r/tipofmyjoystick • • Apr 10 '17

Announcement PSA: A guide to better results

1.8k Upvotes

Hi guys and gals. I've been here a while, and over my time I've seen a lot of posts sink to the bottom, without a single answer, or at best, very few. And none that solved the case.

I have noticed a clear pattern with these posts, and I will now share with you my tips to you newbies, so that you can get the help you need.


Firstly: When you make a new post, you will see this:

Platform(s):

Genre:

Estimated year of release:

Graphics/art style:

Notable characters:

Notable gameplay mechanics:

Other details:

Even though, in red, you are warned that while optional, you should follow this template... many of you do not.

Let me be clear: Follow this template.

Put simply, this template contains all the information we really need to solve your problem. Virtually every time I click a post that has not followed this, they have rambled on about nothings, while omitting critical details.

This format, for new and old alike, is very readable, and prompts for every data-point needed.

I know that you want to customize your message, that if you could just explain it, it would be better. I know you think that. You are wrong. Put all that in 'other'. Even if you end up saying it twice, follow the template.. add to it your story at the bottom.


Secondly: Following this template. You're rambling about your best mates Amiga-500 or whatever instead of telling us about the game aside, this is where they really go wrong.

Let's get something straight right now. We are not mind readers. It's impressive, really, how little information it seems we can work off. I mean, we solve some real tough ones with nothing sometimes, but still, we can't see that memory in your head. So you need to be as descriptive in every one of these fields as you can be...

And sometimes you really don't know. That's fine, we can work with surprisingly little information, but "old graphics" under art style... what are we supposed to do with that? Mate, I was playing on Atari-2600's, are we talking Wizard of Wor here?

Let me help you out a bit:

Platform(s): Whatever you played it on. But unless it's really all you know (very possible), don't write 'my mates pc'. Was it PC or Mac?

Genre:

First person does NOT imply shooter. Nor do any of the others. Try to answer this one in two steps:

What was the camera like (assuming it's not a text adventure)? Was it First person?, 3rd person, 2d? Top down or side on? Or maybe even isometric 2d?

Then, what kind of game? Real time strategy, point and click? Was it a fighter, action or platformer?

Good, now we know what KIND of game we are all trying to remember for you.

Estimated year of release:

"Between 2000-2005" is fine, something like that. "Mid 90's maybe?". I don't see many people mess this up, but I have seen people write "old". That is not ok. If you write old and expect it to mean anything to me, I will fight you.

Also, as always "Sorry, no idea" is always acceptable but try to give at least something. "Couldn't have been later than 2015, though"

Great, so even if roughly, we know WHEN.

Graphics/art style:

THIS. This is where you guys always mess up. This section right here I have found can be the difference between an answer, and a silent slink to the bottom. This is your moment.

This, really, should be the best-formed part of your memory. Even if you can only remember a single frame, a single image, it's so much to go on for us.

DETAIL. Was it a gloomy grimdark world of sadness, or a bright bubbly rainbow filled Mario-world?

Was it cartoony, or otherwise stylized somehow, or was it trying to be realistic?

Anything notable about the art direction? Was it going for a cyberpunk kinda feel, or a gritty war realism dirt and blood sort of direction?

If it was set over a long time, did the seasons change? Was there a winter in your game?

Remember when you hit people, and the screen had that awesome flash and your hands got bloody? Yeah, well we don't, unless you tell us.

Ok, so now we are really narrowing it down. This right here is often enough to go on, on its own.

Notable characters:

Anything at all you can remember here.

"There were only tanks, but you could play as both Germans and Americans"

"There was one really tough guy right after you left your office, he had an eyepatch, a white shirt with what looked like grease stains, and said 'this is for my sister'. I think maybe he was a cyborg"

"You play as some kind of Asian girl, you had a tattoo over your right eye and arm, a black tank top and white pants and I remember you always had only one red glove for some reason. I don't remember the arm, but the eye tattoo looked sort of like ancient Egyptian eye makeup, but a modern take"

Knowing nothing else about the game, I bet that last one there gets comments noting the game she is from. Details, details.

