PLAY TRAILS VOL. 02
Great games are places to go. Pick a feeling, follow four stops, and find your next obsession.
36 games · 9 trails · your pace
9 little journeys. No wrong starting point.
Bend space, question a world, rewind time. Follow the pleasure of an idea suddenly clicking into place.
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Cards, mechs, gods: four ways to turn a fresh attempt into a new plan. What will you try differently?
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A farm, a village, a landscape, a city. Watch the scale grow while the pleasure of making a place stays.
Explore this trail ↗
Meet strangers, ask awkward questions, find another way through. Four role-playing worlds with room for your voice.
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A path opens, a familiar place changes. Follow connected worlds, new abilities, and the pull of the unexplored.
Explore this trail ↗
Roll up a world, paint on it, dive into a mind, become the movie. Games can turn the strangest ideas into play.
Explore this trail ↗
Tap, time, slice and sing. Four ways to stop just listening and start playing the music.
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Pick up journals, wander a strange house, weigh the clues, decode a language. The story is in what you examine.
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Start with a chat, share a fight, set up a goal, then keep a submarine running together.
Explore this trail ↗Your marks stay in this browser. Played means you have tried it, not that you have finished it.
YOUR ROUTE / 01
Bend space, question a world, rewind time. Follow the pleasure of an idea suddenly clicking into place.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Start with space: a pair of portals changes how you read an entire room.
Solve physics-based test chambers and explore Aperture Science's laboratories, encountering GLaDOS along the way. A separate two-player cooperative campaign adds its own story and chambers, asking partners to think through portal puzzles together.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓From solving a room to questioning its meaning: puzzles meet consciousness.
Explore ruins as a robot, using jammers and light refractors to overcome puzzle obstacles. Collect shaped sigils and arrange them to unlock passages, while the story explores what it means to be conscious.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Now change the rules of time itself, one puzzle world at a time.
Run, jump, and climb through puzzle-filled worlds as Tim, collecting jigsaw pieces on a quest to rescue a princess. Rewind actions freely, even after death, and adapt to each world's different rules for time.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Take that curiosity beyond a room: the mystery now spans a solar system.
Explore a solar system trapped in an endless time loop and investigate the mystery behind its repeating existence. This single-player, open-world adventure makes the loop surrounding the entire system the central premise of exploration.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 02
Cards, mechs, gods: four ways to turn a fresh attempt into a new plan. What will you try differently?
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Begin with familiar poker hands, then let Jokers turn them into surprising combinations.
Build a poker-inspired deck, combining valid hands with Joker abilities to earn enough chips to beat each blind. Adjust your cards and synergies throughout a run to overcome the boss blind and final ante.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓Keep the card combinations; add creatures, relics, and a climb worth planning for.
Build a deck, encounter strange creatures, and discover powerful relics as you take on the Spire. This single-player deckbuilder combines card play with roguelike structure, making your deck the center of the journey.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Trade the deck for a mech squad: a fresh battlefield asks for a fresh plan.
Command futuristic mechs against an alien threat in turn-based strategy battles to save the world. Each attempt presents a randomly generated challenge, requiring a new plan for the situation you face.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Move from planning turns to action: take your next attempt into the Underworld.
Hack and slash through the Underworld as you try to escape the realm of the god of the dead. The action takes the form of a roguelike dungeon crawl.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 03
A farm, a village, a landscape, a city. Watch the scale grow while the pleasure of making a place stays.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Start close to the soil: crops, animals, and neighbors give a farm its rhythm.
Turn your grandfather's overgrown farm into a home by growing crops, raising animals, and crafting useful equipment. Explore caves for resources and build relationships with townspeople as you develop your farming life.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓Let the real-world clock set the pace as you furnish a home and meet the village.
Settle in an animal village, collect and sell natural materials, and repay your house loan while furnishing your home. Village life follows the real clock, bringing scheduled activities, seasonal events, and conversations with neighbors.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Step beyond your doorstep: the landscape itself becomes building material.
Mine blocks, gather materials, craft tools, and build structures in a procedurally generated world without required goals. Explore, confront hostile creatures, or use redstone circuits to create mechanisms as you shape the landscape.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Zoom out to a whole city, where roads and services connect everyone's homes.
Lay roads, zone neighborhoods, and provide power, water, and public services as your settlement grows into a city. Balance budgets, traffic, employment, and pollution, using district policies and public transportation to address local problems.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 04
Meet strangers, ask awkward questions, find another way through. Four role-playing worlds with room for your voice.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Start with a question: does every encounter have to end in a fight?
Play a single-player RPG in which defeating everyone is not a requirement. Your journey leaves room for an approach that does not depend on destroying the characters you encounter.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓Turn those questions inward as skills and thoughts shape the detective you become.
Investigate a murder by questioning residents, exploring Revachol, and shaping your detective through skills and thoughts. The Final Cut adds full English voice acting and political vision quests that follow your developing worldview.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Follow conversation into stranger planes while piecing together a forgotten self.
Explore Sigil and other planes as an immortal amnesiac, recruiting companions and recovering clues to your past. Resolve quests through conversation, with dialogue or stealth often offering alternatives to combat.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Bring companions along: your choices now weave through a party's relationships.
Create a character, gather companions, and explore the Forgotten Realms with a parasite in your brain. Use spells, environmental interactions, and party tactics in combat, making choices that shape relationships and the story.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 05
A path opens, a familiar place changes. Follow connected worlds, new abilities, and the pull of the unexplored.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Learn to revisit a place: new equipment turns old dead ends into possibilities.
