this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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I want to try and play some more games. That feels more fulfilling if you play games that you can finish and be done with.

So what are some good games that have zero (or close to zero perhaps) replayability? I'll start with my own suggestions:

  • Return of the Obra Dinn: Amazing mystery/detective game. However once you've played it, you basically can't play it again as you remember the solution already and the challenge of the game is trivialized.
  • Chants of Sennaar: Really great game about deciphering languages. However, once again, by playing the game once, you'll remember the languages and the game has no challenge any more.
  • Outer Wilds: Mystery adventure game. There is some replayability as there are perhaps areas that you can still explore, but largely once you figure out the mystery and complete the game, there's not much more to experience. Some people speedrun the game though.

All of the above games I value extremely highly even though I only played them ~8-10 hours.

Do you have any others?

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (10 children)

Antichamber - clever first person puzzle game. I played it exactly once and I loved it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I replayed it after many years. It was fantastic, now I need to wait another many years to forget the solution.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

The older you get the more often you'll be able to play!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I'd place Superliminal in this category as well.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

There was an old flash game called "You Only Live Once"

It's basically a rudimentary mario-like platformer. But once you die, the game just cuts to your funeral. Each time you load up the game again, it just shows time passing as your grave slowly ages and is forgotten.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's a similar one called 'One Chance', in which you have three days to cure a disease that will otherwise kill everything. Same sorta concept.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

What Remains of Edith Finch. A psychological horror game that REALLY sucks you in. As you play, there is a lot of stuff that doesn't make any sense, but there's a secret (disturbing) meaning behind it all.

I spent a good chunk of a Saturday going through it and there's no need to do it again, but it was a great ride!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

And if you do want more try out Unfinished Swan.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Puzzlers usually fall into that category. If that's up your alley you should try the Talos Principle.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (4 children)

My favourite game of all time, hands down.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

I've played it once, waited a few years until I forgot the solution to all puzzles, and then played it again.

I'll probably replay it again a few more years from now. I love that game.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Subnautica.

I found it to be one of the best games I have ever played with a fantastic story that really pulled me in. If you do decide to play it, look up nothing. As in don’t even google it because it’s a slightly older game and people spoil the entire thing.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

I replied it after several years cause of nostalgia, but yeah first time is where it is at!

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (12 children)
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Superliminal - once you know the puzzles you know the puzzles, till then it has its fair share of mind bending moments. Speedrunning it is fun though

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (11 children)

Tunic is a solid 10-15 hour adventure game, and I highly recommend playing without spoilers as several experiences are information-locked like Outer Wilds. It's an isometric adventure game heavily inspired by Zelda with some Souls influence bleeding into the lore, mechanics, and boss fights. Replayability is limited to speedrunning and challenge runs.

Bastion is a wonderful adventure game with a heavy focus on combat. It's a precursor to Hades from the same developer, and shares the same mechanical DNA minus the rogue-lite elements that Hades introduced. The followup game, Transistor, is also worth checking out, though it didn't quite hit the same highs for me as Bastion. Both are 10-20 hour adventures with limited replayability if you want to achievement hunt.

More games to check out:

Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2

Journey, Abzu, and The Pathless

Subnautica

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Saying Tunic has zero replayability is absolutely insane to me. IT EVEN HAS A NEW GAME PLUS!!

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (4 children)

The Witness has a lot of generative puzzles that I guess technically are replayable, but you can’t go back to before the moments of joy of discovery and that’s the core of what made that game incredible to me

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

If you want a good laugh, check out The Looker. It's a short satire of the Witness, free on Steam

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Brothers, a tale of two sons. It's a 2h ish long story, really good.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Thomas was alone.(I recommend this one up there with obra dinn)

Spec ops the line

Dlc quest

Limbo

For something quite a bit different, amnesia the dark decent.

This one might be controversial, but the original BioShock, I played it how I wanted, and >! Got the good ending!< And never felt the desire to pick it up. If you're a completionist on the first run, and it isn't very difficult to do (very rewarding I'd say), then there's 0 reason to pick it up again. I felt the same about replaying BioShock infinite, but more because I just didn't want to play it again (I felt like it had much more story to offer, and sidequests to do, but I didn't get any of the same satisfactions from the game, first one was done and wrapped up nicely, third one was barely unraveled and I chose to read other people's ideas of how it had ended)

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Might be an unpopular take but the Red Dead Redemption 2 campaign. I've tried twice to start a second campaign but it's so slow. The first time around the narrative carries it, so it doesn't feel so slow. But knowing what happens next takes that away. The worst part is how ridged it is with mission failure/success conditions. It removes room for creative solutions.

