Sam Barlow Walks Us Through the Roguelikes and Minimalist Gems in His Steam Library

The Designer Behind Her Story Has Strong Opinions About His Steam Queue

Sam Barlow is the kind of developer whose games make you rethink what a video game can actually be. Her Story had you piecing together a murder mystery through fragmented video clips. Immortality asked you to reconstruct three lost films, one paused frame at a time. So when PC Gamer sat down with Barlow to rifle through the games sitting in his Steam library, the results were predictably interesting.

The headline quote says a lot: “I am a big roguelike guy, but also a fan of minimalism and elegance.” That particular combination of tastes is not as contradictory as it might first sound. The best roguelikes, after all, tend to thrive on elegant systems rather than sprawl. Think of how much Hades communicates through a single run, or how Slay the Spire strips card-game complexity down to something you can parse in seconds. Barlow’s own work operates on a similar philosophy, doing more with less, trusting the player to fill in the gaps.

What His Library Reveals

As reported by PC Gamer, Barlow’s guided tour of his Steam library gives a rare, candid look at how a narrative-focused designer actually spends his personal gaming time. It is easy to assume that someone who builds introspective, slow-burn experiences exclusively plays the same. The roguelike affinity complicates that assumption in the best way. Roguelikes are about repetition, failure, and incremental mastery, qualities that sit at a different end of the spectrum from the deliberate, almost forensic pacing of something like Her Story.

But the throughline is that word: elegance. Barlow is clearly drawn to games that do not waste the player’s time, that trust their own mechanics enough not to over-explain themselves. That sensibility has shaped everything he has made. Her Story gave you a search bar and a database of video clips and got out of your way. Immortality handed you a Moviola and let you draw your own conclusions.

Why a Developer’s Library Matters

There is a reason publications like PC Gamer run features like this, and it is not just voyeurism. The games a designer plays tell you something about what they value, what problems they are trying to solve, what solutions they have found inspiring. Barlow’s combination of roguelike enthusiasm and minimalist sensibility suggests a designer constantly thinking about systems, about what can be removed without losing meaning, about how constraints generate creativity.

For players who loved Her Story or Immortality and have wondered what to play next, Barlow’s tastes function as an informal recommendation list from someone who thinks carefully about what makes an experience stick. His is not a library stuffed with every prestige release of the past decade. It reflects specific, considered preferences.

The feature also serves as a reminder that the people making the most formally adventurous games are often voracious, eclectic players themselves. Barlow did not arrive at the interactive video format by accident. He got there through years of playing, absorbing, and questioning what games can ask of an audience.

For anyone curious about where a mind like his goes when it is not building something new, the PC Gamer feature is worth your time. The roguelike detail alone reframes how you might look at his back catalog.