Rather than keeping all of my achievement-unlocking secrets to myself, I decided to put together a list of the games that deliver the easiest points. Should you find yourself obsessing over them like I do, or locked in a gamerscore battle royale, I hope this guide serves you well. It’ll be updated whenever I find a new game that you need to know about.
6180 The Moon
- 16 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-4 Hours
If you’re respectable at platformer games, 6180 The Moon is a fun little game to venture into. While the challenges are difficult, checkpoints are in great abundance, and progress is inevitable if you stick with it. For each planet that is unlocked, the player nets a nice 50- or 100-point achievement. There are only two challenging achievements:
Gravity Free: 40 Points
M2 is the easiest stage to unlock this achievement on. It may take a few tries, but you should be able to make it to end without hitting the jump button.
Faster Than Light: 40 Points
As the difficulty ramps up, light is needed to make progress easier. While this achievement can technically be unlocked on numerous levels, VR3 is the one most people have had success with. Run along the barriers and you should be able to make it without the light.
ABZU
- 12 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-5 Hours
This relaxing underwater journey doesn’t pump out points, but if you go out of your way to explore and collect, you’ll earn huge 150 and 125 achievements. The video guides below will walk you through the challenging achievements, such as the locations of the hidden pools, statues, and shells. You’ll earn 100 points for completing the game, and 50 if you mediate and switch fish until you land on a predator. Just watch this beast until it feeds to get the points. Also make sure you ride a creature and flip to earn another 50, and leap out of the water for the same amount.
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ACA NEO GEO Games
- 12 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-7 Hours
Most of ACA’s NEO GEO games can be completed in a short amount of time for a huge bounty in points. Even dabbling in bonus modes usually nets you 50 to 80 points. The easiest games to rack up points in are Fatal Fury, Metal Slug 1 and 2, Neo Turf Masters, King of Fighters ’94 and ’95, World heroes, Galaxy Fight: Universal Warriors, Nam-1975, and Aero Fighters 2. All of the games are $7.99 and have 12 achievements.
Air Guitar Warrior (Kinect and GamePad Editions)
- 22 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-5 Hours
Riding on the back of a shark is dangerous, but rewarding. In Air Guitar Warrior, performing this feat will net plenty of achievements if you’re willing to work your way through the campaign. The game is fun, silly, and short. If you have a Kinect (you know, that camera thing), you can buy the game twice to double up on the achievements. If you defeat Zeus, you’ll earn 100 points. The only achievement that takes some serious time is reaching level 30, but it’s only worth 30 points.
Another World
- 12 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-4 Hours
I played the living hell out of Another World when it originally launched in 1991 under the name Out of This World. To much surprise, time has not affected this game in the slightest. The cinematic visuals are just as stunning now as they were back in the day. The same goes for the gameplay. Yes, it can be frustrating and demanding of precision, but in a fair and challenging way. It’s another game that can easily be digested in one sitting. And yes, you’ll reach the required 100 deaths for an achievement well before reaching the game’s final act. If you’re aiming to get all 1,000 achievement points, you’ll want to use this guide. A few of the achievements push you to do something at a specific time. Here they are:
Secret UFO: 100 Points
From the outset of play, when you free yourself from the cage and grab the gun, wait around for a 15 to 20 seconds for a UFO to fly across the top of the screen and deliver 100 gamerscore.
Explorer: 50 Points
A little ways after freeing yourself from a cage and downing a few guards, you’ll find yourself in a small, dome-shaped structure with a window on the right side. Walk over to it trigger a cinematic view and the achievement.
Free Fall: 75 Points
During a chase toward the end of the game, you’ll be reunited with your companion. He’ll throw you across a large gap. Purposely drop into the gap to unlock the achievement.
Batman: Arkham Knight
- 106 Achievements
- 1,840 Points
- Time Requirement: 10-15
Thanks to an influx of achievement-heavy DLC, Batman: Arkham Knight has quietly become one of the easiest games to rack up gamerscore in. Completing the main game alone can net you between 500-600 points, depending on how thorough you are. Each single-player DLC campaign can be completed in under half an hour for fast 30- or 50-point achievements. To get all of the points, you’ll need to play the AR challenges extensively and net 21 stars in all categories.
The Bunker
- 28 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 1-2 hours
The Bunker is an interactive live-action story that doesn’t require must input from the player to reach 1,000 gamerscore. The first achievement in the game is obtained after a four-minute sequence in which the player simply needs to click one button to lift a Bible. The only challenge comes from collecting objects like toys, cassettes, and a puzzle piece. Any time the game pauses to let you scan the environment, do a thorough scan for toys. The puzzle piece you need is in the vent. When you are in the vent, DO NOT press forward to move deeper within it, instead, look to your right to find the puzzle piece. Most of the collectibles hand out small 10-point achievements, but the story beats, which happen automatically give you 25 per chapter, and 100 when the game ends for each ending. To quickly get both endings, select one, watch it, skip the credits, then press “continue” on the main menu to play through the last section of the game again. It’ll take about 10 minutes. Select the other ending.
