Reap is a low-key, sepia-toned survival sim – think Minecraft on a Gameboy and you’re not far off. Here, your ship has broken up on the rocky shore of a mysterious island, and it’s up to you to make the best of it.
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Despite the simple presentation, there’s a lot going on. You’ll need to manage your hunger and energy levels by eating turnips – but you’ve only got a finite supply.
To survive in the long term, you’ll need to plant more, scavenging tools by exploring the map for promising flotsam. It all keeps you rather busy. There’s also an overarching goal of recovering the pieces of a treasure map and digging up a chest filled with unimaginable riches – but if you ever want to find it, you’d better tuck into those turnips! All told, there’s far more depth to Reap than you might first assume. So if you’re looking for somewhere to lose yourself for an afternoon, why not visit Reap’s island and see what you can unearth? Universal Paperclips is a ‘clicker’ game: a simple, browser-based game where you repeatedly click your mouse to make a number go higher. Sounds a little dry – but clicker games are brought to life by colourful themes, unlockable features and surprising twists and turns for patient players.
This game is no exception – and it’s created something of a stir across the internet since its release. You take control of an artificially intelligent computer at a paperclip factory. Your simple job – initially, at least – is to make and sell as many paperclips as possible, managing production, marketing and R&D. But this is a game with wings. Before long, paperclips are a secondary concern: your ever-more-powerful AI is too busy playing the stock market, solving world hunger, and curing male pattern baldness. To reveal much more would be to spoil the fun. But there are hours of slowly revealed fun to be had here, and an epic scale barely hinted at by the game’s humble beginnings.
At the very least, try to keep playing till the music starts – you’ll know what we mean when you get there! As Below is a fun, mouse-driven platform game with a cartoonish graphical style that hides some rather ruthless gameplay. You play as a humble grub who’s had enough of living underground and sets out to conquer the above-ground world – a world of floating platforms.
Holding down the left mouse button aims a jump, and releasing it sees you flying up into the blue. You can then latch onto the underside of higher platforms, burrowing through to the surface before leaping up all over again.
But this isn’t some benign game of ‘see how high you can climb’. Your grub is hungry – and to stay alive, you’ll need to devour defenceless and rather skittish birds as you hurtle through the air. Eat enough, and you can evolve your grub to gain extra abilities: from a long, manoeuvrable tongue to the power of flight. At first, catching the birds is a real challenge, but as your grub grows more powerful they become easy prey – and you’ll relish the satisfaction of plucking them out of the air. It's compelling, tasty fun.
These days, being king (or queen) is pretty easy. But in times gone by, you’d actually need to make important decisions – with potentially serious consequences for you and your subjects. In its own light-hearted way, that’s what Sort the Court sets out to simulate. Having decided whether you want to be a King or Queen, you’ll entertain a series of courtiers, peasants and other visitors – all of whom will come to you with a request. All you need to do is say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to each one.
In each in-game day, you’ll have half a dozen or so such decisions to make. Then, as the sun sets on your kingdom, you’ll discover what effect your choices have had on your population’s size and happiness – as well as the all-important royal coffers. Sounds simple enough, right? But by the end of day four, I’d bankrupted my kingdom through frivolous fishing subsidies and a steadfast refusal to rely on witchcraft to generate cash.
Yep, that old chestnut. As the days roll by, the consequences of your earlier choices come back to haunt you, often in unexpected ways – and a hand-drawn art style, with charming day-night cycle, gives you even more of an incentive to play on. Fans of indie gaming may well be familiar with: the fast-paced, lo-fi fencing game which pits two players against each other in a brutal and highly entertaining tug of war. Well, it was only a matter of time until such a successful title earns a parody – and EGGNOG+, while certainly poking fun at its better-known forebear, actually succeeds in being a fun and frantic little two-player title in its own right. For the uninitiated, this is how it works: the battlefield stretches across several screens, with ‘goals’ at each end and both players starting in the middle.
Kill your opponent, and you can run one screen towards your goal – and if they kill you, they can do the same. Reach your end of the screen and you’re the winner! But this basic description doesn’t quite convey the intense and highly acrobatic nature of the combat. From cheeky rolls and plunging dive-kicks to intricate and finely balanced swordplay, Eggnog+ – like its inspiration – is a game that rewards skilful play and thoughtful practice above mindless button-bashing. An essential play for fans of the original, or anyone looking for a game that balances skill with simplicity. We love a good one-button game here at Team Knowhow, and it’s always interesting to see how developers refine their ideas to work well with this simplest of control schemes.
From the daring leaps of Canabalt to the compulsive fun of Cookie Clicker, one button can go a surprisingly long way – and then there’s Sisyphus. This game is so simple, so stripped back, that it effectively works as a parody of the one-button genre. You play as the titular character of Greek mythology, famously cursed to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity – and indeed, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing. Tap the button as fast as you can to shove that big rock – but let up for a minute, and it’ll slide all the way back to the beginning again, taking your high score with it. And that’s it. If that sounds a little boring, then you might be right. But you might also find yourself playing again and again to beat your high score – which is as compulsive here as it is in just about any other ‘clicker’-type game.
Sure, the theme underlines the basic pointlessness of the gameplay. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going in for another round. Weddings can be stressful at the best of times, but when a slug monster crashes the party and clones the bride things get even more stressful! In this game, you're tasked with finding the true bride from among the slug clones by carefully questioning and investigating each one to catch them in a lie. If you've played games like The Secret of Monkey Island you'll immediately recognise the point 'n' click control scheme of Holy Molluscamony, with an assortment of verbs to choose from.
These will let you perform a variety of actions like open, push, talk to, pick up amongst others. As you explore the game, you'll find objects to pick up and people to talk to – and hopefully some clues to help you find your friend! Holy Molluscamony is packed full of weird humour from the very beginning, which got me hooked into playing right through til the end. I also really enjoy the pixelated art style, which harks back to the days when point and click games were at their most popular. If you miss the old days of point 'n' click adventure, install Holy Molluscamony on your Mac today and see how long it takes you to save the bride. If you've ever felt the frustration of having too many keys on your keyring and having to spend ten minutes trying to find the one for your front door, you might not understand why someone would subject themselves to the same thing in a video game! In You Have 293 Keys you must search through a pile of keys in order to find the one that unlocks the dungeon door, opening up your escape route.
Unfortunately, the pile is quite large and you can only try one key at a time! You could get lucky and find the key you need straight away, or you could end up wading through a mountain of keys fretting about losing the one you want.
It's easy to discard your unwanted keys by throwing them off the side of the map, but be warned – you could end up losing the right key and being stuck in the dungeon forever. What I like most about You Have 293 Keys is the juxtaposition of something mundane - finding a key – with something adventurous like escaping a dungeon. The colourful design and moody synth music in the background are added benefits, giving you a reason to stick around long enough to find the key of your dreams. When you get too frustrated to continue, you can also take pleasure in dragging whole piles of keys off the edge of the floor. Give it a go and see how quickly you can make it to the exit! Like a 2D version of Quake, Tiny Arena spawns you in to a variety of deathmatch arenas against a number of lethal bots. You'll rocket jump your way around the platforms, trying to line up the perfect shot while avoiding enemy fire to get to the score limit first.
