[fer]

I read the article and ctrl+f'd Outer Wilds straight away. It's an extreme case indeed, the game does very little hand-holding, while being tremendously complex and interconnected. The only thing that unlocks parts of the game is what you learn from it, and those details and mechanics are what enable to progress.

The downside is that it has very little replay value (you can beat the game within 5min if you already did before), but the path to get there is difficult, engaging, and extremely rewarding.

It's difficult to describe Outer Wilds, but I'd put it as an "open-world Portal", only it has numerous Portal-like quicks in itself.

[ehsankia]

I highly recommend both Tunic and The Witness if you enjoyed Outer Wilds. But yes, the concept of "knowledge" being the power ups you gain throughout the game is truly done fantastically in Outer Wilds, and few other games come close to replicating it.

[mjevans]

Tunic does a lot of things well for a modern game. There are secrets to discover, an interesting map, accessibility options that open the game to audiences that don't do as well with keyboards or console controllers.

There's a unique in game language (and a good, and then really good hint in the game on how to crack into it); but it is _not_ required to even get the good ending. Just enough of the lore's surface is there and a player still has a good chance of reaching the good ending. All the more so after seeing the bad and then reloading the save file (standard game mechanics).

Some fans have even put together decoder tables to assist translation of the game language to English; as well as a version of the manual that's completely translated if you don't have the time or desire to do that.