/r/tipofmyjoystick: What was that game called again?

Hi guys and gals. I've been here a while, and over my time I've seen a lot of posts sink to the bottom, without a single answer, or at best, very few. And none that solved the case.

I have noticed a clear pattern with these posts, and I will now share with you my tips to you newbies, so that you can get the help you need.

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Firstly: When you make a new post, you will see this:

Platform(s):

Genre:

Estimated year of release:

Graphics/art style:

Notable characters:

Notable gameplay mechanics:

Other details:

Even though, in red, you are warned that while optional, you should follow this template... many of you do not.

Let me be clear: Follow this template.

Put simply, this template contains all the information we really need to solve your problem. Virtually every time I click a post that has not followed this, they have rambled on about nothings, while omitting critical details.

This format, for new and old alike, is very readable, and prompts for every data-point needed.

I know that you want to customize your message, that if you could just explain it, it would be better. I know you think that. You are wrong. Put all that in 'other'. Even if you end up saying it twice, follow the template.. add to it your story at the bottom.

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Secondly: Following this template. You're rambling about your best mates Amiga-500 or whatever instead of telling us about the game aside, this is where they really go wrong.

Let's get something straight right now. We are not mind readers. It's impressive, really, how little information it seems we can work off. I mean, we solve some real tough ones with nothing sometimes, but still, we can't see that memory in your head. So you need to be as descriptive in every one of these fields as you can be...

And sometimes you really don't know. That's fine, we can work with surprisingly little information, but "old graphics" under art style... what are we supposed to do with that? Mate, I was playing on Atari-2600's, are we talking Wizard of Wor here?

Let me help you out a bit:

Platform(s): Whatever you played it on. But unless it's really all you know (very possible), don't write 'my mates pc'. Was it PC or Mac?

Genre:

First person does NOT imply shooter. Nor do any of the others. Try to answer this one in two steps:

What was the camera like (assuming it's not a text adventure)? Was it First person?, 3rd person, 2d? Top down or side on? Or maybe even isometric 2d?

Then, what kind of game? Real time strategy, point and click? Was it a fighter, action or platformer?

Good, now we know what KIND of game we are all trying to remember for you.

Estimated year of release:

"Between 2000-2005" is fine, something like that. "Mid 90's maybe?". I don't see many people mess this up, but I have seen people write "old". That is not ok. If you write old and expect it to mean anything to me, I will fight you.

Also, as always "Sorry, no idea" is always acceptable but try to give at least something. "Couldn't have been later than 2015, though"

Great, so even if roughly, we know WHEN.

Graphics/art style:

THIS. This is where you guys always mess up. This section right here I have found can be the difference between an answer, and a silent slink to the bottom. This is your moment.

This, really, should be the best-formed part of your memory. Even if you can only remember a single frame, a single image, it's so much to go on for us.

DETAIL. Was it a gloomy grimdark world of sadness, or a bright bubbly rainbow filled Mario-world?

Was it cartoony, or otherwise stylized somehow, or was it trying to be realistic?

Anything notable about the art direction? Was it going for a cyberpunk kinda feel, or a gritty war realism dirt and blood sort of direction?

If it was set over a long time, did the seasons change? Was there a winter in your game?

Remember when you hit people, and the screen had that awesome flash and your hands got bloody? Yeah, well we don't, unless you tell us.

Ok, so now we are really narrowing it down. This right here is often enough to go on, on its own.

Notable characters:

Anything at all you can remember here.

"There were only tanks, but you could play as both Germans and Americans"

"There was one really tough guy right after you left your office, he had an eyepatch, a white shirt with what looked like grease stains, and said 'this is for my sister'. I think maybe he was a cyborg"

"You play as some kind of Asian girl, you had a tattoo over your right eye and arm, a black tank top and white pants and I remember you always had only one red glove for some reason. I don't remember the arm, but the eye tattoo looked sort of like ancient Egyptian eye makeup, but a modern take"

Knowing nothing else about the game, I bet that last one there gets comments noting the game she is from. Details, details.

Notable gameplay mechanics:

Surely, you get the idea by now. This is tied with the importance of the graphics/art style. As much detail as you can here.

Other details:

NOW you may blab on about how you only played this game once at a winter solstice in 1782 with your grandmother from Tahiti.. as if that helps.

