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THE UNDER $15 INTERESTING GAMES YOU CAN PLAY ON A LAPTOP HOLIDAY REC LIST

Need a SUPER last minute gift? Want to get something to treat yourself on Christmas day but don't know what? Looking at the Steam and Amazon holiday games sales but overwhelmed by all the CHOICE? Well, do we have just the thing for you!

Here's a recommendation list for 10 interesting, somewhat lesser known and just plain weirdly fun games that will PROBABLY run on the average home laptop out there, each for under $15 USD (under $10 USD in some cases, depending on sales). Does your laptop or computer overheat or temporarily expire on anything more exhausting than Diablo 2? NO PROBLEM, these should be just fine on it... enough to be worth a try, we think.

Let's get right to it!

Edited 2013-12-26 00:13 (UTC)

1: ANTICHAMBER

Do you like logic? Do you like puzzles? Do you like immense amounts of frustration and bashing your head against the keyboard hoping that something you do will work and then giving up and curling up in a corner and weeping until a sudden epiphany hits you and then getting up to solve the puzzle that caused you to do that and feeling triumphant right up until you turn the next corner?

If yes, then Antichamber is the game for you!

One part Portal, 325710423894e5 mind-bending, brain-wrecking, perception-destroying fun, this game plays surprisingly logically, the only minor issue being that its logic is entirely its own. Most recommended for people who enjoy escape games and puzzle games and who want to have the novel experience of having your expectations subtly (and sometimes obviously) subverted at every turn.

Official Website | Steam

2: PAPERS PLEASE

Have you ever wanted to stand in the shoes of an immigration officer to a small psuedo-Eastern European country in the midst of a psuedo-Cold War? Experience the exciting life of one of the many nameless, faceless bureaucrats that no one around you gives a second thought about? Frolic through the responsibilities of being the sole breadwinner in a family of five while your son keeps falling sick, wondering how you’re going to afford the medicine this week when you can't even find enough food, and the heating is off again?

No? Well, NOW YOU CAN. Papers Please is a game about politeness, democracy, efficiency, and none of the above. But more seriously, it's also a game about empathy. While some games have moral sliders, rewards for doing good, or systems in place to incentivise the player to behave in particular ways, Papers Please simply lets you choose for yourself in a world where there are no right answers.

And if you've ever wanted see what a game that could make you sympathetic to TSA officers looks like - well, this is it.

Official Website | Steam

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3: DEFENDERS QUEST: VALLEY OF THE FORGOTTEN

Defenders Quest is a Tower Defense game. A really good tower defense game, and one in which the storyline and plot and mechanics actually all make sense. It describes itself as a hybrid tower defense / role playing game that cuts out the fluff, but what it doesn't also add is that it replaces that with well written characters, an interesting setting together with a great storyline, and dragons. Or, well, a dragon.

But the best part about Defenders Quest is that it's a game which really prides itself on all the things it doesn't have. Here's a handy list that the developers provided:

40+ hours of padding
Zillions of random battles
Pointless fetch quests
Whiny emo kids
Deliberate micro-management
Cumbersome menus six layers deep
$60 price tag
Always Online DRM
Threats to ban your Origin account if you ask for a refund
Aeris dying

The amount of thought put into the design of this game to make it fun and interesting to play is genuinely impressive. It's easy to pick up regardless of your previous experience in either of its genres and provides a ton of enjoyment for anyone looking for a casual game with serious depth. Also, there's a demo on the official website to try, so if you haven't given it a go before, now's definitely the time!

Official Website | Steam

4: THE STANLEY PARABLE

This is not a fun game.

This is possibly not even a game at all, in the strictest sense of the term.

There are no points, but there are win conditions. There are many win conditions, and some of them you reach by losing. There is ADVENTURE, linearity, railroading, and choice. And oh boy, is this game is all about about choices or what.

Whilst ~~Mindfuck: The Game~~ Antichamber will push what your expectations of a certain kind of game are to the limits, The Stanley Parable takes those and gleefully runs them over with a metaphorical steamroller while treading all over your hopes for some kind of understanding in hobnailed boots. It's a game about games and about how people think about games, and it is honestly a very good experience.

Now, as for whether it's a very good game - you'll just have to give it a go to find out.

