Games

Personally, I really liked Papers, Please. You play as a customs agent checking people's paperwork as they seek entry into your country. The idea of the game is very simple but it's surprisingly good at telling a story and putting you in situations that are morally difficult.

I have not yet played Return of the Obra Dinn, but it is always high up on the list when I look for games like Outer Wilds. I'm a huge fan of Outer Wilds, so maybe the recommendation can work in reverse

From what I have heard, the deduction is not as intense as in Obra Dinn, but there is very little hand holding, and the whole game has been brilliantly designed so that it is driven entirely by your natural human curiosity. Once you get through the initial "tutorial" section (probably the roughest part of the game, push through!) the whole game is wide open. See something weird orbiting a distant planet? You can go straight there and start poking around. If you follow the leads that turn up there, you will eventually even figure out what it is, and why it is there. Do that enough and you'll eventually figure out the strange mystery of your home solar system.

Can't recommend it highly enough, but you only get to play it without knowing the secrets once, so go in as blind as you can. It took me 20-30 hours to "solve" the main game, maybe another 20 for the DLC, which is also well worth it

If you like Obra Dinn, you'll love Outer Wilds

Antichamber really stood out to me even among other puzzle games

Chants of Sennaar - adventure/puzzle game where you need to learn the languages of the world. It's not super difficult, but finding all the secrets was challenging.

Manifold Garden - no real story here, but a trippy 3d spatial puzzle to navigate.

The Talos Principle - It’s pretty much purely a puzzle game with a nice dose of philosophy to drive the story along. Some of the later puzzles can get pretty difficult, and some of the optional challenges will likely take you a good while to figure out without guides.

The witness is a really interesting puzzle game that can be had for not that much.

Or if you are looking for something more actiony then I would recommend remnant: from the ashes or remnant 2. Described as souls like with guns, but they really change up the formula I found with semi random worlds and bosses.

Specifically similar to RotOD is Heaven's Vault in that its pretty nonlinear, not hand holdy and that you figure out (a foreign language in this case). But it is more adventure style than RotOD.

Another one already mentioned Outer Wilds (not Outer Worlds!) and I completely agree and recommend it as well!

In general I have to say I disagree that new games are more of the same. We are in a golden age regarding new games and game genres. It's just, that there are so many games, that there are also many similar ones. And the big studios are the worst in that regard, just bury AAA and start to love Indie games!

As example, games which are different from others and not already mentioned in this thread:

• Eastshade (you are a painter exploring a fantasy world, solving quests by painting pictures)
• Rain World (you are a small animal trying to survive a hostile simulated world, you need to learn how the interaction between you, NPCs and the world works)
• INSIDE (nearly pure atmosphere & no gameplay, but still great!)
• Papers, Please (you are a government worker who has to check people coming over the border)
• Her Story (you try to figure out what happened to a person via searching videos from her interrogation by the police)
• What Remains of Edith Finch (part game anthology, part great story to connect those "mini games")
• A Little To the Left (OCD in game form)
• Ancestors: Humankind Odyssey (you play a primate tribe and evolve it towards Homo Sapiens in an african tropical forest)
• Edit: and how could I forget: Disco Elysium, the greatest RPG! without combat, only social encounters and technical problems to solve in a wonderful world full of memorable and interesting characters.

I heard good word about Paradise Killer, in which you're also a detective and must figure out the truth

The outer wilds is amazing. You should play it.

The Case of the Golden Idol, can't believe no one mentioned that...

Man. I've been staring at this box trying to find the words for why you should play Pathologic 2. It's hard, especially without spoiling anything. It is a game about a surgeon named artemy burakh who is tasked by fate to save a town from a plague. It is as if Russian Literature grew legs and used them to kick you in the dick. It is emotionaly a lot. It is skillfully a lot. It is mentally a lot and you are on a time limit and it is not fair. But it has a message for you. There is a beauty to that message and if I could I would force every person on this planet to experience it.

But you will have to bleed for it. Please play it.

I personally found the Inscryption scratched the same itch, albient in a different way. Its a very different game, being a sort-of narrative driven, Slay the Spire inspired card game. I won't go into too much detail, given that spoilers, mechanical or narrative, take away a lot from the game, but I found that Inscryption did a great job of juggling a bunch of different mechanics to ensure I constantly had new tools to master, while also encouraging more lateral exploration through its plethora of secrets, and drip feeding story fragments to be peiced together as I progressed.

