Great video and a good reminder of a lot of weird stuff I've played. It's also a great resource of other interesting games I didn't even know existed. Feel free to use any of my footage for your next video if you haven't already. Would be happy to help give these games more attention in any way possible.
Holy shit, watching this video my entire mind literally SCREAMED "wow, this is all very Vinny adjacent," and then, lo and behold, in walks Vinny himself. I'll be god damned. You love to see it.
I looked into the Johnny games, and sadly the developper ended his life in 2014. You should look into it, he seemed like a really interesting character
Please OP , it would help peeps get a successful search if you could provide more details than just referring to them as the Johnny games & saying the dev sadly ended him self. ( on the off chance they ever see this , my condolences to the family & his friends. )
Ah, yes, the PS1 style horror game with themes about [trauma and/or abuse] where you do or collect [quaint thing] over the course of several [shifts/days/zones] for a [god/dead person/ambiguous authority]
Honorable Mentions for this list! (in no particular order): - Sluggish Morss (no clue) - Wurroom (claymation) - JEF (Cosmo D-style surrealism, made by different dev) - Leaves: The Journey (literally uses no words, only obscure visual puzzles) - Manifold Garden (combine Superliminal + Antichamber, and you're in for one mind blowing ride) - Dropsy (surreal clown who hugs all the people in town game) - Hyper Demon (surreal fps) - Thumper (rhythm game) - The Eternal Cylinder (def a tip of the iceberg game but it is surreal) - Ayahuasca (self-explanatory but tier 1) - Visionarium 2 (simulating aya experiences, tier 1) - A Chamber of Stars (dadaist/collage-based rhythm game) - Gorogoa (not obscure but def surreal)
Oh Jesus, Sluggish Morss deserves to be 3-4 levels down this iceberg, if only on the basis of that one voiceover cutscene. Edit: So apparently Sluggish Morss *is* on the iceberg, and is also 4 levels down on the iceberg. Who would've thought?
All Of Our Friends Are Dead is actually not intended to make sense-- it's based on a series of nightmares had by the creator. It was essentially him getting those images out of his head. idk if they're on the list, but amon26 also did a few other incredible surreal horror games, my favorites being AuSable and Gyossait. Also, Pen Pals is so fucking nostalgic, I'm so glad to see it on here! I actually followed the artist who created it on tumblr way back then and even did fanart for the game!
Fun thing about Soda Drinker Pro, there is actually an entire seprate game hidden in the third level that is availible by going out of bounds in a specific area before you finish your delicious soda! The game is called Vivian Clark and is a huge collection of linked minigames with an even more surreal art style. The miniagames range from platformers to 3d shoot-em-ups, and which one you play next is dictated by which path you are on in the tree, and how you did in the previous game. It's cool as hell, and has a huge ammount of effort put into it, even more than Soda Drinker Pro. (Also how could you mention the Museum of Anything Goes without talking about the Vinny Vinesause dead body incedent of '16?)
I’m surprised that Vib Ribbon isn’t on here, it’s an obscure rhythm game from the 2000s that has unique visuals in only black and white, plus the rabbit mascot is kinda cute
vib ribbon was awesome! The game was so small it loaded entirely into the ps1s memory, so you could put any cd of music in and play a pretty decent rhythm game with any music you had.
HIII!! I was one of the people that made meat shift :DDDDD I absolutely didn't expect to see the game on this iceberg and all and I literally yelled when you said its name!! Glad you enjoyed it :DD
Kinda annoying when people say “ the first 3 SH are some of the best horror games” when it’s the first 4 , The Room is an underrated masterpiece and the last game made by the OG creators
I indeed watched the whole video, and I indeed subscribed. Two and a half hour "video essay" or "ice berg" videos are perfect for me. I have a very rhythmic simple but mundane and boring remote job, and this kinda stuff helps me focus. It's background noise but when there's a more interesting game being discussed, I can kinda turn my head to look at the gameplay or image.
While it's hard to "cure" ADHD, these videos DEFINITELY help alleviate it! I worried I wouldn't thrive with my new job due to my inability to focus, but these iceberg videos have been quite the remedy. Now I actually look forward to my boring deskjob because it's an excuse to watch stuff like this!
@AlexanderHDMI damn, maybe i should see a psychiatrist to get diagnosed lol I have to be overstimulated constantly - music alone in the background is not enough lately
Loved the video. It's really nice to see someone being as enthusiastic about Hylics games as I am! I really think the series is largely underrated. I'd love to see a video about the games on your channel. Keep up the good work! Cheers!
If you enjoyed pony Island, I really recommend the creators other games! Especially inscryption if you haven't checked it out yet, it's honestly one of my favourite games and the story is surprisingly good lol Edit: I've played lain and watched the original anime, the full story is that it was originally supposed to be a trilogy but after the game failed they dropped the planned manga adaption that would supposedly complete the story and attach each sperate canon together, but I'm not too sure on the details.
Dang, only 341 views??? I could’ve sworn I was watching someone with hundreds of thousands of subs. Edit: I just came back to this video after everyone started flaming me in the replies and look at that! It’s over 100,000 views!
