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garnavis · 5 months ago

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2025 Video Game Bingo!!!!

Inspired by @batmanisagatewaydrug’s Book Bingo, I wanted to throw together something like that for video games! I’m doing book bingo to expand my reading habits, and I think gamers players of video games could benefit from doing something similar. I also think the state of mainstream game development today feels pretty bad, so I engourage participants to seek out independent developers and small publishers. And of course, tag me if you participate!

In particular, I’d encourage people to check out itch.io and gog.com for games that are affordable (sometimes even free) and DRM-free. I’d also discourage participants from choosing “freemium” games (i.e. free-to-start games with in-app purchases, battle passes, or gacha mechanics). I promise you will be able to get bingo on this card without spending a dime without supporting exploitative developers. But also, feel free to use this to bust your backlog.

On the subject of completion: not every game is meant to be “finished,” and some games may be too time-consuming to finish anyway. Feel free to decide for yourself what it means to have “played” something. Personally, my rule is: once I’ve seen credits roll, or at least 6 hours of playtime.

Lastly, this is mostly PC-focused because I think most people have access to one. You should be able to complete this even with a shitty laptop as long as you don’t go for the big AAA stuff. But (with a few exceptions) just about every space on this card can be done on whatever consoles you might have.

Category descriptions and examples below the cut.

Non-human player character

And I don’t mean an elf or a dwarf! I’m thinking of animals here, but aliens and anthros are fine too.

Examples:

Shelter (Might and Delight, 2013)

Untitled Goose Game (House House, 2020)

E.V.O.: Search for Eden (Almanic/Enix, 1992)

Visual novel

Simple and easy to play, visual novels or VNs are mostly text over static backgrounds and character art. You will be prompted at various points in the story to make a decision, which may affect the course of the story. You could also try a “kinetic novel,” which is a VN with no decisions (and therefore only one route). There are VNs of all genres, so everyone should be able to find one you like! Note: there are plenty that aren’t pornographic, but you will probably see porn when you search for these.

Examples:

A Year of Springs (npckc, 2021)

Butterfly Soup (Brianna Lei, 2017)

Tsukihime (TYPE-MOON, 2000)

Strategy / simulation

I’m grouping these together because there’s a lot of overlap, historically. For example, Fire Emblem is considered a “simulation RPG” in Japan, while English-speakers would probably call it a strategy RPG. These can seem really dense, but for every Hearts of Iron there’s a Harvest Moon.

Examples:

Theme Hospital (Bullfrog, 1997)

Overland (Finji, 2016)

Terra Nil (Free Lives/Devolver, 2023)

Fighting

Maybe not for everyone, but I have to include them because they’re a favorite of mine. They’re the most fun with friends, but playing online or against the CPU is plenty of fun too. They also have a reputation for being hard to get into, but there are a lot of beginner-friendly ones out there too.

Examples:

Garou: Mark of the Wolves (SNK, 1999)

Melty Blood (French Bread, 2002)

Tough Love Arena (M. Paul Weeks & Amy Xu, open beta)

Role-playing

Come on, everyone loves a good RPG.

Examples:

Disco Elysium (ZA/UM, 2019)

Deltarune (toby fox, 2021)

Chrono Trigger (Square, 1995)

Non-combat

Try something other than hitting people until they’re dead. It’s okay if the game has a fight scene or two, the main point is that combat should not be one of the game’s main mechanics.

Examples:

Day of the Tentacle (LucasArts, 1993)

Her Story (Sam Barlow, 2015)

A Short Hike (adamgryu, 2019)

Fan translation

For years, particularly devoted fans have been importing and localizing games with no local release. Play something in your native language that you couldn’t officially!

Examples (English):

Policenauts (Konami, 1996, PS1 translation by JunkerHQ)

Rudra no Hihou (Square, 1996, SNES translation by Aeon Genesis)

Mother 3 (HAL Laboratory, 2006, GBA translation by Tomato)

Pick a remake, play the original

Find a remake or remaster that has been released in the last few years… and don’t play it! Instead, check out the original version. Play the remake later, if you want, but take the time to appreciate what made it worth re-releasing in the first place.

Resident Evil 2 (Capcom, 1998)

Panzer Dragoon (Sega, 1995)

Gothic (Piranha Bytes, 2001)

Released in 2025

Self-explanatory. Kind of muddied by the prevalence of early access, I suppose. My personal rule would be: if you could play it before this year, it doesn’t count. I won’t provide any examples because it’s only January.

Released before you were born

Obviously different for everyone. I think a lot of people will write off older games as too primitive. I obviously disagree, and I promise that any video game going all the way back to Spacewar has something to offer if you give it some time.

Examples (for me, anyway):

Pac-Man (Namco, 1980)

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Sir-Tech, 1981)

Adventure (Warren Robinett, 1980)

Metroidvania

These are uh… well, if you don’t know what these are, look them up somewhere else. I’m not getting into genre discourse today.

