Superbrothers Sword & 1.0.1

Sword & Sworcery: Superbrothers EP is a quirky and enigmatic fantasy adventure game with simple one-on-one combat, situational puzzles, and a beautiful soundtrack. The gameplay experience is separated into "sessions" of increasing length. The game takes at least two weeks to complete, since at one stage what you experience is dependent on the moon cycle. (It is possible to manipulate the computer's system clock to speed things up, but this is directly discouraged in-game.)

Certain aspects of the game feel half-baked. The mind-reading abilities of the "megatome" provide some useful hints for how to proceed, but their erratic appearance and confusing ordering makes them less helpful for furthering the story. It's additionally unclear what special powers the mystical "trigons" are supposed to confer - and why the hero is seeking them at all - if they in fact obtaining them is severely weakening. On top of it all is the artifice of the game as an "experiment", which seems to speak more to the indie developers' experiences than the players'.

Nonetheless, the uniqueness of this game experience has earned it significant media attention and indeed makes it worth playing. One particularly compelling area in a dreamland forest allows the player to participate in a harmonious "jam" with Jim Guthrie, the man behind the game's soundtrack (who appears so often in the game you may begin to wonder whether he exists in the real world at all). I've never known a real instrument well enough to ever jam with friends before, but this mini-game of sorts gave me a glimpse of what an enjoyable experience it could be.