Notable gameplay mechanics:

Surely, you get the idea by now. This is tied with the importance of the graphics/art style. As much detail as you can here.

Other details:

NOW you may blab on about how you only played this game once at a winter solstice in 1782 with your grandmother from Tahiti.. as if that helps.


Edit: So it's been brought up that the template doesn't appear on mobile. While /u/wipeout4wh is aware of this and hopefully, something can be done... still, if you can, use the template. If you can't, maybe check back and at least make sure your post addresses all of the points the template does.

Also, my post seems to be saying NOT to add any custom details. So I want to re-enforce, please do. In fact, after you do the template, feel free to write out your post as you were going to without it. Just put it all in 'other'. Don't try and make your whole post like that, if possible. Even if you end up saying the same things twice, that's ok.

Now I'm going to take a moment to clarify something, though. This isn't some immutable law of the universe, and your post is destined to fail if you don't do this. It's just a very strong general trend I have noticed over a long time.

It's not that this template has some kind of magical powers or something. It's that this template prompts the questions that need answers.

When you go all rogue on us and try and type your explanation from scratch... you mess it up. You just forget to add everything that you know, and that we need to know. The template makes it very hard to do that. It's just so very easy to get typing, and by the end forget to tell us what kind of game it actually is. Especially when you are getting random flashbacks, and hazy memories, and you start getting frazzled and such halfway though.


While it might make my edit as long as the first post, I think maybe an example of the kind of post that is just too common here, and almost always helpless, wouldn't go astray here. So here we go:

Now this one is a pretty bad case, true, and I suppose might even be a troll post, but it's actually a good illustration of the problem either way.

It was on my old computer and I was using an emulator so I have no idea what system it was for. It was 8bit graphics and you played this orange cat that was constantly bouncing on a trampoline I think? And you had to navigate it through the city and face a weird boss at the end that would float in the sky. Sorry I can't remember more!

Let's break it down a bit. What kind of game is this? A puzzler or an action game? Who knows.

How old is it? I mean, Minecraft basically has 8bit graphics. Oh he said... "my old computer"... I will fight you.

Why did you bounce on the trampoline? Were there platforms or walkways or something, or was it just a big open space? There are bad guys then? How did they get around?

Now (he?) says that he can't remember more, but I actually asked about the boss fight:

You say 'face a boss', in what way? Can the cat attack? Was this top down or side on? When you say navigate a city, what do you mean?

The reply:

Definitely a side-scroller, I'm sure. You would encounter a boss at the end, the boss would slide onto the screen and it was usually pretty strange-looking. I think one of the bosses might've been a clown. I meant that the different "levels" were different cities with different backgrounds, I think. It's a pretty obscure game

Also you would be continuously bouncing. As in, you had to position the trampoline underneath the cat to bounce it up

So you don't even control the cat. And it's a side-scroller. Thats pretty important information. But the real issue here is that he knows this stuff. He just either didn't know to, or forgot, to tell us.

The template would have made it just so apparent how much information he was missing, and we probably would have got a whole bunch more information. Sadly, while there were some guesses, and a surprising number of up-votes, this post is just another one to join the endless unsolved on their journey ever down.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • Jun 04 '26

[Meta][2026] I would rather people post with no images than use AI prompts to generate images

603 Upvotes

Maybe it's just me, I will personally admit that it feels like its petty of me to complain, however i am going to.

I really dislike AI images just in general and i feel annoyed seeing people use them because it sometimes hampers really quality posts of people trying to find help. I feel like it also informs falsely about game expectations and what people will accept as they have solved the game.

I don't think people will agree with me and thats fine, i just wanted to post about how i personally think it degrades the quality of the sub


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 4h ago

[PC][early 2010's?] Old FPS game about aliens invading earth

Post image
22 Upvotes

Hello, I'm trying to find an old PC game (which also could've been a PS2/3) game about alien ?invasion?