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Edit: So it's been brought up that the template doesn't appear on mobile. While /u/wipeout4wh is aware of this and hopefully, something can be done... still, if you can, use the template. If you can't, maybe check back and at least make sure your post addresses all of the points the template does.

Also, my post seems to be saying NOT to add any custom details. So I want to re-enforce, please do. In fact, after you do the template, feel free to write out your post as you were going to without it. Just put it all in 'other'. Don't try and make your whole post like that, if possible. Even if you end up saying the same things twice, that's ok.

Now I'm going to take a moment to clarify something, though. This isn't some immutable law of the universe, and your post is destined to fail if you don't do this. It's just a very strong general trend I have noticed over a long time.

It's not that this template has some kind of magical powers or something. It's that this template prompts the questions that need answers.

When you go all rogue on us and try and type your explanation from scratch... you mess it up. You just forget to add everything that you know, and that we need to know. The template makes it very hard to do that. It's just so very easy to get typing, and by the end forget to tell us what kind of game it actually is. Especially when you are getting random flashbacks, and hazy memories, and you start getting frazzled and such halfway though.

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While it might make my edit as long as the first post, I think maybe an example of the kind of post that is just too common here, and almost always helpless, wouldn't go astray here. So here we go:

Now this one is a pretty bad case, true, and I suppose might even be a troll post, but it's actually a good illustration of the problem either way.

It was on my old computer and I was using an emulator so I have no idea what system it was for. It was 8bit graphics and you played this orange cat that was constantly bouncing on a trampoline I think? And you had to navigate it through the city and face a weird boss at the end that would float in the sky. Sorry I can't remember more!

Let's break it down a bit. What kind of game is this? A puzzler or an action game? Who knows.

How old is it? I mean, Minecraft basically has 8bit graphics. Oh he said... "my old computer"... I will fight you.

Why did you bounce on the trampoline? Were there platforms or walkways or something, or was it just a big open space? There are bad guys then? How did they get around?

Now (he?) says that he can't remember more, but I actually asked about the boss fight:

You say 'face a boss', in what way? Can the cat attack? Was this top down or side on? When you say navigate a city, what do you mean?

The reply:

Definitely a side-scroller, I'm sure. You would encounter a boss at the end, the boss would slide onto the screen and it was usually pretty strange-looking. I think one of the bosses might've been a clown. I meant that the different "levels" were different cities with different backgrounds, I think. It's a pretty obscure game

Also you would be continuously bouncing. As in, you had to position the trampoline underneath the cat to bounce it up

So you don't even control the cat. And it's a side-scroller. Thats pretty important information. But the real issue here is that he knows this stuff. He just either didn't know to, or forgot, to tell us.

The template would have made it just so apparent how much information he was missing, and we probably would have got a whole bunch more information. Sadly, while there were some guesses, and a surprising number of up-votes, this post is just another one to join the endless unsolved on their journey ever down.

Hey there, folks.

Just a quick note to tell you that people can now upload their pics directly to reddit without going through image-sharing websites. Hopefully, this will reduce the number of posts in which OP goes "I've made a drawing/have a screenshot, but I don't know how to attach it here".

Now, there is a long-standing argument that allowing image posts turns a subreddit into a meme factory and kills any discussions. Though I don't believe it applies to r/tipofmyjoystick due to our sub's specialized nature. People don't usually post here to entertain others - they do it to ask for help, and, most of the time, they don't have anything other than a plain text description.
But we'll see how it goes.

Genre: RPG Platform: DOS (Nearly 100% sure) Era: Most likely 1990s, maybe later 1980s Notable characters: Enemies along the lines of police or Stasi officers

I’m trying to remember an RPG game that had the same 1st person 3D view as Eye of the Beholder, or Might&Magic 2. You know, the one where you are on a map divided into square and you can move one square at a time, and make 90 degree turns.

The distinguishing thing I remember is that this was a Cold War setting game, rather than fantasy. I may be wrong about the game being set in Berlin. There wasn’t anything that distinct in the game play that I remember, just the setting. I am fairly sure you had a single character and not a party.

I am looking for my childhood game. I played it in a website. I am sure it was 2D top-down game, set in medieval times. The game was about exploring places and killing monsters (or zombies, i dont remember well) and finding loot. It was single player there was only one character (probably male). It was pretty realistic looking pixelated game. I remember the part were I had to find collapsed castle, rebuild it (i think) and then defending it from monsters.

