I am a lifelong gamer, and over the years, I racked up over twelve hundred games. Here is my list of the top 10 most unique games that you can play in 2024.
There are a lot of areas where a game can be unique. It can have a unique setting, unique characters, unique gameplay, or a unique story.
I searched far and wide to find the games with the most unique aspects and brought them here for you today.
Are they all games you’d want to play? Well, maybe not.
What I can definitely say is that you won’t find many games like them.
10. Little Misfortune
On the lower end, we have a game that explores some very dark themes, all from the eyes of an innocent “little lady.”
Your new best friend, the narrator, just wants to take you on a journey. Along the way, you’ll get a lot of dialogue from your new buddy as he guides you down the path to adventure.
You won’t meet many characters after crossing the road, but you can be assured you will not expect where Misfortune will end up when all is said and done.
We don’t want to spoil the twists and turns, but it’s a very unique adventure. Its sense of humor and innocence meshes well with the dark themes and slightly depressing finale. Make a friend, make another friend, and come to your final realization.
Will you return home to your loving family and tell your mother you love her? Maybe, if you’re a fan of glitter.
One thing is certain, though. You won’t find a story like this one in many places. Oh, and never trust a fox. The narrator says so, and you can always trust a narrator.
9. Goat Simulator
It’s true that these days a Simulator game comes out every ten seconds. What started the swarm of game releases was the original Goat Simulator and how it sold over a million copies soon after its release.
It wasn’t really concerned with being a game as much as being a slapstick goat. You could grab people and items with your tongue and drag them everywhere, smash things, knock yourself into a ragdoll, and much more random physics insanity.
Goat Simulator became a meme because it was simple. You went in expecting nothing and left with a good time.
The game didn’t really have a purpose, and that was the main reason for its success. It was a physics playground where you just ran around and did whatever you wanted, and that was extremely unique.
As time went on, it received a couple of sequels and expanded the insanity even further. There are ways to play Goat Simulator locally with friends, numerous people have created mods for the game, and the community continues to grow even almost a decade after it was released.
It has been imitated to death, but this list could not be complete without giving Goat Simulator at least a small nod.
8. Trombone Champ
Games based on playing instruments are nothing new. Games filled with talking baboons that give you perks for rating highly in your trombone pursuits are.
From the intentionally inaccurate trombone facts to the entertaining visuals for the many songs you can blow to, this is one of the most unique music games released. Ever.
The song selection ranges from traditional practice scales to the William Tell Overture or Mexican Hat Dance. Each song has a unique background animation that combines well with the manic toots and blorts you make in your attempt to just survive the song.
There is no attempt to simulate being an actual musician, though. Instead, Trombone Champ emphasizes the humorous aspects of playing a trombone. The player slides their controls up and down in an attempt to hit the correct notes, all while trying not to laugh at the torturous honks and off-key notes that naturally ensue.
What’s truly ironic about this particular game is that it’s almost more fun to do badly than to become a true master of the trombone.
When you do finally start getting S ranks, and the comedic side fades away, it does become more of a standard music or rhythm game. That said, there are no other games quite like it.
7. Subnautica
Submarine games come and go throughout gaming history. There are naval simulations, action games, sidescrollers, party games, and much more.
Subnautica breaks the mold by taking the experience of going underwater and adding survival mechanics. You have to hunt for food and water, upgrade your home base, and build bigger and better methods for exploration.
There’s loads of variety in what you do and what you find, and every new item moves you further down the technology tree.
As you progress, the game also turns into a horror game in some respects. There are multiple dark and dangerous places to get through, and many are deathtraps until you have the right gear.
The story aids the atmosphere with many cryptic ruins and traces of life. It gets revealed more as you get further into the danger zones and unlock more technology, but the eerie feeling always remains. It isn’t safe underwater. You have to be careful and keep your eyes open, or you’ll find yourself in the belly of a leviathan.
No other underwater game has felt like Subnautica, and that’s not likely to change for the foreseeable future.
6. There is No Game: Wrong Dimension
Point-and-click games are nothing new. They were some of the first games made and definitely some of the most popular throughout the years.
What makes There is No Game unique is how the narrative unfolds through the environments and how they make the narrator respond. It’s quite like Stanley Parable in that respect, but not really anything else.
The puzzles are inventive, mostly relying on fourth-wall jokes and interactions, and the story is not afraid to respond to pretty much everything you do.
There are other games that try to do what Wrong Dimension does, but most fall flat and end up feeling like a generic adventure game. The fact that this game feels fresh and thrives in the fourth wall puts it apart from the games that have come before and after.
That said, it is still a point-and-click game at its heart, so it can’t go too high up the list.
5. Mythic Ocean
Mythic Ocean has one of the most unique settings on this list. It takes place underwater, as you swim around, attempting to locate mythological creatures and chatting with them as they create the world.
It has an odd sense of mysticism combined with the natural explorative feel that comes with being underwater.
Will you take your time to carefully consider how to guide the creatures toward their ultimate purpose, or will you just talk to everything you see?
Whether or not the feeling is real, you do get a strong feeling that you could maybe steer things towards a different path if you handle conversations in a different order or in a different way.