As someone who still has no idea anything about off but remembers those days, I cannot find anything about it besides completely out of context fanworks
For those wondering how "significant" of a fandom we're talking about, OFF was the sixth-most tagged (I think) video game on the site in 2015, and all of the other five games were AAA entries. Not too shabby for an RPG released seven years prior to that.
Re: Kinder isn't that surreal, but I can understand why it's on the list. It's about children who committed suicide for one reason or another. Shortly after remaking that game the developer himself committed suicide. Nobody online knew until his dad said something to a friend, who (with permission) announced it to the internet. If it weren't for Parun's suicide the game would probably at least be higher on the list, if not omitted from it entirely.
Finally someone else who can talk about Silent Hill for hours 😭 I can tell you’re gonna be a huge content creator in a little while! This video is amazing. Please make more I listen to them while trying to fall asleep ☺️
I solely came here for Wayne in the thumbnail, yet I stayed for the rest. There’s stuff I hadn’t heard of before in here, which is neat! You’re highly underrated, and I hope this vid gets more attention, fellow Hylics fan.
Cruelty Squad was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed a video game in a long while. There is so much to explore and discover and I'm still learning new things about the game. It also felt strangely real as if it had touched on an aspect of life that nobody had yet identified.
ahh I love this video!! love the casual commentary and this gives me so much interesting media to look into :] I was actually kinda reminded of hendecad/cement mixer sim 2003, they don’t have much gameplay and are more LSD sim-inspired walking simulators but I thought they would definitely fit this iceberg !
I love LSD (as you can tell from my pfp) and I think why many people just brush it off as a weird game is because Osamu Sato was right on how it's not a game. If you treat it and play it like a game it's just going to seem weird, but when you treat is as art and as an experience, it becomes something truly great and unique that you can't find anywhere else.
I'd decided to subscribe to your channel somewhere on layer two, but I cackled out loud when you tried to explain your addiction ... to saying a certain phrase. So, you've sold me twice.
im sure someone's mentioned this already, however the symbols atop your screen during Goblet Grotto are actually words. The game comes with a lot of files downloaded, and theres a BUNCH of lore, and you can actually translate the symbols into understandable sentences. They're all about the things going on around you, like enemies, or buildings. iirc TheCatamites (who made the game) intentionally made a bunch of lore ironically lol. It was some joke on how games will have unreasonably complex lore, and thusly you have Goblet Grotto lol
I have extremely surreal vivid dreams almost every single night, and have a specific few that could only be translated into a game format. Theres certain feelings in these dreams tho that I couldnt possibly convey. Like cravings. A ton of my dreams are me wandering through surreal city-esque environments where I cant think of anything other than how bad I need to find a cigarette Really makes me want to pick up simple dev skills and try to make some dream walker type games lol
@@zeallust8542 Maybe you could convey cravings by having it be a task to find certain object, having the character struggle occassionally (saying something, walking slower, change in vision etc) to make it more personal than a fetch quest It would be really cool regardless tho, this world needs more surreal dream games lol
@@luluconacolo2729 I was thinking having a fetch quest like you mentioned, but having some sort of vague timer that gets more and more distracting as it ticks down, then once it runs out nothing happens. Your struggle ideas are perfect to add as the distracting parts of the timer. Also not having the actual items anywhere to collect, cause I never find a dang cigarette in my dreams
Ohhey, a lotta games I like are on here. Just gotta say though, it's not just Chulip's art style that's surreal; it's got a bunch of weird, oddly specific puzzles for some of the kisses (including one where you literally need to know how a part of the Japanese Rail System works) and the ending bit comes completely out of nowhere and gets somehow even more bizarre than everything that comes before it. If you want to go on the journey that is that game w/o having to do some of the more frustrating puzzles, I'd suggest Wayneradiotv's playthrough of it. Haven't reached the end of the vid yet, but I'm halfway through Tier 3 and I'm surprised Dial Town didn't make the list thus far.
with cruelty squad i greatly agree. i love saying that “being intentionally bad doesn’t mean it isn’t bad”. games made with a certain goal in mind that are highly niche are still subject to criticism
Knowing or even having played games from this list well into tier 3 as of now without actual deep research, an iceberg like this really serves also as a library/archive for me. I'll plan to play a number more of them for sure. Good part 1! About Serial experiments: Lain, the creator of the show intended it to be a multi-media project, so while the game takes place seperate, it is also acting as a parallel/alternate story that does support the show in some extra ways.
The creator of Space Funeral and Goblet Grotto is same as the Strange Town games (Of The Killer). However, they were released under a sister account called "garmentdistrict". Since the creator is working on the final the game in the series, I'm not sure what will happen following the final game's release.
i love the video, really one of my favorites i’ve seen in a while. love the great work and effort you put into this but there’s something that had me wondering about the editing. i don’t know why the Tier one was just only pictures and not clips of the actual video games ? Was it because of copyrights? And also the blury background when we see the clips from the other tiers was it intentional ? otherwise, love it, keep up the great work 👏🏽
Hey I know I'm kind of late but I would love to see you make a video on lisa, maybe even talk about its various fan games as well? Maybe another game u could play is rain world? It's not really surreal but I find it really cool and it's one of my favorite games. it's a game where you're a little creature near the bottom of a food chain trying to survive in the ruins of a civilization, I won't say much except that it's lore and spiritualism is interesting. Give it a try if that description interested you.
