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Fireboy and Watergirl:
Fireboy and Watergirl combines elements from puzzle, platformer, and adventure game genres. Designed for browser-based gaming, the series emphasizes teamwork and strategic character control. Fireboy and Watergirl can be played with two people, or alone for an extra challenge. Players must navigate intricate levels while using the unique abilities of both characters, and avoid mixing elements. This mechanic creates dualistic gameplay inspired by the philosophy of Ying and Yang, where both characters are opposite, but rely on one another to progress. Players can only advance to the next level by collecting jewels, and they must be the correct type (fire or water) to be collected by the character. The games environment fits the style of Fireboy and Watergirl, the simple but identifiable temple design reminding players of the ancient history of elements.
The series has evolved over time and now has multiple sequels that expand on the games mechanics and challenges, as well as introducing new environments to traverse. Since the original Forest Temple, players can now explore:
- The Light Temple, where light manipulation became a key feature.
- The Ice Temple, which introduced icy surfaces and new environmental challenges.
- Elements, which expanded on the series’ lore and incorporated more elements into gameplay.
The game itself is very simple but still highly enjoyable due to its flexibility as a single or multiplayer game and its use of thought provoking challenges.
This game is similar to my idea of the player becoming a shadow needing to stay alive in the light – particularly the mechanic of opposite elements working together to reach a shared goal, for my game it would be the shadow and the light.
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Rain:
Rain is an adventure game where gameplay is centred on the mechanic of invisibility – the player’s character (a young boy), and all enemies are only visible if they are standing in the rain. When under canopies, bridges and awnings outside, and also while sheltered indoors, the boy cannot be seen by the player themself nor the enemies that inhabit the world, and can only be tracked by his watery footprints. The player utilizes the visibility of the boy, and other creatures, in the rain to solve various puzzles and tasks throughout the game.
This game is similar to my idea of the player becoming a shadow needing to stay alive in the light. – Particularly the symbolism of becoming invisible, or becoming a shadow, as well as the puzzles that go with it.
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Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons:
Brothers – A Tale Of Two Sons takes place in a fantasy world filled with fictional creatures like orcs and trolls, where two young brothers set out on a journey to find a cure for their father’s illness. The gameplay is unique and defined by a single mechanic – each brother is moved individually by two thumb sticks on the controller. The characters can interact with the game world in various ways, and each have unique skills; the older brother is the stronger of the two and can pull levers or boost his younger brother to higher spaces, while the younger one can pass between narrow bars. The player progresses by controlling the two brothers at the same time to complete various puzzles, often requiring the player to manipulate both brothers to perform differing functions (such as one distracting a hostile non-player character while the other makes his way around). Should either brother fall from a great height or get injured, the game restarts at a recent checkpoint. All of the in-game dialogue is spoken in a fictional language based on Lebanese Arabic, thus the story is conveyed through actions, gestures and expressions.
This game is similar to my idea of the player becoming a shadow needing to stay alive in the light – due to my idea of the torch light and the shadow character being controlled by the same person at the same time.
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It Takes Two:
It Takes Two follows a couple transformed into living dolls as they attempt to find a way back to reality while trying to mend their relationship. it is an action-adventure game with elements from platform and puzzle genres, specifically designed for multiplayer gameplay. It does not have a single-player option and is only playable in either online or local split screen
cooperative multiplayer between two players. Players have to cooperate with each other and utilize their unique abilities in order to progress.
This game is similar to my idea of the player becoming a shadow needing to stay alive in the light – particularly due to the small size of the characters in their surroundings, how they must work together, and the physical puzzles they must solve.
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Papers, Please:
In Papers, Please, the player takes on the role of a border-crossing immigration officer in the fictional dystopian country of Arstotzka in 1982. In the time frame of the game, Arstotzka has recently ended a six-year-long war with the neighbouring country of Kolechia, yet political tensions between them and other nearby countries remain high. The player must review travellers’ passports and other supporting paperwork against a growing list of authoritarian rules using a number of tools and guides. Tasks include allowing in those with the proper paperwork while rejecting those without all proper documents, detaining those with falsified information, and balancing personal finances. There are a large variety of ways to end the game, depending on the choices you make during a playthrough. Some are worse than others – one ending resulting in the players execution for failing to comply with government orders. The game effectively demonstrates the struggle of survival under an authoritarian regime, and how ridiculous some rules can become just to keep people in their place.
