Steam is full of asset-flip garbage and clunky “chase-the-fad” nonsense. But in an environment where only the best of the best get any real attention, what’s your secret “I can’t believe I ever stumbled across this” gem?
Bonus points if it feels personal or revealing of the creator, but that’s not necessary. Bonus points if its fun to play, but again not necessary. My only real requirements is that almost no one has heard of it, and the project was eventually finished. What I’m looking for is the weirdest “complete” experience you’ve ever found on Steam.
It’s been a bit since I’ve played it, but from what I remember Sky Rogue was pretty fun. Plane based roguelite. Simple enough flight model to pick up and play but complex enough to not be mind numbing. It’s also 75% off right now
Does Sable count? It has ~6k reviews on steam. It’s a really unique environmental exploration game with a sweet story (to minimize spoilers) and there’s a lot you come across accidentally and it feels satisfying and like it’s your own journey, in a way.
Also Mudborne. It’s about $8 and has 620 reviews, and the breeding mechanics are fun and tinker-y. Unlocking areas and figuring out puzzles in the name of frog conservation!
Garden Story is also a cute, easy enough, Zelda-like as is Ogu and the Secret Forest, with about 1k reviews each. Less “weird” and more “adorable” but still enjoyable.
Last but not least, I will always recommend Jazzpunk. it’s 6k total reviews across 11 years so hopefully that’s obscure enough but it’s super duper weird in the best way. Play it at least once and you’ll never forget it.
I got Sable via the epic games promotion some time ago. Definitely a nice gem. Had a few annoying bugs though where the game does not notice if you accidentally did something already before you knew about, sorry if that sounds weird. I was just super confused at the beginning since I went into the first space ship before even going to the village and then all dialogues made no sense to me as I had no idea I was supposed to go there later.
I like the Swindle It’s a platformer roguelike, you have 100 days to rob the police of an AI that will make crime impossible, but first you have to get enough money to go there and on equipment to not suck when you get there. it’s a deceptively deep game both with the mechanics and the strategy of what perks to get when. It took me about 40hrs to beat but it’s one of the few games I decided to 100% which took me about 120hrs.
Versus puzzles are my favorite genre, but they’re all dead and buried today. Panel de Pon isn’t coming back unless Intelligent Systems figures out how to put a dating sim in it. Dr. Mario and Puzzle Fighter both got turned into mobile gacha games, and then shut down. Puyo Puyo looked like it was set to make a comeback, but then Sega sold its soul to sell more Tetris.
Petal Crash is more or less the one good thing that has come out of the last decade or so. Sadly being such a small indie meant it never got much of a playerbase, some activity around launch but I haven’t been able to play it against a human opponent in a very long time.
Anyone that’s outside of the vtuber sphere, and like Vampire Survivor (and a bunch other genres as minigames), get Holocure: Save the Fans! You don’t need to know who the characters are or what the references are, it’s as much quality as a mainstream indie hit.
An RPG Maker game with no combat, quite a lot of story that’s honnestly not bad and more custom systems than I expected RPG Maker being able to handle.
My understanding is that it was made by a single guy, which for the size of the game is fairly impressive.
You play as the Queen of the Elves trying to fight the embodiment of capitalism by becoming the very best capitalist. I believe there’s some branching to the story, but I only did one playthrough, which took about 20 hours.
I only stumbled upon the game because I saw someone, cannot remember who or even find the livestream, play a few seconds of the game before closing it and knowing I need it in my life, but Brok the InvestiGator.
Stream was from a small creator, that much I know because it was a furry creator on the platform. Randomly floated across my recommendations one early morning, so I had to look at it because I see a game with anthro characters and I can’t help myself.
I mean, 6k people have left reviews but Hylics is definitely one of the weirdest experiences you can have on Steam. The second one is disqualified due to popularity. If you play them both get their album Absent Moon and listen to it afterwards. Its an experience.
Mine is a more normie choice, but I’d have to say Chained Echoes.