There are pickups to top up your remaining health as well as railguns and rocket launchers to give you the edge in a one-on-one conflict. Starting with a machine gun with an infinite supply of ammo, the railgun pickups are able to shoot through platforms and the rocket launchers explode into a large area of damage which can damage multiple opponents.
Each level is part of the game's campaign mode, and each have a different score limit, time limit, number of bots, and difficulty handicap so no two levels are completely alike. There's a freeplay mode too where you can pick your own level options and set your own difficulty level if the campaign mode isn't challenging enough. In a cyberpunk future of sci-tech, cyberjacking and memes, freelance Police-Detective Jonathan Murphy P.I begins a slow day at the office when a call comes in about the latest murdercide. Murphy is tasked with investigating the crime scene – but must first quit 'boogie-boarding the meme waves' and get out of his office. Like most point-and-click games, the right mouse button examines an object in the scene and the left mouse button performs actions upon said object. This time, however, when Murphy examines an object, his inner voice delivers a descriptive monologue dripping with similies and metaphors, sounding exactly like a veteran, grizzled film-noir character – whereas his normal speaking voice sounds like a morning radio DJ, with all the pep and enthusiasm that comes with it.
The game is a short parody, but it's beautifully drawn and fully voice acted. It's also loaded with puns and jokes that are so bad they're good!
Some of the best jokes are hidden in the examination monologues – so you should examine absolutely everything! We even noticed a touch of Alan Partridge – and a final punchline that paid off with a hearty LOL. Similar to Pictionary, Quick, Draw tasks you with drawing several pictures to help the computer guess what it is you're drawing. You're only given a word or phrase with no prompt on how you should draw it. You could be the next Da Vinci – but it won't make a difference. Normally a computer would struggle to tell the difference between one person's drawing of a cat and another's – but Google's experimental 'neural network' artificial intelligence means that the more the game is played, the better at guessing it will become.
In fact, Quick Draw uses some of the same machine learning technology that helps Google Translate understand your handwriting. It doesn't just look at your final image to guess your picture – it looks at which strokes you make first, the direction of lines and the smaller details. But the really impressive thing is just how accurate Quick Draw is. Put it to the test today and see what a start-of-the-art AI can do! Made for, this short adventure game tasks you with exploring shifting catacombs while dodging all kinds of traps.
There's a great use of space, with rooms appearing from beneath the desert every time you step on a new floor switch. Secret doors open, new corridors are formed, and new traps are revealed with every new switch. Some switches open new rooms – while others will reveal hidden traps and safe paths while you're standing on them.
The game will only take a few minutes to complete, but it's a very relaxed adventure with plenty of challenging moments to make the ending feel worthwhile. It's a fairly basic tiny pixel art game, but one full of charm and the music is enjoyable too. It feels like a taster for a much larger game – one that we'd definintely want to play!
If Hell was a video game, Contrast may just be our version of it. It's a puzzle platformer with a difference – in that you must navigate a series of increasingly difficult environments to reach the end goal, but you've lost all sense of depth perception! Platforms are coloured in either super-bright white or shadeless black, which become invisible when the background, the walls and the floors all match the same colour! Sometimes, what looks like a solid platform is really just a black or white hole, leading to the similarly coloured floor below. All 16 levels start the same way, with you walking around the environment and platforms. You'll need to inspect them from different angles to work out the best way to navigate to the end goal: a glowing yellow box. The only way you can see these platforms is by contrasting them against an object with their opposing colour – so you'll often need to memorise the paths and gaps leading to the end.
This frustrating puzzler is ultimately very rewarding, however, when after countless retries you finally manage to complete a level. Sometimes, all it takes is a leap of faith! Fans of the Wild West will be keen to play Smokin' Guns, a rootin' tootin' first-person shooter based on the wonderful Quake 3 Arena engine.
Intended as a semi-realistic simulator of America's Old West, Smokin' Guns gives players a variety of historically accurate weapons and movie-inspired maps to play around in – so no BFGs or railguns to keep you entertained! The weapons aren't just visually accurate to their real life counterparts, either. Each weapon has its own pros and cons that make them stand out from each other. Will you pick a pistol with low damage but quick reload times? Or maybe opt for a sawed-off shotgun to devastate your opponents at close range, but suffer from having only two rounds to fire before you have to reload again! There's quite a decent variety of weaponry to choose from, with your standard pistol, rifle and shotgun categories as well as 'special' weapons like throwable knives, dynamite and mountable Gatling guns to stir things up a bit. If you're a fan of Quake 3 Arena you won't recognise much: this is a complete overhaul of the game, with all new maps, weapons and game modes.
If you want a true Wild West experience, why not try the 'Duel Mode' which limits your weapon choices to pistols only, and starts off each round with you and an opponent facing each other. Once you've picked your pistol of choice and the music runs out, the contest begins! Take your shots, and if you're the winner you get to move on to your next opponent almost straight away – while the loser has to wait in a queue until their next turn is up. Make sure your aiming skills are good, because you'll do varying damage depending on the body part you're shooting at!
Head shots are nearly always an insta-kill, but you'll probably survive getting shot in the leg or arm a couple of times. If you know you're not as skilled as the other players, make sure to grab pick-up items like a boiler plate to use as armour, or money to purchase more powerful weapons. These items can make all the difference in a competitive game – so just hope you reach them before your enemies do! In celebration of the upcoming StarCraft Remastered, Blizzard are giving away the original StarCraft for free!
If you love real-time strategy games and haven't played StarCraft yet, now is your chance. StarCraft is the sci-fi alternative to Warcraft, another RTS game which eventually evolved into the MMORPG World of Warcraft – one of the most popular MMOs ever made. StarCraft never got an MMO facelift, yet is noted as being one of the most important RTS games in history.
It also remains one of the biggest eSports in the world – which explains why it's now getting a full-HD remaster decades after it was initially released. Choose from one of the several available factions to play as, then get stuck into the campaign mode where you'll have to move your troops and build base defenses in order to beat your opposition. Each faction has its own perks, abilities and history for you to learn and exploit – my favourite faction are the biologically engineered Zergs. These don't use much technology, but can regenerate health rapidly – and thanks to their high breeding rates you can spawn small armies of Zerg warriors to swarm your enemies! For a game that came out almost 20 years ago, it's still very enjoyable to play. It's challenging in all the right places, forcing you to adapt to whichever race of beings you're fighting instead of letting you use the same tactics over and over again! And if you love playing the base game, you'll also be pleased to hear that the Brood Warexpansion is also available for free, adding new maps, character units, campaigns and upgrade advancements for you to enjoy.
