Alex Spencer

Kicking this around with @trivia_lad, he suggested Superhot VR. In one sense, it's just Time Crisis, but also, the collision of a lot of stuff (the original's time/space ideas + aesthetic, plus just functional VR shooting) that I don't think was really around pre-2014.

It's not exactly critical Canon, though. Finding stuff that fits this bill is interestingly difficult, which could either be indicative of period of incremental improvements, or just... tricky parameters. Hrmm.

Like, Her Story is unlike anything else I've ever played, but it's FMV meets IF, y'know?

I think that's the nature of the beast - most "new" things are about recombining old parts in interesting ways (Modern Life is Rubbish, etc). I'd also point to Into The Breach as something that takes the RTS framework and almost turns it into a puzzle game

Into the Breach was deffo on my list of 'does this fit the criteria'. In many ways it's a response to XCOM etc, but it doesn't look/feel like those games. (Also, official Tim+Alex GOTY 2018, so...)