After my recent PS3 shenanigans a friend had mercy on me and gave me their old PS4, which means that I was finally able to play the upscaled Rez Infinite for the first time. When it comes to gaming, I am nothing if not behind the times. I also picked up the Rez Infinite vinyl soundtrack, which includes two picturedisc LPs, a 7", and a gigantic coffee table book about the making of the game. It is a gorgeous artifact! And the game-development backstory is really interesting. A lot of time and love went into this game.
The look of Rez is just the most cyberpunk thing in the world, and I don't mean that in the "it's got some neon, and maybe a dork in a leather jacket" sense, but in the original Neuromancer phrasing: "lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data like city lights, receding". Objects have their own ghostly rules and often lack physicality. And of course there's the synesthesia aspect of the design: the music is a part of the game, and not in a DDR "you have to tap along with the song" way. The controller vibration is a separate audio channel. It's not testing you on your rhythm; you play the game to the beat not because you lose if you don't, but because it makes sense that way. An aspect of playing this game is that you are also sitting down to bop along to a favorite album.
The Child of Eden graphics lean more toward the "nature" levels of Rez than the "cyber" levels. The wireframe sandworms are back, but you're also de-lousing space-whales that, once properly pollinated, bloom into ghost-phoenixes. "BE NOT AFRAID." If you give the mecha-orchid a happy ending, you may be rewarded with an idoru music video. It's all pretty great.
And it's a really good game; I finished it. But it's not as good as Rez for several reasons. First, the soundtrack is... just ok? It's pleasant enough, but less techno and more j-pop, and it just doesn't grab me the way the Rez soundtrack did. Also the integration between the gameplay and the music isn't really there in the same way. But most frustratingly, the difficulty of the game just ramps up way too fast. Rez eased you into the upgrades but this game just kind of throws you off a cliff at around level 3. I almost gave up before completing level 5 ("Journey") because I was just getting sick of it. But I'm glad I pushed through, because level 6 ("Hope") gets fun again: it's clearly an unused, leftover Rez level, a trench run. And the "fire" noise is an 808 handclap.
I will now be accepting recommendations for other PS4 or PS3-compatible games that I should play.
- Trippy visuals.
- Puzzles.
- Non-twitchy pacing.
- Music that is part of the game.
- Being a sniper.
- Anything multiplayer.
- "Talking" to an NPC.
- An overabundance of plot.
- In-game commerce, real or simulated.
Katamari Damacy was a big favorite. There's no synesthetic aspect, but the puzzles are good, the timing is non-twitchy, and it's just so goofy and hilarious. (BTW, the PS4 "Reroll" package of it upscales everything to HD without altering the gameplay).
One notable exception to the above lists is that I loved Portal. There's a lot of plot and exposition in that game, and in some ways it's a shooter, but it's also very puzzle-heavy and you can mostly take your time to solve them, rather than running and twitching and boom now you're dead. The game gives you the space to look around and think.
A friend kept advising me to try Bioshock again, and for the second time I gave up by like, level 2, I guess? The first basement medical facility. I love the look of the game, and I'm interested in hearing the story (anything that dunks so hard on Libertarians can't be all bad) but my experience with the game is: I'm enjoying exploring this weird, spooky environment, and then suddenly some zombie is shooting me from behind, and now I'm dead. After the third time in a row that happens, I realize that this is the opposite of fun and that I have completely lost interest. It's like I'm trying to read a comic book but every now and then it reaches up and smacks me in the face. I said to my friend, who is also a big fan of Cyberpunk 2077:
- "Look, the difference is that I like puzzle games that make me feel like I'm tripping balls. Whereas you like shooters where sometimes a chatbot tries to have sex with you."
Both Rez and Child of Eden have a "chill mode" where you can play the whole game but nothing shoots back. All games should have this.
