When the god of winter became jealous of the other seasons, he used a dark magic to imprison them and curse the land with perpetual winter. A lonely hero leaves his dying village to embark on a quest to release the gods and return warmth and life to the land.

Summary

This is an open world adventure/puzzle game set in a snowy mountain range. The character must traverse the frozen landscape to find three stone structures with intricate carvings on them. When all of the stones have been discovered and their puzzles solved, the gods will be released. They will then combine their power to defeat the god of winter.

Gameplay

This will be a relatively short game that's mostly about journeying through a beautiful environment and solving puzzles. Each god that is released will give the player a power that will help them access new areas and progress to the next stone.

Half of you wants to do your very important assignment while the other half is desperate to do anything and everything else. The two halves fight until a sole victor remains.

Summary

This is a game for two players where they both control the same character. One player must try and get their assignment done by the deadline while the other player must occupy the character with literally anything else. It is designed to be played in short bursts because each level ends at the midnight deadline.

Gameplay

Each player must spam the move and interact buttons to steer the character in the direction they want to go. The procrastinator gets extra points for doing various activities such as playing video games, cleaning the house, or napping, while the productive player gets points for activities such as reading, typing, and researching. If the procrastinator drinks enough alcohol, they get a performance boost which makes their moves more effective. The productive player gets the same boost if they drink enough coffee.

Image: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/procrastinating-towards-semester-told-spongebob

The souls of dead monsters have escaped from purgatory and unleashed havoc upon the mortal realm. Once tasked with ferrying souls between worlds, reapers must now destroy these unholy spirits once and for all.

Summary

In this game, you play as a grim reaper sort of character and must go around killing monsters that have somehow escaped through a rift in purgatory. The reaper can walk between the planes of the dead -- heaven, hell, and purgatory -- though they cannot step foot among the living.

Gameplay

It is a brutal hack-and-slash with supernatural and religious themes. The player must go around destroying the monsters with their scythe which possesses the power to destroy souls completely.

Summary

In this action adventure game, you play as a knight on a quest to discover and defeat the evil force that has been spreading sickness and madness across the realm. Of your initial group, only you remain. You must brave the quickly decaying landscape and all of its enemies to figure out what is causing the sickness and for what reason you remain unscathed by it.

Gameplay

It will involve the typical sword fighting, monster slaying, horse riding and spell wielding features of its time period genre. The whole game will have a dark, eerie, corrupt sort of vibe that is caused by the plague or curse or whatever sickness the land has been overrun with.

Image: http://theartofanimation.tumblr.com/post/62261167994/silver-saaremäel

You are an adorable fluffy pink bear and your only goal in life is to become friends with all of the creatures in the forest.

Summary

This is a cute, simple game for all ages that is designed to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It is point-and-click style with minor puzzle elements, though it is primarily very low-stress. The only objective is to become friends with all the animals you come across by doing different tasks.

Gameplay

Each animal or group of animals has a variety of ways the player could become friends with them, including favours, conversations, or just hanging out. For example, an owl might want someone to chill with at night-time when everyone else is asleep, or alternatively you could babysit (literally) her eggs for her. You could dig up a worm to give her for breakfast but that could mean you can never be friends with the worms, so there is a bit of strategy involved to ensure you don't upset anyone.

A casual, relaxing app that lets you share the pictures you see in the sky with other people in your area.

Summary

This is an augmented reality game for mobile that allows players to use their phone cameras to look at the sky and discover clouds that other people in their area have outlined to show what objects or animals they see in them. It uses your location to determine the weather, so clouds will, for example, be thicker and darker in a storm or move faster in strong winds.

Gameplay

Players can take photos of real world clouds they see and draw over them in the app, then send the drawing off to be shared with everyone else in the area. Creating and discovering clouds will give the player points that will enable them to mould cloud matter into custom shapes. The player can take photos of other people's clouds, 'like' them, and share them. If it is one that someone has sculpted rather than drawn on, the next player can come along and draw on it if they see another shape it could be.

Image: http://shapingcloudsproject.tumblr.com/

At the lowest point in his life, a man sets out to lay his wife's ashes atop the highest point in the world.

