Twin Peaks-likes (in release order)
A Twin Peaks-like game must have some, though not necessarily always all, of the following components:
- An outsider (often from the city) enters into a small town or community for a certain purpose (often investigating a murder).
- The people in this town are eccentric; the outsider is eccentric in their own way. The people have a complex web of pre-existing relationships.
- The player explores the town (often in a mini-open world) gradually meeting the various characters and finding various locations. Key is the sense of "place" being portrayed in the town.
- It's weird.
- There's a mystery.
- Bonus points if the characters have their own schedules, or time otherwise passes as you play.
See also the games of Love-de-Lic and their descendants, which share the idea of exploring a world and meeting eccentric characters who have their own schedules. I'm not including them here because they're uniquely their own style distinct from this, though there is overlap.
