This Won't Make You Happy, by Mike Gillis
Contrary to how it is advertised, I did not find this game funny at all, but I found value in it nonetheless.
Spoilers follow, it’s difficult to say anything substantive about this game without them:
This Won’t Make You Happy has much to offer: trying to eat stalactites; killing a goblin (it was self-defense, I swear); staring at a black wall. But most of all, it consists of collecting gems. Why? The protagonist studies the works of several real-life video game theorists to try to answer this very question, and ultimately concludes that it’s because the gems are shiny and it’s just fun to collect them.
One can also attempt to eat the gems, which is not successful. This, I feel, is the most important aspect of the game. To be clear: it’s a choice-based game and the author intentionally provides the option of attempting to eat the gems at several points.
So I think there is significance in the juxtaposition of the choice to merely collect the gems, which is successful, against the choice to try to eat them, which is not successful. Perhaps it is a comment on the nature of gaming, or at least of certain types of gaming. One can get a fleeting pleasure from collecting virtual macguffins, but it can’t nourish the human being in the way that one really needs. Ultimately, such a diversion won’t make you happy.
That, at least, is my best attempt to interpret this work.