All told, it's a great slice of gaming history for your Mac – so grab a copy today and begin the Zerg rush! Wave Run is the frustratingly taxing, insta-restart game you need to play this month! If you've played Super Meat Boy, you'll be instantly familiar of the mechanics of this title – which has you jumping and jetpacking over spikes through a series of mazes. Press Z to jump, then either tap or hold Z to jet through the air with your water-powered jetpack! Each section is scored based on how fast you can reach the next checkpoint. Hit a spike trap and you'll instantly respawn at your last checkpoint and your time will reset – but collect water refills every once in a while to keep your tank full, and you might just make it!
The developer has managed to find the sweet spot with the controls, so you just know every mistake is your fault, rather than being blamed on unfair game mechanics! The decision to hide spike traps in water was a particular highlight that had us shaking our heads knowingly at the developer's tricks – and we didn't even realise you could dash with the X key until we'd already admitted defeat! Taking us back to the days we used to play NBA Jam on the Sega Mega Drive with our mates, Shut Up and Slam Jam is on very familiar ground with its 2-vs-2 competitive b-ball court carnage!
When a charity basketball match conicides with a kid's karate tournament at the same venue, it's decided that the event will be a combination of the two. Up to four players can participate in two teams of two, but bots are also available if you want to play by yourself. There's a variety of kicks, jumps and all kinds of weaponry to take down your opponents without fear of giving away a penalty. Deal enough damage and your opponents will hit the deck for a few moments, leaving your free to run down the court! The sound design is fantastic, especially the roar of the crowd, the squeak of sneakers on the court floor and some genuinely funny commentary from the pundits. The game was put together for – but has since been polished to perfection with a few recent tweaks.
You’d be forgiven for thinking Max Gentleman is nothing more than a fancy hat simulator, like Team Fortress 2 or Transformice. Instead, you’ll find a great party game of hat acrobatics as you attempt to stack as many fancy hats on your head as possible, while avoiding the flying mugs of beer and other obstacles that threaten to topple your tower of trendy toppers. Play solo or competitively against a friend, and stack those hats like they’re going out of fashion! The mechanics are surprisingly simple; move your character left and right to position yourself and use the up and down keys to highlight your hat of choice. When an enemy throws an object at your hats from the edge of the screen, you can ‘jump’ your highlighted hat (and the stack above it) to avoid being hit and keep your score running.
To get the highest scores, you’ll have to time your hat hops to perfection – and the higher your stack of hats, the harder it becomes to avoid the projectiles tossed at you! If you’re after a good party game you can play from the comfort of your sofa, with plenty of humour and easy-to-understand controls, you can’t go wrong with Max Gentleman. Built for the National Museums Scotland Game Jam, this endless arcade-style pixel-art game challenges you to fly Dolly the Sheep (Yes, that Dolly) through the air collecting lost clones.
You see, the other clones have been up to mischief by seeing how many of them could fit into an atom smasher. Catastrophe strikes when this results in the creation of a Grossman-manifold vortex - oh no! Still with us? We hope so, because what follows is a fantastic point-chasing game which has you dodging atom smashers, riding Concorde and even taking rockets into space in the search for missing clones and items from the museum's collection of artifacts. Collecting an artifact gives you a temporary forcefield allowing you to make a mistake without it ending the game.
Hit an atom smasher without a protective shield and the game is over, and your final score calculated. We managed to collect every artifact on our best attempt, can you beat our score? We were here is a two player co-op experience where communication is vital. Solving puzzles with your mates is a huge amount of fun which is probably why escape rooms are extremely popular at the moment.
The first person puzzler is set in a castle but you'll each be in two seperate locations, one in a library and the other roaming around the rest of the castle. The clues you'll need to solve the puzzles you face can only be seen by your opposite number. Thankfully you're given walkie-talkies to speak with one another to relay the information. There's a sense of urgency which adds to the tension. Your goal is to escape but time is limited.
The game has full VR support as well so if you're lucky enough to own an Oculus Rift or a HTC Vive, you can jump right in and be fully emersed in the world. For the rest of us, we can play with gamepads so there's no reason to skip this one.
Deck Dungeon is a super-simple card game RPG which tasks you with progressing through several levels of a dungeon while clicking on cards to find loot, battle enemies and survive for as long as possible. There are five types of card, types including money, hearts, weapons, enemies and bosses. Money is used to buy more powerful weaponry. Weapon cards have an 'ATK' rating, which is how much damage it will cause to enemies with a successful hit. To equip these, you'll need to spend the same amount of money as the ATK rating. Small amounts of money can be collected from cards – but the mega-money can only be collected from slain enemies! While battling enemies, you'll likely take damage and lose HP.
When you lose all of your HP, the game is over – so you're going to want to find heart cards to reclaim lost health. These, of course, also cost money so you're going to need to find a balance between reclaiming lost health and upgrading your weaponry. A stronger ATK means you can take down an enemy in a fewer number of rounds, and you're less likely to take damage. But the more powerful enemies can devastate your HP in a single blow – so be sure to have spare cash to recover after each battle! Boss battles are normally tougher, but reward you with a maximum HP boost and lots of cash to play around with.
Just don't get over confident! Rex is a digital board game that's similar to chess: there are fewer pieces and a smaller board, but tons of scope for scheming and strategy. Each player has a King, which can move three spaces in any direction; two priests, which can move two spaces in any direction; and two guards, which can move – you guessed it – only one space in any direction.
The aim of the game is to remove all of your opponent's pieces from the board by taking them in a move. Gone are the advanced strategies of check, castling and 'Petrov's defense' – here, it's all about back-to-basics, toe-to-toe scrapping with your opponent. For new players, a full tutorial showcases each of the piece's available moves – and once you're ready, there are increasing levels of difficulty with AI opponents ranging from Novice to Expert –and there's even a two-player mode where you can battle it out against a friend, or team up to take on an AI. As well as 'Battle' mode, there's also 'Duel' mode, which has you tasked with taking the enemy king as your main objective. Pieces may still be in play – but as soon as the king falls, it's all over. It's the most powerful piece on the board, and can be deadly in the right hands. Flight is a golden oldie that we recently got some time to play through again!
The paper plane game was first published by Armor Games in December 2010 and since spawned countless other 'grind'-style games – which have you repeating the same level over and over again while collecting power ups, scoring points, hitting boosters and trying to travel as far as you possibly can. After an initial fling into the skies with the mouse cursor, you're in control of the aircraft's pitch and booster engine until you burn through your fuel. After each run of the level is over, you're granted cash to spend on upgrades like a better plane design, a powered engine, better fuel economy and score multipliers. Some upgrades give you some degree of control over the plane – but all of this uses precious fuel. You'll aim to collect stars to earn cash, with golden shooting stars being worth extra and giving a handy speed boost. Paper cranes can also be collected, which add to your cash pot and can be upgraded to give similar boosts.