Either way, you’ll definitely not see anything coming. It’s a purely unpredictable universe (at least the first time through) where you are essentially an alien. You’re not supposed to really know anything at the start, but you’ll slowly get acquainted with the odd denizens as you map out the maze of underwater passageways.
It’s unique, it’s unexpected, and it’s surprisingly engaging for a game devoted entirely to dialogue.
The only reason it doesn’t rank higher on this list is that the game is a bit sparse. It’s unique, but there isn’t really that much of it to experience.
4. Papers Please
Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to be a border agent, to decide the fate of dozens of people every day? Most people haven’t, which is why Papers Please stands out as one of the most unique games ever made.
Your job is to check paperwork and pass through people with qualifying documents. That’s it. However, this simple task somehow morphs into deciding the fate of the entire nation in addition to deciding the fate of you and your family.
Will you aid the local rebels and assassinate a government agent? Will you use the gun they passed you to take an important shot but sacrifice your life in the process? Will you take down your posters after you’re scolded by your inspector?
There are a lot of small decisions to make, and even the tiniest can have consequences for you down the line.
As a natural consequence of these choices, there are multiple ways to go throughout the game. Each requires a specific chain of events to occur.
You have full control, but you may not necessarily know what you should do in every case. It’s a game full of moral quandaries, all fired through the simple idea of being a border guard.
We’d honestly put this game on a lot of lists just because it’s such an entertaining experience from start to finish. Still, the main thing is that there are few games like it, and it’s not likely that will change.
3. Stray
Are you through saving the world? Is surviving an outbreak of alien plagues or zombie viruses getting old? How about a game where you play a cat!
It’s extremely uncommon for games to focus on main characters that aren’t human-shaped. It’s even rarer for those games to be set in a post-apocalyptic setting where the goal of the game isn’t to save the world.
You’re just a cat. You run around, you meet robots and the occasional other, and you get glimpses into the past. It’s a nice abstract way to tell a story, and it’s rare to find in video games.
The game also manages to fit a lot of emotions into its characters and kitties, even though pretty much everything you encounter is far from human.
The story itself isn’t quite as unique as the setting and the cat controls, but it has its twists and turns. It’s not that big a spoiler to say that it follows the sci-fi trope of humanity killing itself, as even from the start of the game, it’s clear they’re dead.
What IS unique about it, though, is how the vestiges of what humanity left behind interact to change the environment and find a way forward through the dangerous remnants of the city.
The robots you encounter each have a relatively distinct personality, and their purposes are revealed more and more as you get pieces of the overall story and discover what happened to all the humans. There is even a couple of theories online about whether your kitty relatives may have played a part.
Regardless of what happened, though, your path through the world feels unlike any other.
2. Say No! More
This is an odd one. In a world where “no” is outlawed, how does a mild-mannered intern take their lunchbox back from the weak ineffective management? By saying “NO!” more!
It’s a simple concept, but after searching through multiple game libraries, there simply isn’t another game like it. The story is intentionally quirky and mostly serves as an excuse for an ever-escalating sequence of events that pushes you further and further into the power of “no.”
What truly makes it endearing is that the different bosses, co-workers, and fellow interns you meet along the way are doing their best in the world, and most just want things to be better.
They’ve lived a life of yes, and now you bring them hope in their overworked lives. Or, in the case of their bosses, you bring them terror as they face someone willing to stand up for the little guy.
It’s a story about asserting yourself in the face of unreasonable demands, a story about the neverending search for your lunch box, and a story about the quest for self-confidence. You really won’t see many of the story beats coming, and the resolution of everything is surprisingly heartfelt.
It’s a unique experience that will be hard to replicate, even though many imitators are beginning to try. Still, maybe in 5-10 years, another game will come along, and we’ll learn something else about ourselves.
1. Journey
While Mythic Ocean is an odd exploration that brings you experiences alone, Journey is one that can bring that same feeling to multiple people. While you can beat the game by yourself, it provides many opportunities to meet up with strangers and complete the game as a duo.
The game itself is stylistically unique as well, with visuals centered around wind, dust, and beautiful lighting. The many ruins are styled differently enough to be intriguing, with enough puzzles and exploration to remain fresh.
It’s not really a long game, especially after you’ve played through it once or twice. However, even after multiple playthroughs, it’s somehow always fresh.
Flying from place to place, hiding behind stones to escape the winds, finding a random stranger, and negotiating a puzzle together, it all scratches that exploration itch.
In the end, it’s a little hard to describe the overall experience of Journey. The game evokes a feeling of wonder and curiosity that is hard to replicate.
When you’ve navigated the many locations and completed your first mountain, you’ll inevitably be compelled to come back and go through it again.
The movement and animation are unique, the setting is unique, the goal of the game is unique, and the overall experience has not been replicated since.
The only real disappointment is that the game isn’t longer and doesn’t have a way to encounter more than one person at a time.
If you want to play it with a friend, you’ll likely spend a fair bit of time waving goodbye to strangers before you finally connect.
But then, in the end, the game is more about exploring and finding something unexpected.
While it would be nice to do that with someone you know, it’s part of the Journey experience to connect with a stranger and continue your travels together.
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Final Words
There you have it, my selections for the top ten most unique games you can play in 2024.
Is there a more unique game I missed? Which game are you going to try? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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