Most of my media pages here are just logs of what I've seen/read/etc, but these are specifically games that I...recommend? Generally recommend? Recommend with some caveats? I'm not sure how to sort these and I may end up making separate pages for different subtypes.

American Arcadia - A stylish, charming game in which an unwitting participant and a stage technician work to escape from a Truman Show-style reality TV show. A satirical retrofuturistic 2.5D puzzle platformer.

An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs - A surreal game where you and your fiancée are the last humans in the universe, and you navigate an open-world universe of alien airports run by dogs while staying in touch with the person you love. Absurd, sometimes repetitive, and the dog graphics are straight up stock photos, Dog Airport Game is still funny with a surprisingly touching story about love and long-distance relationships that has more effort put into it than you may at first realize.

Aviary Attorney - In 1848, with Paris once more on the brink of revolution, your role is a defense attorney, taking on clients and trying to uncover the truth. Also, you are a bird. Fanciful art from a 19th-century caricaturist and period appropriate music, but more importantly has good writing. Unlike a certain other detective game, you are able to miss evidence and potentially even fail a case, with the game continuing regardless. The game has multiple endings and actually has a lot more depth than you may expect from the concept.

Beacon Pines - I might call this "cozy horror". The storybook setup has you playing as both the reader of the story and the main character, Luka, a child discovering the secrets of his mysterious hometown of Beacon Pines. Explore different branches of the story and use 'charms' you find to unlock new options to uncover the mystery of the town.

The Case of the Golden Idol - A detective game with pixel graphics and a unique art style, you do not play a character or even influence events: you simply observe strange happenings across the course of fifty years and use context of the small details to make sense of the events surrounding the golden idol. I adore the method of storytelling and the way the story unfurls as you put together the pieces.

Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel - An old, simple exploration game with no objective, plot, or win condition, just a series of fun worlds to explore for its own sake. It's all about discovery, with many secrets and interactibles. Probably the most all-ages game on here. Made by the guy who later made Myst.

Crow Country -

EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER -

The Forgotten City - Travel two thousand years in the past to the last days of a mysterious ancient Roman city where if any one person 'sins', everyone dies. Utilize the time loop you're trapped in to discover the mystery of the city and its destruction. Fun story with engaging characters.

Fostering Apocalypse - A short post apocalyptic game about a woman who adopts the child demon who has been summoned to start a second apocalypse. While I wish the game were longer, it's a great narrative experience with characters that I love.

Ghost Trick - One of those games that's best going into with no prior knowledge. A DS game adapted fairly recently for PC, Ghost Trick has stylish art and character designs with wonderful, lovingly made animations by the creator of Ace Attorney. You find yourself waking up dead, with no memory of your life - or death. But you find you have 'ghost tricks', which allow you to go back in time four minutes before the deaths of others, where you can attempt to change their fate by manipulating objects to solve puzzles. One dead woman seems to hold the key to solving your murder - but you only have until sunrise to uncover the mystery. I deeply love this game: it's funny and charming with a wonderful cast of characters. Go play it.

Hypnospace Outlaw - You play as a moderator on an alternative version of the internet which people access in their sleep. Hunt through a variety of old internet-style websites, hunt net wrongdoers and solve puzzles as Y2K approaches. I absolutely love exploring the loving parody of the old internet, and the way the story is told and characters are introduced, though of course in the name of period accuracy it can be hard to look at for people with flashing light sensitivites. Really strongly recommended bit of storytelling if you can deal with that though.

Inside - A moody 2D platformer with great atmosphere and storytelling. Beautiful, atmospheric, and haunting.

In Stars and Time -

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist -

Jazzpunk - A surreal, incredibly absurd retro-futuristic comedy about an espionage agency in an alternate Cold War. Though there's a story, a larger part of the game is simply exploring the bizarre open world and parodying old spy movies.

Later Alligator -

Mediterranea Inferno -

No One Has To Die -

Norco -

OFF -

Outer Wilds -

Return of the Obra Dinn -

Routine -

Slay the Princess -

There Is No Game -

Series

AI: The Somnium Files -

Devil Came Through Here - The Cat Lady, Downfall, and Lorelai. An atmospheric trilogy of voice acted point-and-click horror games set in the same universe, mostly connected by the existence of the "Queen of Maggots". Contains mature and potentially triggering themes, which are also touched on in this description. The characters are the highlight, with the horror mostly serving to develop them.
The Cat Lady: Susan Ashworth, the protagonist of this game, is a unique protagonist and one of my favorites. You don't see a lot of middle aged women with depression as main characters. The premise of the game is that the titular cat lady commits suicide, only to be roped into working for the Queen of Maggot, brought back to life, granted immortality, and made to hunt five "parasites" on Earth. I don't want to say much more, but will say it's my favorite of the series, and I love the writing, Susan, and her eventual friendship with secondary character Mitzi.
Downfall: Technically there's the original, which I'm less familiar with, and then a 2016 remake. Joe brings his wife Ivy to a motel in an attempt to salvage their rocky marriage, only for Ivy to disappear. More surreal and symbolic than the first game, it also has a darker tone and subjects.
Lorelai: Lorelai is a young woman living in a troubled household, with her alcoholic mother, abusive step-father, and baby sister. Her new job gives her hope for being able to take her sister and start a new life, only for tragedy to strike and take away what little she has. She finds herself in a surreal afterlife she must escape, with the "help" (?) of the Queen of Maggots.

Don't Escape -

Fear and Hunger - One of the reasons I'm hesitant to say that I necessarily recommend these games.

LISA - The other reason I'm hesitant to call all of these games recommendations.