I write screen savers, ok? I want to play games that are screen savers with puzzles in them.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Manifold garden
I haven't played that but I intend to! it was recommended to me after I finished Superliminal which was one of the trippiest puzzle games I've played. I think Superliminal fits most of the criteria but it does have a sometimes annoying narrator, with somewhat overwrought lines. Watch a trailer: it does exactly what it says on the tin.
The narration in Superliminal wouldn't have been so bad if the writing hadn't been a bunch of obnoxious self-help nonsense.
Maquette plays scale and perspective in similar ways, though again, the writing leaves a lot to be desired.
I bounced off Child Of Eden in the first 90 seconds, because the opening line is like "save the cute girl. Save
her", and it felt like such a letdown compared to Rez that I closed it and never looked back.
I don't know if there's a "mute the dialogue" option but the best way to play Superliminal is muted, and with the superliminal soundtrack playing in the background. The _only_ way to play Maquette is also muted, with the superliminal soundtrack playing in the background. Gris is terrible, do not play it.
If you haven't played "Everything" yet, consider moving that to the top of your list.
Oh, also: Manifold Garden is very good, Journey is very good, The Witness is briefly clever and then bad to the point of being offensive, the entire The Room series are victorian puzzle boxes that emit minor key harpsichord music and the occasional tentacle.
Untitled Goose Game is nearly perfect. Baba Is You is a game that feels somehow ancient, like it has always been with us but that we have only recently learned to see it. You probably want to play Tetris Effect if you haven't yet.
I was intrigued by good reviews for The Witness but the trailers just look like a Myst knockoff that was too lazy to come up with more than one puzzle. I thought it was a basically story-free vibes-only puzzle game so how on earth does it manage to vault into "offensive" territory?
You might enjoy Tetris Effect. I have heard good things about Lumines as well.
Seconding Tetris Effect, it's by the creator of Rez (Tetsuya Mizuguchi) and is one of the few games I've played since Rez that captures that same state of flow.
I sort of like to think of "Tetris Effect" as another way of saying "Rez Tetris".
so from the trailer this looks like regular old tetris with unrelated visuals in the background?
I quite enjoyed Lumines as well.
Maaaaybe The Talos Principle? First-person puzzle solving with a "philosophical storyline."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=180&v=NFNbuK-zwok&feature=youtu.be
Also you might enjoy watching the trailer for an indie game called Spaceflux, even if it's definitely not a thing you'd want to play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am0Y4kH4Yfs
along these lines, maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witness_(2016_video_game)? it's not trippy, but the puzzles and the visuals are excellent.
Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichamber
There's PixelJunk Eden, or "140" - maybe the LocoRoco games. Antichamber is somewhat like a trippier Portal. And Proteus could be worth a look too.
PixelJunk Eden definitely fits the bill for the kind of thing that should be my kind of thing. It didn't really keep my attention though. Not sure why.
Amplitude was recreated with a new look and all new tracks on PS3/4, and I love it.
Katamari and Rez lover checking in here. It's been years since I played it, but I distinctly recall 140 feeling trippy in the same way that Rez did: music inseparable from game, colorful visuals, synesthesia dialed up to 11. Short but worth experiencing.
I think it's only mobile, but I loved the entire series of The Room games. Both the puzzles and the atmosphere are fantastic.
The Room series is only available for iPhone/iPad and Windows, although their latest VR version is available for PS4. I agree with you, it has a luxurious skeumorphic interface; varnished wood panelling, brass keys, wheels, buttons, hidden compartments everywhere, green baize, the works. It's like you're in a real Victorian parlour.
You're burying the lede somewhat; this is the perfect game for someone who enjoys puzzle boxes that open portals to Hell.
I've only seen some of it played (but really want to play it, and this rarely happens) but you might check out Horizon Zero Dawn. It's a little shooty but it seems like you can take your time and explore a lot, and I remember some fun puzzles. I felt big cyberpunk vibes, even though there's no neon and you have one of the few friendly peices of tech in the game.
Also, it's freakin *gorgeous*.
