The Gameyard

I remember as a kid watching people play this game when it came out and because of how popular it was and the youtubers it attracted my brain convinced me for years that this was some middling youtuber shlock horror game. It is not, it is genuinely such a good game. You can especially tell it's a step up from Frictional's last game Penumbra in particular their decision to get rid of the glow stick which made there be no reason to use the flashlight. Another game that just has a look to it I wish more games had. Also shoutout to my friend Lucy who had a copy of this in her inventory from back when you could have copies of games in your inventory on steam and gifted it to me, we joined the same steam family later so it didn't actually matter but thanks!

Vikintor I need to devour your brain (highest compliment). Seriously Vikintor is out there making games with an aesthetic I adore that heavily inspires me to work on my own art. I will say though I definitely played this in walking sim mode.

Oh boy this game. It certainly has it's problems the translation for starters is not good and it's definitely got some stuff to it that even I had to like choose to overlook, the bosses are all completely pointless too, but man... it's really fucking fun to play. I like shooters but I'm not a big shooterhead so I couldn't tell you what it is that makes it fun but it just is. I'd play it for a couple hours before work everyday to the point I pavlov'd myself into thinking I had to get ready for work after playing before remembering it was saturday. Also the gore is pretty good it's definitely a gore pervert game which is what got me interested in it even if it doesn't do anything for me being female characters but I did enjoy the gore especially as a sort of feedback of your shots. I've played quite a lot of gore fetish games and this is the only one I've ever played that is actually like. Good. This has raised my standards for not just gore pervert games but all pervert games. Playing this game and seeing how many people like it is honestly really inspiring to me too like "I could make the gore pervert games I wanna make and people may even like them" and it definitely led to me formulating an idea for a game I want to make so it's definitely one of my top games.

This is a game that isn't fully out yet with only chapter 1 having been released and because of that I hesitate to include it but GOD. I genuinely think this is the best fucking art direction to come out in 2025 fuck Claire Expedition or whatever, I was fucking awed by this game and there's so many like little things I spent a lot of time watching videos about secrets and stuff in the game. VIDEO GAMES ARE FUCKING AWESOME!

I fucking love this game dude it's so fucking cool. The visuals are definitely it's strongest suit with grotesque portraits and enemies and an environment that takes advantage of parallaxing to create moments that really awed me. My biggest complaint is that some of the items were basically useless and I had an overabundence of things so resource management wasn't very difficult. Still it's a game that really inspires me and recently they announced a sequel that's apparently being created by the Pathologic devs, I was skeptical at first due to the visuals being much more lacking but apparently a statement was released saying they're gonna work on that so excited to see. Funfact this game is marked positive for hate speech on doesthedogdie cause the Wolfman calls you meat ignoring the actual derogatory term for gay men that appears at one point.

Gob is a demo that came out in 2021 and was last updated in 2022, the developer's twitter isn't particularly active with the last tweet being in 2024 so who's to say if it's still being developed but god. I really fucking hope it is. I adore this game and while obviously I'm biased I find the environment to be so beautifully done, it's gorgeous, it honestly has raised my standards in games somewhat because part of me wonders "why can't more games look like this?". And like. I love me a good point and click puzzle game and the wordless design is a very interesting approach. I will say though I did get stuck at least twice and had to look up a manlybadasshero video to see how to progress.

So fucking good, like by no means a perfect game (I personally dislike the weapon breaking mechanic) but it's such a good RPGmaker horror game especially one that's actually also an RPG. The enemy designs are so creative and interesting it's hard to even choose a favourite design though the Hellride fight kicks ass. The pixel art is absolutely wonderful and does a great job conveying the creatures it makes me want to make pixel art. It's also the type of game that gets me thinking about it's themes, how the characters have all been mutated into strange forms and yet they're still people yknow?. I still need to do another run of the game now that 2.0 is out and there's much more in the game now. My favourite character is Lyle cause I'm biased towards stalkers especially gay stalkers lol.

I'm a big fan of .flow even moreso than Yume Nikki itself due to my edgy nature so when i saw this game was created by lol I immediately sat down to play it and it's the game that ended up pushing me to move the gameyard from my abandoned other site to here. It's admittedly a hard game to recommend since you do have to trust the process with the machine translation and because of that I don't really wanna say much. Not a perfect game by any stretch but I quite liked how it played with things and it's visual presentation.