Hi, I'm the dev of THEY SPEAK FROM THE ABYSS. The link on the iceberg leads you to the old itch page, and it has since changed URLs. So thats probably why it's broken. Also, Great video!
I've been slowly collecting as many games from this list as I can, getting them to run, categorizing them, etc. A few I've had trouble finding though...the Parade (game) RPG that's sorta like OFF is one in particular I haven't been able to track down yet.
It's nice to know others feel the same way about Katamari as I do. Those games make me smile when literally nothing will. I think what makes The Binding of Isaac surreal is the imagery. I haven't played it myself, but I have watched people play it, and it seems like one of those games where you can get so wrapped up in the game play that you can only focus on that. So a lot of the imagery may be missed the first or second time you play.
@@kappadanse I cannot wait to hear your opinion on the cube escape series on the fourth tier, it's one of my favorite puzzle series ever and just super underrated imo Also note: the games have more long form entries under the name of rusty lake on steam, if you wanna look into those
I'm surpised Experiment 13 isn't on the iceberg or any of Wertpols games (may he rest in peace). Guess they have been out of the public consciousness for a while
2:13:27 well in the history of the creation of this game is written, that the developer used to talk with mentally ill people while making the game, so yeah he nor crazy, neither a doctor p. s. 48% ps 1 style 48% rpg maker style 2% other
At first I thought this was going to be mostly audio due to the first entries using most images to show off the games, but the video footage from tier 2 onwards kept me watching
This is an amazing video and i look forward to see more of you! It was great to hear about games i sumbled upon back when i was a kid and absolutely shaped my taste in media now haha, keep it up!!
17:12 Heck yeah! This is my GAME! I own almost every version (The board game eludes me) If you haven't played this, you absolutely should! I'm so excited to see it mentioned~
1:38:00 The ... of the Killer games are actually my favorite series of I guess "walking sims" and manage to achieve that Almost Makes Sense feel that I really dig in surreal stuff. Some surreal games try too hard to be wacky or spooky but the tone in the Killer games gets both right very naturally.
I want a physical copy of LSD Dream Emulator so bad. It costs ~800 on the lower end, they usually cost above 900. But I'm sure if they made an English version it would be like 5000 dollars considering the English sellers completely rip you off on games/consoles. I know you can emulate it (lol) but I prefer everything to be physical. Like I bought a Sega Saturn and 3d controller just to specifically play NiGHTS Into Dreams (and the Christmas version). I'm 20 years old, I wasn't even alive when the og Xbox came out. I was 2 when my favorite game ever released (HL2). But I almost entirely play retro games, my brother in law (my sister and him are like 20 years older than me) played the N64, SNES, ect. So I grew up on 3 different generations of consoles, maybe 4. Eventually I got an Xbox One, that's all I needed to see. PS2 and 360 forever.
couple years ago a fan made their own physical copies for much less, however they understandably only sold them to fans w/ playstations to actually play it on (sadly i do not so i could not enjoy it ;^; ) perhaps one day one of those will wind up online :]
gonna have to disagree about your take on cruelty squads gameplay. genuinely the most fun i’ve had playing a game. everything from the movement to the gunplay the level design the augments that can completely change how you play it and the fucking fishing genuinely made it my favorite game of all time. the game gives you a large variety of tools and tells you to do whatever you want with them as long as you kill the target of whatever level your playing and will reward you for breaking the game with said tools. once you get past how ugly it looks and how awkward it feels initially you’ll find that it’s actually a pretty in-depth game with a lot to offer. the best way i can describe it is that the dev knew exactly what he was doing but spent the whole game making it look like she didn’t i’ll also list some other stuff i loved about the game -the humor -the strange characters you meet throughout the game -the strange lore and story -the world -the difficulty -the insane replay ability of the levels -the tight knit and insanely supportive and accepting community surrounding it -and the endings i highly recommend anybody that’s even slightly interested in the game to check it out and anybody that was put off by it and dropped it early on to give it a second chance. its a genuine masterpiece imo.