Official Website | Steam

5: THE TYPING OF THE DEAD: OVERKILL

The wikipedia page for 'exploitation film' explains it as 'an informal label which may be applied to any film which is generally considered to be both low budget and of low moral or artistic merit, and therefore apparently attempting to gain financial success by "exploiting" a current trend or a niche genre or a base desire for lurid subject matter'.

This is basically a completely accurate description of Typing of the Dead: Overkill.

Part blaxploitation, buddy cop, carsploitation, giallo, mockbuster, monster, rail shooter, revenge, sexploitation, scocksploitation, slasher, splatter, prison, ~~zombie~~ mutant film and part typing game, TotD:O stands out as completely irreverent and thoroughly self-aware. The gameplay is simple - it's House of the Dead: Overkill, but instead of bullets, you have short phrases and sentences to kill things. Like 'OM NOM NOM', 'CAN WE BE FRIENDS YET' and 'UNICORNS'.

And on top of all that, it comes with the original House of the Dead: Overkill, so if you get tired of typing you can go back to clicking frantically on mutants to kill them. But why would you ever get tired of typing?

In any case, play it! And enjoy the f*** out of this f***ing game, because it's motherf***ing amazing.

Official Website | Steam

6: KNIGHTS OF PEN AND PAPER: +1 EDITION

If you find normal roleplaying too passe, why not try roleplaying as roleplayers? Or in the case of Knights of Pen and Paper, as a whole group of - you guessed it - pen and paper roleplayers. From setting up adventures as the happy neckbeardy dungeon master to stomping monsters as Mike the Pizza Guy Rogue, his Annoying Kid Brother Malcolm the Hunter and Ms. Goldberry the Schoolteacher Paladin who dropped in for a couple of rounds, Knights of Pen and Paper is the premier pen and paper roleplayer roleplaying simulator.

Even if you've never tried playing a pen and paper RPG before, Knights of Pen and Paper is surprisingly easy to pick up and get into. It's one of the rare casual games that manages to capture the fun of creating adventures and exploring together with friends, and the +1 edition comes with tons of new places to explore and things to beat up and loot. Or people to escort. Or items to collect. Or weapons to forge, or - well, it'll be a while before you run out of things to do and heroes to level with this game.

So the next time you feel like setting out on an epic adventure, or even like setting up an epic adventure, consider Knights of Pen and Paper! It's a game that's well worth the experience.

Official Website | Steam

7: RECETTEAR: AN ITEM SHOP'S TALE

You know how in roleplaying games it always seems ridiculous that heroes still have to pay the item shop NPC for their equipment even though they're busy trying to save the world? Well, ~~Racketeer~~ - I mean, Recettear is a game where YOU get to be the Item Shop NPC, and, sorry, what was that you were saying about discounts? I'm afraid I couldn't hear you over the sound of all this money rolling in.

Recettear is a many-layered, complex tale. It's both a heartwarming story about a young girl's struggle to overcome her family's debt as well as a warning about the dangers of unrestricted capitalism, endless dungeons, and loanshark fairies. It boasts an incredible depth of gameplay - not only can you buy and resell goods from the merchant guild for gold, you can also send adventurers into dungeons for gold, sell dungeon items for gold, and even sell dungeon items to your own adventurers for gold.

And I haven't even started on the hiring child workers (for more gold) part yet. Capitalism, ho!

One of the most hilariously addictive games on this list, Recettear manages to blend obsessive item hoarding with equally obsessive gold collecting, decorating and stat management to create an RPG experience that delivers its metaphorical weight in gold. Buy it today! And never look at item shop NPCs the same way again.

Official Website | Steam

8: THE CAT LADY

Sometimes it can be hard to imagine yourself the hero. Or to put yourself in the shoes of some spiky haired teenage boy swinging around a huge sword while trying to save the world. But that's okay, because Susan Ashworth, the 40 year old suicidal, depressed and tired cat lady is here to save the day.

Or to just cast a very cynical eye on it, because her apartment's heating is out and her electricity is down and her bank account is empty and for some reason she's found herself in the middle of what feels like a spectacularly bad lucid dream, complete with creepy old women, serial killers, and manic pixie overly friendly young girls who are all starting to get on her nerves. This is not a good time to be her. But given what her life's been like so far, there probably isn't any time that was.