Contrast
- 22 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 5 to 7 Hours
Contrast pumps out 100 point achievements when any stage is finished and delivers a huge 200 point gift when the game is completed. Smaller 25 point achievements are peppered along the critical path. The toughest achievements are tied to the collectibles. If you can find all of the collectibles in a level, you’ll get a 50 point achievement. Here are some of the tricker ones:
To the Heroes Among Us: 25 Points
In Act 1 do not enter the Ghost Note Theater. Instead, walk past it down the road and activate the gramophone to create a shadow path up to the a switch that activates the Extra Life 2012 logo and achievement.
The Cyclops’ Bottle: 25 Points
In Act 2 activate the carousel and then ascend to the rooftops using the shadows. Keep working your way to the left across the moving shadow path to the final rooftop and an opening that leads to a row of tables with umbrellas over them. The bottle should be glowing brightly on one of these tables.
Costume Quest
- 18 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 8-10 Hours
I’m having a good time with Costume Quest 2. The combat is repetitive (especially in the early stages), but the humor and charm keep the game interesting. The story is also a fun ride. Achievements don’t necessarily come quickly, but are all in 50 or 100-point chunks. Most of them are tied to stuff you’ll complete on the critical path. Only three should be difficult to get:
45 Card Pickup: 50 Points
You’ll have to find all of the cards, many are hidden in chests, some are dropped by monsters, others are only obtained through trading with NPCs. You’ll have to be thorough and willing to backtrack to get this one.
Creepy Card Shark: 50 Points
To earn these points you’ll need to use every Creepy Treat Card in the game. You’ll have to start doing this from the outset of play. This can be extremely difficult if you are going for the Hardcorn Mode achievement, as one of your characters won’t be able to attack.
Hardcorn Mode: 100 Points
If you keep a character dressed in the Candy Corn costume for every battle you enter, you’ll earn 100 points. The battles are balanced in a way that you can win every fight with just two people attacking. I recommend keeping the costume on the second character. Just make sure you don’t accidentally change the costume in the overworld.
Cubot: The Complexity of Simplicity
- 10 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 1-5 Hours
All of Cubot’s achievements are earned by completing the levels, meaning you’ll earn all 1,000 gamerscore simply by finishing the game. The box-pushing puzzles are challenging, but fun. I recommend using the guide below if you happen to get stuck on one particular puzzle.
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Energy Cycle
- 10 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 20 minutes
If you don’t mind cheating, you can complete Energy Cycle in under 20 minutes. All you have to do is watch the excellently made walkthrough video below for the solutions to each of the game’s 28 puzzles. You don’t even need to click the orbs in the same order as the person in the walkthrough. You can approach them however you want. This is the fastest game to earn another 1,000 gamerscore in.
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Every Artifex Mundi Game
- 15-20 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-4 Hours
Artifex Mundi has been pumping out old-school, point-and-click adventure games on mobile, tablet, and PC for years. That catalogue of games is slowing finding a new home on Xbox One, and so far, all of the games deliver fast and easy achievements. The assistance of guides can speed up the process, but the games are fairly straight forward and come with in-game hint systems. Always play on the Expert difficulty to get huge game completion points. The games out right now are: Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink, Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart, and Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek.
Every Telltale Game
- 48-50 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 5-8 Hours
No, this is not a joke. Completing any Telltale game nets the player 1,000 achievement points. Each season of a game is five or six episodes lasting approximately five to eight hours. All of the achievements in every Telltale game are tied to story moments, so you can’t accidentally miss one. The games in the series you should play first: The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: Season 2, Tales from the Borderlands, and Batman. If you like what you see The Wolf Among Us is worth a look. Game of Thrones is the longest of the bunch (and the least satisfying). Minecraft: Story Mode is shorter, but still not complete as of this writing.
Fibbage: The Hilarious Bluffing Party Game
- 10 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 20 Minutes and Up
To earn Fibbage’s achievements quickly, you’ll either need a number of technology-savvy friends (the preferred method) or a number of tablets and phones at the ready. I unlocked 650 of the points using one phone and a tablet within 20 minutes of playing. The achievements outline exactly what you need to do. To unlock the additional 350 points, you’ll need to play an 8-player game, win the Thumbs Cup, fool every other player with a lie in a three-player, and play every question in the game. In 20 minutes, I only managed to play four percent of the questions. That one will take some time to unlock the 100-point achievement.