This game is similar to my idea where you play as a journalist who must propagandise media – due to the increase of authoritarian rules, and the dystopian system enforced which punishes those who speak against it.
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Limbo:
Limbo is a 2D side-scroller puzzle-platformer with horror elements developed by independent studio Playdead and originally published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It incorporates a physics system that governs environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister. The game’s puzzles were built intending for the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play “trial and death” and used gruesome imagery for the boy’s deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions. The game has been listed among the greatest games of all time.
The game is presented in monochromatic tones, using lighting, film grain effects and minimal ambient sounds to create an eerie atmosphere often associated with the horror genre. Journalists praised the dark presentation, describing the work as comparable to film noir and German Expressionism. The dark visuals also serve to conceal numerous lethal surprises, including environmental and physical hazards such as deadly bear traps on the forest floor, or lethal monsters hiding in the shadows. Among the hazards are glowing worms, which attach themselves to the boy’s head and force him to travel in only one direction until they are killed. Based on its aesthetics, reviewers classified Limbo as an example of video games as an art form.
This game is similar to my idea of the player becoming a shadow needing to stay alive in the light. – especially the visual style.
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Epistory – Typing Chronicles:
Epistory – Typing Chronicles is a 2016 action-adventure, typing video game developed by Fishing Cactus. In the game, the player explores the story book landscape as a young girl who rides a fox with three tails. The game’s story follows a writer’s writing process, which unfolds like paper on-screen and is narrated from the perspective of the writer’s internal thoughts. The player reaches checkpoints and must battle monsters by typing the words above their heads as fast as they can, before the monster can reach them to attack. The words increase in length to enhance the challenge, and monsters approach in waves of rising speed and number.
This game is similar to my idea where you must categorise items with increasing rules and challenges – specifically the element of fighting against black and white thoughts.
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Kentucky Route Zero:
Kentucky Route Zero is a point-and-click adventure interactive fiction game developed by Cardboard Computer and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows a truck driver named Conway and the strange people he meets as he tries to cross the mysterious Route Zero in Kentucky to make a final delivery for the antiques company he works for. The game received acclaim for its visual art, narrative, characterization, atmosphere, and themes, appearing on several best-of-the-decade lists. The game was first revealed in 2011 via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and is separated into five acts that were released sporadically throughout its development; the first releasing in January 2013 and the last releasing in January 2020.
There are no traditional puzzles or challenges, with the focus of the game being storytelling and atmosphere. The game has been described as an “interactive screenplay.” The player controls Conway by clicking on the screen, either to guide him to another location, or interact with other characters and objects. The player must also choose Conway’s dialogue, and occasionally the dialogue of other characters, during in-game conversations. The game is separated into various locations, between which Conway can travel using his truck. A map is shown when traveling on the road, and the player must guide the truck icon to the destination of their choosing, mostly areas where the player has been pointed or sent out to go. The player also takes control of other characters at certain times.
While this game doesn’t particularly relate to any of my game ideas, I find the contrasting visual style very inspiring.
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The Password Game:
The Password Game is a 2023 web-based puzzle game developed by Neal Agarwal, where the player creates a password that follows increasingly unusual and complicated rules. Based on Agarwal’s experience with password policies, the game was developed in two months, releasing on June 27, 2023. The game went viral and was recognized in the media for the gameplay’s absurdity and commentary on the user experience of generating a password. It has been played over 10 million times.
The player is tasked with typing a password in an input box, with a total of 35 rules that the password must follow. The rules appear in a specific order, gradually becoming more unusual and complex. As the player changes the password to comply with the first rule, a second one appears, and so on. For each additional rule, the player must follow all the previous ones to progress, which can cause conflict. Rules include having Roman numerals in the string to multiply, adding the name of a country that players have to guess from random Google Street View imagery, inserting the day’s Wordle answer, typing the best move in a generated chess position using algebraic notation, inserting the URL of a YouTube video of a randomly generated length, and adjusting boldface, italics, font types, and text sizes. When all 35 rules are fulfilled, the player is able to confirm it as the final password and then must retype the password to complete the game.
The player is required to insert an egg emoji named Paul, and once it hatches, it is replaced by a chicken emoji. The player then must keep it fed using caterpillar emojis that must be replenished over time. If it starves, the player overfeeds it, or the Paul emoji is deleted in any way, the game ends. Red text subsequently appears over a black background, referencing the death screen characteristic of the Dark Souls action role-playing game series. At some point during the game, a flame emoji will appear, spreading through the password by replacing characters, including the egg, with flames that must be removed.