While it is without question a horror adventure game, where The Cat Lady really shines is in its story and writing - this is a game that isn't so much about the adventure or the horror as it is about how its characters react and respond to it. Susan isn't your typical protagonist, nor is The Cat Lady your typical game, but many of the issues and themes they deal with hit much closer to home than your typical game would. And while it's difficult to talk a lot about this game without spoiling it, it's easy to say that it definitely deserves a try.

Official Website | Steam

9: PUZZLE QUEST: CHALLENGE OF THE WARLORDS

Fantasy! Dragons! Quests! And epic battles where heroes and monsters stare each other down over colourful little round things, anxiously awaiting their turn in competitive match-3 combat! Is what Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is all about. It's very much a straightforward RPG, but unlike Defenders Quest, where the battle system is integrated into the world, Puzzle Quest: CotW goes the route of 'ehh, who cares about making sense as long as it's addictive'.

And it works, strangely enough. The game has a lot of things you can do - siege towns, capture monsters, collect bounties, craft weapons, make spells, embark on quests - and basically only one way to do them, which is by playing match-3 games. If you like match-3 games, you'll like Puzzle Quest. If you don't like match-3 games, well... you're probably a little out of luck on this one.

The gameplay is good, though - about as good as match-3 games can get. The matches are difficult without being blatantly unfair (I'm looking at you, Candy Crush), the skills that you and your opponents have add a good amount of challenge and strategy to the game, and there's a lot of variation in the types of match-3 games that Puzzle Quest provides, from turn-by-turn matches to timed solo rounds to clearing all the pieces off a board.

So if you're looking to get matched up with a good, long and solidly addictive game, you'd do well to look here!

Official Website | Steam

10: Papo & Yo

This is a story about a young boy named Quico and his best friend, Monster, who is huge and scary to most people but not to Quico. Monster is a lot of fun to be around! He plays soccer with Quico, and helps Quico get up to places he's too small to reach alone, and whenever Quico needs a friend to hold something down, Monster is ready to help.

Quico loves Monster.

The only thing is, Monster likes to eat poisonous frogs. The frogs make Monster really angry, but Quico is going to try to help Monster. And in a child's mind - in Quico's mind - anything is possible if he tries hard enough, which is just how it should be. Right?

Set in the favelas of Brazil, Papo & Yo uses Quico's point of view to tell a story about kids and the monsters who are their best friends. It features a friendly jetpack robot, an enigmatic friend, a giant monster and puzzles that make use of the entire landscape to amazing effect. The soundtrack, environment and gameplay all come together to make a game that will stay with you long after you finish playing it.

Official Website | Steam

Edited 2013-12-26 00:46 (UTC)

BONUS: I GET THIS CALL EVERY DAY

This game is like $2. It is worth the $2. It bills itself as A PERSONAL TALE OF UNWINNABLE REALITIES. You want grimdark? This game has it. You want multiple endings based on your choices? This game has it. You want EXTREME realism? This game has it. With a REALISTIC branching narrative drawn from the bitterness of personal experience and featuring amazingly REALISTIC voice acting, I Get This Call Every Day is so REAL that it's PAINFUL.

Also the art is pretty shit.

But really, if you're looking for a short piece of interactive fiction where YOU TOO can feel the JOY and PRIDE of being a CALL CENTER EMPLOYEE - buy this game. The best part about the story behind this game is that its creator got fired from his normal job of (you guessed it) being a call center employee for making it by people who quite probably never actually played it to find out what it was all about. Though if you plan on reading that article, try playing the game first.

Here's some final words from the creator about it, if you're still undecided: 'I asked for some outside advice. A lot of it was about making it more of a game, but the more I made it a game, the less it was coming back to the whole point of it all. I Get This Call Every Day has a message. It's trying to tell you something.'

And it's a message that is probably worth listening to, so if you have the time and the $2 to spare, give this one a go!

Official Website | Desura

And that's it for game recs! These are just a few - there are a lot more that I'd love to rec but which might be either a little more normal or just too out there for even this list, so if you'd like to hear about games in any other genre (interactive fiction? stealth? action?) go ahead and ask and I'd be really happy to come up with some! :D