Explore interconnected regions of Zebes as Samus, fighting enemies while searching for a stolen infant Metroid. Find equipment such as the Morph Ball and Grapple Beam, then revisit earlier areas to reach newly accessible paths.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓Carry that habit underground, charting a kingdom while your abilities grow.
Explore a connected underground kingdom, fighting creatures and bosses with dodges, dashes, and slashes. Gain abilities to extend your reach, equip Charms for different powers, and use mapping tools to chart your own route.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Look for connections in Lordran, where a shortcut can change your next journey.
Explore interconnected Lordran, opening shortcuts and learning enemy patterns through deliberate combat. Bonfires restore health but respawn most enemies, and dying leaves your souls behind to recover before another death erases them.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Let that urge to explore lead you into Ori's world of action and puzzles.
Explore a vast, unfamiliar world, confronting towering enemies and solving challenging puzzles along the way. This single-player action journey follows Ori's quest to uncover the destiny awaiting them.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 06
Roll up a world, paint on it, dive into a mind, become the movie. Games can turn the strangest ideas into play.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Begin with a sticky ball. Keep rolling until everyday objects become a cosmic project.
Roll a sticky ball through homes, gardens, and towns, collecting objects small enough to attach. Grow from gathering tiny items to rolling up buildings and mountains, meeting size or collection targets to rebuild celestial bodies.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓Exchange rolling for brushwork: drawing becomes a way to act on the world.
Explore a mythic Japan as Amaterasu, a white wolf goddess, completing quests, fighting enemies, and solving puzzles. Celestial Brush gestures let you perform miracles and complement your weapons during combat.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Leave the outside world for landscapes shaped by the minds of other people.
Jump through a psychic training camp and other characters' mental worlds as Raz. Use powers such as telekinesis and levitation to fight, solve puzzles, and help characters confront fears or memories.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Finish inside the action movie, playing with speed as part of the performance.
Punch, kick, dodge, and jump through a movie world to rescue Joe's girlfriend. Spend a limited VFX gauge on slowing time, speeding up, or zooming in to alter combat and solve puzzles.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 07
Tap, time, slice and sing. Four ways to stop just listening and start playing the music.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Start with a stylus: tap circles and trace paths in time with music while dancing agents help people out.
Tap numbered circles, trace paths, and spin discs with the stylus in time with music. Accurate timing sustains a draining gauge while comic-style scenes show dancing agents helping people overcome their problems.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓Listen closer: heal patients by timing defibrillator pulses to each heartbeat.
Heal patients by timing defibrillator pulses to their heartbeats in a rhythm game. Learn each patient's distinct pattern and keep your timing steady while boss viruses try to disrupt the rhythm.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Now put your whole body in it: slice beats in VR while ducking and dodging.
Slice beats in time with music while ducking and dodging in a VR-only rhythm game. Play solo, compete online, or pass the headset between players, with more than 60 songs included.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Finish as a band: follow the notes on instrument controllers, or sing in tune.
Follow onscreen notes with instrument controllers, or sing in tune, to complete songs and build scoring streaks. Keyboard parts, three-part vocal harmonies, and Pro mode add more detailed instrument performance challenges.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 08
Pick up journals, wander a strange house, weigh the clues, decode a language. The story is in what you examine.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Start in an empty home: notes and journals piece together what happened to your family.
Return to an empty family home and explore its rooms from a first-person perspective, examining objects, notes, and journals. Piece together what happened to your family while finding items that open further areas.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓A bigger house, stranger tales: follow Edith through her family's history.
Explore the enormous Finch house as Edith, searching for stories about her family in Washington state. Uncover their history through strange tales while trying to understand why she is the last family member alive.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Now the clues testify: examine twelve unusual deaths and deduce the motives yourself.
Investigate twelve unusual deaths, examine clues, and build your own explanation of what happened. Identify suspects and deduce motives in a detective adventure that lets you direct your own reasoning.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Finally, read a language itself: observe, listen and decipher it to reunite the Tower's peoples.
Observe, listen, and decipher ancient languages as the Traveler in a puzzle adventure inspired by the Tower of Babel. Use that linguistic journey to work toward reuniting the peoples who inhabit the Tower.
On the original lists
YOUR ROUTE / 09
Start with a chat, share a fight, set up a goal, then keep a submarine running together.
Start anywhere. Follow what intrigues you.
Your play passport
STOP 01Played ✓Start with fishing and conversation in a multiplayer chatroom.
Fish and chat with other players in an online game centered on a multiplayer chatroom. Fishing shares the spotlight with conversation, making the social space a defining part of the experience.
On the original lists
STOP 02Played ✓Take that company into a fight, battling through side-scrolling stages with another player.
Choose one of four fighters and battle enemy waves through side-scrolling stages, alone or with another player. Each character has distinct attacks, including unique Blitz moves and powerful specials that consume health.
On the original lists
STOP 03Played ✓Swap shared fights for a shared goal, coordinating with teammates to create scoring chances.
Drive a rocket-powered car to knock an oversized ball into the opposing goal while defending your own. Jump to meet the ball in midair and coordinate with teammates to create scoring opportunities.
On the original lists
STOP 04Played ✓Then keep a submarine running together: steer, repair leaks and face monsters as a crew.
Crew a submarine in a two-dimensional space survival simulator, steering, completing missions, repairing leaks, and operating weapons. Cooperate to fight monsters and craft items while keeping the vessel running through unexpected dangers.
On the original lists
These are editorial connections between games in our ranking archive. Stop numbers describe a suggested itinerary, not quality, difficulty, or required play order. Original list positions remain separate; this is not a combined ranking.
Images are verified Steam headers or game illustrations attached to the original list entries. Image sources are linked in each game dossier; artwork belongs to its respective owners. A source illustration does not establish a current store edition.
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