It’s a JRPG made by one guy in Germany. Lasts 40-60 hours and manages to integrate both on-foot and flying mech mechanics together in a way that works. Plus, there’s several encounters throughout the story that are unique and interesting, and the story tends to subvert a lot of expected norms in the genre.
The downsode is there’s plenty of spots where the quality drops. There’s a couple of scenes with bad and nonsense writing, a couple of poorly thought out encounters, and and obsession for dangling post-game content in front of your nose throughout the story when there’s no need to make it post-game. Mainly, Mattias Linda really needed an editor to tell him “no” on some spots. As it is, I’d give it a 3.5-4 out of 5. If he had someone for proofreading and QA it’d probably be a solid 4.5/5.
Gotta go with Perspective (it’s free, btw) - it’s a 2D platformer" with a 3D perspective, but not in the way you’d think.
Essentially, you have 2 modes: first-person walking/camera adjusting and 2d platforming. The first-person mode allows you to align the platforms to helpful positions from the perspective, and then swap mode to 2d platformer to walk on those platforms. Part of the trick is that the 2d guy stays the same size on your screen, but you must adjust the perspective so he can fit through gaps and such. You switch back and forth to help the platformer guy through levels.
Definitely for fans of Portal, Superliminal and the likes. No real story in this one though, but gameplay is kinda-ish similar.
Brilliantly original strategy game where you play demon lords fighting for rule of hell. Amazing, complex strategy where you need to use insults, threats, challenges and diplomacy just as much as military and magical power to win. Incredible art and writing and incredibly fun and deep gameplay. Warning: you may ruin friendships over this game, you can really do devastating stuff to each other once player abilities ramp up in the later game.
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It’s been a bit since I’ve played it, but from what I remember Sky Rogue was pretty fun. Plane based roguelite. Simple enough flight model to pick up and play but complex enough to not be mind numbing. It’s also 75% off right now
Banger soundtrack too.
Does Sable count? It has ~6k reviews on steam. It’s a really unique environmental exploration game with a sweet story (to minimize spoilers) and there’s a lot you come across accidentally and it feels satisfying and like it’s your own journey, in a way.
Also Mudborne. It’s about $8 and has 620 reviews, and the breeding mechanics are fun and tinker-y. Unlocking areas and figuring out puzzles in the name of frog conservation!
Garden Story is also a cute, easy enough, Zelda-like as is Ogu and the Secret Forest, with about 1k reviews each. Less “weird” and more “adorable” but still enjoyable.
Last but not least, I will always recommend Jazzpunk. it’s 6k total reviews across 11 years so hopefully that’s obscure enough but it’s super duper weird in the best way. Play it at least once and you’ll never forget it.
I played Sable a couple of years ago, I found it fairly underwhelming despite its cool art style.
I got Sable via the epic games promotion some time ago. Definitely a nice gem. Had a few annoying bugs though where the game does not notice if you accidentally did something already before you knew about, sorry if that sounds weird. I was just super confused at the beginning since I went into the first space ship before even going to the village and then all dialogues made no sense to me as I had no idea I was supposed to go there later.
Mine was Mike Klubnika before Buckshot Roulette.
I was absolutely stunned and shocked to my core after experiencing Infineural, Concrete Tremor, Tartarus Engine.
Now that they’ve become a mainstream indie dev I gotta dig for new devs to add to my list :D
I like the Swindle It’s a platformer roguelike, you have 100 days to rob the police of an AI that will make crime impossible, but first you have to get enough money to go there and on equipment to not suck when you get there. it’s a deceptively deep game both with the mechanics and the strategy of what perks to get when. It took me about 40hrs to beat but it’s one of the few games I decided to 100% which took me about 120hrs.
Petal Crash.
Versus puzzles are my favorite genre, but they’re all dead and buried today. Panel de Pon isn’t coming back unless Intelligent Systems figures out how to put a dating sim in it. Dr. Mario and Puzzle Fighter both got turned into mobile gacha games, and then shut down. Puyo Puyo looked like it was set to make a comeback, but then Sega sold its soul to sell more Tetris.