I feel that “Umurangi Generation” is close to being a “screensaver with puzzles”.
Sayonara Wild Hearts is…like…everything you appear to love. And still a bit of a wildcard (which I have to assume is also compelling ;-) PS4 or Apple Arcade. The whole thing is gorgeous and super-tight in aesthetics and execution.
I second this recommendation. Sayonara Wild Hearts is more conventional than Rez, but very well done. It’s on a ton of platforms, too.
I third the recommendation for Sayonara Wild Hearts! Well-done video-game fun. It's different, but it has a bunch of Rez-like aspects and a section or two that are almost completely Rez-style. And it's not too demanding!
How hard a line is "not twitchy"? Jeff Minter's two games for the PS4, Tempest 4000 and Polybius, would seem to tick all of your boxes otherwise but they're definitely in-the-zone arcade-style shooty things. (Polybius is also AKA "the game being played in the Less Than video" so it's got that going for it.)
If you liked Portal, you might get a kick out of The Stanley Parable, which just got an updated release on basically every platform in the universe.
Also for "chill and pretty", basically everything that thatgamecompany did back when they were doing exclusive Sony releases is worth checking out: flOw, Flower and Journey. (Sadly their more recent multiplatform game, "Sky: Children of the Light" is one of the greatest heel-turns in recent gaming history: they took all of the beautiful mechanics and art of their previous games and put them in the service of... a multiplayer game with microtransactions. Alas.)
My first thought was Jeff Minter, too. The games can be twitchy, but to a comical extent that's all part of the experience. Jeff has a long and solid history of chillout / psychedelic screensaveresque apps going back to Psychedelia on the VIC-20 (!) and including the sorely missed Neon on the Xbox 360, from the days when you were encouraged to pop a CD in and zone out at 720p. That DNA runs through all the Llamasoft games, and I'd say they're all worth a try. I wouldn't say Polybius is built for relaxation, but if you want to briefly enter a fugue state, no problem.
Have you tried Return of the Obra Dinn? Monochromatic, trippy, sorta Moby Dick-like (it’s about a boat anyway) supernatural puzzle thing, entirely created by one person, music and all.
The games from thatgamecompany might be up your alley - Journey in particular.
If you do phone/tablet gaming, Monument Valley and the sequel might fit the bill. The "The Box" level of Monument Valley is possibly the most beautifully-constructed level I've ever played in a video game.
None of these are terribly long, though, especially the Monument Valley games, which are maybe an hour or two each.
Oh yeah, I really liked Monument Valley!
There was also a PS3 game called Echochrome that is a bit similar, but more repetitive and less clever.
I was a little hesitant to recommend it before you said you liked Monument Valley, but I bet you'd enjoy Snakebird, and maybe Snakebird Primer. Puzzle games, so they tick the "go at your own pace" box, visuals are vibrant pastel colors mostly rather than trippy, the music isn't part of the gameplay, but it's good music (imo) and I didn't get sick of it while playing.
Primer is the same game mechanics, it's just an easier set of levels released by the developers as a pre/sequel because the original game probably frustrated a lot of people by having an incredibly steep difficulty ramp past the intro levels.
Another puzzle game rec: Baba is You
You need the Rez vibrator add on to be a true completionist
I am frankly insulted that you are assuming that I don't have one.
I should also mention: though I obviously have some love for Wipeout, it doesn't really fit the bill. It has great visuals and an incredible soundtrack, but the two aren't really integrated. Honestly it's probably the soundtrack that kept me re-playing it at all. I can't hear any of the songs on that soundtrack without seeing the game in my head, but even so, I never played the game for long enough to actually get good at it. Or, maybe I just fundamentally suck at driving games. Could be.
At some point, I collected every version of the soundtrack from every release of the game on every platform. I can definitively say that the soundtrack from Wipeout XL (PS1-US 1996) is the best of them all.