This is not to say it wasn't wonderful to play once. But it plays like they wanted to make a movie not a game.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Untitled Goose Game

once you played it, or even just watched it, it loses the initial trill.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Out of all that I could've suggested, Ace Attorney series probably fits the bill the most

EDIT: Also, Lunacid! Finished it recently; what a beautiful experience it has been

EDIT2: Also, Beacon Pines! For the love of all that is holy on this bitch of a planet, please play it

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)
  • Please Don't Touch Anything. What genre does it even belong in? It would have been a flash game if made 10 years earlier. You're left at a console with a single large red button, and told to wait for a minute and don't touch anything. Depending on how you interact with this console, there are many different things it can do/behaviors it can have, and your goal is to find all the different endings. It was entertaining, I don't need to own it anymore.

  • Shenzhen I/O and TIS-100. Both Zachtronics assembly-em-up games, which...I don't think there's absolutely zero replayability, because you might redo the level you just did or go back to an earlier one with a solution you just learned from a later level, but I don't know finishing these games feels less like beating Bowser at the end of Super Mario and more like graduating from high school. I'm done with that phase of my life and I can now move on.

  • Antichamber. The video game equivalent of a Piet Mondrian painting. It's an abstract and brain knitting non-euclidean first person puzzle game that uses its surreal mechanics as a metaphor for the journey of life itself, and halfway though you get a gun that shoots cubes and it turns back into a video game. A lot of the actual impact of the game comes from how it comments on the epiphany you just had, and that effect is spoiled somewhat by "Oh I remember this part." I will note there is a speedrunning community for this game.

  • Firewatch. There are some games where you'll watch a Let's Play, decide you want to have a go, so you'll buy and play the game. Not Firewatch; a Let's Play gives you 96.4% of the experience. It's a walking simulator that probably should have just been a short film. I'm not even convinced it is a "video game" because...how do you play it well or poorly? Like do we need a new term like "narrative software" or something?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Tic tac toe has only a handful of replays.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Omori. Finished the game in 15 hours across 3 days. Bawled my eyes out for the next few weeks. 15/10 would recommend.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (11 children)
  • Spec ops: The line. I think this was delisted from most stores though, so you might need to sail the high seas to get it. It might not be as impactful today as it was when it came out, but it's a great game with a great twist.

  • Life is strange. It's a story driven game, sure you can replay it and choose different things, but realistically you probably won't since the main of the story is the same.

  • Batman games. Those were my go to for a while when I wanted something linear with an end.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

To The Moon; Once you go through the experience of the story, there's really no need to replay again.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Honestly felt this way about BioShock Infinite - the gameplay was alright, but it was the story that made it good, but you only get to explore it for the first time once. I have zero plans to ever pick that one up again

Same for the latest Tomb Raider trilogy for me

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

90s style adventure games like Sam and Max hit the road, day of the tentacle, monkey Island, Indiana Jones, etc. Lots of comedy you can't hear again for the first time, and puzzles that can be memorable.

scummVM can be used to run those games and runs on basically everything, phones, tablets, desktop.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

It's quite an open question. Most games I play are "one and done" even though I think most people go back to them. Even with replayability it doesn't mean that you have to and I'm happy to leave things be once the story is over.

Mafia trilogy sticks to the story and will take a decent amount of hours.

Inside is short but fun.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Funny OP, you named the exact 3 games I was planning on naming here.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Literally anything focused entirely on telling a story.

They're only worth replaying if you forget the story.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

If you want something very similar to the three you named, do not sleep on Case of the Golden Idol.

It might have a little more replayability due to they way decisions you make impact the story, but I'd also put in a strong recommendation for Pentiment.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Dredge comes to mind. It's a nice game and all, but outside of the two endings (which are basically a choose left or right situation) you see pretty much everything there's to see in a single playthrough.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (8 children)

Am I the only one who just plays any given game once?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Factorio.

Just kidding, someone please help me

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

The Cat Lady

To The Moon

SOMA (you can play it again of course but the raw shock and intensity of the plot is lost the second time)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago
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