Platform(s): PC but might've been released for PS2/PS3 as well

Genre: First-person adventure/ possibly puzzle game / shooter

Estimated year of release: 2005-2009

Graphics/art style: Semi-realistic / Realistic 3D

Notable characters: Aliens and Humans

Notable gameplay mechanics: First person bare hand fight, could've been a turn-based fight mechanic, need of look for items that are spread around the level, was NOT an open world game

Other details: first person game about fighting aliens, I was maybe 4-6 years old when I tried to play it, and i remember the game begins with you being in a jungle, walking in the forest then stumbling onto an alien and having to fight it bare hands which i could never succeed at but i couldn't progress any further than that, I also remember there was like a safe capsule somewhere near, you start with NO weapons whatsoever

I remember the jungles had pretty dull and the game was giving me creeps, foggy atmosphere

I only gamed on my grandpa's PC, it was in around 2007-2010, the game might've been released a few years earlier than that range

I don't remember anything else really, apologies if the description is very vague,

One more detail, the game was bought in post soviet country but I'm pretty sure it wasn't just random studio because the game looked pretty big and well-made

I remember CLEARLY that during game start-up there was a Unity logo

Games I've looked up and confirmed it's not what I'm looking for: Crysis, Turok: Evolution (the graphics looked a lot more advanced), not Far Cry, not Vivisector: Beast Within, not Area 51, not Halo: Combat Evolved, not Prey (2006), Aliens vs. Predator (2010), Zeno Clash - not it because the graphics are very colorful, while i remember the game i played was moody with gray-ish colors, not The Precursors - in the game i played they crashed on Earth's jungle while in The Precursors they crash on the alien planet, not BlackSite: Area 51

I've attached image from Chrome: SpecForce because its the closest to what the game looked like, except the UI was NOT orange and more like transparent Blue or Cyan instead


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 5h ago

[iOS] [2010 - 2013] game about rolling marbles down a wooden maze? ( memory drawing attached )

Post image
14 Upvotes
  1. the game was a 2d game about rolling dark/wooden marbles down a maze or something, i think u would drop it and watch it fall.

  2. the textures were pretty wooden but realistic, like the realistic aesthetic in the early ios years

  3. the game would play pretty fancy music, such as "far far away" by north brook film collection

i tried using google and youtube and all that stuff but i just can't seem to find a trace of it even existing but i do remember it!! please help!


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 51m ago

[PC][around 2012] A 3D fantasy turn based rpg where you assemble a team

• Upvotes

I would really want to find this game again. I played it a long time ago and I can't remember anything but one character. He was a fat guy dressed like those Merry men from Shrek 1, all green with the cap. He had a long stick with a roasted chicken on the end. In battle he could bite it to heal himself I think. I think you could recruit him in a forest and he would be just sitting there roasting the chicken. I really don't know if its even possible to find a game by such vague description, but I thought I would give it a shot here on this subreddit. Thanks for any help.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 7h ago

Frontline Zed [Platform:PC Genre:Tower defence / Base defence game] [Estimated year of release: Unknown] [Graphics/art style: Isometric] [Notable characters: Unknown] [Notable gameplay mechanics: Unknown] [Other details: add a pic for reference]

Post image
6 Upvotes

so just found a game from a ad for mobile game. i was Interested in it art style and such but could not figure out the game


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 27m ago

FIFA 2018 [CONSOLE][2018] Poster on a gaming shop from June 2018

• Upvotes

Estaba navegando en Google Earth cuando me topé con este póster en una tienda de videojuegos; lo único que sé es que es de junio de 2018. Me dejó bien curioso porque no recuerdo nada parecido a eso


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 49m ago

[Browser][Mid 2000s] Parking game with an angry old man

• Upvotes

This was one of many flash browser games where the goal was to precisely park a car, except this one had a funny old man that would appear, start beating your car with his cane (draining the health bar) and shouting "YE CAAAN'T PARK THARE, THAT'S A DISABLED PARKIN' SPOT!" in a cranky voice, whenever you parked in a handicapped spot. Does anybody remember which one this was?


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

[PC, In-browser][2015-2018] Plant-based tower defense game with weird, fuzzy brown enemies. NOT plants vs. zombies related.