An interactive fiction created in twine. I'm a huge fan of qrowscant's illustrations and have been meaning to check out their work LINKROT, in the meantime I decided to give this game a try. I've admittedly not played many text-based games made in twine so I was surprised at how much you can do in the engine and it makes me interested in perhaps trying it sometime. The visual presentation is great and the writing really hits me I even ended up tearing up at a point in the game and so it's hard not to make it one of my top games.

Something about this game really gets to me, a short story about a robot freezing to death on an unsually hot day. While I can't say much about it it is a game I solidly recommend with gorgeous visuals. It does falter a bit with i think some hitboxes being a little strange but even still well worth a play

An amazing puzzle game where you have to determine what happened to each inhabitant of the now empty ship the Obra Dinn. Ever since I played this it has left me craving for a puzzle game that itches my brain the way this one does, I am saddened by the fact I can't wipe my memories and play this again for the first time. Not to mention an awesome visual style that has gotten me into learning interesting things about dithering.

An 18+ yaoi game. Looking at this game you can definitely tell what drew me in, I was looking for sexy figurines of male characters when i spotted one of Towa and had to know where he was from and my god they fucking made this shit to GET ME it's crazy. I back and forth on whether this game is good. The translation is certainly a choice, I've seen people who like this game talk about the issues with it but I feel there are aspects of it that aren't just the translation. I played Taku's route first and didn't think it was very good and my opinion on that route got worse the more I played the other routes, it feels like fanfiction compared to the rest of it and I was like "why does Taku even have a route??". Rei's route is also really messy and the game has some trends within it I'm not fond of. That said I still enjoyed my time with this game and it was pretty fucking hot. I kinda want the Towa figures by virtue of being the only sexy figures that I find appealing seriously it's so hard to find content that appeals to me like this I feel insane.

What is there i can even say about Soma that hasn't been said before? It's the type of game that when I finished I sat back in my chair and went "man..." especially as it focuses on a topic of philosophy that interests me. The game is visually great and I love the combination of glowing blue and black liquid (thanks LOWAS from Homestuck). My only complaint is I fucking hated the big fish section at the end and at one point my game bugged out so I was trapped in it's jaws while it rotated in one spot and I had to relaunch the game.

Apparently the developers of this wiped their itch page so the link is to an internet archived version which i think is a shame cause i thought this was a neat little short experience. Nothing standout but worth a play. Also it says you need four things installed to play it but i didn't install any of them and it worked for me? I don't know /shrug

A visual novel where you play a robot maid. I have a lot of thoughts on so called "toxic yaoi" and "toxic yuri" enjoyers especially those that then append their distaste for "abuse shippers" as if toxic relationships aren't in themselves unhealthy and /often/ abusive. Absolutely Perfect Specimen unlike many other isn't afraid to depict an actually toxic and uneven relationship. Apparently the creators are working on a rewrite of it and so whenever that comes out I'm definitely interested in playing it.

Playing this I really understood why it had the reputation it does it's fun and has a great story and the twist in regards to words when you finally meet Andrew Ryan is so good. I was honestly surprised how blunt it was about the politics being literally in your face before you even get all the way down to Rapture. As a note I played the original and not the remaster.

A short rpgmaker game, I absolutely love how this game looks it's very unique. The game was a little buggy if I remember correctly, but nothing too bad. The creator of this is also the creator of A Night for Flesh and Roses which is another game I played this year, both very cool games.

I'm biased towards anything cannibalism related and I like bugs so I kind of loved this, it's not perfect but because it touches on quite a lot of my interests i'm quite charmed by it. I think part of why I like this game may be just what I take from it and imagine what it could be like were made by some sort of gay pervert, the cannibalism, the bugs, the dynamic between the witch and the player, and the "biopunk" of transforming someone into a living weapon. Because I'm me I find an erotic element to this game that I definitely don't think is intentional and yet is what makes the game inspire me to take ideas from it. It also seems to be an expansion to some degree of the creator's previous game bad flesh which I also liked of course.

This game isn't particularly standout but something about it charms me. I love the art style so perhaps it gets at my nostalgia centers but I don't mind. Could use more chainsaws and more massacres though.

