Although I was a voracious reader when I was younger, I don’t often get to spend any time with fiction books nowadays. I used to love the horror and science-fiction genre but those I tend to pick up as an adult are mostly in connection with my line of work. I’m currently reading about the lean framework and something on different communication styles by Nigel Risner – pretty dry subjects for anyone outside of IT.

That what makes responding to Pop Culture Literary’s nomination for the One-Liner Challenge so difficult. Nobody here wants to read short summaries of books about IT best-practice and processes; we much prefer stories about epic battles, dramatic rescues and the balance between good and evil. I’m therefore going to put a twist on it and focus instead on video games.

I hope that change still meets Pop Culture Literary’s requirements. As they did for their own challenge, I picked the ten titles below from my Steam Library on a random basis (using a random number generator rather than dice). Here we go – and no spoilers!

Child of Light: a young princess named Aurora dies of a mysterious illness but then reawakens, before saving the sun, moon and stars from the Queen of the Night in order to return home

Braid: a pretentious platformer featuring a time-reverse mechanic, and a plot about a man rescuing a princess constructed to make the player question who the real monster is

Cat Quest: an RPG set in the pawsome world of cats, featuring a frisky feline in pursuit of the evil Drakoth and his catnapped sister through the world of Felingard

Four Last Things: an adventure for those who like Monty Python and smutty humour, here’s a man who must re-commit the seven deadly sins after arriving to confess at the wrong church

Sam & Max Save the World: a hypnosis conspiracy being investigated by the Freelance Police which makes you feel as though you’re watching Saturday morning kids’ television

Knee Deep: investigate the suicide of a washed-up actor in the backwater town of Cypress Knee with blogger Romana Teague, local reporter Jack Bellet and private investigator K.C. Gaddis

Broken Age: funded via Kickstarter and not without controversy, a coming-of-age story about Vella and Shay as they try to escape similar situations in totally different worlds

The Night of the Rabbit: a white rabbit leads Jerry to Mousewood, where he learns spells while travelling to worlds through portal trees and uses these to defeat the evil magician Zaroff

The Talos Principle: a puzzle game which will drive you bonkers, you’re tasked by your creator to solve a series of complex challenges while wondering who you are and what your purpose is

Black Mirror: the original (not the remake) about the aftermath of the death of William Gordon, dark secrets and the terrible curse which has decimated the family since the Middle Ages

Thank you to Pop Culture Literary for nominating Later Levels, and for giving me something a little different to write about. I’d love to hear your own one-liners: how would you describe your favourite game in a single sentence?