This game is similar to my idea where you must categorise items with increasing rules and challenges – due to the completely wild rules that don’t make sense, and the increasing level of challenge through gameplay.
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Orwell:
Orwell is a series of episodic simulation video games by indie developer Osmotic Studios in which the player assumes the role of a state operative and monitors surveillance sources to find national security threats. The series is named after George Orwell, the author of the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, references to which can be found throughout the game. The first game in the series, subtitled ‘Keeping an Eye on You’, was released as a five-part episodic series on October 20, 2016. A three-part sequel subtitled ‘Ignorance is Strength’ was released February 22, 2018. Each episode takes place over one in-game day.
Orwell takes place in a country called The Nation, led by a paternalistic and authoritarian government known as The Party in the capital of Bonton. In 2011, The Party passed the Safety Bill, a law expanding the government’s ability to spy on its citizens in the name of national security. As part of the bill the Ministry of Security, led by Secretary of Security Catherine Delacroix, commissioned a covert surveillance system codenamed Orwell. Which isn’t really that covert considering the term Orwellian is commonly used to describe dystopian and totalitarian states, so I’m sure anyone who was paying attention would probably realise what was going on.
This game is similar to my idea where you play as a journalist who must propagandise media – due to the players choice in what information is revealed.
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Scanner Sombre:
Scanner Sombre is a cave exploration game played from a first-person perspective, developed and published by Introversion Software. It was released for macOS and Windows PC on 26 April 2017. The game received mixed reviews upon release. The player awakens in a tent inside a cave; after finding an augmented reality headset and a LIDAR scanner, the player can illuminate the surrounding environment using dots. As the protagonist traverses the cave, they note that no one has gone this deep into the mine before; they find evidence of a cultist monastery who performed sacrifices as well as witch-hunts, and various remnants of mining expeditions, a lot of which ended in tragedy. When approaching such scenes, the protagonist’s vision occasionally glitches out, which the protagonist attributes to hardware failure, but also notes that there have been rumours about the cave containing ghosts. Occasionally the player can find upgrades to the scanner that unlock various features, such as more dense scanning or a map.
As the game progresses, the protagonist begins to remember the past and it is eventually revealed that the trek is not headed deeper into the mine, but out of it. It is revealed that the protagonist ventured so deep into the mine that they eventually died there, and they are now reliving their dying memories while their family mourns them on the surface. Once the protagonist encounters their family, they are slowly transported back down through the caves they explored all the way to the starting tent, and the dots illuminating the mine slowly disappear. The player regains control and can go pick up the scanner again, but this time the protagonist is shocked to see that their arms are made entirely of glowing dots. Restarting the game in “New Game+” mode and using the “material scanner” mode not available on the scanner in a first-time play, the player can find their dead body that was otherwise blending into the terrain in “distance scanner” mode.
This game is similar to my idea where the player uses a camera flash to see the world – due to the similarity of the scanner and camera flash, and their ability to unveil the world.
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The Unfinished Swan:
The Unfinished Swan is an adventure game developed by Giant Sparrow and published in October 2012. The game starts with a completely white space in which the player, a 10-year-old orphan named Monroe, is chasing after a swan that has stepped out of an unfinished painting and wandered off into a surreal, storybook-inspired kingdom. Players must splat paint on the all-white landscape to reveal the world around them. The player discovers new ways to explore the world and strange creatures while simultaneously learning the story of a lonely king.
This game is similar to my idea where the player uses a camera flash to see the world – due to the similar mechanic of revealing a world that was at first invisible.
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References:
Fireboy and Watergirl 1 Forest Temple — play on 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐚 – Unable to properly reference.
store.steampowered.com. (n.d.). Save 70% on The Unfinished Swan on Steam. [online] Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1206430/The_Unfinished_Swan/.
Wikipedia Contributors (2025). Epistory – Typing Chronicles. Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Contributors (2025). Kentucky Route Zero. Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Contributors (2023). Limbo (video game). [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_%28video_game%29.
Wikipedia Contributors (2025). Orwell (video game). Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Contributors (2024). Rain (video game). Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Contributors (2025). Scanner Sombre. Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Contributors (2025). The Unfinished Swan. Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Contributors (2025). The Password Game. Wikipedia.
Wikipedia. (2023). Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers:_A_Tale_of_Two_Sons.
Wikipedia. (2021). It Takes Two (video game). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_Two_(video_game).
Wikipedia. (2019). Paper (disambiguation). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papers.
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