This might be a slightly unusual attempt at a prompt, but might draw some appealing unusual options.
The way it goes: Suggest games, ideally the kind that you believe would have relatively broad appeal. Don’t feel bad about downvotes, but do downvote any game that’s suggested if you have heard of it before (Perhaps, give some special treatment if it was literally your game of the year). This rule is meant to encourage people to post the indie darlings that took some unusual attention and discovery to be aware of and appreciate.
If possible, link to the Steam pages for the games in question, so that anyone interested can quickly take a look at screenshots and reviews. And, as a general tip, anything with over 1000 steam reviews probably doesn’t belong here. While I’d recommend that you only suggest one game per post, at the very most limit it to three.
If I am incorrect about downvotes being inconsequential account-wide, say so and it might be possible to work out a different system.
I you love puzzle games you need to try Can of Wormholes,
over 100 handcrafted puzzle stages where every puzzle introduces a new idea or interaction, very underrated game.
You are Quote, an amnesiac robot. The world appear to have gone to shit and you don’t know why.
It’s a 2D sidescroller, which if I told myself, I would find immediately boring, but the animation, controls and story combined as just so good. It’s so good.
Globulation2 brings a new type of gameplay to RTS games. The player chooses the number of units to assign to various tasks, and the units do their best to satisfy the requests. This allows players to manage more units and focus on strategy rather than on micro-management.
It’s actually quite old and has gone through stretches of inactivity, but appears to be kept in working order in its git repo, and recently has been getting maintenance patches.
It’s a dungeon management game from '97. You are an evil Keeper and control a dungeon where you need to build rooms and train your creatures to attack (or defend from) the good guys.
Nowadays people play KeeperFX which is the opensource remake.
The first game I ever completed and the first time I left a review for a game. The music, the atmosphere, the design, everything blew away. It was freeware from back in 2006. Made by a guy called Nifflas. It’s a sidescrolling platformer where you are an intelligent bouncing ball. I still think about it to this day.
AAAAXY. AAAAXY is a nonlinear 2D puzzle platformer taking place in impossible spaces. You can take a walk on a Möbius strip, try to find the platform with your train at the train station, and play a piano that makes the Shepard tone. It will be a bit confusing at first, but I promise it will eventually get fun.
It’s not on Steam, but it’s available for download on the website for free. Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Also on F-Droid and FlatHub. give it a try im begging you
I did not realize this game was this well known! It has a super low player peak and at least last time I looked after I first played it years ago no big YouTube channels had a let’s play of it either.
An immersive first-person horror adventure where you play the role of LIANA - a young girl who arrives home after major surgery and is met with a strange mannequin claiming to be her mother.
This is part of a trilogy which I highly recommend checking out. All three of these are great.
Lorn’s Lure (currently demo only, releases in 3 weeks)
An android is led through a vast structure by a glitch in his visual system. Lorn’s Lure is an atmospheric narrative first-person platformer with novel climb-anything mechanics and modernized retro 3D graphics.
Final Profit: A Shop RPG is an RPG about a deposed elf queen who opens a humble shop and slowly advances through the ranks of the Bureau of Business with the eventual goal of defeating Capitalism from within. It’s unique. It has some incremental game like mechanics, and can get a little repetitive in the mid-game, but it has a surprisingly compelling story and a lot of unfolding mechanics that keep it interesting all the way through.
Roughly a 30 hour playthrough with many endings, NG+ and some optional challenge modes that remove or change some of the most obvious strategies for advancement, so if you finish it and still want more, you can play through again with a somewhat different experience.
Man this made me feel guilty downvoting. Great game, a real surprise packet for me, think I got it in a Humble Bundle and tried on a whim and had a great time.
Think it’s an Aussie dev (single person?) too, and still getting pretty frequent large content updates
The dev is also very responsive! I left a (positive) review with some critical feedback and they commented on it very quickly and had a bit of a dialog with me about the comments I’d made; they ended up revising the Steam page based on review feedback (mine and others), too, which made me want to support them even more!