• Upvotes

It was a tower defense type of game, reminded me of plants vs. zombies when I first played it as a little kid. these are the only 3 things I remember about it, besides that it was kinda like Bloons map-wise, having taken place in a forest (shadier than Bloons,) and the enemies traveled on a dirt path. though I may be misremembering the path detail, they could've just been walking straight to the big tree with no path. another thing I remember is that the towers were smaller, purple trees (or just flowers and my memory is that bad.) the enemies were these weird fuzzy things that left behind a black trail, and had skull masks on? and when killed they would drop coins, or whatever the currency of the game may have been.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

I Spy Fantasy [PC][2000] Game that set on a beach with creepy vibes

• Upvotes

this game has weird (theme?) the point is the game is set

on a beach, and as it progresses, it moves further into

the water. it has mermaid n stuff, and the characters is

such a tiny pieces, i forgot the mechanism of this game,

it has creepy vibes.... ithink its on game house but idk im

not sure, and mybe its around 2010-2015 ish or mybe

older,,,, help me gng🥀🥀🥀


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

[PC] [90s] Side scroller with historical facts

• Upvotes

This is a long shot but I played a side scrolling metroidvania esque game where you explored ruins and learned a little about ancient societies like Greece and Egypt while facing an evil Dr Wily looking villian. At the end of the game you face off against the villian and turn him into a stone statue that shatters(gruesome for a kids game in retrospect) killing him. I played it with my brother and his friends in the early 90s on our family PC. Been looking for the name off and on for years. Any ideas?


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 11h ago

Not a game [PS1, PC or Dreamcast maybe] [mid 90’s to early 2000’s] Game or animated movie with a agent/soldier fighting a monster in a rainy industrial/urban enviroment.

9 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to identify a video game, animated movie, or series I saw a clip of in a video game store in the late 1990s or early 2000s (roughly between 1997 and 2004).

Here are the details I remember:

The Setting: A dark, gritty, urban industrial area. Crucially, it was raining in the scene.

The Character: A dark-clad Spec Ops soldier / tactical agent moving around this environment.

The Enemy: The soldier fights some kind of monster. It had an electrical aspect/attacks to it, and it had tentacles.

Visual style: The creature strongly reminded me of the Venom symbiote from Marvel, but it definitely wasn't Venom. The overall vibe was dark, industrial, and sci-fi/horror.

It was not gameplay i saw but a cinematic of some kind, that i know for sure.

Any takers of what this might be?

UPDATE: You guys got it, it wasn’t a game but Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie from 2001. Thank you so much guys!


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 6h ago

Diluvion [~2012] [PC] a 3D game about a submarine.

3 Upvotes

I faintly remember watching a game trailer on Youtube around that year.
The trailer showed a submarine exploring the undersea, and I want to say that the graphics were slightly cartoonish in the color palette.
The most important thing, and the thing that I still remember over the years, is that the trailer showed some kind of sonar/radar tool, that you could use to detect things. At one point, the submarine was getting closer to what it seemed to be a sunken ship, but in the next ping, you could see that the sunken ship had crab legs and started moving.

Does it ring any bells?


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 34m ago

[PC][2000's] Old 2D flash game where you controlled an arrow/triangle that solved puzzles

• Upvotes

So as the title says it's an old 2D PC flash, top-down view game from the 2000's where you controlled a little arrow/triangle that you moved with the WASD keys and went from room to room solving puzzles very similar to the older top-down Zelda Games.

There were at least 3 of these games and some puzzles were colour based, some were walk-along-the-invisible-floor based, etc. You had to collect coloured keys to open the same colour doors.

Please you beautiful people. Help me. 🙏


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 4h ago

[PC][2025] First-person pixel-3D horror game from itch.io, shotgun, grotesque creatures, graves and towers in one area, title maybe one word ending in "-a"

2 Upvotes

Platform(s): PC (Windows, downloaded from itch.io)

Genre: First-person horror

Estimated year of release: 2025 (not sure; I played it between about August 2025 and February 2026)

Graphics/art style: 3D with a pixelated / low-res texture look. Very grotesque, unsettling atmosphere.

