Top 10 Most Trippy Video Games

Let's start this off with a game that does trippy in a tame way. Proteus takes place on a serene island with colorful, natural settings and wildlife. Unlike most if not nearly all video games, there is no real objective except to explore the island. The entire world is a colorful cornucopia of pixelated graphics with somber yet dulcet music accompanying it. This music changes when the nameless first-person playable character is near certain items and animals. Days pass in a matter of minutes and seasons change when heading toward an ominous, scattered white light. The island is randomly generated with every new play-through so players will never have the same experience twice.

Oh love, making people do crazy things since forever. Feel the Magic stars a guy trying to get noticed by a woman he fell for at first sight. Joining the Super Performance Group, the Rub Rabbits, he'll do anything to be with her. In this case, anything involves odd challenges in the form of insane mini-games. Fortunately, the Rub Rabbits have the perfect strategy, “Rub It". That's right no matter if he faces a herd of bulls, a pack of scorpions, a swarm of bees, a giant snake, or a damp dress, just rub it.

There's an order to things like a top 10 list or a video game plotline, but try telling that to Stanley. As the sole person left in his office as his co-workers and boss go missing, Stanley investigates. This all could lead him to a happy ending if he listens to what the smooth-voiced narrator tells him. The catch is Stanley doesn't have to listen, he can decide to disobey the wise storyteller, ranging from doing the opposite of what the pencil pusher is told or just wasting time. Stanley potential story derailing could even lead to shocking moments. And while we don't condone our fellow narrator's more lethal actions, one can only be pushed so far.

If there is one game genre that would trek trippy territory it's rhythm games. Thumper, in that regard, is no different, but that's where the similarities with its contemporaries end. Unlike Frequency and its vibrant colors, licensed tracks and one-man band gameplay, Thumper is a dark ride of rhythm violence with a chrome beetle as its rider. Literally on the fast lane, it's thump, jump or slam to create hard beats out of dystopian techno music. There is little room for error, made all the more difficult by rave lights, hairpin curves and oh so many tentacles, all revealed at a breakneck pace.

After the murder of her grandfather, Alex Roivas takes it upon herself to investigate his murder. She finds the Tome of Eternal Darkness, which teaches her how to use magic. Of course, there's a catch as reading the tome plays with a person's grip on reality. This is where the sanity meter comes into play. As characters interact with monsters, the meter decreases which causes sanity effects. Blood drips from the wall, statues come alive, and characters blow up. That's not even counting when these sanity effects get Meta and screw around with the game's mechanics and controllers. The sanity effects are only temporary, so it's easy for the characters to fool themselves into thinking this can't be happening.

Trippy, in the case of this satirical platformer, made Psychonauts a critically beloved cult hit. While it's solid gameplay helps make it a good game, it's the off the wall atmosphere that makes it stand out. Taking place in a camp of young psychics, players are treated to a compelling story with and odd premise and even stranger characters. On the surface, the characters that the hero, Raz, has to interact with look like those out of a Tim Burton film. As Raz explores the inside some of their minds, he discovers hidden secrets, emotional baggage and a vile conspiracy (not the one about the milkman). One of gaming's hidden gems, one would have to be a psycho not to love it.

From Psychonauts to psychedelic, this space shooter takes Tempest-inspired gameplay and adds its own cerebral scrambling touches. Playing as the titular Space Giraffe, the goal is to shoot enemies and gain points. Oops, forgot to mention, everything in the game is trying to be as distracting as possible. From the strange levels, the random sound effects, to the colorful, wavy backgrounds to...is..is that a woman's face? Even the camera will play tricks on player like making it harder to find enemies that are the same color as the levels. The game doesn't even try to make any sense, but as long as bad guys are getting blown up then everything will be giraffe-tastic.

As stated before, rhythm games are pretty trippy. While Rez can be mistaken for one, instead, it's a rail shooter that makes fresh techno music. Playing a hacker who infiltrated the super-network, Project-K, every virus that is shot at and usually destroyed emits a small riff of music. The visuals in these levels are diverse and ever changing and newer viruses vary in size, scope, and shape. As rail shooters tend to focus on automatic movement, the hacker's avatar gently floats along throughout the level while shooting things with lasers that come out of its body. With the updated re-releases, HD and Infinite, this quirky song shooter will resonate with players looking for originality.

There is absolutely no doubt in any gamer's mind that Atari's original Pong is one of the architects of the existence of video games, but times change. Sometimes an old dog needs to learn new tricks and the tricks Plasma Pong had up its sleeve is nothing short of amazing. The biggest update is to its gameplay with the aforementioned plasma. This mysterious substance flows like dust in the wind while going all matter of directions. It can also pull in or push out the ball from the paddles and explode when a goal is scored. With the colors of the paddles and the plasma changing constantly and the gameplay and epic orchestral score speeding up after every point, this Pong spin-off is a plasma blast.

Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

"Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions" (2014)

"Seaman" (2000)

"PaRappa the Rapper 2" (2002)

Unlike some of the other games on this list, LSD runs on premium grade nightmare fuel. That's not just a joke, as the game takes place in a dream world and is partially inspired by the 10-year dream journal of creator Osamu Sato's co-worker, Hiroko Nishikawa. The fact that the game is named after a known hallucinogenic drug meant that it was always going to be highly experimental stuff. With the game’s progression, the stages get more unsettling blending elements from other stages and character models. There is also the Gray Man; he likes stalking any unfortunate soul who happens to be dreaming at the time. Fortunately, he's just a video game character...maybe.