It can be hard to encourage people to only do this for the obscure - and can sometimes lead to moments of “Witcher 3 / Factorio Unknown Indie Darling” moments. The dream is for threads like this to not contribute to successes that are already basically “lightning in a bottle”, but focus attention where developers haven’t seen so much of it.
Fair points, but I can’t participate in this thread because I’m on an instance that doesn’t allow down votes. The up vote solution is at least a bit more inclusive
Wait, I thought that only applies to communities on that instance, not to a case like this, where you are on another instance? Are you using an app or a browser based way to access the fediverse?
It is actually a Skyrim mod but basically a complete game that just happens to be built upon Skyrim. It features full professional quality voice acting in German and English, new game systems inspired by the Gothic series, a setting separate from Elder Scrolls, and a story that gets close to the quality of Planescape Torment or Disco Elysium. I can’t recommend it enough.
It probably works with some tinkering. I would recommend completing it once the way the modders intended since they likely never tested their game with VR in mind.
Hex based rouge like deck builder. If we’re taking indy gems, this one’s probably a nice Amethyst. Not quite the most polished (the game kind of just throws you in without much of a tutorial and the story’s pretty bare bones), but overall a solid B. If Slay the Spire and Into the Breach are your jams it’ll be right up your alley.
Voices of the Void a free (likely while it’s in pre-alpha) light simulational game about receiving outer space signals and recording them to sell. You use the currency to clean up, upgrade, and decorate your small facility while moving around the Swiss forest valley you’re in to repair and upkeep the satellite dishes that make the operation function.
It sounds very purely simulational, but there are a lot of secrets and interesting signals that are more than signals. It’s also an Unreal engine game, but features a lot of Source engine love, for example the art style is reminiscent of Half-Life 1, all of the sound effects are EXTREMELY Source game nostalgic, and there’s crouch jumping.
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I you love puzzle games you need to try Can of Wormholes, over 100 handcrafted puzzle stages where every puzzle introduces a new idea or interaction, very underrated game.
Cave Story+.
You are Quote, an amnesiac robot. The world appear to have gone to shit and you don’t know why.
It’s a 2D sidescroller, which if I told myself, I would find immediately boring, but the animation, controls and story combined as just so good. It’s so good.
This game is decently famous. Also it’s amazing. What’s the + about?
Ahhh back when Nicalis ruled the world of indie games
Globulation2 brings a new type of gameplay to RTS games. The player chooses the number of units to assign to various tasks, and the units do their best to satisfy the requests. This allows players to manage more units and focus on strategy rather than on micro-management.
It’s actually quite old and has gone through stretches of inactivity, but appears to be kept in working order in its git repo, and recently has been getting maintenance patches.
How are you getting upvotes? People like it but haven’t heard of it? I want to upvote… but by the rules of the thread I have down-voted you.
I really like the non-micro-management mechanism of Globulation 2, though I seem to remember it’s a bit awkward sometimes in how it makes combat work.
And balancing upgrades to not run out of food, I’m not so sure about. I want to upgrade my globs! Always! Then they starve!
The last few times I’ve installed it, though, I always get early segfaults, usually before I can finish a game. Hope it can get some dev love.
Yeah never heard of it and seems like it fit the point of the post so I had to upvote it.
I would imagine that’s exactly the point.
Dungeon Keeper
It’s a dungeon management game from '97. You are an evil Keeper and control a dungeon where you need to build rooms and train your creatures to attack (or defend from) the good guys.
Nowadays people play KeeperFX which is the opensource remake.
Within a Deep Forest
The first game I ever completed and the first time I left a review for a game. The music, the atmosphere, the design, everything blew away. It was freeware from back in 2006. Made by a guy called Nifflas. It’s a sidescrolling platformer where you are an intelligent bouncing ball. I still think about it to this day.
Now this is a real oldie but a goodie. Glad to see that it is mostly unknown from the ratio. Obligatory downvote
AAAAXY. AAAAXY is a nonlinear 2D puzzle platformer taking place in impossible spaces. You can take a walk on a Möbius strip, try to find the platform with your train at the train station, and play a piano that makes the Shepard tone. It will be a bit confusing at first, but I promise it will eventually get fun.
