10 Games TikTok Convinced Me To Buy This Year

Look, I need everyone to understand something before we begin: TikTok has completely destroyed my ability to make responsible decisions.

I don’t buy games because of reviews anymore. I don’t even buy games because my friends recommend them. No, now I buy games because I saw a clip at 1am of a silly little guy falling off a mountain while somebody screamed into their mic like they were being hunted for sport. It's true. So here are the games TikTok absolutely manipulated me into buying this year.

Sledding Game

I saw one TikTok of a tiny penguin sledding down a hill at Mach 5 while three frogs watched from the sidelines like they were witnessing a Nascar event, and I ran to Steam.

Sledding Game feels scientifically engineered in a lab to appeal directly to people who miss the golden age of Flash games and also own at least one plushie. Everything about it is aggressively charming.

The developer posting updates on TikTok was genius because every clip looked like the kind of game you accidentally lose six hours to. Watching the map slowly evolve through TikTok clips also made me weirdly emotionally attached to this game before I even bought it. Like I was following the development of somebody’s tiny cozy child. Also, there is something deeply powerful about a game whose entire pitch is 'what if little creatures went wheeeeeeeeeee downhill'.

Librarian: Tidy Up The Arcane Library

Librarian: Tidy Up The Arcane Library going viral proved to me that TikTok users will turn any task into a personality trait. Because explain to me why millions of people were suddenly debating whether shelving books in silence was cozy or psychologically torturous. The premise is almost unbelievably simple. You organize books in a magical library. That’s it. You just sort books like the world’s most overqualified library assistant. Yet, I couldn’t stop watching videos of it.

Every TikTok about this game felt like a social experiment. Half the comments were people saying “this looks so relaxing". The other half were people saying they’d rather walk into traffic than alphabetize fake spellbooks for four hours. Naturally, I bought it immediately.

Content Warning

Content Warning feels like somebody looked at Lethal Company and said what if we added influencer culture. I mean that as the highest compliment possible.

The entire concept is perfect TikTok bait. You and your friends go into horrifying underground monster zones to record content for something literally called SpookTube. That’s already funny, but the real genius is that the game lets you save and upload the actual footage you recorded.

This meant TikTok immediately became flooded with clips of people screaming, dying, getting launched into walls, and accidentally filming the worst found-footage movie ever created. Of course, I bought it because I’m weak. Watching creators like CaseOh completely lose composure while some nightmare creature folded his squad like lawn chairs was enough to convince me this game needed to exist in my library.

Webfishing

Webfishing weaponized my Animal Crossing nostalgia against me personally. The second I saw clips of little cat avatars fishing together while chatting and being silly, I was finished. There was never any chance I wasn’t buying this game. TikTok basically held up a cozy aesthetic moodboard in front of me like a hypnotist’s watch.

Nothing dramatic happens, and nobody’s trying to save the world. You just exist peacefully with friends, catch fish, customize your character, and vibe. Apparently, that’s all people wanted because TikTok became absolutely obsessed with this game. I think part of the appeal is that Webfishing feels almost suspiciously sincere. There’s no battle pass, just tiny cats fishing together because life is hard, and sometimes you need that.

Super Battle Golf

Every TikTok clip of Super Battle Golf looks like a sporting event being held moments before societal collapse. People are driving golf carts directly into each other, swinging clubs like medieval warriors, deploying land mines, and somehow still trying to finish the course. The comments calling it “golf with friends, no golf against friends” were painfully accurate because this game turns every friendship into a temporary blood feud.

TikTok clips of it were impossible to resist because every single one escalated instantly. Somebody lines up a normal golf shot, and three seconds later, an orbital laser appears from the heavens like divine punishment. I bought it after seeing a clip of eight people piled into one golf cart speeding toward disaster while somebody screamed incoherently over proximity chat, and I have no regrets.

Dead As Disco

This game made my brain light up like a Vegas casino. Everything about Dead As Disco feels designed specifically for short-form video. Every punch that syncs with music looks like it belongs in an edited TikTok fancam with comments full of people saying “OH THIS ATE". It helps that they're correct.

Watching clips of combat synced perfectly to the soundtrack activated something primal in me. I was convinced I, too, could become a rhythm-fighting god instead of somebody who regularly misses quick-time events because I panic.

Megabonk

I need you to know the name alone already had me interested. Megabonk sounds like a game invented by somebody sleep-deprived at 4am, which, naturally, I respect. TikTok loved this game because every clip looked completely incomprehensible in the best possible way. There are explosions everywhere; a skeleton on a skateboard doing something deeply unsafe; a monkey in sunglasses causing what appears to be economic collapse.

Roguelikes go viral on TikTok because eventually they all reach a point where the gameplay stops looking intentional and starts resembling divine intervention. Megabonk hits that point almost immediately. It’s beautiful.

Repo

Repo convinced me that fear and stupidity are the two strongest forces in multiplayer gaming. The concept itself is already stressful enough. Carefully transport valuable objects while horrifying monsters try to kill you. It sounds pretty easy, except your teammates are also there, immediately turning every mission into a workplace safety violation.

TikTok clips of Repo were unavoidable for a while, and every single one followed the same formula of 'everything seems fine' to 'screaming disaster'. The monster encounters were a major reason the game exploded online, though the real stars are the characters themselves. Those weird little cylinder bodies and giant eyes make every moment ten times funnier. Fear becomes comedy instantly when the person screaming looks like a sentient thumb.

Also, there’s nothing funnier than watching a squad spend ten minutes carefully carrying fragile loot only for somebody to accidentally launch a microwave across the room moments before extraction. It's art, really.

YapYap

TikTok has fully entered its friends-screaming-into-microphones era, and YapYap might be the purest example of that. The gimmick is brilliant. You cast spells using your actual voice. Which sounds cool and immersive until you realize most people immediately use this power for evil.

Every viral clip of YapYap is just complete vocal mayhem, and I watched maybe five clips before buying it. Games like this do well because they create instant comedy without trying too hard. Nobody needs setup; the humor comes naturally from people completely falling apart under pressure. TikTok has become the natural habitat for friendslop games at this point. Every few months, a new co-op disaster simulator appears and collectively consumes the internet. Though with how fun it is, YapYap earned its place.

Peak

I knew this game was going to ruin my life when I saw somebody banana peel their friend off a mountain. Peak is the kind of game TikTok was born to promote because every clip is a perfect storm of teamwork, betrayal, physics disasters, and human suffering.

You’re supposed to work together to climb this giant mountain. Instead, every group turns into the worst expedition team imaginable. People constantly fall, somebody always wastes important items, and at least one person becomes obsessed with sabotaging everyone else for content. The banana clips alone probably sold thousands of copies. There’s just something timeless about slapstick comedy occurring at catastrophic heights.

Peak captures the exact energy of trying to cooperate with people who share one collective brain cell. Which apparently is my favorite game genre now. TikTok didn’t just convince me to buy Peak. It convinced me that watching my friends repeatedly fall off a mountain would somehow count as entertainment. Disturbing realization, truly.