Single-Player Games From Mainland China Beyond the Blockbusters

Shanghai’s Pixpil sends a miner and a girl aboard a cross-country railway after they leave their underground home. In the towns, take time with the people they meet and the places they stop to eat. In dungeons, switch between John and Sam and separate them when a puzzle requires both to act in different places. The trip makes room for a quiet evening between the parts where the world seems to be coming apart.

Shanghai’s TiGames makes a retired rabbit soldier the lead in a dieselpunk city occupied by machines. As Rayton gains a drill and a whip alongside his mechanical fist, new movement abilities open routes through places he has already explored. The city rewards a second look, especially once an obstacle that blocked your first trip starts to look like a shortcut.

Beijing’s Spotlightor Interactive gives a little candle ten seconds of light to spend in each level. A brief burn can show you where to land or how shadows fall, and you have to remember what you saw when the light goes out. The 2018 PC edition includes the Lost Light chapters. It’s a compact puzzle platformer for anyone who likes learning a space one glimpse at a time.

In the solo campaign from Chongqing’s Pathea Games, you arrive in a desert town with a workshop that needs work of its own. Salvage old technology, use machines to turn materials into parts, then assemble larger structures the town needs. The satisfaction comes from recognizing how an ordinary commission fits into the work of keeping Sandrock going.

Misty Mountain Studio moved from Melbourne to China during development. The story sends Yun to a nearly deserted village to learn why a spirit has been unable to move on. Go into someone’s memories and change what they notice or decide. When you return, the consequences give an ordinary place like the village teahouse a different meaning.

Wuhan’s BadMudStudio builds a solo action roguelite around a snowfall that refuses to melt. The warrior Bi-an can send flying swords through a crowd, with relics and different sword attributes changing how you use them from run to run. Look for memory fragments between fights if you want to learn how the Five Great Clans fit into the disaster.

Chongqing’s GSQ Games makes rebuilding a sect a matter of training disciples as well as keeping a settlement running. Building layout takes account of feng shui and the interactions of the Five Elements. Relationships among the disciples matter, too. Choose this if you like a management game that makes the arrangement of rooms and the lives of their occupants affect the same long project.

Beijing’s ThinkingStars gives Ann two different ways to move through its cyberpunk city. Walk around in 3D to meet residents or try a bartending job, then fight and platform in 2D when the main story takes her elsewhere. The change of perspective leaves room for the city’s everyday business alongside the bigger questions that pull Ann into its underworld.

Chengdu’s YiTi Games builds a mystery around Harrod, his nephew Willie, and the strange visitors to a mist-shrouded abbey. Look for written notes and overheard gossip as you move between places such as the fossil hall and greenhouse. The characters and the old stories they tell matter as much as what happens behind the next door.

YiFang Studio, part of Shanghai Chuhuo, applies a different scale to the fantasy of cultivation. You grow crops with spells and help restore the Guiyun Sect after its near destruction. Rebuilding gives your fishing, cooking, and crafting a shared purpose, and the people living in the valley give you reasons to stay after the day’s work is done.