Purrfect Apawcalypse -

Rusty Lake -

Saints Row - GTA's fun cousin. Ok, I haven't actually played GTA, but does it let you spray sewage on people's houses or punch satan? I think not. The series started of as a fairly grounded clone of GTA, with a bit of silliness as it poked fun, becoming even sillier in the second before completely jumping the shark (but in a good way imo) in the third. It then went searching for a whole school of sharks and decided to jump over them too. When the series was rebooted I lost interest, but I still love the original 4 games and their DLC. You become POTUS with Keith David, playing himself, as your VP. I think you already know from this description whether these are the games for you.

Zero Escape -

Point-and-Click Adventure Games

A classic genre that has influenced a lot of gaming, as early narrative-driven games, and which still pops up from time to time in modern days even after its heyday in the nineties. Following the purely text-based adventure games, point-and-clicks allow the player to interface with the world simply by clicking to move or use a menu of options - "look at", "use", "combine", etc. The genre (especially the older offerings) is known for its frequently odd and unintuitive puzzles, and punishing difficulty. While modern games usually do a lot more to make the game accessible, in these older games it's often incredibly easy to accidentally softlock yourself out of being able to complete the game at all, which you won't realize until you reach the end, often without knowing what you even did wrong. Despite this, there's a lot to love about these games, but it's a good idea to save often and maybe have a walkthrough on hand. It's also worth noting that you're likely to encounter some very 90s sensibilities.

2064: Read Only Memories - A journalist-turned-detective teams up with Turing, the first sentient AI, to solve the mystery of the player character's friend - and Turing's creator - having been kidnapped. I like the worldbuilding, the characters and character design, and the OST.

Chzo Mythos -5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes, and 6 Days a Sacrifice. The first story is about a gentleman detective attempting to burgle a manor, only to become trapped and learns about the residence's dark history. What's particularly interesting to me is the amount of space and time covered, with the second game taking place hundreds of years later and in outer space. The third game technically isn't a point-and-click, but instead has a text-parser, like an old school text-based adventure, but with graphics. It's an amateur-made game (by the Zero Punctuation guy) and it shows, from the graphics to some of the gameplay design, and as a series that started in 2003 there are certainly some parts that didn't age too wonderfully, it's ultimately a series I found surprisingly engaging. The games are free as well.

Day of the Tentacle - Three friends travel through time to solve puzzles in an attempt to stop an evil, disembodied purple tentacle from taking over the world. Tis a bit silly. It's a game that's remained beloved over the years, and it has a remastered version which also allows you to not only switch between the updated and original versions, but lets you mix and match - new audio with original art, etc.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father - A more serious take on the genre, struggling horror author and bookstore owner Gabriel Knight is haunted by nightmares which compel him to investigate the so-called "Voodoo murders" happening in his native New Orleans. The game features voice talent from Tim Curry as the titular character, along with Leah Remini, Mark Hamill, and wonderful narration by Virginia Capers. Gabriel himself is a bit of a scumbag misogynist in ways that are often played off as being more of a charming scoundrel character trait over being a terrible person harassing people - which is interesting considering the game is written by a woman. It's also about as racially sensitive as you'd expect from this plot being written in the 90s.

Grim Fandango - You play as Manny Calavera, travel agent at the Department of Death trying to sell enough luxury travel packages to the recently deceased to earn his way out of limbo. A beautiful noir, incredibly funny but without the same silly atmosphere as a lot of others in the genre, Grim Fandango was one of the last and greatest of golden age of adventure games. Wonderful atmosphere, excellent soundtrack, great dialogue, and one of my favorite games in general.

Sam & Max Hit the Road - Two 'freelance police' investigate the case of a bigfoot gone missing from the circus by travelling across America and visiting various quirky roadside attractions. A fun, silly game with a lot to love, but I admit I primarily just really love Sam and Max and their dynamic. What better deuteragonist is there than a small little freak of a rabbit-thing who loves violence? Also, one of the first video games to feature fully voiced protagonists.

Sam & Max Save the World - A newer Sam & Max game made by Telltale before they became (in)famous. Doesn't have the nice pixel art style, but is still a funny and charming game.

Toonstruck - A sort of reverse Roger Rabbit, in which the main character Drew Blanc - an animator transported to a cartoon world, played by Christopher Lloyd - is a live action FMV character in an otherwise hand-drawn game. It's silly and fun with excellent animation, characters, and puzzles. A bit more adult-oriented than you might possibly expect (things get...a little weird!). It unfortunately flopped when it was released, but I am delighted that it exists.

Unfinished games

Your Turn to Die: The final chapter is still being developed. A "death game by majority", Your Turn to Die is a visual novel about Sara Chidouin, who finds herself, her friend Joe, and nine strangers trapped in a strange place, and are eventually compelled to participate in a sort of death game. Unlike the certain other killing game visual novel which it inevitably gets compared to, the game is more complicated than simple murder and investigation. The cast of characters are strong, and the story is interesting so far. It avoids a lot of the drawbacks that plague its more popular cousin in the genre, but being almost entirely developed by one person obviously leads to a lower production quality and some pretty slow updates.

Endacopia: Currently a demo only. A retro-style point-and-click with horror elements. I absolutely love the art and animation style - it does an excellent job invoking that classic Pajama Sam style with a highly interactive setting.

Clown Meat: Currently a demo only. A post-apocalyptic platformer in which you play as the incredibly charming Clown Meat (named thus because he is a little clown made of meat) on a mission to make friends and journey to a Jovian clown. Horror, but comedic.

South Scrimshaw - Technically debatable whether this is an actual 'game', but I enjoy it nonetheless. It's an illustrated visual novel in the style of a fictional nature documentary about an alien whale. Great storytelling, speculative biology, and worldbuilding. Currently one chapter out of four planned has been released.

Spare Parts -