OutCore is a meta adventure game about a girl named Lumi who visits you inside your computer. She asks you to recover her memories, which takes you through various minigames and even your own files and folders hidden around your operating system. It's a neat illusion that used its tools really well to create something I've never seen before, even amongst fourth-wall breaking titles like Pony Island or Doki Doki Literature Club. Similar to those games, OutCore borrows light psychological thriller/horror elements which almost felt out of place here. The game works more in its comedic and parody moments, and finds interesting ways to play with expectations. The actual gameplay varies from moment to moment, but a solid third of the experience is a set of imprecise sequences of action-platforming, which felt floaty and not stable. It was servicable to get through the story but some bigger setpieces were made slightly frustrating due to the less than airtight controls. All that said, OutCore is a title that is worth giving a shot. It's free on Steam and it's worth booting up just to see a browser buddy pop up within your screen. Whether you stay to finish the story, your mileage may vary.

Shout out to over the top meta indie games
Gotta be one of my favorite genders

Really liked the humor and writing
Disliked the optional mini game that I 100%ed nonetheless
There's still a lot of content, but I finished it in 3 hours

It's a great little game, go play it

I was listening to a Siivagunner rip of the game because I saw a cute blonde anime girl with something that look like either a facemask or glasses (turns out it was makeup, wtv it's cute) and then I saw it was free on steam and decided to try it.

My fondness for quirky blonde anime girls with facemask aside, the game was actually a surprisingly fun and charming game with a lot of really neat ideas, I mean I never coded in JavaScript and this bitch taught me how to code in JavaScript to play a little puzzle game how neat is that ?

You can feel this is a small project made by a relatively small team on their free time and it's most likely you would've found this on Newgrounds in the late 2000's and in fact that's how the weirdoe forced 2D platforming segments of the game felt like, they're weird, floaty, janky and smells of amateurism, if you can't accept a videogame to not be 200% playable or haven't grow up on the golden age of Flash Games with fucked up physics, these segments will probably make you strike a few nerves.

It doesn't help the fact the game's humour falls into the "quirky for the sake of quirk" category, some jokes landed due to how random they were and some were "hey did you get that reference ?" (often time to other game with a meta element to it, mostly the popular ones like Undertale or DDLC if you ain't tired of them yet) level of low-bro internet humour and sadly this is a significant part of the game since these platforming segment far overstay they're welcome in my opinion.

I kinda wish they pushed the "desktop adventure" aspect further and didn't feel the need to add "an actual videogame" in the middle for all that was worth honestly.

The final boss segment is really creative ! I'm not going to spoil anything but be sure to have a few icons on your desktop for some fun surprises, I dunno how much app the game can detects for that segment but my mind was blown that it was part of the final boss.

And again, Lumi (the main character) is cute enough and the game is dank. It's free anyway so give it a shot and maybe support the devs via donation if you end up enjoying it !

It's free, 2 hours long and very creative, definitely give it a chance if you have the time and/or are looking for a game that plays with the fourth wall. I have a few caveats though, first of all the controls in the platform sections can get a few adjustments, to start the jump is very floaty witch can be a disadvantage against bosses that demands precision (Which explain the option to skip them) and the dash really could use a pointer when played with mouse, this is obvious in the race, when is easy to lose the track to where are we pointing at. Also, the plot can get a few adjustments to make its message more clear I'm not going to say what to avoid spoilers, because I really encourage you to play this game

Outcore is not only extremely charming and full of heart, but also inventive and puts all its separate parts to their best use.

It's genuinely a very strong contender for one of the best free games you can play on Steam!

I can't say too much without spoiling some important parts of the game that are better experienced blind, but what I can say is that in its ~4 hour runtime, the game manages to tell a compelling story, switches up its gameplay without it feeling jarring and presents you with easily lovable characters and strange personalities. I also adore the music in this game.

The only real complaints I have is that the controls for the platforming sections are a little slippery and sometimes the reference humour can be a bit much but other than that, it totally captured my heart.
I loved playing through this one a lot!

Before you read on, Outcore is FREE. It is on steam and it is free, and I really recommend it.

Ultimately I think it's a bit more fun going into it blind, but here are my thoughts after finishing it in one sitting (Steam says it took me about two and a half hours)

Outcore feels like something that was made in the heyday of Newgrounds, with it's weird and kinda-bad platforming, to it's referential humour, all the way to its made-by-one-person charm. I'm a fan of games fucking with your desktop, it's a fantastic mechanic that fully uses the PC you are playing on as a whole.

It is hard not to talk about the game without making reference to...well, it's references. It's Undertale adjacent, both directly and generally. It is happy to pastiche all sorts of Visual Novel tropes. Its jokes and writing range from "Ah come on lads" to being genuinely laugh out loud funny.

I think it's fantastic, I think everyone with a PC and a few hours should take a look at it. It's surprisingly heartwarming, it's clearly been a labour of love, and it askedmeifIwasaBetaCuck

Outcore is just a masterpiece on game design from my point of view, this is a game that you won't ever have clue about what is going to happen next, nor in terms of gameplay or story. When I thought that it couldn't surprise me more, it dropped a big unexpected event, and then it did it again, and again, and again. This is one of the funniest games I've ever played, and it's just crazy to think that this came from a team of only one person.

If you haven't played the game, get it now and play it, it's around 3 hours to beat and it's free, so it's available for everyone. This game is truly an unique experience that must be played as blind as possible.

Cool to see a game that feels inspired by Danganronpa 2! Exciting! Derivative of quite a lot of games (I guess most obviously Celeste) in the gameplay outside of the desktop and I occasionally found those sections slightly frustrating due to the controls (you obviously want a controller for that sort of platforming, but then that would take away from the direct interaction with the desktop interface, so... double-edged sword that unfortunately stabbed me on a few occasions; horrendous bleeding.) The writing keeps those sections alive, though; initially, I found it pretty grating, but I got pretty invested in the silliness of it by the end. Generally, a few complaints but this is a free game, so... no reason not to play it, really!