A horror game where you dredge things out of the water, i enjoyed this game a lot I loved seeing all the weird fish aberrations and enemies and environments. My biggest complaint honestly is I wish it had more story, I felt it was kind of lacking in that department though i did enjoy the twist.

God I love prerendered 3D backgrounds and a good old point and click game. This is a game I've been eyeing and plenty of my friends also like so I was definitely interested in playing and it's a really good play I love the approach to the story and i was very surprised at the worker bee unionizing and stuff haha. While there's definitely flaws of this game, some of the classic "how the fuck am i supposed to solve that" type puzzles, and a few decisions that definitely baffle me I really enjoyed this game.

I vaguely remember watching manlybadasshero or someone watch this way back in the day and seeing from the distance the sort of fanbase it had due to friends at the time being into it. Decided to finally check it out for myself and it's a neat little game with some interesting lore and ideas and I'm definitely interested in maybe giving the rest of the entries a try whenever.

I really enjoy this kind of premise, especially since it's not just spooky demons but fantasy creatures such as spriggans and fae, it reminds me of Halloweentown to a degree. I could play this sort of premise for way longer than the game actually is. I gotta say I really did not expect the ending and I love it, excited for Forbidden Solitaire (< guy who's played way too much solitaire in his life).

A bloody pixel action game and I fucking love blood. Will say when I played the third boss bugged out I think and the 4th crashed, however I'm not counting it as unfinished because the game itself isn't finished and was updated since I played and I guess they're planning on launching a kickstarter? I don't know but I'll consider what I played a demo and keep my eye out for the final release cause even though I'm not good at it I did enjoy it and am interested to see what they do.

I know what you're thinking but hear me out, if you can detach this from being another backrooms game in a slew of backrooms games it's pretty good. Personally I'm not a big fan of the backrooms, in particular the way it has become with the whole "creatures and monsters chasing you" since it ruins what the backrooms originally were. While this game does mention creatures, It doesn't really ever show you any monsters or anything, not until the ending jumpscare at least. I enjoy this approach it strikes a bit of a balance, first game I can think of with a similar approach is Iron Lung, though I'm sure there are plenty more others can think of. Though admittedly the end jumpscare sucks I'm not gonna lie. I love the visual style too I'm definitely a sucker for VHS/CRT filters and grime.

A body horror body modification visual novel. A beautifully done visual style and an intriguing premise and setting with characters to match, a game with a love for the monstrous and grotesque in a way that draws me in. It's also interesting to see a game with a whole written thesis by the creator

Seeing as OFF is my favourite game of all time you'd expect me to put it in the top games however because it's simply a rerelease of a game I've already played I feel it unfair to put it higher. The new soundtrack is also just not as good as the original, with the original soundtrack you can definitely hear ACC's influences such as Silent Hill. When I'm listening to it in my playlists sometimes I have to guess if the song that just came one is OFF, A Silent Hill track, or a NIN song. The new OST though just doesn't have that, it's very much a soundtrack that feels inspired by OFF and nothing but to it's own detriment. Someone has made a mod though to put the original soundtrack back in and if you play I strongly recommend playing with the original OST first and then maybe with the newer OST. The newer content in the game also isn't really much more, though I still enjoyed it, though the new enemies stick out quite a lot since Mortis Ghost's artstyle has changed over time.

Taking inspiration from PSX-survival horror games, this is a pretty cool game that I really enjoyed. It's got bugs too! The insect kind! I love a horror game with some bug themes! Though certainly could use more. That said it's definitely got quite a few issues and I think the art could be better honestly but it's worth playing.

I decided to play through games by Frictional Games after a discussion with friends and I started with Penumbra and god I love it. These games look good and I love the grime of the environment. I will say though they definitely have problems, the flashlight for example is useless I just used the glow stick the entire time. The second game's plot is also very middling with an ending I thought sucked big time and I definitely would rate it lower than the first one but still worth a play, I did enjoy Clarence though I would've let him live in my head.

I love graffiti so a game that's basically a graffiti simulator in a sludge filled environment is obviously gonna appeal to me. Though this is less about the graffiti and more about the exploration as you find every graffiti spot. Sluge Life 2 is essentially more of the same it doesn't really expand on it's predecssor in any meaningful way so I've grouped them together.

