassinscreed.fandom.comAfter Nikolai rescues Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov from execution, a Precursor Box imprints her with the genetic memories and abilities of Shao Jun (protagonist of Chronicles: China), linking the two games.en.wikipedia.orgIt is a rare dual-protagonist Chronicles game: players control both Nikolai (combat and rifle) and Anastasia (agile Assassin abilities like lockpicking and parkour).accesstheanimus.comNikolai wields a custom Berdan rifle with a fixed bayonet for both sniping and melee — a firearm-centric combat style unique to this entry among the three Chronicles games.en.wikipedia.orgInstead of a rope dart, Nikolai uses a grapple/winch that also manipulates electrical components — an in-fiction nod to Nikola Tesla, an ally of the Assassins in 'The Fall' comic.accesstheanimus.comClimax art director Glenn Brace said Russia's visual style drew on early Soviet Constructivism, propaganda 'montage' and photography — a stark black-and-white world cut by deep red.gamereactor.euThe Chronicles sub-series began as bonus content: the first game (China) was originally bundled with the Assassin's Creed Unity Season Pass before the trilogy was sold standalone.en.wikipedia.orgThe trilogy's stylised, painterly 'ink-transition' cutscenes were produced by the UK studio Engine House, which posed in-engine assets and painted over them.engine-house.co.ukCollecting 12 hidden codes across the chapters unlocks a secret modern-day scene featuring Templars Laetitia England and Otso Berg discussing the Precursor Box.accesstheanimus.comReleased February 9, 2016, Russia was the third and final Assassin's Creed Chronicles game; the sub-series was not continued.en.wikipedia.orgRead 9 more facts
60 Seconds!20154 factsGame page →Players have just 60 seconds to dash through a procedurally rearranged suburban house, grabbing family members and supplies before a nuclear blast — then must survive in the fallout shelter using whatever (and whoever) they saved.store.steampowered.comIt was made by Polish studio Robot Gentleman and spawned the space-station spin-off 60 Parsecs! (2018) and a remaster, 60 Seconds! Reatomized (2019).en.wikipedia.orgIts dark comedy leans on 1950s Atomic-Age Americana and Cold War civil-defense aesthetics, satirizing suburban nuclear-apocalypse paranoia.robotgentleman.comThe game surpassed 1 million copies sold by 2018, and the 60 Seconds! series reached 6.5 million sold by its 10th anniversary in 2026.dualshockers.comRead 2 more facts
Dead Island Retro Revenge20163 factsGame page →Retro Revenge shipped bundled with the Dead Island Definitive Collection in June 2016 — a 16-bit palate cleanser packaged with the remasters of the open-world originals.store.steampowered.comUnlike the main series it wasn't made by Techland or Deep Silver's internal teams: side-scroller specialist Empty Clip Studios (Symphony) built it as a lane-based runner-brawler.store.steampowered.comThe entire zombie-apocalypse plot is driven by one goal: hero Max fighting across California to rescue his kidnapped cat.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
AdventureQuest 3D20164 factsGame page →In August 2019 a virtual Korn played a full "Battle Concert" inside AdventureQuest 3D (and AQWorlds), debuting a song from their album The Nothing — Kotaku called the MMO metal show "surprisingly great", well before Fortnite made in-game concerts mainstream news.kotaku.comThe game was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2015, hitting its $200,000 goal and continuing to take "over-funding" pledges until January 1, 2016.aq3d.comIts game director and writer Adam Bohn is Artix Entertainment's founder — better known to two decades of players as his paladin alter ego, Artix Krieger.kickstarter.comAQ3D was built around true cross-platform play from day one: the same character can be played on PC, Mac, Android and iOS, switching devices freely — still a rarity for MMOs when it hit Early Access in 2016.aq3d.comRead 2 more facts
Blue Estate20133 factsGame page →It launched as a Leap Motion showcase — on PC you literally aim by waving your hand over the sensor; the Xbox One version used Kinect and the PS4 version DualShock gyro.cosmocover.comIts source material has genuine comics pedigree: Viktor Kalvachev's Blue Estate was nominated for an Eisner Award — and Kalvachev himself lent the game its lurid pulp look.gamingbolt.comIt's one of the last of a dying breed — a full-priced, narrative on-rails shooter in the House of the Dead tradition, published by Focus Home Interactive in the PS4's launch year.digitallydownloaded.netRead 1 more fact