another thing id like to mention is that the dev is actually a pretty skilled artist that intentionally broke several of the generally agreed upon artistic rules when making cruelty squad to give it that disgusting surreal vibe you get when playing it
Wow! I liked this video a lot but I wanted to comment because the amount of these games you’ve actually played is impressive to me! You must have a huge library of games under your belt
I cannot express enough how happy I am that hello charlotte was on this iceberg!! This might as well be the only video I've seen that mentions hello charlotte that has more than 100k views! It truely is a masterpice and has quiet a lot of lore. It's simply imposible to explain the stroy without having played the games yourself. I personally think that the main story mostly plays out in episode 1 and 2 since in episode 3, the creatior mentions that a lot of things were changed and that hello charlotte kinda became a personal project to her and the stuff she's been going trough. The reason as for why it's so hard to find anything about the game is because most of the fandom is mainly russian anyway since hello charlotte is a russian game why ofc. I'm not sure if that's the reason tho as for why it has such wacky controls .-. I mainly played trough episode 1 and 2 since episode 3 costs something and I didn't plan on actually commiting this hard to the game (I might buy episode 3 soon tho so I can get a better grip on episode 3 since I only watched a playtrough of it) and boy these controls are from 1978 (the game came out in like 2015 so I truely don't get why it's so hard to play LIKE W A S D WAS THERE BACK THEN!!!). You move with the up, down, left and right keys next to the number block, use escape and enter and that's it. Took me 2 re-downloads of the game and a quick look trough the official website to get it started lol. Hello charlotte has two spinnoff games by the same creator but I've only tried out one so far but I might try out the visual novel soon. From what I personally saw, they weren't really to my liking since I wasn't a big fan of how they changed up the main characters personallity (okay I know that that's litterly the whole point of the game that the main character isn't a sweet lil girl anymore but just an annoying brat BUT MAN WAS IT BORING!! I did enyoj how diffrent charlotte was in episode 3 so maybe the main problem with the spinnoff was that it was just simply boring lol) but it seems to be loved by the 3 fans that it has. I could go on for hours just how much I love this game and how badly I need some of those characters to be made into figurines SINCE THE ART TURELY IS AMAZING!!!! But then we'd be here for more than atleast 40 hours straight so that's it for now! I might update when I got to play the visual novel since I'm allways open for new hello charlotte content!
Great video and a good reminder of a lot of weird stuff I've played. It's also a great resource of other interesting games I didn't even know existed.
Feel free to use any of my footage for your next video if you haven't already. Would be happy to help give these games more attention in any way possible.
Im a massive fan dude thanks so much it means so much to me that you enjoyed it
@@kappadanse thanks :)
Holy shit, watching this video my entire mind literally SCREAMED "wow, this is all very Vinny adjacent," and then, lo and behold, in walks Vinny himself. I'll be god damned.
You love to see it.
Oh my goodness hi Vinny :D ur amazing
D
I looked into the Johnny games, and sadly the developper ended his life in 2014. You should look into it, he seemed like a really interesting character
Damn that's really sad to hear. Thanks for letting me know though, I will definitely look into the guy.
He died
He died
Please OP , it would help peeps get a successful search if you could provide more details than just referring to them as the Johnny games & saying the dev sadly ended him self. ( on the off chance they ever see this , my condolences to the family & his friends. )
@@kalezuki9231 The developer was Kim Okkerstrøm also known as Kimberly Kubus
I'm one of the devs for Meat Shift :) Just a note, it's about worker's rights not veganism haha
Ah, yes, the PS1 style horror game with themes about [trauma and/or abuse] where you do or collect [quaint thing] over the course of several [shifts/days/zones] for a [god/dead person/ambiguous authority]
Describes about 40% of games on this iceberg
AAA/Indie are two sides of the same coin when it comes to trends in gaming lol.
"How original... *Daring* today, aren't we?"
Or ‘weird japanese RPG maker’
90% of those make up the entirety of itchio
Honorable Mentions for this list! (in no particular order):
- Sluggish Morss (no clue)
- Wurroom (claymation)
- JEF (Cosmo D-style surrealism, made by different dev)
- Leaves: The Journey (literally uses no words, only obscure visual puzzles)
- Manifold Garden (combine Superliminal + Antichamber, and you're in for one mind blowing ride)
- Dropsy (surreal clown who hugs all the people in town game)
- Hyper Demon (surreal fps)
- Thumper (rhythm game)
- The Eternal Cylinder (def a tip of the iceberg game but it is surreal)
- Ayahuasca (self-explanatory but tier 1)
- Visionarium 2 (simulating aya experiences, tier 1)
- A Chamber of Stars (dadaist/collage-based rhythm game)
- Gorogoa (not obscure but def surreal)
Oh Jesus, Sluggish Morss deserves to be 3-4 levels down this iceberg, if only on the basis of that one voiceover cutscene.
Edit: So apparently Sluggish Morss *is* on the iceberg, and is also 4 levels down on the iceberg. Who would've thought?
Surprised thumper didn’t make the list at all
No killer7 or any Suda game
All Of Our Friends Are Dead is actually not intended to make sense-- it's based on a series of nightmares had by the creator. It was essentially him getting those images out of his head. idk if they're on the list, but amon26 also did a few other incredible surreal horror games, my favorites being AuSable and Gyossait. Also, Pen Pals is so fucking nostalgic, I'm so glad to see it on here! I actually followed the artist who created it on tumblr way back then and even did fanart for the game!
Fun thing about Soda Drinker Pro, there is actually an entire seprate game hidden in the third level that is availible by going out of bounds in a specific area before you finish your delicious soda!
The game is called Vivian Clark and is a huge collection of linked minigames with an even more surreal art style. The miniagames range from platformers to 3d shoot-em-ups, and which one you play next is dictated by which path you are on in the tree, and how you did in the previous game. It's cool as hell, and has a huge ammount of effort put into it, even more than Soda Drinker Pro.
(Also how could you mention the Museum of Anything Goes without talking about the Vinny Vinesause dead body incedent of '16?)