A neat little endless game where you climb up falling tetris blocks. It's not super out there and I would say definitely one of the weaker titles here but I enjoy it and the arts quite nice though I'm biased since I love meat and stuff.

This is actually a replay since it had been a while since I last played it. A short point and click puzzle game about serving three meals, definitely a nice little playthrough and apparently the creators have a new game called The Supper: New Blood which I'm definitely interested in.

This game was originally intended to release on Steam but was instead removed and banned from sale which is how I heard about it. I think one thing I appreciate about this game is that it makes it's critique of men who are drawn to horror and disturbing media and their misogyny without condemning horror media, such as by showing women with similar interests. There's a lot to be discussed about horror and it's portrayal of women and of the men drawn to these depictions but too often I see people essentially labelling anyone with an interest in the dark and horrifying as a potential danger, "of course the guy who likes the bad media is a horrible person he likes the bad media" ignoring that a man who say exclusively plays animal crossing or something is just as capable of committing the very same acts of violence to women.

Oh boy this is a controversial game. Second in the amnesia series and developed by The Chinese Room the most notable thing about AMFP is how much it lacks interactibility in the environment like it's predecessor. When put beside other games by The Chinese Room it's pretty good and there's still cool moments and certainly a great soundtrack, I personally am fine with this style of game and I'm looking forward to getting around to their more recent game Still Wakes the Deep. However as an Amnesia game it's bogged down by what came before it and is still messy in parts which makes it hard to recommend, coming to it after playing Frictional's previous games was quite jarring.

When I played this it was shorter and free but I guess they updated it since. Not too interesting of gameplay which is what I'm kinda looking for with a lot of these porn games I played since I'm definitely not there for the women lol.

One of the many porn games I played because I was interested in seeing what porn games that /aren't/ visual novels do for gameplay. I feel like a lot of the environments are way too busy and I personally didn't do well with the gameplay so I didn't play for very long. I do think the art is cute it reminds me of paper mario a bit in it's presentation (< has not played paper mario). Also it took me way too long to realize the BE was for breast expansion even though I saw the boob growing gif on the page. If you're into that you might enjoy this maybe I don't know

A surreal open world exploration game, it's a neat experience that I enjoyed. As far as I'm aware it doesn't have an ending and is more just a thing to experience and I do think it's pretty neat and worth a play but isn't /quite/ something I recommend, especially if you're photosensitive I think this would definitely cause issues. Sort of just if you're the type who's interested in these types of games with no "purpose" give it a shot.

A boob expansion/milking fetish type game idk I played it in my quest to see what porn games that aren't visual novels have for gameplay. I will admit I played way more of this than I thought I would because I am the type who gets into management type games at some point i was like "girl milk yourself im trying to fulfill the customers order". Also the drink orders have got to be randomized i swear to god what are these people drinking. Yeah not for me for obvious reasons but fine. Second opinion of my friend who played it as well is she liked it.

I played this before but decided to replay to give it another chance and my controversial opinion is that I don't think Dead Plate is very good. I feel like I should like it more for reasons you can surmise but I genuinely just don't get the hype for this game. If I remember correctly there was a reference in game to Rody managing to burn a bowl of cereal which is a good indicator of the kind of writing in this game. Also the sort of dinerdash segments are not well done in the slightest they're a pain to play.

This is one of those games I really don't remember anything about so I don't have any strong feelings on it. I do remember thinking it interesting that at one point it makes you go to actual google in your browser and look something up to find a forum post on some tech website. Not sure I like that given the nature of google.

I was looking for porn games that aren't visual novels on itch failing to realize that itch only shows the first genre tag and this was in fact a visual novel (< guy who can't read). Anyways only played the demo and it has interesting ideas, not that that makse me want to recommend it but rather to steal and use for twink torment.

I'm conflicted on this game cause overall it's very middling and in some ways feels kind of insecure with itself but there are moments that I thought were pretty strong on their own such as the scene wandering to a door at the back of the gas station... only for it to be ruined by the twist. Of note is that the steam page and trailer show scenes that are just not in the game I even datamined the game just to check and the files do not exist at all. If you want a second opinion my friend Aster absolutely hated the game and refunded it (we have steam family sharing).