Plantera20163 factsGame page →Plantera is the breakout hit of VaragtP, a Swedish solo developer — it eventually spawned the 2019 sequel Plantera 2: Golden Acorn, the studio's first-ever sequel among its seven commercial releases.nanogamingnews.comThe Wii U, 3DS, Vita and Switch versions (as "Plantera Deluxe") were ported by Spanish studio Ratalaika Games — one of the earliest projects of the house that later became famous for porting hundreds of indies to consoles.miketendo64.comThe whole game fits in about 30 MB of disk space — built in Clickteam Fusion, it's one of the tiniest commercial releases on Steam.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Mad Games Tycoon20163 factsGame page →The Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One versions arrived in early 2020 — almost four years after the PC release — published by Toplitz Productions.gaming-age.comReviewers consistently framed it as the hardcore alternative to Game Dev Tycoon: praised for its depth (custom engines, office layout down to the furniture) while criticized for its dated presentation.twistedbard.comGerman studio Eggcode followed it with the more successful sequel Mad Games Tycoon 2 in 2021, which grew a large community on Steam.steamcommunity.comRead 1 more fact
Kami20133 factsGame page →The title is a double pun: in Japanese, 'kami' means both 'paper' and 'god/spirit' — fitting for a game about the zen of folding.idownloadblog.comNothing on screen is digital art: State of Play physically folded real paper and cardboard, then photographed it — the studio's handmade signature.store.steampowered.comIt reportedly began as developer Dan Fountain's 'twenty-percent time' side experiment — and the studio's handcraft pedigree later earned a BAFTA for the paper-built Lumino City.vice.comRead 1 more fact
Tidalis20106 factsGame page →Tidalis was Arcen Games' second title and its first non-strategy game — a puzzle follow-up to their debut hit AI War: Fleet Command.en.wikipedia.orgIts core 'streams' mechanic has players drag paths through colored, arrow-bearing blocks to trigger chain reactions — an original spin on falling-block puzzlers.arcengames.comThe game shipped with more than 20 game modes and a 115-level adventure mode alongside co-op and competitive online/offline multiplayer.arcengames.comIts music was composed by Pablo Vega, Arcen's composer and lead sound designer, with 29 tracks released as a standalone soundtrack.arcenmusic.bandcamp.comThe soundtrack includes a bonus 'Tidalis (AI War) Theme', nodding to Arcen's prior game.arcenmusic.bandcamp.comTidalis launched on 16 July 2010 and was ported to Windows, Mac and Linux.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Convoy20154 factsGame page →Convoy is a post-apocalyptic tactical roguelike widely described as 'FTL: Faster Than Light on wheels' — swapping FTL's spaceship for a Mad Max-style armored truck convoy crossing a wasteland to recover parts for your crashed spacecraft so you can leave the planet.en.wikipedia.orgIt was crowdfunded via a November 2014 Kickstarter that raised €22,408, and was the debut title of the Dutch studio behind it (Triangle Studios / Convoy Games, based in Leeuwarden).en.wikipedia.orgRadio signals picked up on the road trigger randomized encounters that branch into real-time-with-pause vehicle combat, text-based dialogue or chance-based role-play; death is permanent.store.steampowered.comThree years after the 2015 PC launch, an expanded edition titled 'Convoy: A Tactical Roguelike' arrived on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in April 2018.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Corridor Z20163 factsGame page →Corridor Z reverses the endless-runner camera: instead of watching your character's back, you face them — and the zombie horde — head-on, aiming your shots at what's chasing you.store.steampowered.comIt began life as a 2014 mobile runner before being upgraded for PS4, Vita, Switch and PC by Polish studio Mass Creation, later known for the hack-and-slash Shing!.corridorzthegame.comThe story riffs on classic zombie-B-movie setups: a cheerleader, a jock and a soldier flee through a quarantined high school, with narrative told through collected case files.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Big Pharma20155 factsGame page →Big Pharma was designed and built almost single-handedly by Tim Wicksteed, sole developer of the studio Twice Circled.en.wikipedia.orgIt was published by Positech Games, the one-man indie label run by Cliff Harris (Democracy, Gratuitous Space Battle).positech.co.ukThe game satirizes the pharmaceutical industry: players lay out conveyor-belt production lines that convert raw ingredients into drugs, then wrestle with pricing and ethical dilemmas to maximize profit.en.wikipedia.orgThe 2016 'Marketing and Malpractice' expansion added Executives, letting players market — and manipulate the perception of — the drugs they produce.en.wikipedia.orgThe retro-synth soundtrack by Mark Allsworth was built from vintage synthesizers, toys and FX for a deliberately warm, dated sound.markallsworth.bandcamp.comRead 3 more facts