Finally, windmills are spaced out across the canopy and give an extra boost into the skies if you hit them when coming down for a sudden landing. All told, the game is well presented, very addictive and just begs you to have just one more go!
With recent news that the much-anticipated sequel will be released sometime next year, this month we've taken another look at Kyle's original AOL Instant Messenger simulator game. Harking back to our younger days of Windows XP, instant-messenger programs and being full of teenage angst, Emily is Away reminds us of the days we'd log on to MSN Messenger after school, waiting patiently for our friends to sign in and then playing it cool (read 'freaking out') when our crush would appear! Rule number one was never to start a new conversation as soon as they came online: you had to give it a minute or so, so as not to look too interested – but inevitably, they'd log off again soon after and you'd miss your chance! Anyway, where was I?
Oh yes! Emily is Away plays on these experiences and follows the relationship between your character and best friend Emily over five years of their lives in a branching narrative. From high school graduation through moving away to college, you'll decide which way the relationship goes with the choices you make – with you having to physically ' each pre-scripted message. It's a wonderful way to make the game feel like you're actually responding to Emily's messages – and even includes moments where your character self-censors to avoid showing his true feelings. We can't wait to try out Emily is Away Too next year – so if you've got a spare hour, give this one a try and relive those nostalgia-fuelled days of emoticons, cool lime-green fonts and music-inspired away messages.a. An entry in the under the theme of 'One Room', General Room places you as a high-ranking general tasked with fending off enemy forces in a tabletop map battle. These enemy forces include light infantry, rocket troops, minigun-wielding juggernauts and a selection of different heavy vehicles, which are all dropped before marching towards your base.
You have some troops and tanks of your own that you can pick up and place on the map – but your best defense is a good strong flick to ping the enemy pieces off the table! It might sound like cheating – but all's fair in love and war, as they say. You'll want to assist your units by getting rid of enemy rocket troops early, as these can be lethal to your infantry and light tanks. You can even pick up and move enemy troops away from the front line, so your troops can mop up a much smaller resistance before moving forward. Once you've taken out the enemy troops with some Subbuteo-like flicking skills (and a little help from your army), you're able to take down the enemy headquarters and claim victory! The game has some fantastic artwork and sound design which makes it infinitely charming and replayable. Definitely worth a quick playthrough!
Recently, we took a look at Robin Johnson's Draculaland in, which happily led us to check out his latest work of interactive fiction, Detectiveland, which at the time of writing is being judged as part of. The game places you in the gumshoes of Lanson Rose, private investigator, as you scrape together a meagre living by solving three unique cases, which you can play in any order.
Like Draculaland, the game is completely mouse-controlled to avoid the kind of annoying word parser troubles seen in most other text adventures. You'll find clues – some useful and some useless – and store them in your bottomless pockets, while interacting with many different characters with unknown motives and exploring a whole town full of streets and avenues to get lost in. Thankfully, you can hail a cab to get you where you need to go faster! Bloodlust is a stylised infinite-wave survival game that places you in the cape of a hungry vampire who must feed to stay alive.? As your health slowly drops, mobsters with machine guns – or 'shady vampire hunters', as developer Lung calls them – spawn into the game area and try to take you down with a hail of silver bullets. As the bullets fly, you'll need to dodge them with a dash move – while also taking down the mobsters and feeding on them to regenerate your health.
Bigger mobsters earn you more points while also regenerating more health with each feed. While dashing, you're also invulnerable to damage,so you can cut through the bullets while attacking. You can't overuse it, though, as it has a cool down that can leave you vulnerable! The game is points based – so your aim is to survive for as long as possible while racking up points with each successful feed. The Little Crane That Could is a fun construction simulator for both Mac OS and iOS, putting you in the driving seat of an industrial crane and challenging you with a variety of tasks to complete. You’ll take control over driving your crane and manipulating the arm and claw to pick up, move and drop all kinds of items – from bridge parts to basketballs!
The controls are fairly simple, but the execution isn’t, and you’ll need to drive carefully or you’ll crash your crane and fail the level. What I like about The Little Crane That Could is that even though it portrays itself as a ‘serious’ game, it’s also a little silly – and that’s a good thing. Instead of going for the realism of having to actually work on a construction site, you’re treated to something much more fun, like dunking basketballs or building a bridge while you’re balanced on it! If you enjoy playing the free version of the game, you can buy extra levels from the App Store, but there’s so much replay value to be had with the main game that I’ve not felt the need to upgrade yet.
I would recommend this game to anyone with the patience to play it: you’ll need good coordination to not tip your crane over or drop your load in the wrong place, and you’ll end up playing some levels again and again until they’re perfected. If you’ve played games like Surgeon Simulator, Farming Simulator or Euro Truck Simulator and didn’t quit out of frustration, you’re bound to enjoy The Little Crane That Could!
Doblons.io takes you to the high seas as you battle other players for naval supremacy. We love the '.io' games – they're basically the games you used to play on graph paper at school brought to life!
Doblons looks deceptively simple, but there's some important decisions to make should you survive long enough to upgrade your ship. More weaponry may sound like the obvious one to go for – but you'll lose precious speed which may leave you unable to flee if you run into a fight you can't handle. As you sail around, you collect coins that will allow you to purchase upgrades such as a stronger hull, a faster turning speed and greater damage for your cannons.
You can even purchase extra ships for your fleet, which follow you around collecting coins and causing a nuisance for the enemy. Each enemy you kill gives you points which brings you further up the leaderboard. Be careful though: once you're sunk, it's all over! Successfully navigate the waters for long enough and you might even feel ready to tackle the mighty SS Doblons, Dutchman and Black Pearl – AI controlled 'Boss' ships bristling with cannons and armour. Be warned, it takes a lot of firepower to even dent it! We've played some tough titles in our search for the best free Mac games, but we think we may have found the hardest yet! It's not exactly fair from the beginning, because it joins two pretty challenging games into a single powerhouse of perplexity.
If either your Pong or Chess talents are lacking, you're going to have a bad time. You must move your chess pieces to attack the Pong ball that your opponent is firing your way with a paddle. Fail to successfully 'take' the ball with your move and it will sail past your defences and end the game. You're unlikely to last for more than a few turns, but it does allow for a good amount of strategy if you're up to the task. Move your pawns forward and you can start to move out your back row, including the Queen and Rooks. Move your pawns out to the board edge and you'll spawn an extra high-scoring ball – but obviously, the difficulty spikes through the roof. There are even greater difficulty levels which remove some of your more valuable pieces!
What do you get if you take a pinch of Super Mario Galaxy, a dash of Devil Daggers and squeeze them into a tiny Game Boy-sized package? You get YISAEWYD, that's what.