Every subsequent release of the game was exactly the same game with slightly better graphics and new skins on the ships, until eventually they switched to a model where you get one ship and one track and that's it unless you make in-game purchases. Fuck that entirely.
Yeah, I LOOOOOVED Wipeout HD/Fury and felt like that was the culmination of the original game I loved, and then everything I heard about subsequent versions made me think "and now it's done."
(What I really, REALLY want is the very original tracks and soundtrack redone in the HD engine. I would also like a pony.)
That's probably not really out of reach...
I'd plumb forgotten about that. It ran fine enough on my piece of crap machine back in the day, but holy mackerel does it look nice on a newer machine.
(Also, in the horse leading that cart, I have you to thank for introducing me to QT and by extension PC Music, which… that's just its own whole can o'worms.)
I can't hear Run DMC's "It's Tricky" without seeing SSX Tricky in my head. I spent months playing that game at the time, and thought I was getting pretty good at it, and then I made the mistake of reading about it on the Internet. My personal record score for the entire course I'd got "good" at was similar to the suggested target after landing your first jump. I felt old.
That was twenty years ago, I feel really old. (This is not a recommendation that you should play SSX Tricky, just an anecdote)
Darwinia ticks a lot of those boxes. I guess it could be played aggressively, but I always default to gradually clearing each map, maximising the saved population and building a flow network to keep them safe and useful. I understand it's just been remastered but my semi-regular replayings haven't intersected with that yet.
And the skips the ones you don't:
Strong second on Untitled Goose Game. Frankly the best game that came out in 2019 and it wasn't particularly close.
Huh, I thought that was an in-browser game or PC-only something. Didn't realize it was on Playstation.
Thumper, great industrial music, rhythm, minor shooting element
Thumper's great, but it does require decent twitch-reflexes.
Agreed, Thumper is great for the way the rhythm and gameplay blend, much like Rez does.
Proteus might tickle your fancy, although it's pretty short. I find it very calming.
You specifically mention Portal, I can recommend Portal 2. The stand alone game is great, I also enjoyed the 2 player Co-op with a friend.
I think I'd only recommend Portal 2 to Jamie if he thinks he actually enjoyed the story in Portal rather than just putting up with it because the puzzles are awesome. Portal 2 has a lot of both actual exposition (it has a conceit to justify "pre-recorded messages" playing in a lot of sections, which have nothing to do with any puzzles in most cases but are intended to develop the story) and gameplay that exists to advance the story's plot rather than being a real puzzle. There are new portal puzzles and some new puzzle elements, but if you found the story in Portal to be only tolerable I think Portal 2 would exceed your tolerances.
Co-op with a spoiled friend (ie somebody who knows all the co-op puzzles already) is unlikely to be satisfying. And finding an unspoiled friend who'd be up for playing a video game for the first time co-operatively with you, many years after the game came out, is not plausible.
I played them both, and liked them, though some parts of Portal 2 did really drag. I tried the co-op briefly and hated it.
Hohokum (sic)
The music may not be to your tastes, as it leans closer to whale farts and wind chimes new age than bleepy bloopy thumping techno. But the "game" itself is delightful. It's all exploring and puzzles, no twitch. And the music is all integrated with the sound effects, so you are soloing over the backing track.
Space Invaders Forever has a bit of the same chill / music feel. Same trick as Rez with the rhythm; the beat enhances the game, it's not the challenge.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is worth a look but I think is too far into the frenetic game experience to satisfy.
I second the recommendations for Thumper, Tetris Effect, and Lumines.
I'm with you on loving this genre, particularly embracing the trance-like overwhelming of senses of the classic video game arcade experience.
Look into Exo One. It only takes a few hours to play through but it checks many of your boxes. It's been released on several platforms already but the downside is that's it's coming out this summer for PS4.
https://youtu.be/lZF6AKhzT6E
You like puzzles and visuals. Have you looked at Gorogoa?