Caveman World: Mountains of Unga Boonga20163 factsGame page →Despite its $1.99 budget price, the game ships with 14 Steam achievements, trading cards and leaderboards — the full Steam meta-feature set of far bigger releases.store.steampowered.comIt is one of the few games GrabTheGames actually developed in-house (credited as GrabTheGames Studios) — the label is otherwise known primarily as a prolific budget publisher, including The Deed series.store.steampowered.comThe game came out of the Steam Greenlight era in April 2016, part of the wave of low-cost community-approved indies that preceded Steam Direct.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker20109 factsGame page →It was directed by Hideo Kojima, who considered it the biggest game he had worked on; it was originally conceived as Metal Gear Solid 5, but overseas marketing opposed the numbered title.en.wikipedia.orgSet in 1974 Costa Rica, it stars Big Boss (Naked Snake), who founds the private army Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF) and builds its offshore headquarters, Mother Base.en.wikipedia.orgIt introduced base-building and army management (Mother Base) plus the player-built nuclear Metal Gear ZEKE — mechanics later expanded in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.en.wikipedia.orgIt features cooperative play for up to four players ('Co-Ops'), a first for the mainline Metal Gear series.en.wikipedia.orgIts story sequences use comic-style animated cutscenes illustrated by artist Ashley Wood.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the first PSP title ever to receive a perfect 40/40 score from the Japanese magazine Famitsu — the 14th game overall to do so.en.wikipedia.orgDavid Hayter reprises his role as the English voice of Big Boss/Snake.en.wikipedia.orgThe title 'Peace Walker' refers to an AI-controlled nuclear-deterrent weapon central to the plot.en.wikipedia.orgIt sold 574,957 copies in Japan within its first two weeks and reached roughly 1.99 million PSP copies worldwide by 2014.en.wikipedia.orgRead 7 more facts
Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two20123 factsGame page →It was marketed as the 'first video game musical' — characters advance the plot by breaking into original song, atop the series' first full voice acting.businesswire.comWarren Spector said over 700 people worked on it, and the team made more than 1,000 specific camera fixes to address the original's biggest complaint.en.wikipedia.orgJunction Point Studios was shut down roughly two months after release — ending Warren Spector's Disney era and the Epic Mickey console series with it.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Injustice: Gods Among Us20133 factsGame page →The tie-in flow ran backwards: the game spawned Tom Taylor's long-running, award-winning Injustice digital-first comic series — the comic expanded the game's universe, not the other way around.en.wikipedia.orgDC comic writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti were hired as story consultants specifically to keep the heroes sounding like themselves while NetherRealm made Superman a tyrant.dreadcentral.comIts 240 S.T.A.R. Labs missions turn a 6-hour story into a 50+ hour completionist grind — one of the deepest single-player packages any fighting game had shipped.trueachievements.comRead 1 more fact
Badland20134 factsGame page →Frogmind was just two ex-RedLynx (Trials) developers — Johannes Vuorinen programming and designing, Juhana Myllys drawing and designing — when Badland won the Apple Design Award and Apple's iPad Game of the Year 2013.en.wikipedia.orgOne free-for-a-week promotion drove 7 MILLION iOS downloads in seven days — numbers Vuorinen laid bare in an unusually transparent GDC 2014 sales talk.gamedeveloper.comClash of Clans maker Supercell bought 51% of Frogmind in 2016 for $7.8 million — a farming-club deal that kept the tiny studio independent while bankrolling the Badland franchise.venturebeat.comMyllys' art style wasn't inspired by other games but by the Hudson River School — the 19th-century American landscape painters famous for luminous wilderness scenes.jmyllys.comRead 2 more facts