It’s not on Steam, but it’s available for download on the website for free. Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Also on F-Droid and FlatHub. give it a try im begging you
Evoland 2
For the record, you’re getting downvoted as per OP’s will, but this is a fantastic suggestion.
I did not realize this game was this well known! It has a super low player peak and at least last time I looked after I first played it years ago no big YouTube channels had a let’s play of it either.
I actually saw in one my channels both the first and second super interesting games!
MOTHERED
This is part of a trilogy which I highly recommend checking out. All three of these are great.
Lorn’s Lure (currently demo only, releases in 3 weeks)
Ooh, I’ll play.
Final Profit: A Shop RPG is an RPG about a deposed elf queen who opens a humble shop and slowly advances through the ranks of the Bureau of Business with the eventual goal of defeating Capitalism from within. It’s unique. It has some incremental game like mechanics, and can get a little repetitive in the mid-game, but it has a surprisingly compelling story and a lot of unfolding mechanics that keep it interesting all the way through.
Roughly a 30 hour playthrough with many endings, NG+ and some optional challenge modes that remove or change some of the most obvious strategies for advancement, so if you finish it and still want more, you can play through again with a somewhat different experience.
Man this made me feel guilty downvoting. Great game, a real surprise packet for me, think I got it in a Humble Bundle and tried on a whim and had a great time.
Think it’s an Aussie dev (single person?) too, and still getting pretty frequent large content updates
The dev is also very responsive! I left a (positive) review with some critical feedback and they commented on it very quickly and had a bit of a dialog with me about the comments I’d made; they ended up revising the Steam page based on review feedback (mine and others), too, which made me want to support them even more!
Wouldn’t “upvote if you have never heard of it” accomplish the same thing?
I guess it would depend on people reading and following the instructions, instead of just upvoting games they like. Maybe that’s a bit much to ask. :P
It can be hard to encourage people to only do this for the obscure - and can sometimes lead to moments of “Witcher 3 / Factorio Unknown Indie Darling” moments. The dream is for threads like this to not contribute to successes that are already basically “lightning in a bottle”, but focus attention where developers haven’t seen so much of it.
This thread is very nice great idea op
Fair points, but I can’t participate in this thread because I’m on an instance that doesn’t allow down votes. The up vote solution is at least a bit more inclusive
Wait, I thought that only applies to communities on that instance, not to a case like this, where you are on another instance? Are you using an app or a browser based way to access the fediverse?
I don’t have downvote arrows in either my browser or Jerboa on Android.
That is also what is happening.
Enderal: Forgotten Stories
It is actually a Skyrim mod but basically a complete game that just happens to be built upon Skyrim. It features full professional quality voice acting in German and English, new game systems inspired by the Gothic series, a setting separate from Elder Scrolls, and a story that gets close to the quality of Planescape Torment or Disco Elysium. I can’t recommend it enough.
Ooh I still haven’t tried this. I wonder if it has any issues with Skyrim VR.
It takes some fiddling, but it works, and is fantastic!
It probably works with some tinkering. I would recommend completing it once the way the modders intended since they likely never tested their game with VR in mind.
Alina of the Arena
Hex based rouge like deck builder. If we’re taking indy gems, this one’s probably a nice Amethyst. Not quite the most polished (the game kind of just throws you in without much of a tutorial and the story’s pretty bare bones), but overall a solid B. If Slay the Spire and Into the Breach are your jams it’ll be right up your alley.
Voices of the Void a free (likely while it’s in pre-alpha) light simulational game about receiving outer space signals and recording them to sell. You use the currency to clean up, upgrade, and decorate your small facility while moving around the Swiss forest valley you’re in to repair and upkeep the satellite dishes that make the operation function.
It sounds very purely simulational, but there are a lot of secrets and interesting signals that are more than signals. It’s also an Unreal engine game, but features a lot of Source engine love, for example the art style is reminiscent of Half-Life 1, all of the sound effects are EXTREMELY Source game nostalgic, and there’s crouch jumping.
Goated game. I enjoyed so much and it has tons of replayablity.
I always like to give a mention to Your Spider. There are very few reviews (one of which are mine), but the game definitely deserves more attention.