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious
- 25 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 2 to 4 Hours
Complete the first race in this game and you’ll earn a nice 100-point achievement. Over the next two to four hours of racing, the game doesn’t ease up on spitting out the points. Every new car that is unlocked nets you a 40-point achievement. The skill-based achievements also come quick. This is one of the easiest games on Xbox One to get 1,000 points in. Just complete the core races and you should get every achievement. You don’t have to worry about the secondary feats and collectibles.
Fractured Minds
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- 10 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 15 minutes to an hour
If you don’t mind opening all sorts of things as your primary means of gameplay, you can net an 1,000 gamerscore from Fractured Minds in roughly 15 to 20 minutes if you use the guide above. If you just play the game straight through, it make take roughly an hour. You also risk the chance of missing a few hidden objects along the way.
FullBlast
- 13 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 15-20 Minutes
If you enjoy scrolling shooters and can tolerate unending heavy metal, FullBlast delivers a good bit of fun, and all of its achievements can be unlocked within the first 15 to 20 minutes of play. All you have to do is make it to area 4 and shoot a specific number of the same enemy types along the way. You can even set it to easy if you are having issues with the bosses.
Gemini: Heroes Reborn
- 21 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3 to 5 hours
I played through this game purely to complete it and walked away with 840 achievements. Most of them are handed out for story missions and completing gameplay tasks that occur naturally as the game unfolds, such as catching 10 rockets. The most time consuming achievement is “Throw All Things,” worth 90 points, which requires you TK throw 1,000 objects. I only complete 43 percent of this one. The achievement “Secrets, Secrets” will also require a guide, but is only worth 40 points. To unlock the secret achievement, simply start the game again after finishing it.
Haunted: Halloween ’86 (The Curse of Possum Hollow)
- 10 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 20 Minutes
All of Haunted: Halloween ’86’s achievements can be unlocked in roughly 20 minutes. All you have to do is kill a specific number of enemies, collect a number of extra lives (the green canisters), and get a game over. You can do this over any number of playthroughs. Just keep going and you’ll hit 1,000 gamerscore in the blink of an eye. You can even set the game to easy to expedite the process.
Mr. Pumpkin Adventure
- 13 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 1 hour
This puzzle adventure game is short, beautiful, and strange as all get out. Most of the puzzles involve finding and item and figuring out where to place it. Some of the machines in the game hold minigames, which can be tricky. The game also offers two endings. I recommend making a save when you are given a blue and red pill. If you select the blue pill, you will rocket off to one ending and 100 points. If you use the red pill, you will be taken to an eighth chapter that contains another 100 point conclusion and the remainder of the scraps you need for another 100 points.
Never Alone
- 15 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 4-5 hours
Game Informer’s Joe Juba wasn’t a fan of Never Alone, but I found it to be a charming experience that bears its heart and takes players on a colorful adventure through the tundra. It also spits out big-point achievements from start to finish. This is a game that you can unlock 1,000 points in in one sitting. There are only a couple of achievements that you may have to go back and get after the first playthrough. Enjoy the game first and foremost, then go back and mop up the points later. The big thing: Listen for owls. When you hear one, find it. Always check to the left at the start of each level for an owl. Here are the achievements that may give you a little trouble:
Dendrologist: 50 Points
Within the opening moments of The Forest level you’ll hear an owl that you need to find. Don’t worry about it until you find yourself circling back toward the beginning. You’ll end up on a ledge with a tree across a small gap to the left and ice that must be broken below you. Don’t drop down to break the ice. Jump across the gap, hit the tree, and continue on to find the owl.
Insightful: 200 Points
After you finish the game and find all of the owls, which should mostly be accomplished in the opening playthrough, go into the video player. You don’t have to watch every video all the way through, but for whatever reason, just clicking all of the videos and backing out doesn’t seem to work, either. I had to watch five or six of them fully before the wonderful 200 point achievement popped up.
Ori and the Blind Forest
- 50 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 8-25 hours
Without going for any achievements in my initial playthrough, I walked away with 725 or the 1,000 points offered. If you want to unlock most of them, do not venture to the lower sections of the volcano before getting everything you can from the other areas. Once you engage the final boss, there’s no turning back. A completed game can no longer be accessed. Most of the achievements I unlocked came from the critical path, including a nice 100-point achievement for completing the game. You’ll need to play the game numerous times to unlock all of the achievements, as some are tied to feats like “complete the entire game without dying” and “complete the game without using an Ability Point.”
The Park
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 45 minutes-2 hours
The Park’s achievements require a keen eye and off-the-beaten path exploration. The first achievement “The Mist” can be obtained by leaving the park. It takes a few minutes, and you’ll earn 100 points for doing this. From this achievement on, most of the achievements are tied to objects in the environment. The video below walks you through all of them within 45 minutes!