Transport Fever20168 factsGame page →Transport Fever is the sequel to Urban Games' Train Fever (2014) and reuses an overhauled version of the same in-house engine, broadening the scope from rail-focused play to full multimodal transport (buses, trucks, trains, ships and aircraft).en.wikipedia.orgThe game ships with two full historical campaigns — American and European — each a series of increasingly difficult missions framed around 19th- and 20th-century transport history.store.steampowered.comA single game spans roughly 150 years of transport history, running from 1850 to around 2014, with vehicles unlocking progressively across the eras.en.wikipedia.orgPredecessor Train Fever was crowd-financed not on Kickstarter but via the Gambitious crowd-investing platform, hitting its EUR 250,000 target in March 2013 with 651 investors; that same publisher (Gambitious, later Good Shepherd) went on to publish Transport Fever.en.wikipedia.orgUrban Games built extensive Steam Workshop mod support from day one, letting players add new vehicles, stations, assets, script mods and even missions with one-click install and sharing.transportfever.comTransport Fever was made by a tiny Swiss studio: Urban Games began as brothers Urban and Basil Weber plus two artists and was still only about a dozen people, based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.transportfever.comThe soundtrack is the work of Swiss solo artist Admiral James T. (David Langhard), who scored the entire Train/Transport Fever series and released the music independently, e.g. as 'The Transport Fever Sessions'.admiraljamest.bandcamp.comTransport Fever launched to a 'generally favorable' Metacritic score of 71/100, with strong German-press reviews (GameStar 83, PC Games 8/10) praising its deeper cargo economy over Train Fever while criticising the controls and compressed in-game time.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Mortal Kombat20116 factsGame page →It is a series reboot that retells the events of the first three Mortal Kombat games via a time-travel story, as Raiden sends visions to his past self to avert Armageddon.en.wikipedia.orgIt was NetherRealm Studios' debut title — the studio was formed from the ex-Midway Chicago team after Midway's bankruptcy, with Warner Bros. acquiring the Mortal Kombat assets and co-creator Ed Boon staying on.en.wikipedia.orgIt returned the series to a 2D fighting plane after the 3D-era entries, introducing the X-ray move system and reinstating gory Fatalities.en.wikipedia.orgIt was Refused Classification (banned) in Australia in February 2011 and released there only in 2013, after the R18+ rating was introduced.en.wikipedia.orgIt featured a full cinematic Story Mode of 16 character-driven chapters spanning the MK1-3 timeline.en.wikipedia.orgThe PlayStation 3 version included Kratos from God of War as a platform-exclusive guest fighter.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
BlackSmith HIT20163 factsGame page →The entire game is a literal implementation of the proverb "strike while the iron is hot": hammer the glowing bars, toss the cold ones with pliers before your anvil cools.store.steampowered.comDespite being a $0.99 micro-arcade title, it packs 13 unlockable characters, themed scenes and four-player cross-platform PvP with global leaderboards.store.steampowered.comIt was developed by Korean studio ENTERi but published by Poland's Forever Entertainment — the publisher later known for the Panzer Dragoon and The House of the Dead remakes — which also brought it to Nintendo Switch.nintendo.comRead 1 more fact
Transport Fever 220197 factsGame page →Transport Fever 2 features a three-era campaign spread across three continents, covering more than 150 years of transport history (roughly 1850 to the present) with voiced narration and cutscenes.wiki.transportfever2.comThe game models around 200 vehicles — trains, trams, buses, trucks, aircraft and ships — based on real-world types.en.wikipedia.orgIt has a huge modding scene, with more than 10,000 Steam Workshop mods supported by official mod tools.cosmocover.comTransport Fever 2 runs on Urban Games' own custom engine, whose lineage traces back to Train Fever (2014) and predates Cities: Skylines, rather than a commercial engine.urbangames.comThe game passed 500,000 copies by February 2021 and surpassed 1 million copies by June 2023.cosmocover.comThe soundtrack — over 10 hours of original music — was composed by Swiss musician Admiral James T. (David Langhard), with the music copyright held jointly by the composer and Urban Games.admiraljamest.bandcamp.comA Console Edition (published by NACON) arrived in March 2023, and the game received continuous free content updates well after launch.cosmocover.comRead 5 more facts