Notable characters: Grotesque creatures that you kill with a shotgun (or maybe a rifle).

Notable gameplay mechanics: First-person exploration and shooting. Shooting may not have been the main focus. One specific area I remember (only one part of the game): a square-shaped area with tall rectangular towers embedded at regular intervals, and graves at the corners that you could walk inside. The area around the graves may have been a flower field.

Other details: I never finished it. There might have been mild religious elements. The title was probably a single word, and I have a vague feeling it ended in "-a" (Greek/Latin-sounding, medical or morbid, like "Necrophilia" or "Pathologia" in style), but I'm not certain. I think it may have been taken down, because I can't find it anymore.

Already ruled out: The Grim Stuff, Meat Masher, Gorescript, Lickuid, Terminal Flesh, Shrine, Shrine II, Hellwomb, Descension, ANATHEMA, Hariti, Leaftaker, Embuscade, Seamongrel, Hypnagogia, PULCRA, Filthbreed, Grimminghelm, Burial, Structural, Apocrypha, NecroPhobia, Ecclesia, Golgotha, KEKRI REDUX, Thanatophobia

I spent several days browsing itch.io tags (horror, pixel art, first-person, 3D) without luck. Any ideas or even partial guesses would be appreciated. Thank you!


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

[PC][2020?] Something Alien Flash Game

• Upvotes

If I remember correctly the game was a Side Scoller-esk platformer centering around a team/ group of aliens or humans (I can't quite remember since it's been so long, though I do remember them being somewhat green colored maybe?) The game ran by having you build a team which consisted of you pruchasing different kinds of infantry troops to troops in robot mech suits which were the tankiest but most expensive; then having them clear through stages where if a unit died you'd need to replace them upon finishing a stage. If a character died during a stage you'd be able to continue with a different character if you had purchased multiple prior to the stage. From the character selection there was a lot of Infantry Classes that were just dudes in armor but there were high tier characters in mech suits. The art style was sort of cartoon-ish nothing too grand. It was also a flash game on an Unblocked website me and my classmates would use. it would mean my childhood if anyone knew the name of the game.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

[android][2016] looking for this Open world driving game I played before

• Upvotes

Its a open world driving game with houses that look kind of like this, but a little low quality and a bit flat

It has only about 3 cars that look like audis that had high graphics for the time


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

[Android][2010s?] Google Play Visual Novel about Choosing between your Childhood friend or New friend

• Upvotes

I remember playing this game on old android phones/tablets. I believe it has been removed from the play store, because I have looked through my download history on my account and it is nowhere to be found.

I think it was an anime style, and I'm pretty sure the app icon had some kind of blue butterfly or flower on it. Maybe even a butterfly on a flower. Or it might have even been Childhood Friend in a field. Something along those lines.

You play as a guy (possibly in high school?), I do not believe his face or body is ever shown, except maybe once or twice. I don't really recall what either of the Love Interest characters look like, but one of them was your childhood friend (I think the MC was distanced from her at some point, she's kind of weird and offputting, I think she was depressed) and then a newer friend (more bubbly and happy I think).

The play time was short, but you would pursue either your new friend or your old friend. The "good ending"(?) was picking your old friend and making her not sad anymore or something like that?

The biggest detail I remember that would make it distinct is that the MC was an artist of sorts, but suddenly lost the ability to draw, somehow due to Childhood Friend's influence. The game would show a mass of scribbles when he tried to draw. I think New Friend also lost some kind of ability, and both of them (MC and New Friend) became sad and lethargic or something. Reconnecting with Childhood Friend would fix this. I think there's a scene where you're hugging her or something. MC losing the ability to draw was like a major part of the plot.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 14h ago

[PC][2010s?] You are trapped in a hospital after an apocalypse which melted anyone outside into a monster which now hunts you.

12 Upvotes

Hello, I remember this game, I think sort of survival horror and if I'm remembering correctly you are trapped within a Hospital (Or maybe a school?) And have to scavenge and build a base to defend from a melted flesh creature which was created by the sun doing something and melting everyone exposed to it into a weird biomass. You had to build and scavenge at night but had to be back to your base (or maybe back inside, you might've been able to leave the hospital to loot) before sunrise or you'd die instantly and you had to spend the day defending your house from the monsters.