You know PEAK so you don't need me to tell you whether you should play it or not. It's a fun game with friends and to watch youtubers play but it doesn't interest me much outside of that and I certainly haven't played it in months. Did make me realize I should make a list of games with cannibalism in them on backloggd.

When I was in high school I had a period of time in which I got really into learning about MBTI, I know about the functions and such so I'd say I have a much more knowledgable grasp on the concept than the average. It's because of this that I also think personality stuff is bullshit, nevermind that MBTI is not personality but even still trying to categorize everyone in the world into 16 types isn't feasible and I would argue pointless. Still I definitely get the fun appeal of taking a test and being told you're a forsaken dinkle (my real result from this quiz) and someone within my sphere wanted us all to play this to like idk analyze us. The problem is this tries to be both a personality test and tell a narrative and I think this is a conflict of interest that skews the results.

Nevermind that trying to determine personality via a single game is a doomed endeavour as how people act depends on the game, two people may play one game the same but play another completely different, that said I did stripmine a bunch in both terraria and minecraft so some behavior is consistent. Also the game requires you to play through it three times to get your full personality info and by the end of the third run I just wanted this game to be over and could give less of a fuck about the robot yuri. Nothing in this game makes me connect with these characters and they feel stock, so I don't have any reason to care for them. The person who wanted us all to play the game said we didn't have to play it all at once but honestly if I didn't I never would've went back to the game anyways, besides it has a story and I want to see the conclusion to the story so I made my decisions based on seeing the story and I think a lot of other people did too which is why clergy is so high. My results were traveler and clergy and I don't think these are particularly fitting especially not moreso than some of the other options. Can't even imagine how you'd get something like artisan something I feel would've been more befitting of me, after all my obsessive passion is for my own art, what I create, can create, and how I can improve how would one reflect that in a game like this? After I stated my opinion on this game and how I played it the person who told me to play said I played it wrong and told me to play it again which i was not gonna do lol. I'm an ENFP 7w8 btw if you're curious.

Simply speaking just not for me. I've enjoyed other colony sims out there but after I finished the tutorial I was really left like "now what". I tried to give it a second shot starting from scratch rather than the tutorial but I sat on the character creation screen for a bit and went "i don't really care", so I closed it. There just isn't really anything that grabs me about this game but I do know this is a popular game and I have friends who like it and I can see how someone could since there's a lot in it, but really not for me.

I don't remember much about this visual novel I'll be real but I did consider putting it under not recommended instead so my opinion is not high. I remember thinking this had some weird choices for the writing and at one point I may have gone "well that was stupid"? I don't know maybe this should be lower but I am admittedly nicer to games with nice art and while some graphics definitely have issues it's overall a nice looking game at least.

One of many yandere visual novels, have to say though this one has interesting ideas and I appreciate that it's not a romance but rather tries to look at that kind of relationship from a third person's perspective. It's the kind of premise that interests me and makes me feel like the writer and I have similar interests in fiction about relationships and what drew me to yanderes originally. It also has some cool visual ideas though in the end I didn't like the writing which is what really brings this down and makes me unable to recommend it.

Gotta give the game credit where it's due never seen any other game have beam of light childbirth jumpscare followed by playing a third person perspective but the camera position is the baby coming out of the womb. Which makes this game sound more interesting than it actually is.

You'll probably notice how many short PSX style horror games are in the not recommended section and there's a lot to be said on that style of game but idk. I think this is one of the better ones in the not recommended but ultimately still isn't great. Also in my playthrough the dinosaur bugged and got frozen in one spot though it's been updated since so they may have fixed that.

I think this is one of many games I describe as Digital Haunted Houses, which I don't mind I like that style of game too yknow walking simulator horror games. That said this one doesn't bring anything interesting to the table and is basic graphics wise. Play if you want but I think there's better out there.

Short horror game, I'm a bit biased towards it being one of the better ones in this section because it has to do with cleaning but ultimately it's not much. I got stuck on a lamppost while driving so bad I had to restart the game at one point thankfully I had just started. That's not a fault of the game I just suck at driving in games.

Wanted to like this but god I just did not vibe with the writing I kinda remember the term of endearment for the protagonist's partner being used over and over and over and over every single time, that's not my only issue with the writing but the most stand out I remember.