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Pneuma: Breath of Life
- 11 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-4 hours
If you can tolerate an annoying narrator for a few hours, you should be able to unlock all 1,000 points from Pneuma: Breath of Life. I didn’t look at any guides for Pnuema, and walked away with all but two of the achievements. Here are the two you’ll need to keep an eye out for:
Spirit: 50 points
In chapter 2, you’ll need to activate five torches. To do this, you’ll need to deploy a number of techniques, like looking at them, looking away, and walking backwards. At this point in the game you should be acclimated with these techniques. Just hunt down the torches. Some of the torches in the world do not count for the achievement. You need to find ones that can be interacted with. The final two torches are right after the bridge with the eye that you need to interact with. Once they are activated, a pillar will appear with a message that gives you the achievement.
Soul: 50 points
This achievement is a pain in the butt, requiring you quit the game and bounce around to different chapters. The best advice I can give is to watch this video for the solution.
Rare Replay
- 200 Achievements
- 4,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 15 minutes to 100-plus hours
No, Rare Replay doesn’t deliver an easy 4,000 points, but you can add a few hundred points without playing any games. All you have to do is launch a game and you’ll earn 15 gamerscore just for firing it up. You can do this for all of the games in the collection.
Refunct
- 10 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 4 to 30 minutes
The first playthrough of this casual platformer can be completed in roughly 30 minutes, which will net you roughly 500 points. The hardest achievement to get is finishing the game in just four minutes. You’ll need to memorize the locations you need to hit and run through it mostly without error.
Slice Zombies
- 17 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 4-5 hours
After just one game, I unlocked six achievements. Around 700 achievement points can be unlocked in under an hour. The only difficult achievements are the 140-point “The Winner Takes All,” rewarded for completing the game, and “Champagne and Caviar,” unlocked after collecting 15,000 coins.
The Swapper
- 10 Achievements:
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 3-4 Hours
The Swapper’s achievements are next to impossible to unlock without using a strategy guide. The game offers 10 achievements, all tied to 10 incredibly well hidden terminals – often tucked away behind solid walls. The video below shows off the location of each terminal, and the methods needed to reach them, all while not spoiling any puzzle solutions.
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Tekken 7
- 43 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 5-6 Hours
Don’t be intimidated by the huge list of achievements: you’ll get most of them from playing the story mode and Treasure Battle, two of the most exploitable modes in Tekken 7. The story mode takes about two hours to complete (less if you skip all the cutscenes) and the most of the fights aren’t difficult. Be sure to take on the final challenge at the end, then do 10 Character Stories. Then head over to Treasure Battle, where you can pick Akuma, spam your fireball for about 60 straight matches to earn treasure boxes and rank up to Warrior, and get a lot of other achievements. In training mode, just do a 10-hit combo (the character King has one 10-hit string on his move list), then perform many of the basic maneuvers in the game. Finally, you’ll have to play 10 online matches and earn a win in Ranked, Player, and Tournament modes. These may be tough depending on who you go up against, but that’s still over 900 points you can get without really trying.
Thomas Was Alone
- 15 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 2-3 Hours
Outside of getting stumped on a few puzzles, I had no problem flying through this wonderful platformer. You won’t have to go out of your way to unlock the achievements awarded for jumping 1,600 times or dying 100 times – you should get those roughly halfway through the game. The only achievement that warrants unconventional play is “Part of the Problem.” To earn this one, place a character on Laura and put your controller down. After a minute or so, the achievement will ring out. To earn the Thomas Was Not Alone achievement, you’ll need to complete the bonus levels, which are unlocked after the credits roll. As for the collectibles, here are the levels you’ll find them in:
Mr. Lonely
Spawn – 0.3, 0.5
Three Amigos
Array – 1.8, 1.9
The Golden Fleece
Origin – 2.4, 2.9
True Romance
Associations – 3.4, 3.8
Lone Survivor
Purge – 4.4, 4.8
Defying Gravity
Invert – 5.1, 5.4
A Noble Quest
Iterate – 6.2, 6.7
Creativity
Design – 7.1, 7.10
Desaturated
Generation – 8.5, 8.10
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Y+1, X+1 – 9.2, 9.10
Whispering Willows
- 19 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 1 Hour
Most of Whispering Willow’s big achievements can be missed, and take a fair amount of exploration to uncover. I recommend playing the game to completion on your own, and going through a second time to mop them up using the video guide below, which walks you through the entire game in under an hour.
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Your Toy
- 22 Achievements
- 1,000 Points
- Time Requirement: 1 Hour
This short puzzle-horror experience delivers most achievements along the critical path, but you will have to restart the game for a few of them – such as dying three times (for 40 points), and finding the key in the cave’s first light (for 60 points). The video below by Achievement Land shows you how to solve every puzzle.