Can't wait to learn about weird/strange games and feel the desire to play *all of them*
I’m surprised that Vib Ribbon isn’t on here, it’s an obscure rhythm game from the 2000s that has unique visuals in only black and white, plus the rabbit mascot is kinda cute
vib ribbon was awesome! The game was so small it loaded entirely into the ps1s memory, so you could put any cd of music in and play a pretty decent rhythm game with any music you had.
HIII!! I was one of the people that made meat shift :DDDDD I absolutely didn't expect to see the game on this iceberg and all and I literally yelled when you said its name!! Glad you enjoyed it :DD
hi Lea (:
Kinda annoying when people say “ the first 3 SH are some of the best horror games” when it’s the first 4 , The Room is an underrated masterpiece and the last game made by the OG creators
I indeed watched the whole video, and I indeed subscribed. Two and a half hour "video essay" or "ice berg" videos are perfect for me. I have a very rhythmic simple but mundane and boring remote job, and this kinda stuff helps me focus. It's background noise but when there's a more interesting game being discussed, I can kinda turn my head to look at the gameplay or image.
Exactly why i love this kind of content
My thoughts exactly
This is exactly my opinion, it helps with my ADHD and stuff.
While it's hard to "cure" ADHD, these videos DEFINITELY help alleviate it! I worried I wouldn't thrive with my new job due to my inability to focus, but these iceberg videos have been quite the remedy. Now I actually look forward to my boring deskjob because it's an excuse to watch stuff like this!
@AlexanderHDMI damn, maybe i should see a psychiatrist to get diagnosed lol I have to be overstimulated constantly - music alone in the background is not enough lately
Loved the video. It's really nice to see someone being as enthusiastic about Hylics games as I am! I really think the series is largely underrated. I'd love to see a video about the games on your channel. Keep up the good work! Cheers!
If you enjoyed pony Island, I really recommend the creators other games! Especially inscryption if you haven't checked it out yet, it's honestly one of my favourite games and the story is surprisingly good lol
Edit: I've played lain and watched the original anime, the full story is that it was originally supposed to be a trilogy but after the game failed they dropped the planned manga adaption that would supposedly complete the story and attach each sperate canon together, but I'm not too sure on the details.
Dang, only 341 views??? I could’ve sworn I was watching someone with hundreds of thousands of subs.
Edit: I just came back to this video after everyone started flaming me in the replies and look at that! It’s over 100,000 views!
Same but the video did only come out a few hours ago
It do be a 2:30 hour video made 8 hours ago.
It's up to 17k now. The way it's going, likely should be over 50k in 3 weeks. Definitely worth the watch, multiple watches honestly. Great stuff!
local youtube user realizes that views don't correlate to quality, more at 11
48k now, Algorithm in his favor
It's so weird to me that you didn't find much info on OFF, since it had a significant fandom on Tumblr way back in the day.
As someone who still has no idea anything about off but remembers those days, I cannot find anything about it besides completely out of context fanworks
For those wondering how "significant" of a fandom we're talking about, OFF was the sixth-most tagged (I think) video game on the site in 2015, and all of the other five games were AAA entries. Not too shabby for an RPG released seven years prior to that.
Ok, but acting like Binding of Isaac is super normal compared to other stuff on the first tier like Undertale and Warioware is certainly a take
It is kinda strange but not like the other tiers below (even if i didn't watch the vid fully)
Re: Kinder isn't that surreal, but I can understand why it's on the list. It's about children who committed suicide for one reason or another. Shortly after remaking that game the developer himself committed suicide. Nobody online knew until his dad said something to a friend, who (with permission) announced it to the internet. If it weren't for Parun's suicide the game would probably at least be higher on the list, if not omitted from it entirely.
Finally someone else who can talk about Silent Hill for hours 😭 I can tell you’re gonna be a huge content creator in a little while! This video is amazing. Please make more I listen to them while trying to fall asleep ☺️
I solely came here for Wayne in the thumbnail, yet I stayed for the rest. There’s stuff I hadn’t heard of before in here, which is neat! You’re highly underrated, and I hope this vid gets more attention, fellow Hylics fan.
Surprised not to see "I am bread", "Goat Simulator" and Mr. Mosquito aren't on the iceberg.
Maybe they’re too normal for the iceberg.
@@thehunkygodchrist7770i am bread
Cruelty Squad was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed a video game in a long while. There is so much to explore and discover and I'm still learning new things about the game. It also felt strangely real as if it had touched on an aspect of life that nobody had yet identified.
is funny how I know some of the more obscure games thanks to ManlyBadassHero, he's one of the few UA-camr that finds these weird games
ahh I love this video!! love the casual commentary and this gives me so much interesting media to look into :] I was actually kinda reminded of hendecad/cement mixer sim 2003, they don’t have much gameplay and are more LSD sim-inspired walking simulators but I thought they would definitely fit this iceberg !
41:14 I was literally thinking about this game yesterday trying to remember what it's called. Thank you, it's been like 7 years since I heard of it.
I want a Tomodachi Life on switch 😭
Revenge of the Sunfish feels like a meme 💀💀💀
I love LSD (as you can tell from my pfp) and I think why many people just brush it off as a weird game is because Osamu Sato was right on how it's not a game. If you treat it and play it like a game it's just going to seem weird, but when you treat is as art and as an experience, it becomes something truly great and unique that you can't find anywhere else.