Petal Crash is more or less the one good thing that has come out of the last decade or so. Sadly being such a small indie meant it never got much of a playerbase, some activity around launch but I haven’t been able to play it against a human opponent in a very long time.
Anyone that’s outside of the vtuber sphere, and like Vampire Survivor (and a bunch other genres as minigames), get Holocure: Save the Fans! You don’t need to know who the characters are or what the references are, it’s as much quality as a mainstream indie hit.
And it’s free.
I need to play more of this, it’s great on the Steam Deck.
as a casual hololive fan, same here lol
especially after they added gen4.
Just this last month I played “Final Profit - A Shop RPG”: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1705140/Final_Profit_A_Shop_RPG/
An RPG Maker game with no combat, quite a lot of story that’s honnestly not bad and more custom systems than I expected RPG Maker being able to handle.
My understanding is that it was made by a single guy, which for the size of the game is fairly impressive.
You play as the Queen of the Elves trying to fight the embodiment of capitalism by becoming the very best capitalist. I believe there’s some branching to the story, but I only did one playthrough, which took about 20 hours.
I only stumbled upon the game because I saw someone, cannot remember who or even find the livestream, play a few seconds of the game before closing it and knowing I need it in my life, but Brok the InvestiGator.
Stream was from a small creator, that much I know because it was a furry creator on the platform. Randomly floated across my recommendations one early morning, so I had to look at it because I see a game with anthro characters and I can’t help myself.
I mean, 6k people have left reviews but Hylics is definitely one of the weirdest experiences you can have on Steam. The second one is disqualified due to popularity. If you play them both get their album Absent Moon and listen to it afterwards. Its an experience.
Smushi Come Home
Beautiful and soulful little platformer, 99% positive reviews on steam.
Solo dev. Reading his letters of gratitude to players and comparing it with the game he made gives me this vibe very strongly
Ilamentia. Abstract puzzle/3D platformer. The developer has made more polished games since, but this one lives in my head.
Mine is a more normie choice, but I’d have to say Chained Echoes.
It’s a JRPG made by one guy in Germany. Lasts 40-60 hours and manages to integrate both on-foot and flying mech mechanics together in a way that works. Plus, there’s several encounters throughout the story that are unique and interesting, and the story tends to subvert a lot of expected norms in the genre.
The downsode is there’s plenty of spots where the quality drops. There’s a couple of scenes with bad and nonsense writing, a couple of poorly thought out encounters, and and obsession for dangling post-game content in front of your nose throughout the story when there’s no need to make it post-game. Mainly, Mattias Linda really needed an editor to tell him “no” on some spots. As it is, I’d give it a 3.5-4 out of 5. If he had someone for proofreading and QA it’d probably be a solid 4.5/5.
Gotta go with Perspective (it’s free, btw) - it’s a 2D platformer" with a 3D perspective, but not in the way you’d think.
Essentially, you have 2 modes: first-person walking/camera adjusting and 2d platforming. The first-person mode allows you to align the platforms to helpful positions from the perspective, and then swap mode to 2d platformer to walk on those platforms. Part of the trick is that the 2d guy stays the same size on your screen, but you must adjust the perspective so he can fit through gaps and such. You switch back and forth to help the platformer guy through levels.
Definitely for fans of Portal, Superliminal and the likes. No real story in this one though, but gameplay is kinda-ish similar.
Solium Infernum: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1893810/Solium_Infernum/
Brilliantly original strategy game where you play demon lords fighting for rule of hell. Amazing, complex strategy where you need to use insults, threats, challenges and diplomacy just as much as military and magical power to win. Incredible art and writing and incredibly fun and deep gameplay. Warning: you may ruin friendships over this game, you can really do devastating stuff to each other once player abilities ramp up in the later game.