Chime is a pleasant Tetris-like puzzle game, strongly tied into its soundtrack (the better you're doing, the more music it brings in). The original game had 5 levels/tracks, I understand there was a Chime Super Deluxe version exclusive to the PS3's PSN with 10 tracks/levels, and nowadays there is Chime Sharp with 15 tracks/levels.
Have you played Journey?
I'm surprised nobody has suggested begging, borrowing or stealing a PSVR headset and playing Rez VR (and Wipeout VR) until you puke. I think Rez VR is a little less *urp* inducing since you're on rails, but they're both still VR, so it's probably not worth spending $350 on it. But one of your friends probably did and has a headset you could borrow gathering dust in a closet somewhere.
This is why I followed the RSS back to leave a comment. The only thing better than playing Rez is being inside Rez.
It might be a violation of your preferences for twitch, but if you could beg/borrow a PS VR headset, Beat Saber seems like something that could be worth a try.
I remember exactly when and where I was the first time I saw REZ. And I feel like I must look and sound a bit unhinged when I try and explain to people what's so great about it.
One of the other games I rave at people about is ICO. It came out around the same time, there's a PS3 HD remaster, and it's a pretty nice place to hang out. There's lots of interesting little mechanics. The princess you're leading out of the castle, you hold down a button on the controller to hold her hand and lead her through the castle. And it's amazing how attached you get to that button. Game play is part puzzle based, part platformer, part hitting things with a stick. It's not terribly twitchy, difficulty is mostly harmless. Worst thing about it tends to be some of the camera angles but that's like a retro throwback to some of those horrible PS1 games. If you do finish the game, make sure you watch to the end of the credits for the last cut scene. The music is, not quite banging face melting techno but it suits the mood and pace of the game at certain points.
Gris was good. Not twitchy. The music is beautiful, though not part of the puzzles.
Bit Trip Runner is a cute little game with nice old fashioned graphics
I'd agree that it's a cute game, but I've launched a million controllers through a million TVs trying to complete it, and I would gladly end the universe if it ensured the permanent destruction of that game.
The problem with it is that it is extremely picky about your timing. And if you miss anything, back to the start of the level you go - and you get to watch yourself be yoinked all the way back as that smug little shit of a game reminds you how badly you fucked up by pressing a button a fraction of a second too early/late near the end of the level. Now do it all again, and don't fuck it up this time. Fuck. That.
Games like vib-ribbon / Parappa the Rapper / Um Jammer Lammy / DDR / Beatmania / osu! / Friday Night Funkin' / Guitar Hero / Beat Saber are similar muscle-memory games, but they let you make a few mistakes without having to redo the whole level. Some of them (and I know Beat Saber is among them) have a "no fail" option, letting you get through the whole level no matter how badly you mess up. BIT.TRIP RUNNER is completely unforgiving, it has no chill. There are a few games in the Bit Trip series, I haven't played any of the others, maybe they're more chill?
Of couse you love Rez and Katamari, those are so great. Maybe Sound Shapes would interest you as well? It's more of a platformer, so the twitchiness may not suit you. Same for Dyad, a very Llamasoft-esque shooter, scored by David Kanaga (who also worked on the aforementioned Proteus, which I like very much, and Panoramical, which is definitely some sort of interactive light synthesizer/screensaver, but only for macOS and Windows.)
It's old, but have you tried: http://www.antichamber-game.com/ ?
You might enjoy The Witness
Anything made by Kenta Cho: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABA_Games
His games have a heavy Rez influence and are found here: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/index.html
Also for screensaver puzzle weirdness vibes I think David OReilly's "Everything" is the best thing in a long time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwqGSQzE0H0
Sticking to the PS3 and PS4 catalog, I suggest you check the games below if you haven't already. Some may have been mentioned already.