Platform(s): Windows PC maybe from the 2000-2009

Genre: scifi first person shooter horror scary

Estimated year of release: maybe around late 90s to 2008 im not sure

Graphics/art style: 3D very much like ur typical first person shooter game. it was fighting aliens in space, very gory and bloody. i remember needing to pass thru high tech areas to get into the flesh like places? thats where i’d encounter the aliens. i think the icon on the windows screen was green too

Notable characters: a woman protagonist tight clothing not too busty gal but she gave almost bayonetta esq? she would speak at the menu screen and have her sound affects in the game

Notable gameplay mechanics: strong guns the game i played was a demo so it was short. i think my brother had it installed but not sure he remembers. there was a mixed element of high tech like computers/space shippy and the gruesome flesh walls

Other details: i cannot for the life of me remember this game everyone i ask cant find it. mightve been a smaller game that was only a demo and never got published idk. but i remember the graphics being pretty good and it was a scary game when i played in youth. just remember woman protagonist wore black skin tight clothing had alot of artillery to fight against the aliens and it was a demo so short game. the windows pc early 2000s - 2008ish it was definitely installed onto the computer somehow i thought it was preinstalled as an ad

Platform: Flash Game

Genre: 2D/Zombie?/Shooter

Estimated Year of Release: Mid or Early 2010s?

Graphic Style: It was pretty quirky and had a similar aesthetic to Zombotron and The Binding of Isaac-ish

I remember playing this game that had a pretty quirky/cute(maybe) artstyle where you could choose where to go in this destroyed city, when it loaded the level you had to go through this Zombotron-like side scroller game shooting enemies (i think they were zombies), and in the level or the map you could enter buildings, clear the building and recruit people, the buildings could have bodies instead of people i remember there being pretty fun physics very similar to zombotron, the songs really reminded me of the songs in The Binding of Isaac, You could also grab different guns and weapons. The characters didn't have that much of a humanoid body like Last Stand, if i recall correctly.

Platform: Windows 95/98

Genre: FPS/Action

Estimated Year of Release: 1998?

Graphic Style: Doom-ish? I honestly don't remember

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I remember this game, I played it a ton. I had it as a demo, I believe. Or I just never got super far. The only real thing I can remember from it is that a health item that you'd find in the map was called "Monk Food" There were other powerups.

I fear I will never find it again. I was 10 when I played it a ton. It was around the time of Dark Reign and Myst as I remember that's when I played those a lot. I know I'm being fairly vague on the details. I've scoured tons of W95 Shareware videos and come up empty.

It was not on Galaxy of Games, but I thought it was.

I remember playing a game in the 2010s on a website called Free Online Games. I cant find the website anymore. It was a beat em up game in the style of 90s arcade. The plot was that a girl got kidnapped by an evil villain or something and you had to choose from 3-4 guys and play through the game. I remember one of the guys wearing a white tank top and blue jeans and one other guy who was wearing red clothes AND for his special move, he did a circular motion and created a green fire circle. yup that's about all i remember. Hope someone can help me out.

Platform(s): Playstation 1 or 2

Genre: RPG?

Estimated year of release: 1995-2005

Graphics/art style: Cartoonish possibly japanese.

Notable characters:

Notable gameplay mechanics: Mechs, Sandcrawler, rpg city exploration.

Other details:

Hi everybody. I might be mixing two different games together in my head. But just today it popped into my head that i used to play a game when i was younger that had a very cartoony look to it. It involved joining a pirate crew, (I think) on a sand crawler type veichle, But it would also involve Mech sequences altough i cant remember what you did during those sequences and also running around and exploring a city and talking to npcs. I honestly have no idea if this is even real. My memory of it is so vague that this is the best i can describe it.

Platform(s): Probably DOS. I remember playing it on a Windows 95 machine.

Genre: RPG

Estimated year of release: first half of 1990s

Graphics/art style: reminiscent of Ultima III

Notable gameplay mechanics: each player move would cost some food, the amount of which was displayed in the UI as a number. The version I had was the shareware one and one of the limitations was the amount of food you initially started with. Food was hard or almost impossible to find and getting a lot more food was one of the advertised perks of buying the full version of the game.

That's all I can remember, unfortunately.

I don’t remember much about the game, but every time I remember what I can of it, it angers me. This is what I know.