Summary

This is a very emotional game that tells a story about an old man who lost the love of his life. In their youth, they explored the world together. As they were saving up for their expedition to the summit of Mount Everest, their biggest dream, she fell ill and died shortly after. The husband was stricken with grief for a long time. Eventually, he became determined to take her up the mountain before he also becomes too old and ill to do it. He sells everything he owns and sets out on his journey. He believes he will die on the mountain and be forever with his wife.

Gameplay

It is predominantly a walking simulator, though there will be some decisions to make, characters to interact with, and quick-time events. Failing the quick-times will not result in death, as that would remove the player from the experience, but simply a longer route to the summit and/or fewer items to collect and discover. Along the way, stories from the past will be revealed. The mountain symbolises their journey through life together and the memories he is retracing, which will ultimately end once he lets her go.

Image: http://www.mountainsoftravelphotos.com/

Title credit: 'Howl', Allen Ginsberg

Summary

This is a point-and-click puzzle game with a very cold and ethereal aesthetic. The main character is a girl whose spirit remained after death but on an alternate plane in a sort of in-between world. She must get through all of the puzzles to find the light that will allow her to pass on.

Gameplay

The player can possess humans and animals of the living world to perform tasks that they couldn't otherwise do themselves. It requires careful thinking about how moves will change the scene because there will be different ways of solving the puzzles and different people and animals in each scene to choose from. Some will be harder to control than others and will require more of the character's limited spiritual energy to possess.

Image: http://sf.co.ua/id125257

Behind a church in a quaint rural village, two nuns are running around brandishing shotguns and setting fire to corpses (in the name of the Lord).

Summary

This game is best played in co-op mode with two or more people. Each player controls a nun and each nun has a weapon that will temporarily incapacitate the spirit, such as an iron fire poker, a shotgun full of rock salt, or occasionally a rare hoodoo spell that requires energy to use and has a cool-down timer. One of the players must douse the unearthed bones in salt and a flammable liquid, then set them alight to vanquish the restless spirit.

Gameplay

The spirit will attack anyone at random, so teamwork and communication are essential. Players must first work together to determine which grave belongs to the spirit by piecing together their individual clues. When the bones are uncovered, the spirit will attack. Players can revive each other through prayer as well as trade weapons at any time, even at long distances by throwing them. Ammo is restricted, so when players run out, this switching of weapons becomes crucial for survival. It is designed for short rounds of gameplay. The number of spirits, the scene, and the difficulty level can all be changed before each game. New levels can be unlocked in which the nuns travel to other graveyards around the country, offering their ghost removal services.

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vale_of_Rest

Often times the people with the widest smiles and happiest lives are hiding the darkest, most sinister corruptions. As the goddess of fate, the life of every human is an open book to you, and every destiny can be manipulated.

Summary

In this heavily story-based game, you play as an omniscient deity that walks among humans with the ability to control their minds, bodies and destinies. Each and every NPC has an entire life history with a range of emotions, relationships, thoughts, fears, perversions, passions, and secrets. What you do with all of this information is entirely up to you.

Gameplay

The player manipulates a magical scarlet thread to connect people to places, things, and each other, and can cut the thread at any time. They can also use the power of their sight to see right through people and understand their thoughts, fears and desires. There will be quests that they can choose to embark on, but it will be predominantly a sandbox game about exploration and Sims-esque exploitation of characters' lives. One quest, for example, could be discovering that someone is planning a murder, and then deciding whether to stop it or let it happen. The decision could be based on the characteristics of the victim, how this event would influence other destinies and timelines, or simply how the player is feeling. Uncovering people's darkest secrets and completing butterfly effect-like chains of fate will fill the goddess with power and enable her to level up and acquire more skills.

Image: http://ceaunul.cgsociety.org/

When pollution leaves the earth near uninhabitable and the wealthiest members of society have set out to live in spaceships, Human Assistance, Protection and Preservation™ units, or "HAPPs", are deployed to keep the remaining population in high spirits.

Summary

In this third-person open world game, you play as HAPP-3Y, who is the only unit left in the city years after they were initially created. You are programmed to do everything you can to ensure that humans remain safe and content despite their dystopian environment and its chaotic makeshift social structure.