Examples:

Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen/Team17, 2019)

Pseudoregalia (rittz, 2023)

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Konami, 1997)

“““bad game”””

Play one of those games with a reputation like “worst game of all time” or something like that. If you need help, try this wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_for_negative_reception

Free

As in free beer. To reiterate, try not to pick some free-to-play gacha game for this. Also, stealing doesn’t count as “free” here. Steal all you want for the other categories, but this one should be a game that was released, officially, for free. Play a demo if you really want, but there are plenty of full experiences at no cost. Itch in particular has a ton of freebies.

Tyrian 2000 (Eclipse Productions, 1999)

Hypnogogia (sodaraptor, 2020)

The Battle for Wesnoth (David White and others, 2005)

Racing

Vroom vroom! A surprisingly diverse genre. There’s super casual ones and super sweaty ones and everything in between. If you’re not into cars, just pick something with a fun aesthetic.

Examples:

Nightmare Kart (LWMedia, 2024)

R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (Namco, 1998)

art of rally (Funselektor Labs, 2020)

Retro homebrew

A somewhat esoteric category, although much less so since the release of GB Studio! Play them in an emulator, on actual hardware with a flash cartridge, or even in-browser. Once again, Itch seems to be the main place for these. Theck them out here: https://itch.io/games/made-with-gb-studio

Mod or romhack

Mods are one of the most fun and unique things about video games. People have accomplished amazing things by making their own customizations to retail games. In fact, it’s not uncommon for particularly popular mods to be released or remade for retail.

Examples:

Terraria – Calamity mod

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life – A Proud Life mod

Doom II – MyHouse.WAD

Roguelike

Live, die, repeat. These are getting really popular lately, so they don’t have the arcane reputation they used to. Still, if you’re already a fan of modern Rls, maybe try one of the classics.

Examples:

Caves of Qud (Freehold Games, 2018)

Sky Rogue (Fractal Phase, 2013)

NetHack (NetHack DevTeam, 1987)

Text-based

Text as in words, not just symbols. Also called interactive fiction. One of the oldest kinds of computer games. They’re not really popular as retail releases these days, but they have a really low barrier to entry, so there’s a lot of indie IF games to choose from. Some might have a few grahpical elements, but this category should be primarily text-focused.

Zork (Infocom, 1977)

The Hobbit (Beam Software, 1982)

Depression Quest (Unburnt Witch, 2014)

Fantasy console

Fantasy consoles are a sort of retro throwback idea that’s been taking off lately. Essentially, the idea is: what if there was a computing environment with the kinds of restrictions that gave older consoles their distinctive look and feel, but with a bunch of modern conveniences like a simple API and easy online game sharing? There are a few of these, but the biggest one is Lexaloffle’s PICO-8. It’s very popular and has a lot of games available, most of which are free—aside from the $15 cost of admission to the system itself. A free alternative is TIC-80, also pretty popular, but open-source. Both come with a program (SPLORE for pico, SURF for tic) that allows you to search and instantly download games, as well as share your own. Best of all, they come with their own development environment!

Participate in a game jam

Okay, this one is probably the toughest. I’ve never done it myself, but I hope to this year, which is why it’s on here! Jams are usually focused on a theme or a technology, for example “chill games” or one of the aforementioned fantasy consoles. I believe jams tend to be beginner-friendly. Let’s find out together! And these days, they’re extremely easy to join. Once again, Itch has you covered: https://itch.io/jams

Based on a book

Only appropriate, since this was inspired by book bingo. Games based on books aren’t the most common, but that’s part of why they’re interesting. One obvious avenue is interactive fiction, but as usual, there’s all kinds. Try something based on a book you’ve read!

Examples:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Infocom, 1984)

Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth (Daedalic, 2017)

The Invincible (Starward Industries/11 bit studios, 2023)

“Super” in title

Basically a wildcard. There are so many games with “super” in the title, there’s probably one that you already want to play anyway.

Examples:

Super Crate Box (Vlambeer, 2010)

SUPERHOT (SUPERHOT Team, 2016)

Super 3D Noah’s Ark (Wisdom Tree, 1994)

Rhythm

Do you have rhythm? No? Me either. Rhythm games can still be fun though. Put it on the lowest difficulty setting and go hog wild (this is an order).

Examples:

Thumper (Drool, 2016)

Friday Night Funkin’ (The Funkin’ Crew, 2020)

Rhythm Heaven Megamix (Nintendo, 2015)

Survival horror

Horror plus combat plus scarce resource management. Doesn’t get better than that. Most modern ones are inspired by a specific handful of games (early Resident Evil and Silent Hill). My favorite thing about these is how they go from scary to cozy once you’ve been through them once or twice, and they’re usually pretty short.

Examples:

Silent Hill 2 (Team Silent, 2001)

Signalis (rose-engine, 2022)

Crow Country (SFB Games, 2024)

RPG Maker

A series of programs for making JRPG-style games that goes back to the 90s, and continues today. Surprisingly flexible but with a low barrier to entry, a lot of extremely cool independent games have come out of this. Maybe you’ll try making one yourself!

Examples:

Hylics (Mason Lindroth, 2015)

Corpse Party (Kenix Soft, 1996)

The Way (Lun Calsari, 2008)

#bingo #gaming #2025 video game bingo #indie games

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