• You had the choice of playing as a boy, girl, boy robot, or girl robot

-You either ran into parts where you learned about animals or you were asked questions about them (questions might have been about other things as well, but I specifically remember the animal questions)

• There MAY have been fighting during the game, but idk. I want to say you had to fight off crabs, but not too sure

• There was an additional mode where you could pick a character and set up dance moves and music and special effects, choreographing an entire dance basically

-I can’t remember the platform/ console, but I know the game was on a cartridge

That’s it. That’s all I remember. It kills me every time. I hope this all makes sense and someone can help me! Thank you!

I can't for the life of me remember what this game is called and numerous searches online turn up nothing that matches what I remember.

The game was viewed from an isometric 3D perspective. Can't remember if it was all 2D sprites or polygonal. My brain wants to say it was a Golden Axe game but when I search for that online nothing comes up.

One of the main things I remember was that you could mount creatures and I really want to say one of them were giant purple scorpions!

And it was 100% 4-player co-op but the game is NOT Gauntlet Legends because I was literally playing this game in my local arcade yesterday!

Do you know this game???

Platform(s): PC online, maybe friv

Genre: Adventure, Point and click. with Puzzles i think

Estimated year of release: I was playing it around 2005-2010. I dont know more but it didnt look "old"

Graphics/art style: I dont remember much except that I realy liked it.. Maybe it was Cel shading with a bit more shading on the background.. I guess the colour palette would be on the gloomy side, but not depressing. They didnt hold back on the ditails, it wasnt minimal

Notable characters: I think it was about some explorers searching for something (indiana jones style clothing i guess). I remember for sure a female character (brunette? pony tail?). and I think it was her and another male character who had split up to go searching in different places. And the story would switch between the 2 of them. Maybe there was an older guy (white hair?mustache?) who was sending/directing them.

Notable gameplay mechanics: 

• One player.
• Maaaaybe there was a menu where you could pick between the different locations.
• I think as you where point&clicking you could make the story procced the wrong way for few steps, and also you had strikes, where the game would send you back if something didnt work or someone attacked you too many times.
• There was talk/text from the characters talking to you or explaining things. I think you were sent by an older guy (I guess he would talk too at some point).
• Maybe there was video too between the game stages showing the story in betweens
• Point of view: I would say bird's eye view, from side above. You could see the characters completely

Other details: 

1. I remember a night scene in Stonehedge (and maybe there was a secret passage opening somewhere there when you'd manage to mayyybe direct the moon light in some stones or something, maybe it was a puzzle thing where you had to first collect some rocks with symbols on them)
2. There was another scene at a place with huts. It looked like a tribe. I think there was water and some boats too. The scenery looked like amazon maybe. I think the female character was trying to collect things (Point & Click style) to make weapons and other usefull stuff without been seen by a guy on patrol. Later She was inside one of the huts and she was looking in the items inside.
3. I think at some point she collected things to make a potion to help the maybe bitten by snake male character.
4. I think there was something with the word "wolf". Maybe it was in the name of the game or there were (were)wolfs or none of it . This could be all wrong..

The game had moderately hard to insanely difficult obbies. If I remember, the lobby had a sort of floral vibe to it. Each round in the game, a few players would get eliminated until the end, where the last one standing wins the game. The game had maps such as a factory, forest, and a desert map. Any player eliminated would have to wait for the next game to occur; only then could they play another match.

Hi there! I'm trying to remember a game I played as a kid in the early '90s on a Mac; it was a simple, black and white Hypercard game, that I think mostly took place in a kitchen. There were different activities you could do in the kitchen; drag ingredients together to bake a cake and then decorate a cake, and I also think there was an Easter-themed activity where you could collect eggs and then click and drag different patterns on them to decorate them. Woud love to know what it was!

Platform : Broswer
Genre : Singleplayer, Action
Estimated year of release : Unknown
Artstyle : Memes, Circles and Squares
Notable Characters : Trollface, Derpina, All memes that peaked at 2012
Notable gameplay mechanics ; Upgrading, Consuming other characters

Played a game on a friends steam account ages ago and only remember a few things about it. You walk around a deserted town with no NPC’s and collect files and evidence to find out what happened there. At the end of the game Spoiler it was terrifying. Can anyone help me out?