Made by a single developer for, the retro-looking game takes place across several small planets and tasks you with surviving for as long as possible while being pursued by malevolent eyeballs. The GBJam has rules that the devs must follow, including only using four colours and the Game Boy's resolution of just 160 x 144 pixels. You're not completely defenseless, because you'll find objects to pickup and throw at the relentless swarm: sometimes it's a crate which you can lob at the nearest threat, but you'll also find bombs which can take three or four enemies out at the same time. There are also collectables to boost your score, but the longer you survive, the higher your score will climb. The biggest thrill in the game has to be the way you're able to traverse from planet to planet with the help of low gravity.
You jump and double-jump off the surface of a planet, and if you're close enough to another planet when you reach the apogee of your jump, you'll be pulled to the surface with its gravitational pull. You can pull some impressive escapes using this technique when all hope is lost and you're running out of bombs! The humble text adventure has made somewhat of a heroic comeback thanks to the rise of indie development.
For the Ludum Dare 36 game jam, a designer behind the Bafta-winning Alien: Isolation has created one of the most immersive text adventure games we've ever played. A House Abandon begins, like many other text adventures before it, with your character in front of a foreboding house – but quickly becomes something entirely unique. Every detail of the game – from the loud tapping of the retro keyboard as you type to the flicker of the CRT television you're playing the game on – oozes a delightful retro 80s feel. The soundtrack is exceptional – and after watching Netflix's Stranger Things recently, we're instantly reminded of why we enjoyed that so much. The game has a meta twist, which we won't spoil here, that frankly had us desperate to only continue playing this with the lights on and our backs to the wall. Taking inspiration from iOS and Android titles Super Stickman Golf and Desert Golfing, this fun browser-based game takes 2D golf gameplay and packs it with frenzied multiplayer action.
The moment you join a game, you'll be assigned a random username, and must battle it out with other players from around the world across multiple courses. The aim, of course, is to sink your ball in the lowest number of strokes – with tie-breaks being decided based on how quickly you're able to score. Gameplay is straightforward, with your arrow keys and space bar determining direction and power of your shots respectively.
There are some quirks with the game's physics that only add to the fun, as you're never quite sure where your ball will end up – which makes sinking a hole-in-one all the sweeter. On one occasion, our ball sailed to an easy hole-in-one, only to catapult into the air as it reached the edge of the hole. The group of players we played with all used the built-in reaction emotes to express their amusement.
While keenly competitive, it's immensely fun – and the reactions of other players certainly add to the game's appeal. Hey Dave, we don't mean to brag or anything, but. We beat your best time! TwoTap is a deceptively simple two-button reaction-based browser challenge, tasking you with tapping either the left or right arrow key to coincide with a pattern of blocks.
The faster you're able to tap out each pattern, the more levels you'll be able to skip, with each subsequent level having a much tighter time limit. What starts as a relatively straightforward game very quickly becomes impossibly difficult! We had to stop before we burned through the keys on our keyboard, but challenge anyone to beat our score of 9.47 actions per second! It was probably a mixture of fluking it and an easier random pattern but we certainly felt like we'd achieved a decent score with this one! Anything faster than that gets a big hi-five from us – let us know in the comments. Built by just one guy for the game jam, the game is a parody of a well-known intellectual property that I'm sure you've heard of before.
It's a light-hearted RPG tale, concering a set-in-his-ways grandpa who must search for his over-excited grandson after he runs off. Fearing a telling off by his daughter, grandpa decides to join in with the search for Pokeymans to help him track down his lost grandson. The game features charming Pokeymans including 'Peekachorp', 'Charblezorb', and 'Literally A Ball With A Face On It' – and there are 18 to find in total. Your progress will also be tested along the way by characters including punks, Pokeyman-playing kids and other elders who will stop you in your tracks until you've impressed them by locating elusive rare Pokeymans or leveling up your character.
The latest challenger to has the distinct feeling of retro classic Qix and Disney's Tron by bringing together the former's line-drawing, fencing-off gameplay and the latter's battleground game-grid. The multiplayer game is playable in your browser, and tasks you with scoring points by drawing lines to create rectangular shapes.
Each successful shape adds a number of points to your score based on how large an area you were able to capture. There's an element of risk involved with this, however, as starting a run to capture new territory leaves you vulnerable to other players cutting off your trail – and carving out larger shapes makes you vulnerable for longer. The map is really large, so at first you'll not notice the other players building their empires – but when you do find them, it gets really tense! It doesn't matter how large your empire is either, you can be taken out of the game by a single mistake. Vertix.io is an isometric 'twin-stick' style online multiplayer shooter with an emphasis on fast-paced, immediate respawn deathmatch gameplay. There are nine classes to choose from – including Rockateer, Arsonist, Run 'N Gun, Detective and Duck – with each class having its own specific loadout. The available gear includes rocket launchers, miniguns, flamethrowers and hand-cannons – and some classes even come with secondary weapons, which can lead to tactical weapon switching in the heat of battle.
Some of the game modes we were able to play included a standard free-for-all, team deathmatch, an end-zone rush game and even a few games of insane 'rockets-only' battles. You can also create an account to let you record your achievements and earn rewards, in the form of cosmetic upgrades, based on how well you play. Each battleground, though already slightly different in layout, can also be completely overhauled with texture mods to allow you to switch out all the textures and player characters models with new ones – including Minecraft, Mario and Undertale. There's also a very active if you're keen to join the community. The premise is deceptively simple: you must drive your little vehicle to the exit of a maze. Now, the game wouldn't be much of a selection without a special mechanic to shake things up a bit – and Crash!! has just the thing.
When you bump into a wall, your vehicle instantly changes direction – and what once turned your vehicle to the right is now flipped, and pulls you to the left! You steer your vehicle with the arrow keys, but the controls are extremely twitchy and you'll very quickly throw caution to the wind and start smashing your way to victory. Headphone users will find it hard to play with the volume on for very long, as the soundtrack is quickly replaced with the cacophonus din of multiple crashes! Levels get progressively more difficult, too with the addition of -like brick walls to smash through, one-way barriers, teleporters and door-opening toggle switches. Crash!! is immensely good fun – and playable immediately in your browser!
Ravenfield is a free, experimental single-player title that aims to give the likes of a run for their money! Just like Battlefield, the aim is to win each round by capturing flags and killing enemies to earn 200 tickets. You fight as as blocky blue soldier against a team of blocky red soldiers, assisted by weapons including a pistol, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher and shotgun. There are also jeeps and helicopters for you to pilot, letting you support your allies from the ground and the air.
Though it's only single player, you're supported by scores of AI troops, which flood out of the spawn point and fall about with satisfying ragdoll physics. Each flag you capture and hold earns your team a score multiplier, meaning each successful kill earns more tickets. Be sure to play the objective if you want to win! For a title, the visuals are fantastic, contrasting a detailed battleground with the low-poly soldiers, vehicles and weaponry.