If you're liking the feeling of solving a mystery with no handholding, give Shadows of Doubt a look. 1920s detective noir set in an alt-history retro cyberpunk 1970s where the Coca-Cola corporation is the president of the USA. Yeah, that's a mouthful, but what you get is a proper hard-boiled detective story where you are in total control of how you pursue every case. The game gives you an honest to God murder board with string and sticky notes. There's no "detective mode" bullshit where you scan for clues and then the game solves the mystery for you. It's completely on you to find the evidence, follow leads, canvas witnesses, scrub through security footage, stake out a suspect's apartment or place of work, and finally make an arrest (and hope like hell you didn't finger the wrong person). This all plays out in a fully simulated city district. Every room in every building can be entered. Every NPC has a complete life; a partner (maybe), a home (usually), a job, a medical history, a shoe size, fingerprints, the works.

The voxel graphics aren't for everyone, and there's some areas where it's less complete than others, but those only really stand out because of how shockingly complete the world is in so many other ways. All in all, it's a brilliant game, and like nothing else out there.

Patrick's Parabox - Single developer, unique idea, mind bending - think outside and inside the boxes inside boxes.

Check out Fez if you haven't already. Also Tunic does a great job of starting out basic & breaking precedent.

Not the same, but Into The Breach has become the one game I regularly return to. The ruleset is so simple and everything is laid out, including anticipating opponent moves. Just a great series of small puzzles

Other wilds as already suggested Is a must play. But a strong second contender for me Is cocoon. Logic/environment puzzles, with no hand holding in any way, you have to figure out everything but the level design Is sooo good.

Honorable mention for Tunic.

Forgotten City is another interesting game, that like Outer Wilds, has you piecing together a mystery. Hadn't seen it mentioned yet.

For an older classic in the mystery/no coddling space there is the Myst series. I've only played the first, but they're challenging puzzles/mystery point-and-click games.

There's 4 puzzle games called The Room that I found really interesting. It starts with a puzzle box that opens up with each solved puzzle to eventually reveal spaces within the box that are bigger than the box itself. There's something supernatural about these puzzle boxes and you get little clues about where it came from and who made it.

Not a puzzle game, but Noita throws you right in without any explanation or tutorial. Everything is trial and error to the point where people complain that you can't figure things out without the wiki. Love the game though, one of the most unique games I know.

The Souls games never really held your hand either.

Hollow Knight, The Binding of Isaac and Elite Dangerous are other games I can think of that want you to figure things out.

It's not difficult but I really enjoyed Super Liminal. Very short but fun.

I am not sure how handholdey it might seem to you, but Danganronpa 1-3 were pretty good at keeping me guessing what would happen next, but it is also good at giving the player the illusion of actually solving what was happening themselves. V3 was both the best and worst in this regard IMO. There are very few times where something is obvious or very easy, and likewise few times where a huge leap in logic is made or something is very obtuse/hard to know.

If you haven't tried them, maybe look intonthem to see if you'd like them?

It's hard to beat Obra Dinn, but The Witness is another of my favorite puzzle games.

Edit: "hard to beat" meaning it's a good game, not that it's difficult (although it is in fact pretty difficult).

chronoark lets you die and counts your deaths for you.

anything agatha christie/ hercule poirot is light detective work (good for kids and or newbies) with optional handholding

i remember there's some good mystery modules with neverwinter nights

morrowind quests don't coddle at all. they all look like journal entries.

The Long Dark

Survival game set in the cold Canadian wilderness. Most "survival" games are actually just boring crafting games but TLD is very different for me as it is mostly about exploring in the freezing cold with natural predators around to keep you on edge.

I enjoyed Carto and Paradise Killer, as far as "different and creative" goes.

Journey beyond the edge of the world.

It's not out yet, but there's a demo and it's really good!

The Painscreek Killings sounds like the open ended deduction that you're describing. You play as a journalist who goes to an abandoned town to try to solve a cold case murder. The game doesn't tell you where or what to do next, or how to do it. I liked it because it was just me trying to figure the story out and what to do, not the game telling me "Put x and y together. Oh, look, it leads you to z!" (Also it's currently on sale on Steam for like 5 bucks.)

Dread Delusion:

• Great plot, lore, and writing in general
• A lot of moral dilemmas to solve and hard choices to make
• Choices don't change much in gameplay, but they change a lot in writing and that is interesting to read
• Doesn't handhold player much, but is way smaller than Morrowind for example, way less content and side quests and thus feels more linear
• Lowpoly/lowres and kinda rough even by lofi standards, but certain consistent aesthetic which creates coherent worlds that are fun to explore
• Combat is way too easy, even bosses are not challenging; recently hard mode was added, but I haven't tried
• There are some minor bugs and glitches

The Witness is a good puzzle game where they give you the same kind of puzzle, but different areas have their own rules. They don't tell you how the rules work, but they're fairly intuitive and the ramp up in each area is good. Eventually you have to recall rules from previous puzzles. There are extra puzzles that go beyond the mold as well, but those are well hidden.

Have you looked into the Rusty Lake series? Really odd