I'd decided to subscribe to your channel somewhere on layer two, but I cackled out loud when you tried to explain your addiction ... to saying a certain phrase. So, you've sold me twice.
It's been a while since I checked but I think LSD Dream Emulator is fully playable on the Internet Archive :)
im sure someone's mentioned this already, however the symbols atop your screen during Goblet Grotto are actually words. The game comes with a lot of files downloaded, and theres a BUNCH of lore, and you can actually translate the symbols into understandable sentences. They're all about the things going on around you, like enemies, or buildings.
iirc TheCatamites (who made the game) intentionally made a bunch of lore ironically lol. It was some joke on how games will have unreasonably complex lore, and thusly you have Goblet Grotto lol
I'm surprised that "Lips of Suna", and "I live at Santa's house" isn't on this list. Check them out if you have a chance. Great vid!!
Can't wait to listen to this video multiple times while I'm trying to sleep. Either way you got my sub.
A friend showed me this yesterday. I enjoyed watching it. :-] I'm interested in seeing the rest of the series if there ever is one. Good job!
Hey bro, your game was super cool, I really apricate your kind words.
@@kappadanse No problem and thank you! :-]]]
I'm quite surprised that _Night Into Dreams_ isn't on this list.
It is exactly what I think when I heard the term _"surreal game"._
I like how we went from
1) Creepy fainted meaning rpg maker
To
2)Oh Wario fun minigames
You're fantastic. Your work is amazing, and I am beyond excited for you. Well done, man.
God i love this iceberg. Seeing all these games has been so inspiring, its really tempting me to try make my own game (surreal or otherwise).
That's really good to hear! You should go for it!
I have extremely surreal vivid dreams almost every single night, and have a specific few that could only be translated into a game format.
Theres certain feelings in these dreams tho that I couldnt possibly convey. Like cravings. A ton of my dreams are me wandering through surreal city-esque environments where I cant think of anything other than how bad I need to find a cigarette
Really makes me want to pick up simple dev skills and try to make some dream walker type games lol
@@zeallust8542 Maybe you could convey cravings by having it be a task to find certain object, having the character struggle occassionally (saying something, walking slower, change in vision etc) to make it more personal than a fetch quest
It would be really cool regardless tho, this world needs more surreal dream games lol
@@luluconacolo2729 I was thinking having a fetch quest like you mentioned, but having some sort of vague timer that gets more and more distracting as it ticks down, then once it runs out nothing happens. Your struggle ideas are perfect to add as the distracting parts of the timer.
Also not having the actual items anywhere to collect, cause I never find a dang cigarette in my dreams
Watched the entire thing in one sitting, very well done!
Ohhey, a lotta games I like are on here.
Just gotta say though, it's not just Chulip's art style that's surreal; it's got a bunch of weird, oddly specific puzzles for some of the kisses (including one where you literally need to know how a part of the Japanese Rail System works) and the ending bit comes completely out of nowhere and gets somehow even more bizarre than everything that comes before it. If you want to go on the journey that is that game w/o having to do some of the more frustrating puzzles, I'd suggest Wayneradiotv's playthrough of it.
Haven't reached the end of the vid yet, but I'm halfway through Tier 3 and I'm surprised Dial Town didn't make the list thus far.
with cruelty squad i greatly agree. i love saying that “being intentionally bad doesn’t mean it isn’t bad”. games made with a certain goal in mind that are highly niche are still subject to criticism
Knowing or even having played games from this list well into tier 3 as of now without actual deep research, an iceberg like this really serves also as a library/archive for me. I'll plan to play a number more of them for sure. Good part 1!
About Serial experiments: Lain, the creator of the show intended it to be a multi-media project, so while the game takes place seperate, it is also acting as a parallel/alternate story that does support the show in some extra ways.
Amazing content for such a small channel. Hopefully, the YT algorithm is smart enough to recommend your videos to a wider audience
BRO I always get so excited whenever someone mentions Wallace's games, as their friend I'm super happy to see the games getting recognition
bro your content is really cool, you deserve more subs. also thank you for introducing me to the wondrous world of hurm
im honestly suprised egglike was that low. They were popularized by vinesauce and i think they are one of his more popular videos?
oh man "Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening" is on the iceberg further down. You're in for a treat when you get there :D
This was a really fun watch, thank you mate. By the time I finished the video it was 12:30am.
I let UA-cam on autoplay while I slept and woke up to this
The creator of Space Funeral and Goblet Grotto is same as the Strange Town games (Of The Killer). However, they were released under a sister account called "garmentdistrict". Since the creator is working on the final the game in the series, I'm not sure what will happen following the final game's release.
god i fucking love men
Same
i love the video, really one of my favorites i’ve seen in a while. love the great work and effort you put into this but there’s something that had me wondering about the editing. i don’t know why the Tier one was just only pictures and not clips of the actual video games ? Was it because of copyrights? And also the blury background when we see the clips from the other tiers was it intentional ? otherwise, love it, keep up the great work 👏🏽
glad to see this videos back up!!!