It has an undeniable Battlefield feel – especially when your allies all pile into all the available vehicle at the spawn point and drive off without offering you a lift, leaving you to hike it towards the nearest capture point all by yourself. Yep, that's just about my experience of any Battlefield game. It's a game that can be traced back nearly 1,500 years, with the earliest predecessor probably originating in India – and now, the classic game is on Steam for Mac owners to download and play. Simply Chess is exactly what it says it is. Enthusiasts and occasional players alike will find the game extremely accessible, and the feature list is very impressive!
The game can be played locally against the computer or in a hotseat mode with a friend. The game boasts a world-class ' AI, with 100 difficulty levels – which is great for new players looking to improve their skill. If you're looking for a real challenge, however, you can take it online to compete against other players and rank in a global leaderboard.
The game also offers asynchronous play, meaning you can make your next move even if your opponent is offline. Naturally, there's mouse and keyboard support, which can be seamlessly switched to gamepad controls if you want to take it to your living room in Steam's 'Big Picture' mode. Thankfully, you can also switch between 3D and 2D rendering to get the full picture of the board at any time.
For the collectors among you, there are also plenty of Steam Stats, Trading Cards, Backgrounds, Emoticons and Achievements to unlock as well!
The follow-up to our previous winner had a lot to live up to, and by and large Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire delivers. Picking up after the events of the original, one of the of all time, Deadfire takes what’s great about the original and puts it to sea. In Pillars of Eternity 2, you’re pursuing a rogue god over land and sea through the Deadfire Archipelago, using your ship to travel from place to place. With the same focus on exploration, story, and character as the original, Deadfire is just as engaging and fun to explore.
Setting it at sea and adding naval battles (or piracy, if you will) is the icing on the cake. Upgraded graphics, game mechanics and already announced DLC round out the experience. Pillars of Eternity was designed as a modern take on the classic RPG and it delivered beautifully. The original is a hard act to follow, but PoE 2: Deadfire lives up to it and is our pick for Best RPG for Mac. Another game going for the classic style with a modern look and play, Divinity: Original Sin, is an open-world RPG that can be best experienced in cooperative multiplayer with friends. The game features turn-based combat and the ability to interact with and manipulate the world as you desire.
A multiple award winner and one of the top reviewed computer games of 2015, Divinity: Original Sin also wins points for its voiceovers, controller support (if you’re into that sort of thing), and, it bears repeating, the ability to do just about anything you can think of in the game, things that maybe even the developers didn’t anticipate. While the game can be challenging at first, it rewards those who stick with it and are willing to explore, experiment and take control of the world they have been given. A multiplayer alternative to our winner, Divinity: Original Sin is our runner-up for best role-playing games for Mac. At this point, the only question is, when do we get Divinity: Original Sin 2? Update: Divinity: is coming Early 2019. Undertale is our first example of RPGs using throwback 8/16 bit graphics. And while the look is classic, the tone is modern.
Undertale takes place in a world where monsters were locked Underground long ago after losing a war with humans. Your character stumbles through the magic barrier that leads to the monster-filled Underground and must find her way back up top. And while you can fight your way to victory, you can also win this game by being kind and sparing your enemies, and the way you play will affect how the game unfolds.
Undertale quickly became a fan favorite for its old-fashioned look and unique story and gameplay. And with your interactions having a major effect on how the game plays out, Undertale has excellent replay value. This all explains why Undertale was a multiple award winner, including Best Game Ever in a. Able to run on just about any Mac thanks to its old-school graphics, Undertale is AAA gameplay at a budget. So, if you enjoy retro looking RPGs but with a modern sensibility, Undertale is for you.
If you like your RPGs set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, boy have we got you covered. The sequel to what many consider one of the top computer games of all time, Knights of the Old Republic 2 (KOTOR 2) takes place 4,000 years before the events of Episode I in the movie series. Also like the original, the sequel was very late coming to the Mac, following the Windows release by a cool ten years. That said, the game was remastered and brought to modern times by in 2015.
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You can now enjoy it with better graphics, sounds and an increased resolution. And despite all those years, it remains, like the original, one of the best sci-fi RPG games you can find. Featuring a great story, interesting characters and pausable real-time combat, KOTOR 2 allows you to join the dark or the light side as you work to rebuild your connection to the Force and find the remaining Jedi after they have been mostly wiped out by the Sith. Possibly the finest Star Wars experience that can be had on MacOS, KOTOR 2’s age means it’s playable on a wide variety of MacBooks, easily making it our Macbook Pick.
A sci-fi action RPG from, the makers of Bastion, Transistor is an award-winning blend of action and story. You play as Red, a lounge singer who has had her voice stolen. But you do have a mysterious talking sword that can be outfitted, and re-outfitted, with various abilities as you battle your way through a futuristic city in search of answers.
Featuring the same gorgeous hand-drawn style as Bastion and a superior soundtrack that adjusts to the action, Transistor is as much fun to look at and listen to as it is to play. But play you will, and here again, Transistor offers a unique blend of turn-based tactics and strategy (planning) and fast-paced action (execution). Figuring out the best ways to use and combine your combat skills is one of the keys to Transistor, and while it can be difficult it’s also very rewarding when you get it right.
Beautiful graphics, fantastic soundtrack, complex and rewarding gameplay and a great story, what else do you need? How about system requirements modest enough so that just about anyone with a Mac can play it?
With all that, Transistor was a cinch to make this list. Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike (think permadeath) game with turn-based combat. But Darkest Dungeon is unique thanks to its Affliction System, where the characters in your party, in addition to suffering damage from enemies, will also suffer increasing levels of stress, paranoia and more as your quest continues, which will impact their ability to assist you in combat. This leads to another fun and different feature, the need to rest and relax in between your battles; go into town, relax and level back up, then head back underground for more battles. Featuring a unique 2D hand-drawn style and a gothic atmosphere, Darkest Dungeon is one of the most unique games on this list. It’s also one of the more difficult games, so if you don’t like having your characters die and need replacing (remember, I did say permadeath) you might want to look elsewhere.
But if you can take it, you’ll be rewarded with hours of gameplay and the satisfaction of defeating a truly difficult game. And thanks to the 2D graphics, you can put yourself through this almost literal torture on just about any machine from the past several years. Diablo practically defined the classic combat RPG genre.
Around since the last millennium (1996 specifically), there still are no more fun ways to hack and slash your way to victory. Continuing the story told in the first two installments, Diablo 3 is a classic hack n’ slash RPG with all the elements you expect: dungeons, monsters, fierce bosses and a richer story than found in many RPGs. And it’s from, which means you can get your RPG fix the same day as Windows users. And though we waited 12 years for the third installment, when it came out there was a unanimous agreement that the wait was worth it.