So I am looking for a very old game very similar to Metal Slug defense, there were your army and the enemy army fighting against each other, I think you could also send out your army for points. But the main points are that you could control the main soldier and fight these incoming troops, it also had multiple layers, meaning you could jump 2 levels down or go to the surface, everywhere was battle, the map was huge. Of course it was 2D and the multiple layers were straight lines to the enemies' main bases. Your aim was to destroy the enemy main base where also the troops came from.
The Style was somewhat WW2 but also somehow futuristic.
I know its not Metal slug defense because of the non existing multiple layers as well the fact that you cant play this main soldier to kill the enemies.

Please help me find it, I used to play it so much and I would even play it now since it really is a good game, I thank everyone!

olddd mobile game with crafting

this is a hard one to explain because it’s a pretty fuzzy memory. but i’m looking for this old almost birdseye view mobile game where the protagonist was on some sort of alien world and could build and craft things with the hides or drops of enemies. all i can really remember are these elephant like alien things that dropped hides you could craft armor out of and i can’t remember if they were agro. it had a duller pallet and it was top down i’m almost positive, and im also pretty sure it had day and night cycles, can’t remember there being any guns or anything but it was a decently hard game. at least for ten year old me i remember the crafting being pretty fleshed out and i couldn’t understand it to well.

elephant like things were gray and had some sort of trunk and were MAYBE cube like, i just remember them being bitches so i’m sure they were agro actually. and also maybe the protagonist was a spaceman. sorry don’t kill me i have like two frames memorized to go off of.

So, a character which is like 🙂 with 2 hands no legs, where in castle in each level i have to collect coins climb ropes can dig ground to dump enemy trying to eat me but it gets alive again like in pacman and there's a level like 70 around where the final door is in air & i can't fly due to which I wasn't ever able to complete it. I donno maybe there's some trick but i miss thaf game badly.

Platform(s): Mac (Very first Generation of Macbook Air)

Genre: Simulation, Strategy, Cyber Theme (Fighting against computer virus as Security Software), Side View (2D), Timing.

Estimated year of release: 2008 ~ 2012 on AppleStore

Graphics/art style: Very futuristic style. A lot of orange and cyber themed colors. Minimalistic yet robot like character, while the enemy looks more round-ish and computer virus looking. The icon used in the slot gameplay mechanics were very simple and there were only like 3 different icons. (Sorry don't really remember much)

Notable characters: Cyber security like character for the player and virus looking enemy. TBH I dont think there werent any story to the game and the player just controlled this blob to defend the security from viruses.

Notable gameplay mechanics: 1 vs 1 against computer. Battle is determined by 3 slot above the character. I'm not 100% sure, but I remember there was different effect to every slot icon such as defense, attack, and maybe charge/evolve? Maybe there was a HP bar to determine the winner, but not sure. Basically, you stop the slot to fight against this virus.

Other details: I played this when I was small on my very first Macbook air, so I assume the game was free on applestore at the time.

Sorry if there was any mistake, its my first time posting here. Hope to be able to find this game. Thanks

Please help i've been looking for this game for years this is A police chase game on android from 2014 in google play store. It contains logos and names of real cars, such as the Pagani Huayra, Volkswagen Golf, Toyota Supra, DMC, DeLorean, Chevrolet Camaro. It has approximately 10 gasoline costs, and every time I play a mission, I lose 1. The game has a part 2. I hope someone knows it. Also this game it has opening the part 1 opening is pagani huayra being chased by police the part 2 opening is chevrolet camaro being chased by police

I cannot remember whether it is point and click or not but certainly same style : choose objects to interact with, observe, present to others.

The premise is that you are still a Nazi but disillusioned or maybe plotting a cou. At some point I believe you attend at the protagonists home and at another you attend a sort of retreat for Nazi officers.

I think the protagonist is an airman or soldier of some kind.

Very vaguely remember this. I played it one time at a friend. It was seemingly very difficult we couldn't get past like the first few minutes of the game. I wasn't the one playing, I thought the guy who played gave up too fast and I always wanted to try it out myself.

Things I remember:

• Isometric
• Dark colors
• There was an inventory, or maybe a screen before you started, with a lot of guns you could choose, one of them being a minigun. I think you could assign the guns to the party members.
• The settings was futuristic, maybe cyberpunk, or maybe just real-world ish
• I think you played with a squat of 4 people
• You started in or close outside a building and had to move to other building and walking across streets, I think.
• I think it was real time but could have been turn based too
• Most likely launched from dos, or very maybe W95

The closest thing I could find was Syndicate, but that's not it.