Games that make you think

[anon]

Game	Plot / message	Time for one playthrough
Emily is Away	Not all stories have a happy ending, and sometimes even if you have the best intentions, your actions can lead to the worst results.	30 minutes
Execution	A very short game that still manages to teach actions have consequences, and sometimes the most obvious choice isn't the best.	2 minutes
Super Columbine Massacre RPG	In between parodying the Columbine school shooting, it offers very powerful insight as to what was in Eric's and Dylan's heads, and what led them to do what they did.	4 hours
Doki Doki Literature Club	Don't want to give any spoilers, so let's say there are at least two powerful messages in it.	4 hours
Actual Sunlight	Completely nails the feelings of depression and being stuck in an endless, dead-end loop.	1 hour
Little Red Lie	Follows two characters on two opposite sides of an economic crisis. Besides what may be expected from the premise, they both have their own stories to tell. Has a downer but realistic ending.	8 hours

[PukingTom]

Not really much thinking involve here but it's more like self interpretation of the occasions/events happening around. It's Divinity OS.

[anon]

I'd like to add Katawa Shoujo and Thing-in-Itself to my list. I've heard Yume Nikki is very good but haven't played it yet.

[molosse]

Solitaire? :-)
I see a lot of executive travellers playing that game on the flight back home...

[anon]

Solitaire is just fun to pass time, it doesn't make you think like Actual Sunlight or Little Red Lie.

Or make you cry like Doki Doki

[Master Razor]

If you want a challenge try OpenTTD. Very few are able to play it like it is meant to be played.

[anon]

If you want a challenge try OpenTTD. Very few are able to play it like it is meant to be played.

No offense, but I think the only life lesson simulation games can teach you is how those things don't work Or at least, I didn't become a great military leader after playing Warzone 2100... where jets can be repaired in mid-flight and building an array of 100 mortars (which never run out of ammo) is a perfectly reasonable decision.

But that's okay, they're games and they wouldn't be fun if they were realistic.