I was secretly hoping for the game repairing mantis to be on here lol
But great video! Def one of my fav iceberg explained vids!
Hey I know I'm kind of late but I would love to see you make a video on lisa, maybe even talk about its various fan games as well? Maybe another game u could play is rain world? It's not really surreal but I find it really cool and it's one of my favorite games. it's a game where you're a little creature near the bottom of a food chain trying to survive in the ruins of a civilization, I won't say much except that it's lore and spiritualism is interesting. Give it a try if that description interested you.
56:18 just an fyi her name is pronounced (eh-na)
Hi, I'm the dev of THEY SPEAK FROM THE ABYSS. The link on the iceberg leads you to the old itch page, and it has since changed URLs. So thats probably why it's broken.
Also, Great video!
Omg hey. I loved your game so much it was great. Good luck i hope every goes okay with its full release.
Added this video to my watch later and it was privated and I went insane thank you for putting it back up this vid was such a great listen Godspeed
Yea sorry, ya boy got hacked
exact same thing happened to me i thought It was a dream
This video was perfect. Good job dude!
was it just me or did the vid get privatized for a few hours? regardless im glad its back
Yea lol i got my channel hacked
@@kappadanse oh damn, glad you got it back
Yea me too lol :/
I've been slowly collecting as many games from this list as I can, getting them to run, categorizing them, etc.
A few I've had trouble finding though...the Parade (game) RPG that's sorta like OFF is one in particular I haven't been able to track down yet.
It's nice to know others feel the same way about Katamari as I do. Those games make me smile when literally nothing will.
I think what makes The Binding of Isaac surreal is the imagery. I haven't played it myself, but I have watched people play it, and it seems like one of those games where you can get so wrapped up in the game play that you can only focus on that. So a lot of the imagery may be missed the first or second time you play.
Banger of a video, but can you or anyone tell me what the song was at the beginning when you going on the first level? Sounds so good. Thanks!
I think the song your talking about is 硬 S P O K E N by nanoshrine? you can find it on bandcamp
I appreciate the lack of spoilers.
ok, but whats the anime
ah its battle angel isnt it
this is a really great video dude!! i can't wait to see how wild shit gets in the deeper tiers
roly polys is NOT lost media lol. i've had it on my PC since mamamax first talked about it.
Deadly Premonition is a love letter to David Lynch's 'Twin Peaks' which is it's own level of crazy - if you haven't seen it I'd highly recommend!
Great video, also no comments scared me but now I am responsible for rebuilding the lost comments section
I only subscribed because, after watching the whole video, you mentioned subscribing.
are you going to do the second half of the iceberg?
Yes, I have come this far so 100%
@@kappadanse I cannot wait to hear your opinion on the cube escape series on the fourth tier, it's one of my favorite puzzle series ever and just super underrated imo
Also note: the games have more long form entries under the name of rusty lake on steam, if you wanna look into those
I'm surpised Experiment 13 isn't on the iceberg
or any of Wertpols games (may he rest in peace).
Guess they have been out of the public consciousness for a while
Good production and commentary, subbed fasho
Insanely underrated man. Keep up the good content
Honestly shocked you haven't gotten more subscribers. This video is so well done!
> surreal video game iceberg
> 2+ hours long
> first entry is yumi nikki
👀
2:13:27 well in the history of the creation of this game is written, that the developer used to talk with mentally ill people while making the game, so yeah he nor crazy, neither a doctor
p. s. 48% ps 1 style
48% rpg maker style
2% other
Is it just me or is the audio severely not lined up with the video?
NOW THIS! THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I LIKE
Now my homework wont be boring if I’m listening to this, thanks man 😺
omg im so glad u mentioned cicada marionette's works. they're so slept on and have been a major inspiration of mine for years
I saw How Fish is Made in the thumbnail and came running
At first I thought this was going to be mostly audio due to the first entries using most images to show off the games, but the video footage from tier 2 onwards kept me watching
"This guy" American McGee is an og ID software employee, a level designer I believe. His Alice games are pretty well liked.
This is an amazing video and i look forward to see more of you! It was great to hear about games i sumbled upon back when i was a kid and absolutely shaped my taste in media now haha, keep it up!!
17:12 Heck yeah! This is my GAME! I own almost every version (The board game eludes me)
If you haven't played this, you absolutely should!
I'm so excited to see it mentioned~
1:38:00 The ... of the Killer games are actually my favorite series of I guess "walking sims" and manage to achieve that Almost Makes Sense feel that I really dig in surreal stuff. Some surreal games try too hard to be wacky or spooky but the tone in the Killer games gets both right very naturally.
Completely agree
I'm so glad that I finally found one were who's lila is included
Also Chino Iki is an entire series of what you saw in the pc engine game, super famicom is sort of a hybrid shooter/street fighter
Harvester was one of the first games you ever played?! Lmao WTF
I want a physical copy of LSD Dream Emulator so bad. It costs ~800 on the lower end, they usually cost above 900. But I'm sure if they made an English version it would be like 5000 dollars considering the English sellers completely rip you off on games/consoles.
