These are exactly the kinds of games I want to love. Obscure (BUT TOO OBSCURE FOR ME), brilliant, inventive, critically adored, the sort of games that make you feel like the medium is still capable of magic and challenge.
But I've yet to finish any one of them. I lack the patience, note-taking discipline, comprehension, or uninterrupted adult human time required to actually finish them.
So I end up in this weird place where I admire them from afar, like that meme of the dog with its nose pressed against the storm door glass window. I’m rooting for them. I’m glad they exist. I will recommend them (in theory). But in practice, I am getting mentally folded into a lawn chair by games made for people who keep a dedicated puzzle notebook and perhaps don’t have a toddler asking for string cheese every nine minutes.
Games LIKE them that I've played to completely? Viewfinder. Cocoon. Humanity. The Pedestrian. Unpacking (not puzzley). The Swapper. Many others but those come to mind first and quickly.
Games on Deck to Play: Chants of Senaar. Gorogoa The Talos Principle. Superliminal.