3. the gentleman
[seeing as this is a browser-based game, i'll link it here for anyone curious enough to try it for themselves.]
i played this game on newgrounds when i was little and i couldn't beat it but then i played it as an adult and i could beat it.
i remember this was one of the first games i ever played where i thought, like, "wow, anyone can make a game, huh." indie games were already part of my world thanks to XBLA but this was one of the first newgrounds games that i conceptualized as being made by someone or a group of someones who really weren't any more special than i am. i looked at the walk cycle and tried to determine how much effort it took to make. i made note of all the reused assets. i tried to imagine if i, with the level editors you'd find built into some puzzle platformers of the era, could create puzzles of this caliber.
the game is ultimately not super good, but it's not bad either. it's a fine way to spend 45 minutes or so but it gets boring towards the end and the level where you have to like, dodge invisible obstacles by looking at your shadow or whatever, can, quite honestly, fuck off and die, but other than that this game is serviceable. i do aspire towards greater heights, now that i'm 25 and don't know anything about game development but am making vague strides in the direction of eventually pursuing a game dev-focused education, but the gentleman stayed in my memory and i think about it sometimes when questioning the achievability of any of my ambitions.