Games like The Diary
If The Diary is your kind of game, the closest matches are 南栀 Unwavering love, Pact Between Us and 镜花饴情 Mirage Sugar Acacia — picked from the ranked list below. Reviewers single out its atmospheric, emotional and melancholic. Each pick is ranked by what players of this game also play, shared genres and tags, and review-mined similarity — not a generic popularity list.
Get personalized picks →About The Diary: Several diaries gradually reveal the thrilling story of a missing case; after multiple deductions, are the answers in the past or present? With frequent plot twists, you never know which is the truth and which is the unexpected; in a dense fog, time buries the past, but the marks remain.
Players who liked The Diary also play
Steam players who put hours into The Diary also tend to own these titles — a signal called collaborative filtering. imho.run cross-references millions of library ownership patterns to surface games whose real audiences overlap, regardless of whether their genre tags match.
南栀 Unwavering love
WHY THIS
Shares visual novel style, narrative driven and an atmospheric mood with The Diary.
Top pick for The Diary fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
《南栀》是一款百合向视觉小说游戏，讲述了在前作（夜永 Eternal Love）剧情发生一年半之后，聆花女子学院中的少女们成长的故事。
Pact Between Us
WHY THIS
Shares emotional and a melancholic mood with The Diary.
Second-strongest match for The Diary fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
"Pact between us" is a FMV. After the loss parents, you and your younger sister become siblings who only have each other. You must tenderly care for her daily life.What kind of woman will your sister grow into? Every arrangement you implement during her upbringing carries profound weight.
镜花饴情 Mirage Sugar Acacia
WHY THIS
Shares perspective switching, visual novel style and atmospheric with The Diary.
Third-strongest match for The Diary fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
饴情甜蜜转瞬即逝，女生之间的爱情就像镜花般脆弱。 踏入大学校园的自由舞台，交织着理想与现实迷茫前行，她们的缘分是否可以开花结果呢？ 甘之如饴的一对一百合故事，多结局。
S-mail
WHY THIS
Shares visual novel style, psychological and an atmospheric mood with The Diary.
Ranked #4 for The Diary fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
After the death of your lover May, you suddenly receive a new email: she is back, in the form of AI "M". The lover who "lives" in the mailbox, who is strong and eternal, always online, and always loves you. You just need to send letters to her: your choices will affect her and the story.
Far Away
WHY THIS
Shares hidden collectibles and an atmospheric mood with The Diary.
Ranked #5 for The Diary fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and RPG with The Diary.
Far Away is a visual novel full of dark humor depicting immersive storylines rather than romantic drama. You will play as Krosa, a typical girl who experiences gang conflicts, crimes, conspiracies, and family grudges in the port city of Bedjan.
锈翅 逃离我的家乡 Without Wings
WHY THIS
Shares visual novel style and atmospheric with The Diary.
Ranked #6 for The Diary fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and RPG with The Diary.
玩家将以第一视角，扮演一名高中辍学的女孩，她被迫进入注塑厂打工。后来，她通过一款网络游戏，认识了大城市里的男孩阿澈，她义无反顾地向着有阿澈的未来奔去，也是向着能够逃离大山的未来奔去。在这跨越千里的鸿沟之间，她经历了期待、欣喜、意外、无助……最终，你将做出怎样的选择？
Only You
WHY THIS
Shares visual novel style, psychological and an emotional mood with The Diary.
Ranked #8 for The Diary fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and RPG with The Diary.
"Problem Child" me, Class Heartthrob her—two lines that should never cross collided through a series of coincidences, shattering my monochrome world. Crave her eyes on me alone, crave her world with me alone. The once-pure admiration begins to twist...
Cheaper alternatives
Games in the same vein priced at least 40% below The Diary at current Steam store prices.
Garry's Mod
WHY THIS
Priced ~61% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
Vampire Survivors
WHY THIS
Priced ~61% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie and RPG with The Diary.
Mow down thousands of night creatures and survive until dawn! Vampire Survivors is a gothic horror casual game with rogue-lite elements, where your choices can allow you to quickly snowball against the hundreds of monsters that get thrown at you. Be the bullet hell!
Slay the Spire
WHY THIS
Priced ~51% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie with The Diary.
We fused card games and roguelikes together to make the best single player deckbuilder we could. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!
Cookie Clicker
WHY THIS
Priced ~61% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
An idle game about making cookies! Originally released in 2013 on the web, and actively developed since then. This is the official version for Steam.
WEBFISHING
WHY THIS
Priced ~61% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Casual with The Diary.
WEBFISHING a multiplayer chatroom-focused fishing game! Relax and fish (on the web!)
POSTAL 2
WHY THIS
Priced ~92% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie with The Diary.
Live a week in the life of "The POSTAL Dude"; a hapless everyman just trying to check off some chores. Buying milk, returning an overdue library book, getting Gary Coleman's autograph, what could possibly go wrong?
Buckshot Roulette
WHY THIS
Priced ~77% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
Play Russian roulette with a 12-gauge shotgun. Four enter. One leaves. Roll the dice with your life. Good luck!
OneShot
WHY THIS
Priced ~53% under The Diary on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Casual with The Diary.
OneShot is a surreal top down Puzzle/Adventure game with unique gameplay capabilities. You are to guide a child through a mysterious world on a mission to restore its long-dead sun. The world knows you exist.
Free alternatives
Free-to-play games that recommended players of this title also tend to enjoy.
Doki Doki Literature Club!
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Casual with The Diary.
The Literature Club is full of cute girls! Will you write the way into their heart? This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.
Life is Strange - Episode 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Episode 1 now FREE! Life is Strange is an award-winning and critically acclaimed episodic adventure game that allows the player to rewind time and affect the past, present and future.
Ultimate Custom Night
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with The Diary.
Welcome to the ultimate FNAF mashup, featuring 50 selectable characters and custom difficulties!
Bongo Cat
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
Bongo cat needs your help. Bongo cat needz more hatz!!! Every time you press a key, Bongo cat will punch your taskbar. Type, click, play, work to collect more points. Which hats will you find?
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Simulation with The Diary.
Sonic the Hedgehog...was murdered!? Get to the bottom of the mystery in this brand-new adventure!
Indigo Park: Chapter 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with The Diary.
Explore the abandoned childhood wonder of Indigo Park! Guided by Rambley the Raccoon, help restore power to the destroyed amusement park while you run from the reason it shut down.
Our Life: Beginnings & Always
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Casual with The Diary.
A twenty-dollar bill, four summers, fifteen years, and a one of a kind life. Create an experience that’s all your own in this near-fully customizable visual novel where you grow from childhood to adulthood with the lonely boy next door.
Narrow it down
Head-to-head comparisons
Frequently asked about The Diary
- Does The Diary run on Steam Deck?
- The Diary is rated Playable on Steam Deck — it runs, but expect some manual adjustments (control remapping, text size, or graphics settings) for the best experience.
- How much does The Diary cost?
- The Diary is listed on Steam at 12.79 USD (current store price; Steam sales may reduce this temporarily).
- What games are most similar to The Diary?
- Based on Steam play patterns and shared genres/tags, the games most often recommended alongside The Diary are 南栀 Unwavering love, Pact Between Us, 镜花饴情 Mirage Sugar Acacia.
- Who developed The Diary?
- The Diary was developed by HuCang Studio, Pone Games and published by IndieArk.
imho.run ranks Steam game alternatives using a mix of collaborative filtering (ALS / iALS / EASE / LightGCN), content scoring over genres, categories, Steam tags, developers, and publishers, plus AI-extracted vibes mined from review text. The page above is generated in seed mode anchored on The Diary.
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