Gameplay

The player, armed with a powerful recycling machine and cheesy artificial grin, must go about the city every day completing missions for humans. They can collect rubbish, debris and chemicals, and then use them to craft items including weapons to protect the humans from the mutated creatures that thrive in the pollution. HAPP-3Y can be upgraded with items that are found or given as rewards for completing missions. There is a population meter that indicates how many humans are living in the city. The higher it is, the more rewards will be received and the more missions will be available. Finding food, water, and shelter increases the quality of life and therefore the population. The goal is to ultimately create an environment where humanity can flourish as it once did.

A team of explorers sets out to uncover the ancient ruins beneath a frozen, mountainous landscape. Soon, creatures begin stirring among the trees. Members of the team start disappearing while others go mad. Eventually, only one adventurer remains, desperate for the treasure buried deep within the mountain.

Summary

This is a first person action/adventure game with survival and horror elements. The goal is to find a way into the mountain and navigate the underground ruins to find the treasure while simultaneously surviving the possessed animals, reanimated corpses, ancient demons, and tempestuous weather that has been brought about by a dark and ancient magic.

Gameplay

There will be a lot of mountain climbing, careful maneuvering around the ruins, dodging traps, fighting enemies, and crafting items. The player will be armed with a hunting rifle and a hunting knife, and will be able to craft or find weapons such as bows and arrows and spears along the way. They will find artefacts around the ruins that reveal backstory regarding the mountain and its curse.

Much like Santa Claus spending the year getting ready to deliver presents on Christmas Eve, an organised serial killer such as yourself must spend an entire Thursday getting ready to murder everyone in town on Friday the 13th.

Summary

This is a first-person horror/puzzle game based around organising a town and its residents on Thursday the 12th in order to successfully murder them all the following night. Each level presents a new environment with different ways of going about things. The game has a strong psychological horror theme, as the player must really step into the killer's shoes.

Gameplay

The player must source and situate traps, weapons, and various hazards for his victims; create or block off paths and lock or unlock doors; figure out how to cut off power or cellphone reception; influence NPCs to make decisions that will change either their location, temperament, or relationships; and plan a route of escape in case the police show up. The player must also be careful not to raise any suspicions during the day. On Friday the 13th, it's time to murder as many people as you can and escape. If planning on the Thursday was bad, the player will be arrested or killed, and will fail the level.

In a bright and busy city on the ocean floor, schools, snails, and businessfish alike rely on an efficiently run public transport system. The whale bus must maneuver quickly yet cautiously through the undersea metropolis to reach its destination.

Summary

This is a casual mobile game where the player controls a whale that transports residents around a lively reef. Passengers each have a patience meter that determines the amount of money they will give you. They lose patience when the bus crashes into things or takes too long to arrive.

Gameplay

The player must tilt their device to navigate the bus through obstacles, picking up and dropping off residents along the way. Each level introduces more passengers, different types of passengers, and more challenges along the road. Money received from successful drop-offs can be used to upgrade the bus with more seats, better speed, better handling, power-ups to clear obstacles, and things like comfy seats and TV screens to keep passengers happy and distracted.

Image: http://www.indiedb.com/games/underwater-metropolis

In the midst of a harsh and unforgiving winter, a war is being fought between two opposing kingdoms. Among the bloodshed, snowstorms and political strife, a humble messenger must determine the fate of the country.

Summary

This is an open-world third-person RPG set in a sprawling medieval landscape. The player uses their skill trees and storyline decisions to alter how the game plays out. They could pick a side in the war and use their skills to influence the war by, for example, forging documents, spreading misinformation, hiring assassins, and becoming a spy in the opposing realm. They could simply remain a messenger and let the kingdoms fight it out while remaining impartial, though characters are unpredictable and it would only take one misstep for a king to lose trust and for the game to therefore turn into a fight for survival. The player could also choose to level up their social and fighting skills and inspire an uprising among the common people.

Gameplay

This game includes traditional RPG elements such as skill trees, items, powers and upgrades, character customisation, and leveling up. It is rich in story, which varies greatly depending on how the game is played. There are weapons, though the player can choose not to become a fighter and instead take a more political route, in which case there are plenty of quests and skills which cater to that style of gameplay. Ultimately, it is a game of strategy, survival, politics, war and revolution, all depending on the player's decisions.