ÂBZU (PS4)
Braid (PS3)
Fez (PS3 / PS4)
Flower (PS3 / PS4)
ICO HD (PS3)
Proteus (PS3)
The Gardens Between (PS4)
The Witness (PS4)
Untitled Goose Game (PS4)
With twitchy pacing or controls but with nice visuals and / or soundtrack:
PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate (PS4)
Polybius (PS4)
Tempest 4000 (PS4)
The Touryst (PS4)
VVVVVV (PS4)
If playing on other platforms, both Monument Valley games.
Ctrl-f says Gris has been mentioned twice and it's an even split. I think it's a non-game the same way Monument Valley is a non-game but if you like looking at cool shit and tinkly lush music you could do a lot worse
Tetsuya Mizuguchi's GDC postmortem for Rez is pretty good, complementary to the coffee table book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtSaFsMKrkI
Spheres of Chaos has some real synesthesia going on:
http://www.spheresofchaos.com
Luxuria Superba might fit the bill - trippy visuals, game-related music, non-twitchy, not very puzzle-y.
http://luxuria-superbia.com
I got REZ years ago on your recommendation. It was really hard to get at the time, and I ended up with a used version from Ebay that wouldn't run on my PS because of region locking. I then ordered the additional hardware to unlock the region and after all that waiting and frustration, REZ blew me away. So thanks for that
👍
Then at least I have accomplished that!
A little late to the game (haha), but trying to come up with suggestions others have not yet put forth. Also I have no idea what of the following is actually accessible to you, since I don't have consoles at the moment.
Naissancee was light puzzles and crazy environment exploration—on the verge of being a 'walking simulator', but if you've any familiarity with the setting of the Blame! manga/anime, it felt like being an inconsequential nobody in 'The City'. Also along these lines was Bokida: Heartfelt Reunion, some very nice visuals there. I would put both in the same genre as Manifold Garden, which others mentioned.
If you liked Myst (don't know if too much plot/npc talk for you), Obduction was made by the same guys, with the same sort of gameplay. Along the same lines were Quern and Aporia.
The Outer Wilds is a fantastic puzzle/exploration game with great atmospherics. It does require some fast action at a point or two, but it's not shooty-shooty twitch action or anything like that, just planning routes and moving fast. The core facet of it is that if you screw up it doesn't matter, because the world ends in 22 minutes regardless, and everything resets. You have only what you've learned.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is sort of an inverse puzzle game where you methodically deconstruct starships for recycling. I find it oddly relaxing. There is an optional campaign where npcs talk at you a bit (you can pretty much ignore it/them) and the plot is essentially, "lets form a union because capitalist pigs".
Kentucky Route Zero is plotty, but it has some trippy visuals and is overall a very odd experience.
Think that's all I've got.
...
Though that said I'd also note that I see people both for and against The Witness here, and I think a key element of whether you can really enjoy it as a whole is how high your tolerance is for pretentiousness. The puzzles have various forms despite being in the same sort of overarching presentation, and I found them enjoyable to learn and figure out in and of themselves. However, to really enjoy its 'experience' as a whole (as I do) you have to be willing to look for and listen to the recordings of people reading out random quotes and stories, and to watch the (sometimes very long and artsy-fartsy) movie clips in-game, and just kind of generally buy into and immerse yourself in Jonathan Blow's artistic bullshitery. If your tolerance is too low, this may not spark joy.
You might like Aaero. I find it takes more concentration than Rez but isn't too twitchy for me.
I assume you've played Engare? Its creator has a new game out, Tandis.
Untitled Goose Game: This was cute for about five minutes, then I couldn't figure out how to move past the first level. I guess you have to grab the keys and unlock the door somehow? It got annoying and I lost interest. And this highlights another thing that sucks about the modern game ecosystem: there's rarely a demo mode. I "bought" this thing, ten minutes later knew I hated it, and there's no way to "return" it, as I could have done if it was a real product.
Manifold Garden: Enjoying this so far. The puzzles are kind of Portal-like, though not really as clever. I like that it's self-paced and there's really no way to "die". The look of it is simple but cool.