Last year’s Rise of the Necromancer expansion is keeping the game fresh, and the franchise shows no signs of slowing down. Plus, thanks to Blizzard’s “Starter Game” concept, it’s one of the few RPGs for Mac that you can try before you buy. If you’re looking to dip your toes into the waters, Diablo 3 is as good a place to start as any. Perhaps you’re a fan of sci-fi RPG games but not of the Star Wars universe. If that’s the case, Wasteland 2 may just be for you. Yet another Kickstarter-funded RPG, it followed the original Wasteland by a mere 26 years.
An isometric game featuring turn-based combat and set in a post-apocalyptic western United States, Wasteland 2’s strong points include customizability, large parties, decisions that really make a difference, good dialog and obviously improved graphics over the original. Set 15 years after the events of the original game, you again lead a party of Rangers in a post-nuclear world, attempting to provide some law and order to a world gone monster crazy. Now available as a “Director’s Cut” featuring improved graphics, more dialog and gameplay improvements including more character customizability and precision strikes, Wasteland 2 is post-apocalyptic RPG heaven. Wasteland 2 also features plenty of violence, a Mature rating, and requires a moderately powerful Mac to run.
If you prefer your RPGs futuristic instead of fantasy, Wasteland 2 is, without doubt, one of the best Mac RPG games you can find (and is coming to MacOS too). A unique take on either the dungeon crawler and the rhythm game, Crypt of the NecroDancer somehow manages to meld those two genres into a game that is hard but fair, and undeniably fun.
Think Dance Dance Revolution, but instead of just matching your moves to a beat, you have to match your moves to the beat to attack enemies, explore dungeons, and otherwise make your way through each level. Featuring procedurally generated dungeons, permadeath, and hordes of dancing skeletons, zombies, and dragons (that’s right, your enemies have to follow the beat too), Crypt of the NecroDancer has all your classic RPG elements. But it’s Crypt of the NecroDancer’s soundtrack that steals the show. With several remixes and the ability to add your own MP3s, the music doesn’t get old. Which is good because you’re going to die, a lot, as you progress deeper into the crypt. If you’re up for a game that’s challenging but fair and ultimately rewarding, Crypt of the NecroDancer is for you. And it should run, or dance, on just about any machine.
A modern update to the classic 1999 game, Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition remains one of the best RPGs of all time. While modern technology can’t cover up all the signs of age, the game’s characters, setting, and story remain top notch. Set roughly in the Dungeons & Dragons universe (2nd edition), you play as the Nameless One, who has lived several lifetimes but can’t remember any of them, until now.
You are sent on a mission where you’ll explore not just the city of Sigil but the other Planes, in search of answers to your existence. And while Planescape often looks, sounds and even plays like a combat RPG, success also comes from what you’ve done up to the point of combat in solving mysteries, making good decisions and interacting with the people around you. To be clear, there will be combat and you’ll have a party with bizarre powers to help you out.
Great story and locations, interesting characters and updated graphics land Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition firmly on our list. As a bonus, just about anybody with a Mac can enjoy the game with its extremely modest system requirements. There are so many great Mac RPG games, we couldn’t list just ten. To avoid leaving off too many great choices, we give you the following entries, which didn’t quite make the list but still deserve to be mentioned. Normally, we also include all the good free alternatives, but after much research, we couldn’t find a single free RPG for Mac that’s worth it That said, there are several that are free and can be enjoyed solo. Lord of the Rings Online is a good example. Now onto more awesome RPGs for MacOS, and if we miss any, we hope you’ll let us know in the comments.
Games Games About Demand Level ✅ Not demanding Pyre From the creative geniuses behind Bastion and Transistor, Pyre is a party-based RPG which has you leading a band of exiles in their quest to win their freedom. To do this you participate in a series of battles, or Rites, 3v3 style; that ressemble more a sporting match than a battle. In fact, some call it the succesor NBA Jam needed. Supergiant is known for gorgeous artwork, excellent stories and top notch audio and voice acting, and Pyre doesn’t disappoint. With a unique battle system and beautiful new world to explore, Pyre is also lightweight enough to run on just about any recent Mac.
82 Metascore Not demanding ✅ Not demanding Banner Saga 2 The second installment in the Banner Saga series, The Banner Saga is a classic RPG, with some unique features. The Banner Saga takes place in a Viking-inspired setting.
It uses beautiful, hand-drawn 2D graphics and animations and, as with many of the games on this list, focuses as much on story and character as on combat. And while we’re showcasing Banner Saga 2 here, you should know that your choices and their effects carry over from one game to the next, so it’s probably worth starting at the beginning. The Banner Saga 2 is one of the most satisfying turn-based RPGs to be found on the Mac and can run on just about any Mac. 82 Metascore Not demanding ✅ Not demanding Torchlight 2 Another classic-style action RPG Mac gamers can enjoy, Torchlight 2 was a near miss on our last list and has stood the test of time well enough to make it this time. Featuring cooperative multiplayer and a large developer community filling the Steam Workshop with mods, Torchlight 2 also makes a contender for best value at $20.
With a focus on exploration and combat, Torchlight 2 builds on the original with new classes, more and better loot and the return of randomly generated levels for maximum replayability. A sequel to the original story, Torchlight 2 isn’t the most original game on this list but it is one of the most fun to play. 88 Metascore Not demanding ⚠️ Fairly Demanding Pillars of Eternity Our winner in the traditional RPG category in the previous version of this article, the original Pillars of Eternity is still a great RPG.
While a little late to release after its successful Kickstarter, PoE delivered on its promise of a return to old-fashioned RPG gaming. Pillars features extreme character customization, a large world to explore, an engaging story, and a real-time with pause combat system, all executed beautifully. You’ll have multiple options for companions in your party, a deep main quest and eventually your own home/manor/castle to build and furnish. That said, this modern classic still requires a moderately powerful Mac. 89 Metascore Fairly Demanding ⚠️ Fairly Demanding Tyranny Between Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, Obsidian Entertainment brought us Tyranny. Seriously, where do they find the time?
The twist in Tyranny is that you start off in a world already conquered by evil; you’re an arbiter of justice in this world, and will literally help shape this world and the story. While keeping a familiar look and style from PoE, Tyranny’s story leaves some players daunted while others find the combat system clunky. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for a classic RPG with a unique twist, Tyranny is for you.
80 Metascore Fairly Demanding ⚠️ Fairly Demanding Torment: Tides of Numenera Set in the Torment universe, Tides of Numenera is a “spiritual successor” to the original while maintaining that game’s story-driven focus in a world affected by your words and action. In fact this game is so story-driven you can actually avoid much of the combat through your words and actions. Much like Tyranny, complaints center around the amount of reading involved, with people comparing it to a book or choose-your-own-adventure game. But if you’re looking to return to the Planescape universe, this provides another chapter in that story. 81 Metascore Fairly Demanding ✅ Not demanding Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director’s Cut Shadowrun: Dragonfall was originally released as an expansion campaign for Shadowrun Returns but was so darned good the developers decided it deserved its own game release as Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director’s Cut.