Image: https://www.elance.com/samples/environment-concept-art-winter-castle/94268192/

People are being found dead all over the city with strange markings on their bodies, and there's a rumour going around that it's caused by statues which are by some supernatural force coming to life. When a retired private investigator's wife dies under similar unnatural circumstances, he is compelled to solve the mystery.

Summary

This is an open-world mystery game set in the heart of London during the 1800s. The scene is dark and eerie. Everyone acts either scared or strange or suspicious, and statues move when you're not looking. Every clue you find leads you deeper into the rabbit hole and seemingly further from sane reality.

Gameplay

The player must talk to NPCs, search locations, follow leads, collect items, solve puzzles, and piece together clues to determine where to go next. It is largely story-driven, aiming to scare and confuse the player as the game progresses. There will be mild horror elements such as surreal hallucinations that reflect the character's descent into madness. Decision-making is also a critical element of gameplay, as choices influence relationships with NPCs and alter how the story unfolds.

Image: http://www.jonasdero.com/

For six months of every year, the goddess Persephone is allowed to leave the Underworld. On the first day of spring, she begins her ascent.

Summary

This is a third-person action adventure game that tells a small story from a great Greek myth. Persephone must travel through each section of the Underworld, crossing all five of its rivers to get to the surface. Along the way, she will meet many lost souls who tell her stories and help her recognise all those who had betrayed her and influenced her fate.

Gameplay

The player will face all the creatures of the Underworld as well as all of the puzzles and hazards and enemies Hades presents them with. They will receive powers and weapons from various NPCs to help them. Health, stamina, and power can all be upgraded by collecting the spirits of fallen enemies.

You were taking a casual hike through nature one day when a storm hit and subsequently caused you to become lost in the middle of a dense, dark swamp in which resides a terrifying creature. Armed with only a hunting knife and a flashlight, you must find a way to escape before it kills you.

Summary

In this first-person horror game, everything you do affects your chance of survival, so you are constantly on edge and paranoid about making the tiniest move. The monster is only active at night, so during the day you have a chance to clear as many hazards as you can and rest to increase your health before night falls again and the monster starts stalking you.

Gameplay

The more destruction you cause, e.g. cutting down thicket to clear paths, stepping on twigs, or killing minor enemies such as wolves and snakes, the more the monster's rage meter will fill up. The angrier it is, the more likely it is to find you and the harder it will be to defeat. You must use clever strategy to balance your destruction level against your own health and survival efforts in order to win.

Aliens have invaded Earth. Your job is to make your way through the inner workings of the mother ship to destroy it from the inside before it can call upon reinforcements to annihilate the planet.

Summary

This is a point-and-click puzzle game that puts you inside the giant labyrinthine machine of an alien spaceship. The goal is to find your way to the core, where the alien life force resides, and destroy it.

Gameplay

The game includes many different types of puzzles ranging from simple mazes and switches that advance you through each section of the ship, to more complicated puzzles with various moves that have you disassembling the machine. There are dangerous hazards throughout but also docile mechanical aliens that take a liking to you and follow you around different areas, helping you complete puzzles.

Image: http://www.continue-play.com/2015/08/18/torchlight-dev-runic-games-announces-hob/

Have you ever seen an adorable dog out in public and wished you could steal it? Of course you have. This game allows you to pirate adopt virtual versions of real life dogs and carry them around with you inside your smartphone.

Summary

Through technology that may or may not have been invented yet, this app will use the camera on your mobile device to identify any dog and create its virtual likeness right there on your screen. From there, you can take it home and love it and care for it without the owner knowing. Congratulations, you have successfully pirated a dog.

Gameplay

This game allows you to feed, bath, train, and play with your bootleg dogs. It also works with the pedometer on your smartphone to track how many kilometres you walk, so you can select the 'walk' option to put your dog on a leash and have him trot along with you. The more happy and well looked after your dogs are, the more treasures they will find for you, which will enable you to buy more food and toys for them. There is also a widget that enables your dog to walk around on your homescreen so that he can let you know when he needs something.