I know you can emulate it (lol) but I prefer everything to be physical. Like I bought a Sega Saturn and 3d controller just to specifically play NiGHTS Into Dreams (and the Christmas version). I'm 20 years old, I wasn't even alive when the og Xbox came out. I was 2 when my favorite game ever released (HL2).
But I almost entirely play retro games, my brother in law (my sister and him are like 20 years older than me) played the N64, SNES, ect. So I grew up on 3 different generations of consoles, maybe 4. Eventually I got an Xbox One, that's all I needed to see. PS2 and 360 forever.
couple years ago a fan made their own physical copies for much less, however they understandably only sold them to fans w/ playstations to actually play it on (sadly i do not so i could not enjoy it ;^; ) perhaps one day one of those will wind up online :]
gonna have to disagree about your take on cruelty squads gameplay. genuinely the most fun i’ve had playing a game. everything from the movement to the gunplay the level design the augments that can completely change how you play it and the fucking fishing genuinely made it my favorite game of all time. the game gives you a large variety of tools and tells you to do whatever you want with them as long as you kill the target of whatever level your playing and will reward you for breaking the game with said tools.
once you get past how ugly it looks and how awkward it feels initially you’ll find that it’s actually a pretty in-depth game with a lot to offer. the best way i can describe it is that the dev knew exactly what he was doing but spent the whole game making it look like she didn’t
i’ll also list some other stuff i loved about the game
-the humor
-the strange characters you meet throughout the game
-the strange lore and story
-the world
-the difficulty
-the insane replay ability of the levels
-the tight knit and insanely supportive and accepting community surrounding it
-and the endings
i highly recommend anybody that’s even slightly interested in the game to check it out and anybody that was put off by it and dropped it early on to give it a second chance. its a genuine masterpiece imo.
another thing id like to mention is that the dev is actually a pretty skilled artist that intentionally broke several of the generally agreed upon artistic rules when making cruelty squad to give it that disgusting surreal vibe you get when playing it
Love the channel bro. Being going through absolute hell in life & this helped me keep my head up. Thanks bro.
im seeing so many titles i played way back in the day on here. great list whoever made it.
I wish more people would play broken reality because I need a story explained video, but I also don't even know how many endings there are
Tier 1
1:03 yume nikki (rpg)
1:58 warioware
2:54 omori (rpg)
3:55 harvester (point n click adventure)
5:06 desert bus
6:25 earthbound
7:56 undertale
8:39 silent hill series
10:09 Zeno clash
11:04 jazzpunk (love it)
11:49 lsd dream emulator
13:04 katamari damacy (j goofy humor)
14:08 popular RPG horror games:
Mad father
Ao oni
Crooked man
Purgatory
Die psycho
14:32 puppet combo games
The tiers are sorted by obscurity, the less well known the lower it is, that's why some more mild things are in lower tiers
This has been helping me go to sleep. Love your voice please do more long icebergs
I'm not sure if it's just me, but it sounds like there's a delay between the audio and video with the audio being ahead of the video
Wow! I liked this video a lot but I wanted to comment because the amount of these games you’ve actually played is impressive to me! You must have a huge library of games under your belt
Ha, I was just about to mention Cruelty Squad when you said it in the video.
I cannot express enough how happy I am that hello charlotte was on this iceberg!! This might as well be the only video I've seen that mentions hello charlotte that has more than 100k views! It truely is a masterpice and has quiet a lot of lore. It's simply imposible to explain the stroy without having played the games yourself. I personally think that the main story mostly plays out in episode 1 and 2 since in episode 3, the creatior mentions that a lot of things were changed and that hello charlotte kinda became a personal project to her and the stuff she's been going trough.
The reason as for why it's so hard to find anything about the game is because most of the fandom is mainly russian anyway since hello charlotte is a russian game why ofc. I'm not sure if that's the reason tho as for why it has such wacky controls .-.
I mainly played trough episode 1 and 2 since episode 3 costs something and I didn't plan on actually commiting this hard to the game (I might buy episode 3 soon tho so I can get a better grip on episode 3 since I only watched a playtrough of it) and boy these controls are from 1978 (the game came out in like 2015 so I truely don't get why it's so hard to play LIKE W A S D WAS THERE BACK THEN!!!). You move with the up, down, left and right keys next to the number block, use escape and enter and that's it. Took me 2 re-downloads of the game and a quick look trough the official website to get it started lol.
Hello charlotte has two spinnoff games by the same creator but I've only tried out one so far but I might try out the visual novel soon. From what I personally saw, they weren't really to my liking since I wasn't a big fan of how they changed up the main characters personallity (okay I know that that's litterly the whole point of the game that the main character isn't a sweet lil girl anymore but just an annoying brat BUT MAN WAS IT BORING!! I did enyoj how diffrent charlotte was in episode 3 so maybe the main problem with the spinnoff was that it was just simply boring lol) but it seems to be loved by the 3 fans that it has.
I could go on for hours just how much I love this game and how badly I need some of those characters to be made into figurines SINCE THE ART TURELY IS AMAZING!!!! But then we'd be here for more than atleast 40 hours straight so that's it for now! I might update when I got to play the visual novel since I'm allways open for new hello charlotte content!