With loads of new content, new music and a revamped interface and combat system, Dragonfall certainly feels like its own game. The combination of magic and technology has always been a hallmark of the Shadowrun series, and this entry is no exception. You’ll lead your small team, each with their own unique abilities, on a mission to try and prevent chaos and devastation from destroying your world. 87 Metascore Not demanding ✅ Not demanding Battle Chasers: Nightwar Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a classic-style JRPG featuring turn-based combat, lots of dungeon crawling, and a beautiful comic-book art style based on the original Battle Chasers comic book series.
Clearly, this is an homage to classic 1990s JRPGs. Known for its character customization options and complex but learnable battle system, Nightwar also features a lot of grind at certain parts of the game. Randomized dungeons, the excellent battle system and the beautiful surroundings do help alleviate some of the tedium. Able to run on most any Mac, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is perfect for some single-player, retro-RPG fun.
90 Metascore Not demanding ✅ Not demanding Bastion An action RPG that features hand-painted graphics and a narrator who reacts to everything you do, Bastion has you attempting to discover the secrets of the Calamity, which shattered the world to pieces. Unique in that ground only appears as you move around, making movement tricky, Bastion also feels less like an RPG than many on this list. With excellent combat weapons and controls, Bastion flips from many of the games on this list in being known for its combat more than its story; so if that’s what you’re looking for, it could be your ticket. 86 Metascore Not demanding ⚠️ Fairly Demanding The Witcher 2 While we’d rather be telling how fantastic Witcher 3 is, unfortunately, that title hasn’t made it to the Mac (yet?). But the Witcher 2 is still considered one of the best RPGs of modern times and so maintains a place on this list if a bit lower than before. While earning its Mature rating for various reasons including nudity, The Witcher 2 also manages to play like a classic fantasy RPG.
The game features a solid story continuing from the events of the original, interesting characters, and notably good voice acting and graphics. Plus, it features combat mechanics far better than the original. The Witcher 2 will keep you as gripped as the original, and might even make you forget that the third entry is still not on the Mac. 88 Metascore Fairly Demanding ✅ Not demanding West of Loathing Described by its developers as “a slapstick comedy stick-figure wild west adventure role-playing game,” West of Loathing is definitely a different take on the adventure RPG. While you’ll find the traditional RPG elements, they’re presented in a comedic western setting. Looking like an RPG out of the 80s, West of Loathing is worth it for the dialog and comedy alone, but there’s a fun game in there waiting to be explored as well. With a focus on story and dialog, the combat can pale in comparison, but West of Loathing is worth it as a breath of fresh RPG air.
86 Metascore Not demanding ✅ Not demanding Legend of Grimrock 2 A class dungeon crawler RPG, Legend of Grimrock 2 focuses as much on exploration and puzzle solving as combat. Shipwrecked on the Isle of Nex, your party of four will explore the island and the dungeons beneath it as you attempt to survive and escape. Along the way you will uncover magical statues, secret chambers and buried treasure to help you in your battles against a wide variety of monsters. Known for challenging puzzles and great replay value thanks to the Dungeon Editor and Steam Workshop, Legend of Grimrock 2 is just the thing for puzzle-solving, dungeon-crawling fun. 85 Metascore Not demanding ✅ Not demanding Hyper Light Drifter Hyper Light Drifter pays homage to the 16-bit graphic RPG days with beautiful, hand-drawn graphics and animation. Another Kickstarter-funded RPG, you play as a Drifter with access to long-forgotten technology but you're also suffering from an unspecified disease for which you are seeking a cure. Another twist in the game is that instead of going around finding ammo to resupply your weapons, you gain ammo by hitting opponents with your energy sword.
With beautiful graphics and sound, and a focus on tactical combat against the increasingly more powerful monsters, Hyper Light Drifter has quickly become a favorite RPG game for those looking for a good looking, retro, combat-focused 2D RPG. 84 Metascore Not demanding. While everyone’s top ten might look differently, we strive to ensure that ours are at least a legitimate list for Mac gamers. To do that, we have a set of criteria we use for all of our games and lists: Native These are Mac games. No Wine, Parallels or Bootcamp will ever be needed. They all install natively on your Mac without the need of Windows or other. Performance One of the main things we aim to provide that no one else does is a look at how these games perform on Macs.
If you want to see how the run on consoles or Windows, go ahead, but we’re pretty sure that’s not why you’re here. Our games are all tested on a variety of different Macs under the exact same conditions, to make sure we can provide a decent idea of how well your Mac may run them. We’ve had a lot of questions about this, but we test our games on Medium settings because we know Mac users hang onto their computers for a long time, because we can. And for your reference, this is how we interpret the results: Below 20 FPS Unplayable Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns. 20-30 FPS Borderline Can be Ok in slow paced games. Still, not optimal. 30-45 FPS Playable Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
45-60 FPS Smooth Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters. 60+ FPS Very Smooth For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most. We usually aim for 30 FPS, because 30 FPS is enough to guarantee a smooth and fluid experience. Critical acclaim We all know how subjective reviews can be, and how games can be review-bombed by the public for reasons sometimes having nothing to do with the game itself.
But we make sure we pick only games that have been positively received by both professional reviewers and average gamers. Pricing We all want quality, but just like we hold onto our Macs as long as we can, we don’t have unlimited budgets for games. We always keep in mind price tags and production levels to give indies and AAA games equal chances.
After all, we’re after games that are fun to play. Looks are important, but fun gameplay is even more so. If you’re an RPG fan and a Mac user, you’ve always been able to play the latest and greatest. While we might not get every single AAA RPG, we get more than our share compared to other genres. And as this list shows, RPGs are more than just sword and sorcery. There’s something on this list for everyone, even if you don’t like dragons.
Modern to fantasy, hi-res graphics to stick figures, whatever type of RPG is your style, we’ve got you covered here. And we had to leave lots of good ones off. So, which one is your favorite? Did we miss any you think belong on this list? Let us know in the comments section. I’m curiouswhy do you include Knights of the Old Republic 2, and even praise the original KOTOR in it’s description, yet snub the original KOTOR on your list? The sequel is good, and I certainly respect the darker aspects that it gained over the original, but even with Aspyr’s recent release of it for the Mac which improved over the earlier Windows release in many ways, KOTOR2 is still compromised, and doesn’t reach the heights of the original Knights of the Old Republic.
As you said in KOTOR2’s description, the original may be the best computer game of all time. Guild Wars 2.
Game client still in Beta mode, but been running it while bugging along with the rest of the gameworld population for four years now. It is beautiful to say the least, and is free to play for starters (till you are tired of not being able to use more than say chat and messaging, but if you have your own people on voice comms it is fine). You can max out your character till level 80, but not use the trading post on a free account. Look out for Christmas or pre-expansion sales. It’s beautiful. The multiplayer Read more ».