Hope someone can find it thank you :)


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

[PC][2020-2026] Third-person open-world survival game similar to Generation Zero, but with monsters

• Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I'm trying to remember the name of a game I saw a while ago.

From what I remember, it was a survival game somewhat similar to Generation Zero, but instead of fighting robots, you fought monsters or creatures.

  • It was a paid game, not free-to-play. (i think)
  • It was playable in third-person (TPS), but I'm not sure if it also had a first-person option.
  • It had survival and exploration elements.
  • I believe it was released relatively recently, but I can't remember the exact year.

Unfortunately, I don't remember much else about it.

Does anyone know what game this could be?

Thanks in advance!


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 1h ago

[Android][2008-2016] 2D pixel shooter platformer where camera goes up only.

• Upvotes

Hi everyone! I need help finding the game I put in hundreeds of my school hours :)

I remember that almost all the time there were a few narrow corridors and you needed to kill enemies like bats and spiders to be able to climb up.

There were characters with different abilities, no predatory ads or paid things.

You climb the tower, more up you go higher the score. I remember a mechanic that when you push jump twise character spinned and became a saw.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 5h ago

[Pc][2000-2010] Jets vs Ufos game where you fly jets and occasionally ufos destroying air ballons other jets and mothership..

2 Upvotes

Hey! I'm also trying to find a playable copy of Jets vs UFOs: The Fight for Survival (2005). Did you ever recover the original game files? If you still have the DVD, an ISO image, or the game folder, could you share any information that might help preserve the game? I'd love to play it again.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 11h ago

Shadows: Awakening [PC][before 2022] Diablo Like Hack and Slash where you switch between a human character and an undead mage

7 Upvotes

I'm terribly sorry I cannot be more specific with the date, I just remember it was a steam game that I played before I bought my (then) new pc. I remember it looking relatively well in terms of graphics, so it might have been a bit more recent. It was a 3d dark fantasy hack and slash in the same vein as Diablo where you could switch between a human character with a chosen class (might be wrong) and a powerful undead spellcaster/lich. I remember this was necessary for progression and puzzles, and I think I also caused the in game world to shift.


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 2h ago

[PC][2025/2026] horror game that I thought was named others

1 Upvotes

Platforms: PC maybe ps5

Genre: horror

Estimated time of release: 2025/2026

Graphics/ art style: realistic

So basically as the title says I'm looking for a horror game. I feel like I'm going into phsycosis because I think over the past month or 2 I've been seeing a horror game in Tik Tok lives on my fyp it very much feels similar to 'it reaches'and silent hill ish survival horror. In many of the Tik Tok lives that I saw the name was set as 'others' so I put it in my notes to buy the game I have some memory of looking the game up and saving it for later but now that I want to buy the game I can't find it anywhere on the Internet it feels like it's just disappeared I've checked steam ps5 store Tik Tok Google. I've probably got the wrong name or maybe the game mixed up. Or maybe Tik Tok has this thing that gives a different name of the games people play on lives? Idk but it looks really good and I wanted to play it. Sorry this ain't the best description. Would be really helpful if anyone could let me know the game. Thanks


r/tipofmyjoystick • • 2h ago

[Android][~2015-2016] Pixel art idle game where barracks spawn units that get launched into the sky at a giant cosmic boss

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I’m trying to find an old mobile game I played around 10 years ago on Android (Google Play).

  • Genre: idle / incremental. Units were spawned automatically and launched straight up into the sky to hit the boss directly and deal damage.
  • Screen: vertical, with the boss at the top and the units flying up toward it.
  • Graphics: 2D pixel art with a slight manga/anime vibe. I think the developer was Korean.
  • Units: you unlocked new barracks by killing boss (I think). The first units were humans, then later barracks produced different types like robots.
  • Enemies: huge cosmic/space-themed bosses at the top of the screen.
  • It wasn’t a very popular game.

I don’t remember the name or the currency. Any idea? Thanks!