Donkey Kong Country Returns20108 factsGame page →It is the first Donkey Kong Country game since 1996's Donkey Kong Country 3, ending a 14-year gap in the series.en.wikipedia.orgIt is the first Donkey Kong Country title not developed by Rare; after Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002, Nintendo handed the franchise to Retro Studios, the Metroid Prime developer.en.wikipedia.orgThe recurring Kremling villains were dropped in favor of a new group of antagonists, the Tiki Tak Tribe.en.wikipedia.orgThe Wii version was built on the same in-house engine Retro Studios created for the Metroid Prime series.en.wikipedia.orgIts mandatory motion controls — shaking the Wii Remote to roll and ground-pound — were a common point of criticism in reviews.metacritic.comA Nintendo 3DS port arrived in 2013, followed by a Nintendo Switch remaster, Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, in January 2025.en.wikipedia.orgIt sold over 6.53 million copies worldwide, ranking among the best-selling Wii games.en.wikipedia.orgLead composer Kenji Yamamoto built the score largely from rearrangements of David Wise's original SNES themes, at the request of Miyamoto and Iwata, who did not want the music changed.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Final Fantasy XIV Online20107 factsGame page →The original 2010 launch was a critical disaster, holding a Metacritic score of just 49/100 — one of the lowest ever for a mainline Final Fantasy title.metacritic.comThe reception was so poor that Square Enix issued a public apology and indefinitely suspended the game's monthly subscription fees, letting players continue free of charge.en.wikipedia.orgIn December 2010 Square Enix replaced the leadership and put Naoki Yoshida in charge, tasking him with completely rebuilding the game.en.wikipedia.orgThe 1.0 servers were shut down on 11 November 2012, ending with an in-story apocalypse — the 'Calamity', in which the lesser moon Dalamud fell and released the dragon Bahamut, devastating Eorzea.en.wikipedia.orgThe game was relaunched from scratch as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn in 2013, widely regarded as one of the greatest turnarounds in gaming history.en.wikipedia.orgThe planned PlayStation 3 version of 1.0 was never released; it was indefinitely delayed after the poor PC launch and folded into the later relaunch.en.wikipedia.orgThe 1.0 score was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, the legendary longtime Final Fantasy composer.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
Bloons TD 520112 factsGame page →BTD5 marked the point where Ninja Kiwi began commissioning original music (by Tim Haywood) instead of stock tracks — the start of the series' now-recognizable sound.bloonswiki.comBorn as a 2011 browser Flash game, it only reached Steam in November 2014 — and the Bloons TD series' success helped Ninja Kiwi sell to Modern Times Group for ~$186M in 2021.en.wikipedia.org
MotoGP 1320133 factsGame page →MotoGP 13 marked Milestone taking over the MotoGP license — beginning an exclusive run as the championship's only game developer that has now lasted more than a decade.en.wikipedia.orgCritics welcomed it as an authentic-but-rough sim comeback — the demanding physics earned respect while the presentation showed the gap between Milestone's budget and the big car-racing franchises.metacritic.comIt shipped with full voice audio in five languages (EN/DE/FR/IT/ES) — unusually complete localization for a mid-budget 2013 sports sim.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Riptide GP: Renegade20163 factsGame page →Developer Vector Unit was founded by veterans of Hydro Thunder Hurricane, and Riptide GP: Renegade is the third Riptide GP — but the first designed for modern consoles rather than ported up from mobile.vectorunit.comIt was part of the first wave of Xbox Play Anywhere titles in 2016 — buy once, play on both Xbox One and Windows 10 with shared progress.vectorunit.comThe career casts you as a disgraced hydro-jet racer working back up through an illegal underground racing circuit — complete with police chases mid-race.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