An interesting puzzle game concept and I do kinda like how it looks sorta but that said I feel like the gameplay and puzzles could be a lot better. Now that I think about it the concept is kind of similar to Ghost Trick you'd have a better time just playing that. Also all the references to things stopped being amusing really fast and was just grating.

A game created by Airdorf the maker of FAITH, a game I really have got to get around to playing sometime. I will say compared to other games in this section I do think this is one of the better ones, it's pretty silly on purpose and I didn't dislike my time with it. I think what brings it down is it's just not interesting despite being silly and the fact it's cancelled means there's no full game for it to get better. Fun fact I had never heard of Molly Moonn prior to seeing this game I guess she's popular on Instagram maybe? Which I don't use.

Porn guro game. Total ass game, half the assets didn't even load so couldn't even see the gore, the player characters sprite was overlapping with the hurt sprite the enire time, falling in the platforming sections would make the player sprite invisible which made platforming way fucking harder, absolute dogshit. Really just played it to steal ideas from.

A short visual novel about being a cop on the late night shift. The story is ok... I don't really see the point in being able to pick the different character portraits, like sure the player but also the other main character? Also i do think the difference between the male and female portraits is laughable.

Porn game. I played this cause I thought maybe it'd have some ideas I could steal for whenever I draw bug sex but it didn't even have interesting porn at one point I noticed how many CGs are just the same pose and angle. The gameplay also is so fucking boring dude it's literally rock paper scissors. I saw all the porn scenes in the game and it's still in development I think so I count that as completed.

A game attempting to get the experience of wandering through the Kowloon Walled City, KWC is of course a place of interest for me and has served as inspiration for many pieces of media over the years since it's deconstruction and is an environment that inspires the direction I wanna take my own work. That said this game kind of fails to really live up to that task likely because of the limitations of being a gamejam game it ultimately runs out of anything to see real fast so there's no reason to play it for more than like a couple minutes.

This game is made by Lixian, Markiplier's editor, and I played Lixian's other horror game Late Night Mop which I fucking hated but I decided to see if one of his other works was better. Not by much. Like Rusty Barrel it's inspired by Iron Lung though has a bit more going on for it but really there are better things to do with your time than play this.

After hearing so much about Vampire Survivors I finally decided to give it a try and my thoughts were "that's it? this won awards??". Genuinely I don't understand what all the fuss was about I played for like less than an hour, thought about giving it another try the next day and went "that seems like a waste of my time." so I uninstalled it. That said there's some games I know are horde survival games like this that do interest me so fascinated to see how I feel whenever I get around to those.

A game I bought years back and never played so I decided to give it a try and this shit is doodoo from an ass and literally got my computer the hottest it has ever been before and I wasn't even on high graphics. I played it for maybe 4 hours and that was only cause it's so ass it's funny to torment my friends with by making them watch me play it.

A game that clearly has things to say about the treatment of women in their interpersonal relationships, not a bad game I simply just ran into a crash and when I relaunched it put me back at the start because it is meant for one sitting. Perhaps I'll go back to it some day but we'll see.

A short platformer made in 48 hours by the guy who would go on to create Pseudoregalia. I actually haven't played pseudoregalia yet but it was interesting to see an earlier work of the developer. The mechanics are interesting I'm just bad at platformers and there wasn't much since it was yknow made in 48 hours so I didn't see a reason to finish it.

Apparently this game has a wikipedia page lol. It definitely feels like a "ough look how enlightened we are" type games that just sucked to play, apparently one review according to wikipedia said the visuals were stunning which.... no? Give me 5 million awards type video game artstyle.

This is another one of those porn games I just don't get how they have so many positive ratings, played for a bit but not too long i don't think it has an ending but because I played so little I'm putting it here. If you want a game like this I feel like degrees of lewdity is better even though I have plenty of criticisms of that game as well.

A game where you dive for minerals. There's a fish enemy in this game that's such a huge fucking pain in the ass more than it is any sort of intimidating and at one point I got trapped under it and was completely unable to get out and so I stopped playing cause that was real annoying.

Seems cool but it is very rough to play and unpolished and definitely not gonna get worked on since it hasn't been touched since it came out lol. I encountered a bug and stopped play and I was on the updated version that was fixed linked at the top too.